Creating An Irresistible and Irrepressible Movement: the 3x3x3 Plan for Driving Out the Criminals in the White House
Are you infuriated at the Democratic Party for refusing to hold Bush and Cheney accountable? Are you tired of trying to get them and the mass media to see what is plain as day to you and virtually everyone else in the entire world? Are you worried sick that Bush and Cheney will allow another 9/11 incident or that any day now you”ll hear on CNN that they have launched a huge military strike upon Iran? Do you wonder if there is any way to break through this barrier of criminal enabling by the media and the Democratic Party leadership and any way to bring Bush and Cheney to justice for their war crimes?
There’s a way. I call it the 3 x 3 x 3 Plan. Or the 333 plan for short. It starts this way: you get 3 people to Declare It Now (DIN) against the Bush Regime and you and they wear orange and/or decorate with orange everyday (orange ribbon, armband, bandana, t-shirt, etc.). Each of those 3 people gets 3 people. You call back your 3 people in 3 days to check in with them: thus, 3 x 3 x 3.
Orange means we’re furious and not going to take it anymore! Orange means we won’t allow them to take us and the world down their road of torture, tyranny and war crimes! Orange means that we’re not “Good Germans.” Orange means that the people who”ve been detained indefinitely by our government and tortured will not suffer alone.
This 333 plan puts the campaign into the hands of people immediately and if the people who do this just recruit their 3 people, assuming a starting group of 300 people, assuming no erosion in this chain, assuming no one recruits more than 3 ever, assuming no one takes up wearing orange on their own without being recruited by a personal network (through, e.g., seeing others doing it or hearing about it at a rally, through a newsletter, website, PSAs or ads), then in 9 cycles of this process, which should take about a week for each new cycle or tier, we’ll have 1.9 million people wearing orange. In 10 weeks, we”d have 5.9 million people in orange and/or decorating with orange all over the country. This would make it the largest political demonstration in U.S. history.
Obviously, all but one of the preceding assumptions is conservative (erosion in the chain WILL probably happen in spots). We could grow faster than this projection predicts for several reasons. Someone famous in the movement like a David Swanson, an Ann Wright, a Ray McGovern, a John Nichols or a Debra Sweet speaking at a rally of 500 people could instigate a group of several hundred people to take up orange in one fell swoop. As we grow in numbers of people wearing and/or decorating with orange, as more prominent people are seen wearing and endorsing the wearing of orange and declaring themselves against Bush and Cheney, people will start to do it themselves even though they haven’t been recruited by a personal network. (This has already started to happen.) People who are thrilled by this campaign can, will and should recruit more than their original 3. People in existing organizations (movement and otherwise) can recruit their membership to take up the campaign. As we grow in numbers we will also reach a critical mass at some point and this will allow us to grow even more rapidly. And so on.
These millions would be seen by at least tens of millions of other people in their everyday lives – in their towns or cities, at the mall, in the schoolyards, at work, in the park, in store windows, on construction site walls, in art studios, and at the fair/concert/farmers market/sporting event/restaurant/café. Wouldn’t be it great if there were MORE orange than there are Starbuck’s? Wouldn’t this be the harbinger of something terribly significant?
We wouldn’t need media attention because people would be seeing this with their own eyes: the word being carried to them by people in their own communities – their neighbors, their co-workers, their schoolmates, their teachers, their waiters/waitresses, their teammates.
Think how seeing orange all over the place with millions declaring themselves against the Bush regime and declaring themselves for driving these criminals from the White House would change the political atmosphere! Would the Democrats who continue to say to us now with a straight face that they “don’t have the votes,” that “it’s not worth it,” and that they still “haven’t seen any impeachable offenses” still be saying these absurd and transparently false things to us then?
Wouldn’t the whole political dynamic change as millions of Americans start to realize that they are part of a growing, irresistible, irrepressible, movement? Wouldn’t it make a huge difference when people start to realize that they are not alone in feeling the way they do but that they are indeed part of the majority? Would the media who now ridiculously claim that there are “no smoking guns” and that “impeachment will never happen” still be singing their discordant tune? Wouldn’t the visible reality of millions publicly showing their sentiments make reactionary, lying blowhards like Bill O”Reilly and Rush Limbaugh tremble a little?
