[free-sklyarov] Boston protest report.

[C. Scott Ananian]

Wow.  A *great* protest today in front of the Boston Public Library.  At
least an order of magnitude more people than we had last week. =)  Lots of
enthusiasm, we handed out *hundreds* of flyers, we convinced passing
motorists that the DMCA undermined that great Library sitting right across
the street from us, and a few of them even honked their horns in support
as they drove by! =)  I saw people handing flyers through open windows, I
saw mothers pushing baby carraiges holding protest signs, it was
*wonderful*. Jonathan and I sang all four songs in our reportoire at full
volume. Can't quite match the BBC reporter who led off her report with
"The Sklyarov case is turning computer people... into *village people*"...
but we certainly delivered our version of D-M-C-A with brio. =)  And we
tried out our Beastie Boy's filk, "You gotta fight, for your right, to
reeeeaaad BOOKS" -- we'll do better at that next week. =)

And, better yet, I got a small crowd of people around me at the end of the
event suggesting ideas for future protests and (maybe even) volunteering
to work on them!  Yay, go team!  Expect a bit of noise on dmitry-boston
later in the week as new people join.

NEXT WEEK! Next Thursday, same time (noon), same place.  Next Saturday
(Sept 8) we will join the national "Letter-writing day" with a cookout,
probabaly at MIT, and we'll throw in a planning/organizational meeting
into the event while we're at it.  Jonathan Watterson wants to do another
creative meeting (paint more banners, make large cardboard props) next
Thursday evening after the protest maybe.  Discuss this on the list,
y'all.

Things that paid off: working known-friendly reporters and putting up over
200 posters around MIT over the past few days.

Things that didn't (yet): posts to activist mailing lists, email to campus
greens, letters to libertarian david brudnoy (and many other talk show 
hosts), letters to individual librarians at the BPL as well as to the BPL
president. So we've still got a ways to go in the coalition building
process.

Things I'm excited about: faculty support for a teach-in seems pretty
good; I've already talked to Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn and some MIT
faculty.  We've got two people (Daniel Chudnov and Don Saklad) working
more on the library front, and it looks promising.  Personal contacts
certainly work better than cold calls.  With the return of MIT hackers,
I'm hoping some more of my media stunt ideas will come off, and I plan to
continue flyering at more Boston area campuses, since that seemed to work
well.  I've also got a lot of letters out there that people haven't
responded to yet, hopefully we'll see some positive replies in the next
week.  Oh, and the RETURN OF OUR MOMENTUM!  yay, go Boston!
  --scott

MI6 anthrax Yakima General Columbia Milosevic Sigint Yeltsin atomic 
Treasury India Indonesia early warning KGB President smuggle FBI Suharto 
              ( http://lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu/~cananian )
 --
 "These students are going to have to find out what law and order is
 all about."  -- Brig. General Robert Canterbury, Noon, May 4, 1970,
 minutes before his troops shot 13 unarmed Kent State students, killing 4.
 --
            [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/]
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