"Google Sibel Edmonds" Blogroot campaign.

[The Backlash Cometh]

This is one of those ideas hatched on the talking pages of DU which I thought I would post on a grander scale to see if it gets traction. I made a comment on another thread that we should put bumper stickers on our cars that read, "Google Sibel Edmonds." Don't add any other political icons to the bumper sticker.

But Marekjed came up with an even better idea and suggested putting it in our e-mail signatures. I was wondering how much ripple effect a simple idea like this will have, so here we go...

[cascadiance]

1. Use custom postage stamps for more broad scoped publicity...

Stamps.com currently has "Photo" stamps. And Cafepress.com sometime this month is going to be partnering with them to let you offer stamps in your shop for sale too. These are real stamps that can be used to mail letters, etc. not just decorative stuff like the one in my sig here. Speaking of which, does anyone know the creator of this image? I grabbed it from someone else's sig earlier. They might be helpful in creating a decent stamp to be sold like this.

I've tried a bit already on this, and still feel it's a worthwhile goal, but the problems to overcome are this:

1) Stamps.com is *very* picky about letting images of "known people" to be on these stamps. I asked specifically if I had the permission of the person the image depicts to use their image if it would be OK, and I got a delayed no on as an answer to that. I then asked if I got Sibel herself to request these stamps if that would be sufficient or if I avoided the image, but with the same text messaging in it (perhaps on a 9/11 skyline background) that would draw people's attention to the importance of what's needed. They kind of copped out on that and wanted me to send an image to them first before they'd "approve" anything. I've gotten the feeling that they want to stay away from having "political" stamps being sold through their site. Now maybe Cafepress.com in the mix will make a difference, as they do allow images of folks with their permission, which I'm doing already. Need to explore this further.

2) Timing at this point has it too early to work in a cafepress.com shop unless we got special permission to be a "test shop" for them. How soon they will make this available to cafepress.com shop owners will also be an issue.

3) pricing of the stamps isn't cheap. It becomes cheaper as one buys larger quantities in bulk, but the base price for a book of 20 is something like $16.99 for stamps.com and $18.99 for Cafepress.com now. That might be a bit high to get them "widely used" by bulk mailers such as DU sending out flyers for the Supreme Court nomination, etc. The Supreme Court mail campaigns would be a perfect campaign to have a Sibel stamp at the top as she's depending on a decent Supreme Court at this moment to hear her case. I was thinking you could set up a separate Paypal account, etc. that would put together a pool of money that could be used to lower the cost of these stamps to those buying through a cafepress.com shop with the paypal account paying the difference. That would take some coordination, and what to do with extra money left over (perhaps put it in to Sibel's legal fund), or who would pay for stamps at a lower price if the fund isn't funded enough.

Anyway, I still think the postage stamp idea would be a cool way to direct users to look up more info on her. Though I've taken the time to design my own stuff for bumper stickers, mugs, etc. in the shop I created, I think designing this stamp to be effectively might be a bit more than I want to do myself. It might help to have someone who's professionally done this to help with that too, to make sure that we get people to look at it and take interest.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. You're going in the right direction.

But I would only add that the color schemes should be appealing to the average person. Militant colors on coffee cups aren't going to get those coffee cups in the hands of the people we want to help disperse the message.

[cascadiance]

3. Please reread the last paragraph in my previous post...

I've not recommended "militant" designs for this stamp at all, as like you said, it is designed to appeal more to the masses, as it is trying to be more of a beacon to someplace else in the case of a stamp on a letter, not something that tries to grab people's attention when someone is wearing it, etc. and reflective of something more activist (which I think you were referring to my post in another thread.

I'd like to say that's there nothing wrong with *either* of our approaches. It just depends on who the messenger is (putting on a button, etc.) and what their style of communicating is, and what the target audience is. For different contexts either a more activist "militant" (as you describe it) might be more useful, or in others (where you might have more of a captive audience) a more laid back approach might work better.

As I said before, come up with a design and advocate that design. That's why I asked who did the stamp in my sig. This person had a nice idea to build on. Part of the problem is that the one useful image we have of hers on the net works better on a dark background than a light one as he/she also chose to do with the stamp. That's not to say one cannot come up with a design that works on a light background with her image in it. Just that it takes more work, and probably someone with more professional design background and resources, which I was appealing to with my previous post to come forward to help out with this stamp idea. I'm more of a developer than I'm an artist, though I dabble in art quite a bit, so I'm not claiming to have all of the answers here. I basically did these designs for buttons and bumper stickeers to fill a void, since there weren't any to be found on the internet or elsewhere that I could find.

There's a huge variety of anti-Bush stickers out there for different audiences. Help us out and get more designs for Sibel too!

Also, if you want to target your message to people that have a more activist bent towards helping building up your campaign, you might want to post in the newer Sibel Edmonds and other Whietleblower's group, which I think would be useful for helping to hash this out without the thread getting lost quickly.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=344

[moodforaday]

4. kick (n/t)