Articles
NICARAGUA- SPEAKING UP
Solidarity in Times of Internet
JILL WINEGARDNER
Solidarity in times of Internet
When the alert went out in the United States
about the persecution of a US nurse in Nicaragua,
thousands of people responded and kept on responding
until the Nicaraguan government was forced to "desist."
The head of that campaign reflects back on
what this case can teach us about
solidarity in the Internet era.
When retired US nurse Dorothy Granada went into hiding late last year upon
learning that the Nicaraguan government planned to deport her on fabricated
allegations of "working against the government," the campaign on her behalf
did not have to start from scratch. Immediately upon receiving the alert, a
support system created years earlier mobilized to demand respect for her
immigration status and her right to due process. It won its first major
battle when Minister of Government José Bosco Marenco publicly announced
that the government was "desisting in its efforts to deport Dorothy
Granada." This vigorous campaign was aided by the fact that we are now in
the age of instantaneous mass communication.
The seeds of support
Dorothy first went to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace in 1985, where she
saw the grave need for women's health clinics in poor rural areas and
decided to work in that field. To gain special training, she went to
California and worked at the Santa Cruz Women's Health Center for two years.
When she returned to Nicaragua in 1989, she was invited to Mulukukú, a
community deep in the impoverished north-central part of Nicaragua. Joining
with local women, she helped found a clinic through a program with the
María Luisa Ortiz Women's Cooperative there. Her friends in Santa Cruz soon
formed "Friends of Dorothy Granada and the Mulukukú Women's Clinic," a
small but dedicated core group that raised funds, organized Dorothy's US
speaking tours and published her newsletters, as well as providing her with
personal support over the years.
I had become friends with Dorothy when I lived in Nicaragua between 1990
and 1992, so when I moved to Santa Cruz County in 1998, I soon joined the
group. By that time it was grappling with the task of managing an entirely
too successful and decentralized project with a large budget and growing
demands. We decided that we needed to set up a non-profit organization and
bring some clarity to the US side of the project's management, which we are
now doing, under the name Women's Empowerment Network (WEN). Our key
community development project will of course be the Women's Center in
Mulukukú together with its urban counterpart, the Consuelo Buitrago Women's
Association in Barrio Walter Ferretty, my old neighborhood in Managua.
Meanwhile, Dorothy began developing ties with groups across the country
that have visited Mulukukú, including a Missouri pastor who even before her
arrival brought work delegations and continues to do so every year, medical
delegations from Indiana and Texas that also come yearly and many other
individuals and groups. To systematize this growing network, Dorothy
compiled a list of "key contacts," which included these delegation leaders,
the local "Friends" and other key clinic supporters, medical people and
groups, church groups, solidarity groups and many individuals, from Texas
Republicans to radical lefties, who simply love Dorothy and respect her
work. This list-which has now grown to several hundred names-proved crucial
in our emergency efforts.
The list put on alert
On Saturday, November 25, my phone rang at about 4 am. It was Noel Montoya,
a Sandinista leader and former mayor in Mulukukú, who was calling for
Dorothy and wanted me to mobilize the list. He told me that President
Alemán had arrived on November 14 to help inaugurate a housing project
sponsored by the Taiwanese government and honor several community leaders,
including Grethel Sequiera, vice-president of the women's cooperative and
Noel's wife. While there, the deputy mayor of a neighboring municipality
told Alemán that the clinic served only Sandinistas; he publicly threatened
to investigate and throw the leaders in jail; Grethel snubbed him by just
thanking the Taiwanese representative and two days later government
officials were in Mulukukú inspecting Dorothy's immigration papers.
Within days, the government closed the cooperative and threatened the
clinic into closing down, a move that the Ministry of Health (MINSA) made
official on December 12. The Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) and
the Civil Coordinator, a superstructure of NGOs and social organizations
created two years ago in response to Hurricane Mitch, were already on the
case, as were Dorothy's lawyers. In the ensuing weeks, the clinic would
also falsely be accused of performing illegal abortions and of treating
members of an anti-government armed group called the Andrés Castro United
Front (FUAC).
