Dear Animal Organizations:
This Wednesday, the House of Representatives will vote on the Peru Free Trade
Agreement, and the Senate will follow with a vote next week. As you know,
the Peru Free Trade Agreement will expand factory farming and contribute to
hunting and the destruction of wildlife habitat.
It's up to us to stop Congress from ratifying this
terrible trade deal!
You can help by signing our REVISED Congressional sign-on letter, which further
documents the agreement's threat to wildlife and elaborates on the additional
suffering it will cause for farmed animals. Even if you have already signed on
to previous versions, contact us to let us know that we can keep your name on
this revised version. You can read the new letter or fill out the webform http://freetradekillsanimals.org/?page=FinalPeruLetter
or just call email adam@freetradekillsanimals.org
with your permission to keep you on the letter. Tomorrow morning we will email
the letter to the legislative assistants on trade of to every member of
Congress. If you are unable to sign by tomorrow morning, but still wish to be
added to the letter we will be sending the letter
again in advance of the Senate vote.
We also need your help to turn up the pressure on elected officials in your
region!
Some things your group can do:
- Email Global Justice for Animals' Action alert on the Peru Free Trade
Agreement to your members, supporters, and allies. You can find the alert
at http://freetradekillsanimals.org/?page=peruactionalert
- Call your members - Call your members and supporter and urge them to
contact their members on Congress to oppose the Peru Free Trade
Agreement. You can find a sample call script at http://freetradekillsanimals.org/?page=PeruGroupScript
- OP-EDs - Write an OP-ED article and submit it
for publication to weekly and daily newspapers in your area. Contact
Global Justice for Animals for a sample op-ed that you can adapt. Contact
your local newspapers for word count and other guidelines for submitting an
op-ed article.
- Lobby Visits - Arrange an appointment with the Senators and Congressmembers representing your region. DC based organiziations interested in meeting with key Congressmembers are encouraged to contact Global Justice
for Animals for recommendations on key visits. . Grassroots group can
arrange a meeting with staff in your Congressmember's
district office. If you decide to do this, contact Global Justice for
Animals' Adam Weissman at (201) 928-2831 or email adam@freetradekillsanimals.org
for strategy tips for your lobbying meeting.
- Alliance Building - Increase the effectiveness of
your actions by uniting with other groups opposed to free trade agreements--
labor unions, AIDS activist groups, environmental groups, Latin American
solidarity groups, fair trade groups, anti-hunger groups, progressive churches,
and others. Your elected officials are more likely to be
influenced by a diverse alliance of interest groups representing a wide
array of voters. Contact Global Justice for Animals for advice on finding
allies in your area.
- Protest - If your Senators haven't expressed a
position on the Peru Free Trade Agreement or has expressed support for it, now
is the time for action! Consider street theater, civil disobedience, and
press conferences at your Senators' office in time for next week's Senate vote.
Contact Global Justice for Animals for press materials or street theater ideas
for your protest.
- Shadowing - Keep abreast of your elected officials' public appearances in the
next week. You can subscribe to their email lists by visiting their websites.
Look for announcements of events they will be speaking at in your local
newspapers. Show up at these events with signs and flyers and challenge
them with tough questions.
At this juncture the situation looks bleak with Peru
FTA supporters confident that they have the Congressional votes they need to
pass this agreement. But even if we can't stop the
passage of this agreement, we need to demonstrate strong opposition, because
Congress is currently considering three other destructive trade agreements.
If Congress passes the Peru
agreement by a strong margin, they will likely proceed with the other three,
but if many Congressional democrats vote against the Peru agreement, Congress is far
less likely to proceed with the other three. For the sake of millions of
farmed animals and countless billions of rainforest animals, it's
up to us to up to us to turn the tables on them and stop Congress from
ratifying this terrible trade agreement!
For Animal Liberation,
Adam
Weissman
Organizer
Global Justice for Animals
(347) 436-0458
PO Box 344, NY, NY 10108
Email: info@freetradekillsanimals.org
Web: www.freetradekillsanimals.org