What can ONE person do by him or herself, some people sometimes ask? ONE person can recruit over the course of nine cycles (nine weeks or so) 19,683 people, assuming that they recruit 3 people to start with and stop recruiting anymore themselves, everyone afterwards also recruits 3 people, no less and no more. If, instead, our original person recruits 3 new people every, say, two weeks instead of just recruiting 3 people once only, then over nine cycles they will have brought into the ranks of the visible movement for impeachment 22,425 people. That’s the size of a good size town. All started by one person two months earlier.
For this chain to work everyone in the chain must bring forward 3 people. Those next 3 must each do the same: bring 3 people into the chain.
The beauty of this plan is that its success lies immediately in the hands of each individual who is recruited/steps forward. It isn’t up to other people to do – it’s up to you. You take personal responsibility. And recruiting 3 other people is something everyone can do at a minimum. It’s something people can do no matter where they live, how old they are, or what they do. Everyone can do far more than 3, but if everyone just did the bare minimum of 3 recruits once only, we”d still grow to dramatic numbers over about two months.
Another facet of this plan is that it brings into being a network of people who are being mobilized as activists and whose connections to one another mean that we could activate very large numbers of people on short notice for simultaneous rallies/marches, direct action or other activities. The backbone of a new, potent, large, politicized force who are in turn affecting much larger numbers around them we would bring into being.
The stakes involved are huge: the very nature of society and the world for at least the next generation and probably much, much more. If we”re talking about global climate alone, we”re talking at least centuries of impact. Given the determined stance of major media and the two major political parties to NOT hold Bush and Cheney’s accountable for their towering crimes, can we contemplate anything LESS than such a visible, large, determined and impossible to ignore movement as sufficient to counter what we are up against?
The people – need it be said? – have to act in unmistakable, undeniable, big ways. We have to dramatically alter the existing balance of forces and create a wholly different situation. For those who are committed to lobbying as the way to go, do you think that the presence of such a brilliantly visible display of millions everywhere wouldn’t make a major difference? Would the Democrats who until now have found the hundreds and thousands who have lobbied them very resistible, still be able to resist the cumulative power of millions showing themselves everywhere? Can there be anything more democratic than millions of people taking a public political stance this way, taking the moral high ground by speaking out against Bush, Cheney, and their enablers” monstrous policies of torture, tyranny and war crimes?
Join this campaign and participate in the plan. Be part of the historic change that we must together effect. We don’t need to mobilize all of the millions who oppose this rotten regime in D.C., social change doesn’t wait for or need absolutely everyone who feels a certain way to act. But we DO need literally millions to declare themselves against what the Bush regime is doing and what it represents. If we mobilize millions – and there’s no reason to think that we can’t, the 333 plan is very, very doable and very concrete – we will have done something remarkable and unprecedented. We will have triggered a massive cultural shift.
We are the people we’ve been waiting for. What are you waiting for? Keep track of the 3 people (or more) that you recruit. Have them keep track of their 3 or more. Repeat till satisfied. : ) (WORD has an option in the INSERT menu called OBJECT. In that menu is a choice called WORD Organization Chart. You could use this to keep track of the people you”ve recruited. )
Get together with the 3 or 12 people under you in the chain. Plan activities together – hold a fundraising house party and raise money for the DIN campaign (e.g., World Can’t Wait has begun taping PSA’s from prominent individuals and money is needed to put these spots on radio and TV; money’s needed to enable student organizers to spread the orange uprising on campuses); gather to watch a video or do a reading group; go out in a group wearing orange to spread the campaign – you can get flyers from world can’t wait or create your own, go out together wearing orange and see a film or play or just walk down the street or on the train or bus and create a sensation, handing out orange ribbons. You can buy ribbons and safety pins at craft shops or fabric stores. Hardware stores sell orange tape in big rolls for just $3. They tear by hand. Let’s get it started!
(The 333 Plan’s name similarity to H Res 333, the impeachment articles for Dick Cheney, is just a happy happenstance.)
Dennis Loo is co-editor of Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, a member of the World Can’t Wait National Steering Committee, and blogging at http://dennisloo.blogspot.com.