My obvious initial reaction was concern for Dorothy's safety and alarm for
the clinic, but I remember also having a clear sense that we in the States
should take our direction from Nicaragua. I knew that national politics are
very complicated and I would never pretend to understand them from afar. So
I got up, turned on my computer, pounded out a description of what had
happened and sent it to the 90% or more of our list that has email, then
called or wrote the rest.
That first "Urgent Action Alert" opened with this paragraph: "Today we
received word from Dorothy Granada in Nicaragua that the government of
Arnoldo Alemán has ordered an investigation of the Women's Clinic in
Mulukukú and of Dorothy. Dorothy asks that you spread the word and mobilize
your groups to send faxes to the US Ambassador in Nicaragua." Ambassador
Garza was soon so swamped with messages that he called in USAID
investigators, who found that the clinic had been doing exemplary work.
We also started contacting Congress members. I got my mom to call Sen. Max
Baucus of Montana, since they are friends, and he ended up being among our
earliest and best congressional supports, together with Rep. Brian Baird of
Washington and Sam Farr, who is our (and Dorothy's) district
representative. By the end, the US Embassy had received hundreds, perhaps
thousands of faxes from Congress members, individuals, church groups and
organizations ranging from classes of schoolchildren to Elders for Survival.
Unwelcome birthday greetings
The next pre-dawn alarm call was from Dorothy herself-at 4:30 am on
December 8, her 70th birthday. She had unexpectedly stayed over in Managua
the previous night and Noel had just radioed her to report that a dozen
armed police and immigration officials had her house in Mulukukú
surrounded. When she spoke by radio to the immigration officials, they said
they just wanted to ask a few questions, but we later learned that they had
reserved a seat for her on a 9 am flight out of Managua…for that same day!
Dorothy's first reaction was to tell them she was on her way back to
Mulukukú. As she explained to me with her typically automatic concern for
her patients, "I have a group of sick women here I have to take home." But
she was quickly persuaded that she needed to go into hiding. From then on,
she and I only spoke in brief, careful calls. Someone else kept me up to
date on what we needed to do.
Moving into emergency mode
Once it became clear that this would be an extended campaign, we decided to
hire Gerry Condon, a long-time anti-war and solidarity activist who led
several veterans' delegations to Nicaragua in the eighties, to work full
time on it. We met regularly with WEN, whose members took on tasks such as
writing articles for publications or making press contacts, but with the
campaign headquartered in my little home office, Gerry and I did the bulk
of the work. Luckily, I had experience organizing by computer (we put
together the 1996 international women's election delegation to Nicaragua
almost entirely that way since it had observers from 18 countries). Gerry
has special talents in networking, writing and working with the press, and
had anchored several protracted emergency response efforts while a national
coordinator of Pastors for Peace.
We essentially went into Emergency Mode from Day 1. Each morning we would
race for the computer chair and log on to see what the day had
brought-typically dozens of messages, requests for articles, suggestions
for other actions or contacts, notes of support, etc. Then we would go into
Internet to get fresh information from the Nicaraguan newspapers La Prensa
and El Nuevo Diario for our Urgent Action Alerts.
The initial strategy to bombard Ambassador Garza with requests for help
came from Dorothy and her advisers in Nicaragua, and his embassy remained
the prime focus throughout the campaign. Although we encouraged people to
be positive in their faxes and emails, the embassy was never allowed to
forget that so many US citizens were counting on it to defend Dorothy's
personal safety and her legal and human rights. On advice from Dr. Vilma
Núńez of CENIDH, Ana Quirós of the Civil Coordinator and others in
Nicaragua, we added various other key players. These included President
Alemán, his health and government ministers, his ambassador to the US, Dr.
