This is a letter edited for my activist friends on December 30, 2003. (This site employs Style Sheets so you also need to download CCstyle.css.txt, rename it "CCstyle.css", and include it where you put this file.)
December 30, 2003
Lac #9, Quebec, Canada
Carol Brouillet
Dear fellow activists,I hope you are well. I’ve written this letter while on vacation with the Brouillet family.
Last January, I organized a march on my Congresswoman demanding ‘Preemptive Impeachment” of George Bush. We had a fairly decent sized march for Palo Alto and had reasonable television coverage- except for the “usual censorship of the key points.” It had been a year since we had demanded a Congressional Investigation of 9-11; there was a major cover-up going on, key evidence pointed to U.S. government complicity; Bush was pushing for a war against Iraq, and we hoped to stop him by exposing him as a criminal. We also were demanding a repeal of the Patriot Act.
On January 15th, one of the largest anti-war marches was held in San Francisco. We had printed 100,000 Deception Dollars to pass out at the march and rally in San Francisco’s Civic Center, but we almost ran out of them completely before the march! They were so popular and easy to give away.
Guerrilla News Network had just finished their new documentary- Aftermath-Unanswered Questions from 9-11, which was one of the best tools we had to reach the public. The first public screening was after the rally, on a makeshift screen and we had a standing audience of about a hundred people. When we tried this again in February after the BIGGEST march/rally, the police forced us to shut it down- because we “didn’t have a permit.”
At each rally/march, we tabled our 9-11 materials and took in thousands of dollars, enough to print 500,000 Deception Dollars in early February, and a million when we ran out in early March. I organized meetings of the 9-11 Truth Alliance in San Francisco- to gather enough support to organize a big showing of Aftermath. I thought that if we could break the story- we could stop the impending war. In February there was a family crisis, which demanded much of my time/resources, and took priority over the global crisis.
After the war broke out, I felt almost guilty for not preventing it, and decided to do all that I could to break the 9-11 story with a big public event. My closest friend and ally was Blaine Machan, the activist in Canada who designed the Deception Dollar, and most of the art we were using for our handouts, and the covers for the 9-11 videos- including Aftermath. With Blaine’s support and help, and that of other key 9-11 activists, I organized a big “premiere showing” of Aftermath at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco (across the street from the Civic Center where the police shut us down) and Spangenberg Theatre in Palo Alto. Both screenings were preceded by receptions with moderator, Barrie Zwicker (producer of the Canadian television show which produced The Great Deception), and panelists- GNN’s Stephen Marshall, Michael Ruppert, Peter Dale Scott, Riva Enteen, and Richard Heinberg (author of The Party’s Over- Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies).
We managed to organize the events in less than three weeks. It was incredibly stressful (and expensive). We risked our entire Deception Dollar printing fund. I was so busy with the nuts and bolts details of the event and the major publicity work, that I didn’t even have time to invite any of my friends to the events.
We did get a full house in San Francisco; we even had to turn away 300 people. We received a standing ovation and everyone agreed the event was a great success- even if the media ignored it. The turnout in Palo Alto was smaller- between 4 and 500, but we were glad we did it, just to create the space where it was “ok to question the government version of 9-11.”
Later the extras of the giant Aftermath posters, made it easier for others in cities across the U.S. and Canada to organize their own screenings of the film.
On July 4th, 2003, nearly a year after I had raised the same issues with 5 San Francisco television stations (who chose to remain silent), the Oakland Tribune finally printed a story about Aftermath and raised some keys points (the fact that the money man behind 9-11 was meeting with top U.S. officials from Sept. 3-13th 2001), other stories gradually followed. Sometimes it takes twenty years to break a story into the mainstream press, I can’t help feeling that the question is- will we be able to organize resistance faster than they organize repression?
Summer, with the kids out of school, we took our usual trip to Canada. We did not visit my family in Colorado for the second year in a row. I continued to be in downtown Palo Alto, whenever we were in California, with my “Listening Project.”
I try to balance family life with my activism, which means I can’t do “as much” when the kids are on vacation and need attention. I do most of my work when they are in school or asleep. The press releases, demonstrations have become routine.
I have done a lot of public speaking this year, two local television programs, an internet program, presentations at a few conferences ( The W.I.L.P.F. Western Regional Gathering, The Conspiracy Conference, The Confronting Empire- Sequoia Redwood Congress), Hampshire College in Massachusetts, 5 showings of Aftermath, several rallies. I did organize two “Impeach the Terrorists!” rallies and marches in San Francisco last September.
There is a real synergy between the activism that takes place on the internet, in the streets, in the cultural realm- art, theatre, literature, and at conferences. Our Deception Dollar has evolved from the first- just green, one color printing of 10,000 with 7 websites, to the one I sent out last Christmas (we printed 100,000 of them with a few more websites, and in duotone- using green and black ink). When we printed 500,000, in four colors, I asked Blaine to create a website, www.deceptiondollar.com, which has been incredibly popular. We had over a million hits in March and the traffic has been increasing since then. The Deception Dollars have also been added to the collections of museums in the U.S., Canada, Cuba, and Spain (including the Fine Arts Collection in Lincoln Park, San Francisco, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge- which is quite an honor!).
We just printed 600,000 in May, which lasted four months. In September we printed our million dollar 6th Edition- “Impeach the Terrorists!” which we still hope will finance our upcoming events. In October we also made a few hundred special “billion dollar notes” in response to Bush’s demand for 87 billion to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. 87 were presented to Congressman Jim McDermott, and I offered an additional 87 billion to Congresswoman Barbara Lee. McDermott actually blew up an image of the note and presented it to Congress with a speech against giving Bush the money.
The process of connecting with the key websites distributing the best information about 9-11 has helped to nurture a real 9-11 activist community. We exchange Deception Dollars for books, videos, magazines…and trade all those materials with other 9-11 activists, and give them away to key musicians, comedians, journalists, researchers. The events bring people together, nurture new relationships, collaborations, trust. This is why Blaine and I are working with an international community on two International Inquiries into 9-11.
While looking at available dates for the Herbst Theatre for the Inquiry, I stumbled upon the fact that an evening with cartoonist Gary Larsen in April was sold out six months in advance! So I came up with the idea of a fun event- an evening of comedy/music with the theme- “Behind Every Bush- There is a Terrorist!” It took me months to get a couple of the best political comedians (Will Durst and Bill Santiago) in the Bay Area to agree upon a date and terms, along with a great musician, David Rovics, and some other folks to help. By this time the idea had grown into a two nights, so that we could make a film of the event- for those who couldn’t come to see it, as a tool for 9-11 activists everywhere.
We were in the process of deciding on the poster, the website, the conference, the printing and distribution of posters and 10,000 handbills, when I had to leave California for the snow…and Christmas. It is going to be a challenge to do all the nuts and bolts organizing for the comedy nights, and the Inquiry by February 1st and 2nd and March 26th-28th. I still plan on doing my weekly “Listening Projects” and have already promised to go skiing for a weekend with the Boy Scouts and to do an event in Sacramento.
I hope that you will be able to join us for these events!
Wishing you good health and good luck in the New Year!
Carol