7 Protest Phases that will Scare the Socks off Politicians

Below are our seven phases of social justice protest.  All activities are legal and civil.

Phases may occur concurrently or in any order.

  1. USPS Letter Campaign Demand Protest (online)
  2. Telephone Campaign Demand Protest (online)
  3. Signage Protests using rotating, scheduled protesters (no protest license required)
  4. Resignation Demand Protest (online)(
  5. Large / International Street Marches – with quick start templates and checklists
  6. Recall Petition Protest (online)
  7. Class Action Lawsuits (online)

We all remember the 2017 Women’s March.  The crowds were huge.  Remember the pink pussy hats?  Five to seven million women across the country participated.  While press coverage was good, it only generated a short news cycle, efforts were ignored by politicians and no legislative change occurred.

If the same 5 million Women’s march protesters also used this platform, here’s what would have occurred using only Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3:

Phase 1 – USPS Letter Protest:

Preparation:

  1. Social movement group leaders for a coalition using this platform. Coalitions support up to 50 different groups, of which each many have millions of supporters.
  2. The group leaders jointly craft a letter demanding specific women’s rights (up to 5 pages of content).
  3. Each participating group is provided with the unique social media link to invite their base to participate in signing the letter protest. The link displays a common (and branded) image based message.
  4. Groups also provide a “cover” letter which protesters will digitally sign online. Country based variants of the cover letter are supported (pertinent to a protesters location).
  5. The group coalition defines a number of options, such as batch size, # of politicians to target, titles, names and office addresses of the political targets, plus acknowledgers and other options such as optional targets, rotating targets, etc.  In this example, assume there are 4 carefully selected targets – the GOP house minority speaker and 3 targets that are most likely to support the demands.
  6. After completing a test phase, the protest is launched. Social movement leaders simply post their unique protest link to all social media platforms.

The launch:

  1. Social movement followers view the graphical link and click it to participate.  Since the link is unique, the protestor becomes associated with the social movement group that provided the link.
  2. The protester is guided through a streamlined process to create their Civil Voice Groups account. The protesters are verified using CAPTCHA, their email address, mobility number, and AVS (surname and mailing address) and GPS location validated.
  3. The protester is then provided a preview of the cover letter (which has been appended with the common coalition letter).
  4. The protester is prompted to sign the letter.  With one click, 4 digital copies of the letters are generated. Each letter is SSL certificate signed and time server date stamped (external changes to the letter invalidate the signing). The cover letter footer provides a statement of verifications of the protester (without providing any identifying information). This validation proves to the political target (the recipient of the letter) they are real.
  5. The protester may sign using their real information or sign using their dual anonymous account (privacy protection).
  6. The protester remits payment (cost based) for the letters signed. The cost is approximately 3.26 for 4 letters, which includes letter printing (3 double sided pages, envelope, USPS 1st class metering, and transport to a postal sorting facility)
  7. Letters are “batched” (pooled). When the number of signed letters exceed the batch size, they are physical printed, assembled, metered and dropped off at a location near DC (congress offices).
  8. Batches include a GPS tracking device (more about that later).
  9. Protesters receive a digital copy of letters they signed. They are also provided 2 images of each cover letter (one with their account information, and one with their anonymous account profile). Protesters are asked to make a post to their social media accounts of the preferred image, using a specific hashtag (causing trending), asking their followers to participate. They are also asked to make a post to each of the targets social media accounts using a hashtag.
  10. Free press journalists (which may use the platform and subscribe to categories of interests) receive notification of when batches of letters are about to be delivered (as per GPS location of the tracking device). This enables reporters to be on-site when 50,000, 100,000 letters arrive.
  11. Free press journalists and participating groups are provided demographic reports (pivotable) to analyze and report.
  12. If mail is refused or shredded or dumped by a politician, the tracking device will provide last known location.  Journalists and social movement groups will be provided notices when politicians refuse or destroy legitimate mail from their constituents (possibly an illegal action).
  13. Designated acknowledgers will receive status updates of mail deliveries and refusals. The assigned acknowledger could be Pelosi, Schumer, Harris, etc.  The acknowledger may define a “thank you for your effort” certificate to each protester (suitable for framing).
  14. Each protester is invited to be scheduled to make a phone call to each political target. Protesters may select days of the week and time ranges when they can call. The system then schedules their effort, provides reminders, provides call dialing instructions and choices of scripts to use that are civil, respectful yet demanding. The system will also provide call outcomes, service ranking, and call notes. The system will also be capable of dynamically changing numbers if politicians attempt to change their contact information to hide from these activities. Call outcomes and rating reports will be reported to the free press.