Benjamín Pérez of Nicaragua's Human Rights Commission-who ended up writing
a very critical position paper on the government's actions-and key people
in the State Department. More often than not, there were multiple targets.
A multi-tiered campaign
Even with this emergency focus to protect Dorothy's rights and do whatever
possible to prevent her deportation, our intent all along was to make the
campaign multi-leveled. Our second goal-also urgent-was to protect the
clinic and get it re-opened. But we also wanted to raise awareness and
educate North Americans about the situation in Nicaragua in a larger
sense-particularly but not only the plight of NGOs and women in general-and
through this information and consciousness-raising effort help renew
interest in Nicaragua solidarity.
This last point grew out of the fact that we began receiving calls and
emails from literally dozens of people who could not fathom why the
Nicaraguan government would attack such a positive, life-giving project as
the women's clinic. At the same time, several Nicaraguan friends began to
emphasize the importance of describing the attacks on other NGOs as part of
our focus. Several US groups with projects in Nicaragua that had also told
us they needed to keep a low profile to avoid drawing Alemán's attention
helped us appreciate the climate of intimidation he was imposing on the
NGOs even more.
So I called down to a friend in Nicaragua to see who could put together a
good analysis, because I couldn't make sense of it to a US audience. Within
twenty minutes, Ana Quirós, director of the Civil Coordinator, was on the
phone. As head of a coalition of over three hundred independent NGOs and
grassroots social organizations-and as someone else the government tried to
deport but failed because she has Nicaraguan citizenship-she probably knows
more about these issues than anyone. She gave me a half-hour talk on the
political context of this case as I took frantic notes. I then wrote it all
up, added a few bits and sent it out. It was extremely helpful for
explaining Dorothy's plight and provided a solid foundation for broadening
and deepening the campaign's focus.
Networking…
The small Friends of Dorothy group was never good at networking with local
or national solidarity groups, largely because it has a huge amount of work
just to support the clinic. Ironically, Gerry used to say, "You know, this
is a great project, but nobody even knows about you. You should be more
political." Now, that has all changed.
Gerry did most of the networking, particularly with groups historically
linked to Nicaragua. He contacted the Nicaragua Network, Pastors for Peace,
Witness for Peace, Quest for Peace, the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on
Nicaragua, MADRE, the Coalition for Nicaragua, Elders for Survival and the
Marin Interfaith Task Force. We added all these and other groups to our
list so that they received the updates and press releases.
The Nicaragua Network's support has been particularly outstanding: they
regularly posted our updates to their members, included us in their Hotline
and featured several stories about Dorothy and/or the larger context in
their newsletters, including the NGO analysis. But virtually every group
did something, whether printing an article in their newsletter or sending
faxes at the critical early stages of the campaign. Many local solidarity
groups and formal or informal networks also rebroadcast our alerts to their
own contacts, thus expanding our overall outreach considerably.
Our campaign is even known internationally. Early on, someone gave us the
contact for Amnesty International, which eventually put out a worldwide
action alert for Dorothy that generated faxes and letters from many
countries to both the Nicaraguan government and the newspapers there. Dr.
Pérez of the Human Rights Commission said his office received an average of
250 emails a day from the United States, Europe, even New Zealand.
We had some other international contacts, such as the Nicaragua Solidarity
Campaign in Britain, though not as many as I would have liked, and I later
learned more of the efforts other countries made. For example, I understand
that the Swiss government was actively working behind the scenes on behalf
of Ayuda Obrera Suisa, an NGO from that country that the Nicaraguan
government closed at the same time for supporting the Mulukukú women's
cooperative. Immigration even sent officials there to look for the NGO's
director, with the apparent intention of deporting her too. But this
capricious move backfired on the government, as did so many others in this
case: the Swiss had hired a Nicaraguan woman to direct it.
…responding to moments…
We generally had one major new goal per week, and whenever possible altered
the focus of our outreach in response to what was happening in Nicaragua.
