thisfinecrew | Phone Scripts for Calling Your Representative

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rydra_wong

I'm incredibly sorry, but it looks like you need to make phone calls

This is not a drill:

The Guardian: Appointment of 'white nationalist' Steve Bannon must be reversed, critics declare

Mother Jones: Here's Why It's Fair—and Necessary—to Call Trump's Chief Strategist a White Nationalist Champion

Yeah, look, if you proclaim yourself as providing the platform for the alt-right and also publish an article which helpfully explains that an integral part of alt-right belief is opposition to "full integration" of racial groups (and cites as a guru of the alt-right someone who explicitly advocates an all-white United States): you're a white nationalist.

If, you know, the screaming racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism of the shit he publishes wasn't enough to make that clear.

I'm incredibly sorry, but it looks like you need to make phone calls.

This link explains why you have to phone to have an impact on your Congresspeople.

Info on requesting a call-back.

Yes, I know this is unfair and sucks massively for those of us who are text-based and socially anxious and/or autistic and I once spent an entire day doing nothing except panicking and procrastinating to put off making a phone call to strangers, I KNOW, I KNOW, I'M REALLY SORRY.

But letters make a bit of impact, form e-mails and petitions more or less none, YOU HAVE TO PHONE.

Especially if your Congresspeople are Republicans. This kind of shit is not going to get stopped unless they're willing to stand up to Trump. At least a few of the Republicans hate Bannon (because he was bashing them relentlessly), so it's theoretically possible that they might kick up a fuss. And even if they can't block this, it seems vital to establish it as a point where people will start to stand up and say OH HELL NO.

http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/
http://www.house.gov/representatives/

Via into_the_weeds: PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS -- includes a post from someone who called their senator about Bannon

Stop Steve Bannon’s Appointment As Trump’s Top Advisor -- includes a phone script

ETA: Call your congressperson. Here’s a script. -- more scripts (I do not have the best history with matociquala, ahahahaha, but fuck it, take what you can use where you can get it)

ETA2: kore provides an awesome short script and guidelines right here in the comments -- THIS IS GOLD, check it out.

Maybe people can help suggest more scripts?

ETA3: if you have time/spoons for a bit of online research on your representatives, colorblue has a sample script for how you could use that.

ETA4: More scripts.

(Note: you don't have to sound super-cool or smooth or not like an autistic robot who is reading from a piece of paper you have in front of you. You will be talking to a staffer. Your job is to make them write down "we had a call about this from someone who was very concerned and was not actually speaking in word salad, threatening violence or using obscene language.")

If you absolutely can't phone under any circumstances, or only at the cost of damage that you can't take right now, then you can't phone, I get that, I do understand. We can't do what we can't do (and if so, please send a letter instead). But please, if you possibly can, I think you need to.

(And. This won't be the first time, so -- if this is something that gets any easier with practice for you -- at least this is practice.)

I apologize for the fact that I'm asking people to do something that I am not doing myself (because of being a UK citizen), but I will do anything I can to provide moral support and hand-hold and cheer. I will offer rewards in the form of pre-Code movie posts or anything else I can think of. Also I will totally take suggestions for anyone I can phone.

This is the most soothing, comforting 30-second cat video I have ever seen. Watch it if you need to calm your nerves beforehand or reward

Good discussion in the comments of her post as well. If you need encouragement to call, report back in either her post or here that you did it.

If you have representatives who have already issued a statement against Bannon, you can still get in touch to let them know you support that decision. Positive reinforcement is good too.

Additional Phone Script resources

via

tanaqui

A set of phone scripts for various topics is being crowdsourced at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oGLMkmRafvXdl-cg7utkzJGOB97Uzx0X6ng7Bdoxb18/edit#gid=1259124176

At the moment, it looks like there's only one script, for the Bannon appontment, but hopefully more will be added soon. (I'm sure they'd be happy for anyone here to contribute!)

The spreadsheet also has a tab with a useful list of news sources divided according to reliability/political bias.

MetaFilter roundup article about how to contact your representatives by the former staffer whose tweets went viral.

Strategy for Calling Your Representatives

Phone Scripts for Calling Your Representative

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