Dan Scanlan, Cool Hand Uke

The Race is On!

2008-09-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

All of us in the campaign are jugglers, lots of balls in the air, multi-tasking, stopping to go. Quite exciting.

Yesterday, Sunday, we held the firl Field Organizer Training. About 15 people showed up for the first training, a 9 to 5 event held in a auditorium at Del Pueblo in the Mission District. Cindy gave a short but poignant speech in the morning. I videotaped it, edited it a lunchtime and uploaded to You Tube. It can be viewed here.

The field organizers each committed to organizing one of 50 zones in the Eighth District.

Other activities since my last post have included database development, doing various visibility actions on the streets of San Francisco, at labor meetings, street fairs and other civic events.

Tuesday night's open supporters' meeting was jam packed.

Living in the camper has been fairly easy going until today, when I learned that there are no recreational vehicle dumping stations in San Francisco, period. The streets are filled 24 hours a day with homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, but apparently vehicle based, sanitary houses are anathema in SF.

Yesterday I took a call from a Sheehan supporter in Albuquerque NM, who wants to do a fundraiser in his community for this campaign. I'm working for Cindy for Congress because she pretty much shares the same views I do on peace, justice, impeachment, health care, drug companies, insurance companies,Wall Street, prisons, marijuana laws, mass transit, environment, et al. The candidates and the parties available to me in my community do not reflect my beliefs. That's why I'm here -- and that's why folks like the supporter in Albuquerque call every day and want to do something to help this campaign -- the only one in the country in which Peace is on the table and which will win.

Rally, home, song, ringtone

2008-09-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday I laid back, did a bit of Internet cruising, but hung out all day at one of my daughters' home in Berkeley. Dealing with the one hour parking limit in San Francisco on Wednesday fried me. I took BART in to San Francisco Friday morning -- my first BART ride -- and was greeted with rousing applause when I entered Cindy's campaign headquarters on Mission Street near the Civic Center.

My morning and early afternoon were spent scanning precinct maps in high resolution in an effort to save the street names for volunteers. Spent a lot of time waiting for software downloads and stuff like that. As 3 o'clock in the afternoon approached, most of the volunteers began readying themselves for a walk to City Hall where a rally was being held by Axis of Friendship, an organization that recognizes the friendship of Iran. Moments before we left the office, I brought out my Wendell Hall Banjo-uke from 1935 or before and started playing anti-war songs, notably John Lennon's give Peace and Chance and Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land. On a whim, I threw out an alternative line for This Land is Your Land, "We'll vote for Cindy, Take back our power...". Immediately other volunteers offered more lines and within five minutes we had constructed two stanzas. We sang them as we walked to City Hall and when we arrived we were met by photographers and videographers. We made a splash with our Cindy signage, shirts and song.

On September 12, 2001, the day after the horrendous 9/11 debacle, people all over the world held vigils and lit candles in solidarity with the people who lost their lives and in the hope of peace. In Iran, the public buildings were flooded with people who lit candles and prayed for America. This rally focussed on the solidarity the Iranian peoploe have with the real people of the United States. The speakers from several walks of life, beautiful all, spoke with great passion and clarity. Perhaps only 150 or so people attended. But that handful of folks might have within its purview the power to stop the impending invasion of Iran that is currently being pushed by neocons in the Bush Administration with the silent agreement of both major corporate presidential candidates.

The issue of war is real. But both candidates would rather talk about pigs with lipstick.

I suggest that the orchestrated corporate presidential campaign is all lip gloss. Lip Gloss. Lip Gloss.

I returned home Friday night. Saturday I recorded a quick version of the "We'll Vote for Cindy" tune and created an iPhone ringtone, installed in my iPhone and emailed it to Cindy so she would install it on her iPhone. Today I installed a solar panel on the roof of my little Toyota camper. Tomorrow I'll load it up with sound equipment, t-shirt machine and a button-making device and head back to San Francisco. Hopefully, the whole staff can sing the tune and we can create a full-on, multi-voice ringtone and begin sending it out to Cindy supporters everywhere.

If you wish to help in this historic campaign, go to www.cindyforcongress.org.