For example, right when we were helping organize a letter from several
important US ecumenical groups to appear as a paid ad in Nicaragua's
newspapers, we heard that criticism of US interventionism was being voiced
in Nicaragua. Though it was related to a different case, we decided to take
the time to broaden the sponsors of the ecumenical letter. Church groups
from Honduras and El Salvador and both CEPAD and CIEETS from Nicaragua
joined on, which was all to the good.
Later, when it seemed that Ministers of Government Marenco was hardening
his position, we decided we needed another letter to go in the papers, this
time from Congress. By then, Representatives Sam Farr and Cynthia McKinney
had already circulated a Dear Colleague letter in Congress and our network
members had been calling their respective representatives, so the case was
known. I called Farr's aide to ask if they would be willing to circulate
another letter, this time to be signed and sent to the government of
Nicaragua. She responded that she had just been writing us with a similar
idea.
At that time, we were awaiting an important decision by the Nicaraguan
Appeals Court on the legality of the deportation order against Dorothy. I
intuited that the congressional letter should be sent right away, to
fortify the court's independence and add weight to the government's
obligation to respect the positive decision we were expecting. So we set a
deadline of a day and a half for collecting signatures. With the Washington
Office on Latin America (WOLA) also calling congressional offices, we had
half a dozen signatures within a few hours, which Farr's aide thought was a
good response. Much to our surprise, particularly given how strong the
letter was, we ended up with 32 signatures, including even conservative
Republican Dan Burton of Indiana.
…and making it easy
We also learned that if you want someone to take an action in writing,
write a draft for them. This not only prompts them to move on it right away
but also makes it more likely that the letter will approximate what you
want. On the other hand, we decided early on not to write form letters for
people because we saw that people speaking in their own voices could be
more eloquent than we ever could be.
Gerry drafted the congressional letter, then I toned it down a little-our
standard division of labor. We assumed the signers would tone it down a lot
more but, again to our surprise, the only change they made was to replace
our last line, which was something like "We wish you a happy and prosperous
year," with "We look forward to your prompt reply."
Maybe the draft went through because its most powerful statements came from
the US government's own stated goals for its foreign aid to Nicaragua,
which Gerry found on the AID page of the US Embassy's website on
Nicaragua-another Internet benefit. It explicitly supported the work of
clinics very much like Dorothy's, including family planning, and called for
strengthening democratic institutions such as the legal system and the
office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. Great ammo from the horse's mouth!
Congress in the post-Cold War context?
In early January, I called Sen. Bingamon's office in New Mexico. When I
asked the person who answered if they knew of Dorothy's case he said, "Are
you kidding? It's the buzz of the Congress."
I can't compare our experience of involving Congress with efforts of
earlier periods because I don't have them, but it actually seemed fairly
easy. We had repeated good conversations and interactions with the various
congressional offices, which for the most part got involved. The signers of
the congressional letter were also very interested in the response after it
had appeared in the Nicaraguan papers.
Important points in this work included connecting Dorothy to the state of
the legislator we were calling (luckily she lived in many states in her
life!) and stressing the human rights aspect of the case. Another was to
identify a congressional aide who would take on the project and stay in
touch. Particularly from our experience with Rep. Farr's office, we learned
that it is just as important to have a competent aide able to make the
effort a priority as to have a willing Congressperson.
Constituents' personal calls seemed most important. For example, Max Baucus
does not deal with international affairs to my knowledge and Dorothy is
not from Montana, but he responded to a personal call. And because he is a
senior senator, we could then tell other Congress members that "Sen. Baucus
has made calls, so we hope you will too."
Finding strong-point people was also important. Rep. Farr, for example, is
a liberal Democrat who gets a lot of encouragement from progressive groups
here, including the Coalition for Nicaragua.
Media on board
The Nicaraguan media played a mammoth role in this case. All except those
sponsored by the government were supportive and involved right from the
beginning. There wasn't a single negative story in the papers, TV or radio,
and they kept the case in view the whole time, generating huge public
sympathy.