This process repeats for days, weeks or months. Cover letter content can be changed whenever desired. Target recipients can be changed whenever desired.  Many different protests (such as for racial rights, climate change, LGBT rights, gun laws, etc) can simultaneously occur.

Note the letter content signed by the protester provides notification to the political target that if ignored, harsher phases (Phase 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) will occur.

In summary, if the same 5 million protesters that turned out for the 2017 Women’s March, 20 million letters to congress would be sent, 25 million social media posts would be made, 20 million telephone calls to politicians would be made, the free press will be provided with constant opportunities to report activities, analyze demographics, be notified of refusals, receive ratings of service, and friendly politicians can thank protesters for their efforts. This process gains a targeted politician’s attention.


Phase 2 – Telephone Protest:

Organizers of the protest may immediately choose to run Phase 2 with Phase 1.

  1. For each protester that participates in phase 1 (or participates in phase 2), each person is prompted to call each of the political targets.
  2. Protesters may define preferred dates and times when they make these calls.
  3. Each participant is reminded of these calls. Notices pop up via text message, push messages or email.
  4. Each participate is provided a unique “CALL ID” which they state to the person answering their call (to prevent the far right from impersonating users).
  5. Each participant is provided a choice of scripts. Each participant making a call must adhere to platform rules of being civil, respectful yet demanding.
  6. Each participant may record the call (for their own purposes but not possibly publicly post it due to conversation privacy laws).
  7. Each participant may post text results of the call (no answer, # no longer valid, new number to call, a text based conversation of the call, service rating, comments, etc.)  This textual information is reported by the system and provided journalists.
  8. Protesters may notify the platform and social movement groups that telephone numbers have been changed, recording options have been changed or telephone mail boxes are full.  Upon confirmation by social movement leaders, scripts / scheduling / call numbers will be dynamically updated and notices to the free press will be generated.
  9. Some offices block numbers from callers that are not in the politician’s voting region. If imposed, the system will schedule only protestors that live in such regions.
  10. This platform spreads out the overall calling schedule to a pre-defined rate. Rates of callers per hour can by dynamically changed. This means that by scheduling 480 calls per day (1 call per minute) to one only politician, the length of this protest for 5 million protesters will run for 40 years (5,000,000 callers / 480 per day / 260 office days per year)

Similar to Phase 1, each call protester will be provided with a formal “thank you” certificate from acknowledgers for their call effort.


Phase 3 – Signage Protests using rotating, scheduled protesters (no protest license required):

  1. Social Movement group leaders craft phrases about a political leader. The phrases should be no more than 40 words or so. The phrases must be civil and truthful, yet demanding.
  2. 5′ x 3′ signs (using light weight, waterproof, stiff white recycled card signs are required. The sign handle must be made with cardboard poles.
  3. Each sign contains one, possibly two words. Letter size must be as large as possible.  The bottom corner of the sign contains the word order.
  4. Social movement groups invite their supporters to volunteer for a 3 to 4 hour shift. Two people per sign are required (for safety reasons).
  5. Signs containing the complete phrase are distributed to locations.
  6. Protesters are paired up and arrange themselves at least 50 feet apart, in order of the phrase along busy streets.
  7. As people drive by, drivers can read the phrase.
  8. Protesters must not react to jerks that finger them off.
  9. After 4 hours, the next group of Protesters take over the existing positions.  This process repeats 2 or 3 times per day, depending upon weather, day length, etc.
  10. The first signage person is known as the spokes person (this enables journalists to know who to talk to).
  11. Journalists are provided notifications where these protests will occur so they can report, interview the spokesperson, etc.
  12. At the end of the day, signage phrases are rotated with other protest locations, so the next day, drivers will read a different message.
  13. The system will schedule protesters, provide with with locations that are in close proximity of where they live, etc. Backup protesters will also be scheduled (to cover for no-shows).  The system will track no-shows and who participated as scheduled. Problematic no-shows will no longer be scheduled.
  14. In a single city, 5 to 10 of these protests can occur simultaneously.
  15. Cities across the USA can do the same.

No protest license is required since a 1 person protest is allowed pretty much anywhere in the USA.  Sure, this is not a massive street protest like the 2017 Women’s March.  But since each phrase will negatively targets specific politicians, since the press will cover this, and since tens of thousands of drivers will read the message, this approach is quite powerful as it negatively impacts a politicians career.  Yet only 30 to 40 people are required for just 3 or 4 hours (and they can sign up when they are available).