Cheers,

Dan

Second Day at Cindy's

2008-09-10T22:07:00.001-07:00

Seems like today I spent a great deal of time reparking my car in San Francisco. $2.50 an hour with an hour limit. Almost as many meter checkers as sleeping winos on the sidewalks. Cindy's headquarters is across the street from the main welfare office. When I wasn't relocating my car I was using my graphics arts skills on my MacBookPro. I developed a two-sided flyer to hand out to the people using the services of the welfare office. I'm hoping to get someone to translate the piece into Spanish. Cindy supports equal rights for immigrants and opposes the absurd fence along the Mexican/US border. She also supports affordable housing and an end to the rip-off lending industry. Oh yeah, single payer health care, too.

There's been a lot of bruhahah lately in the corporate orchestrated dog and pony show otherwise known as the McCain-Obama Race about pigs with lipstick. We came across a pig with the slogan McCain/Palin on it. My job was to redraw it with a humorous play on words for a campaign button.

In order to alleviate the hassle of dealing with parking, I've arranged with a nearby parking lot for a monthly rental of $180 for my small Toyota camper.this weekend I'll scoot home and get it and return Monday and start living on the street until this campaign is over.

If you have extra time to make a difference, go to www.cindyforcongress.org and see how you can help out, even from afar.

Working for Cindy

2008-09-10T09:17:00.001-07:00

Last night I attended a meeting of volunteers at the Cindy Sheehan for Congress headquarters in San Francisco. There were 40 or more folks attending. Cindy couldn't attend. She's in Norway accepting a Peace Award. (Norwegian foreign ministers who were hesitant to speak at the event, fearing that to do so would be a slap at the Bush Administration, rose to the occasion and spoke anyway.) The group of volunteers at last night's meeting are rising to the occasion as well. They have no doubt that Cindy Sheehan will push Nancy Pelosi from her seat in Congress by a wide margin.

Last night's meeting is the beginning of my own 8-week commitment to the campaign. Normally, my week's energies would revolve around the wonderful ukulele group, The Strum Bums, in Grass Valley CA. I'm the band leader and teacher. We meet weekly for rehearsal and lessons, and then perform once or twice a week at various convalescent and retirement homes, schools, fairs, benefits. The Bums are on their own for the next eight weeks, but I feel their support of my efforts in San Francisco.

I share the same commitment and concerns expressed by so many last night: I am ashamed to live in a country that tolerates torture, official lying, criminal media collusion, extraordinary rendition, electoral fraud, phoney presidential elections, a two-headed single party; a country that outlaws bankruptcy for common people but facilitates it for the wealthy at taxpayer expense, that spends two thirds of its resources on military "security" and yet cannot deliver basic health care to its citizens, that refuses to implement the people's quality control -- impeachment -- and ignores the dangers to the planet when it is not actively hurrying its demise.

I cannot stand by and wring my hands. For my own peace of mind I have got to feel like I doing something to fix the mess we're in.

Cindy Sheehan is a plain-spoken woman who clearly presents the truth. Her son was killed in Iraq for no damned reason, let alone a noble one. Since his death she has worked tirelessly and ardently to stop the madness and callous greed that killed her son and that kills hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children and their parents.

She confronted George Bush at his Crawford Texas ranch when he refused to talk with her in Washington. She set up Camp Casey and thousands joined her. I was there and participated in truth-based political actions every day. She has supporters who know first hand of her integrity and strength and they will be working for her election. Regardless of where they live.

One does not have to live in San Francisco to support Cindy Sheehan or to reap the benefits of her voice. Both candidates in my community support corporate war. Cindy will be my representative.

No other election in this country this year is as important as the Cindy Sheehan for Congress election. It is the tiny wedge that can actually split the two-party duopoly in half and send a shiver of fear up the limp spine of the U.S. Congress, awakening common folk around the country that all is not lost, that they, too, can topple their corrupt, ineffective representatives, that will can be asserted, and fear overcome.

The corporate orchestration of the "race" for president is the "light entertainment" that Goebbles said should surround the oft repeated Big Lie.

Want to focus on the real battle rather than the corporate-media-controlled sham? Place the "hockey mom" (Sarah Palin) who believes war is directed by God and who gives it her sons, to the "peace mom" -- Cindy -- who knows the truth — that war kills the innocent and is the work of devil greed.

People are dying. And the planet with them. And the hope of democracy fades. Unless we actually DO something. Working to elect Cindy to Congress is DOING SOMETHING>

For a start go to www.cindyforcongress.org.

This can, and will, be done. Count on it.