In the United States, the AP wire service and The Miami Herald ran a few
stories at key moments-including the victory-which were picked up quite
widely; we heard from people in Alabama, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona and
other states who saw them in their local papers. There were also several
national radio segments, including a program called "The World," which is
co-sponsored by the BBC and a Boston station, and a great report on
National Public Radio in mid-January.
Gerry's experience with previous urgent action campaigns taught him that
the large corporate media were likely to ignore this story, no matter what
we did, particularly since post-contra war Nicaragua is rarely covered. So
we concentrated our limited resources on the action alerts, sent out
regular press updates, and cultivated those media that showed any interest.
One can only wonder how much money and effort it would have taken to get an
article in The New York Times, The Washington Post or any of the major
television networks.
Contributing to Nicaraguan unity in action
This case appears to have united Nicaraguan organizations that have not
worked together for some time. For example, the famous 10,000-person march
in Managua protesting the government's treatment of Dorothy and the clinic
was a coalition of labor, different branches of the women's movement, human
rights groups, the peasant and cooperative movements and NGOs coming
together for a common purpose. A women's leader from FETSALUD, the public
health workers' union, attributed the success of its own march of 3-4,000
people (to protest the health minister's failure to include significant
legislated salary increases in their paychecks) to the energy generated by
this march. She reported that people from poor neighborhoods joined them
because they saw hope for the first time in ages. The papers then and still
today are full of stories about patients clamoring for their health rights,
and we think this case played some role in promoting these demands.
People in Nicaragua who rallied around the case came from across the
political spectrum. On one live TV interview with Dorothy that I saw just
after the government withdrew its attempt to deport her, people were
unanimously supportive of her position. One caller admitted that "I'm a
Liberal but I am ashamed of my government."
So many people from Mulukukú wanted to go to the march in Managua that
there wasn't enough transport and I was told that Sandinistas stayed home
so Liberals could go. Then at the event in Mulukukú to welcome Dorothy home
after her two months "underground," the speakers included an ex-contra from
another community, evangelical Liberals, representatives from the Union of
Farmers and Ranchers and from the women's movement in Matagalpa and Estelí,
along with local people and us internationalists. The most touching speaker
was a woman with a small boy in her arms who said that the boy's twin
brother had died of asthma shortly before because the clinic was not open.
The larger framework of success
Obviously, the Internet and its instant worldwide communication was key,
but it is simply a tool that has come of age and made our work infinitely
more efficient. In other words, it may explain how people got mobilized,
but not why.
I think this campaign was so powerful and successful for several reasons.
First is that many of the people who participated were not strangers to
Nicaragua; they came to know it while opposing the US-sponsored contra war
of the 1980s. And unlike most of those who opposed the US war in Southeast
Asia in the sixties and seventies, many of these people actually visited
Nicaragua and still feel a personal connection.
Next is the context: in this unipolar, increasingly globalized world, with
the cold-war paranoia and distortions largely behind us, awareness of and
concern about the plight of the South has grown exponentially in the North.
This has created movements such as 50 Years Is Enough, Jubilee 2000 and the
opposition to the World Trade Organization. This in turn has generated
genuinely global communication networks of people with shared, overlapping
and inter-linked values and concerns ranging from environmental issues, to
poverty and development issues, to empowerment for the historically
oppressed, to basic, underlying human rights demands, and from there
sometimes to a questioning of what democracy even means if all these other
issues are not truly addressed.
In this context, it would be hard to find another case as clear-cut and
symbolic as this one. Virtually the only good work in Nicaragua today is
being done by groups that are not governmental, yet the government went
after one of the few remaining solidarity projects in a remote area with
absolutely no other viable health resources. Is it any wonder that it made
no sense to people in the States? Furthermore, the attack on women
resounded strongly in the country and abroad, since this clinic aims to
provide women with health care and teach them their health rights and human
rights.
The personal is political
Last but certainly not least is the person the Alemán government quite
mistakenly chose to go after. Very important factors made Dorothy Virginia
Granada possibly the one person in all of Nicaragua most likely to have
generated this amount of internal and international support:
* The sheer force of her personality. Her spirit and dedication especially
motivated those in the United States who had met her personally. We even
know of people who heard the radio stories and remembered her from the past
or simply recall having heard her on one of her speaking tours.
* Her clear vision and articulation of her philosophy of Christian
commitment to the poor. People ask if she was coached on what to say in the
always-compelling and captivating media interviews. Never. Dorothy spoke
from a lifetime of nonviolence training and of faith and personal focus
that allows her responses to flow cohesively and cogently.
* Her history-this campaign was joined not only by people who know her work
now in Nicaragua, but also by those who knew of her actions for nonviolence
years ago in the US.
* Her 10 years spent creating a climate of inclusiveness and reconciliation
in the highly conflictive and polarized Mulukukú area.
* Her ability to cross many cultures and political borders. She is equally
at home and genuine giving fiery political talks in the US, charming the
populace on Nicaraguan TV, directing her rural health clinic and praying
with peasant mothers as she tries to save their babies.
* The varied and widespread US support base for the Mulukukú work. Dorothy
has prioritized delegations that want to forge a relationship with the work
over those that want to come down for a one-time visit, so most people
working on this campaign had a very personal connection to Mulukukú. Also,
by including health workers, religious groups, solidarity activists,
feminists and miscellaneous supporters, the base for that project has more
variety than most.
* The fact that the case seemed to touch the heart of Nicaraguans' fears
and concerns about their basic health rights, women's rights, and human
rights gave them a champion they felt they could trust in these times of
powerlessness and political cynicism.
Renewed US interest in Nicaragua?
After suffering many disappointments along with the people of Nicaragua,
such a collective victory was a shot in the arm for everybody who
participated in the campaign in the United States. Many people have said to
us, "It feels so good to win one for a change! We really needed that."
We hope we've contributed to rekindling consciousness about Nicaragua in
the US. Certainly, the response from our network has been overwhelming and
intense, and many people commented that the campaign had renewed their
interest in Nicaragua issues. We think there's a real opportunity for
well-designed initiatives right now to raise the level of solidarity work
in the US. We hope to seize this opportunity by continuing to strategize
about ways to keep the focus on Nicaragua as we shift from Dorothy's
specific case to reports on the government's abuses and corruption and to
support for NGOs and for women's issues.
We also need to be aware, however, that we have not yet won all the
battles. For one, the Ministry of Health was less than attentive to
Dorothy's proposals to meet what many of us feel are its punitive
conditions for reopening the Mulukukú health clinic. For another, the
government filed its claim against Dorothy with the Supreme Court, which is
due to render a decision in the coming weeks. We have mobilized our network
yet again to encourage both MINSA and the Supreme Court to do the right
thing. Members of Congress Farr and McKinney have also sent a strong letter
to the Supreme Court to let them know the United States is still very
interested in this case.
As for Nicaragua itself, I hope the bigger outcome of the case is that
people will have become aware of this government's attitude toward the
poor, toward women and toward NGOs. I hope that somehow it will spark the
best of reconciliation and mutual respect and that people will hear the
message Dorothy gives her patients: know your rights, demand them and vote
for the party most likely to respect them.
Jill Winegardner is a neuropsychologist who taught neuropsychology during
her two years in Nicaragua and has organized a number of delegations to the
country.
Check List of a Successful Email
Campaign
BY GERRY CONDON
* In the two months of the campaign before the first victory, we sent
nearly four dozen action alerts and other messages to Dorothy's list and
everybody else we could think of. Since we also sent all our press releases
to the entire network, people received communications a couple of times a
week. With those on her list constantly giving us new contacts, forwarding
the messages to their address lists and mobilizing their local churches and
solidarity groups, the campaign spread like wild fire.
*
Our email list was made up of those who were truly interested in this
campaign; we did not bombard unsuspecting people who just happened to be on
some progressive list. We also constantly gave positive feedback about the
daily or weekly actions we were urging people to do; for example when we
got word that the Embassy was getting so many faxes it was bundling them up
and sending them over to Nicaragua's Foreign Ministry.
*
We set up five recipient categories: key contacts, organizations,
government (congressional offices), media and general supporters. Mainly,
we sent the updates and press releases to all categories, but could target
and prioritize as needed, and even vary the headings according to the
recipient group.
*
Early on, we organized our alerts into four sections: Update, Analysis,
Suggested Actions and Contacts. Those in a hurry, who just wanted to know
the action focus for that week, could scroll straight down to Actions, then
to Contacts for the relevant fax and email numbers.
*
We were religious about providing timely, accurate and complete updates,
always supported by a concise analysis, and did our best to avoid rhetoric
and just give people the facts. On the advice of those experienced in email
campaigns, we gave them a consistent and thus familiar appearance, always
heading them the same way and, within the limitations of basic email text,
making the messages attractive.
* The Internet was pivotal to everything we did, from the original email to
our Key Contact group, to all the press releases and action alerts we sent,
to the amazing amount of personal communication we had with individuals in
our network. It allowed us to access the Nicaraguan newspapers, send
detailed reports on a regular basis, have a good handle on the nature and
level of responses and be immediate in our actions.
* Email does ultimately allow for a great deal of democratic input. When
people suggested support actions to us, we often incorporated them into the
campaign, or in some cases they became the major focus for that week, for
example getting the ecumenical letter to President Alemán also printed as
an ad in Nicaragua's daily papers.
* Not all was electronic; we had a huge grassroots response from
individuals in which various people asked for and were given "the ball to
run with." One group met with the Nicaraguan Consul in San Francisco;
another organized the ecumenical letter and other church-related responses;
and various individuals and groups played other important
roles at key moments. They all showed so much respect and appreciation for
the centralized coordination that we never had to deal with people doing
something inappropriate or at cross purposes with the priorities. Perhaps
part of the reason for that is that we wanted the updates to have a
personal feeling, as well as being well written and "professional." People
knew that they were coming from "Jill and Gerry," and that they could call
and talk to us, thank us, or make any kind of suggestion and they would be
well received.
* Then there was the fantastic website-www.peacehost.net/Dorothy-that
Daniel Zwickel, a Berkeley peace activist and musician, volunteered to set
up and manage for the campaign, so we could refer people to it for the
latest detailed information and even photos. Occasionally we just sent out
a short message saying, check out a certain article and/or picture on our
website. Where possible, we provided working links to email addresses and
the site, making it possible for people to click and be on their way.
An email campaign without a website would have been rather one-dimensional.
It provides a permanent presence that can be accessed anytime from anywhere
and contains all the information an individual could want. We got calls
from reporters who were already on the website and therefore already
interested and informed. Some people who for whatever reasons could not
receive email, sometimes could access the website. It was also valuable for
people who did not want to be on an email list.
* Speaking of that, one initial mistake we quickly corrected was that the
first few updates had all email addresses visible for all to see. This is
poor security and also invites mischief. In fact, our key contacts all
received one contrary message from a conservative supporter of Dorothy who
was angry that we had described the contra war as being "US-backed" in a
fundraising letter. We learned it was a good idea to keep all addressees in
the "bcc" (blind copy) section of the address area.
* Finally, of course, there are those without access to email. A few people
called and asked us to mail updates to them. And, no doubt, some people
were left out altogether because they didn't have email access or we didn't
have their address. But the Internet clearly far surpasses other means of
communication for efficient use of scarce resources. What is interesting is
how few people, at least in the US, are left out. According to recent
polls, 56% of people in the States now have access to the Internet, with
much higher numbers for younger people and much lower for those over 65. To
make sure the older group is included, perhaps a parallel telephone network
should be established.
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