The election isn't rigged. :)

This sponsors list would include family members of those who perished along with experts from various fields. Any petition should also include any polling data indicating public questions, concerns or doubts regarding the 9/11 event, its aftermath and related investigations.

The goals and scope of an investigation should also be defined.

http://www.actofstate.org

(Someone please tell Obama not to stay at a motel with a second floor balcony)

Sounds like we need someone with the experience who's succeeded in putting something like this on a ballot before. Knows the process, steps, etc. The people in Vermont succeeded in getting it on their ballot? Maybe in New York the procedure isn't too different. If we can't find people in New York with experience getting things on ballots, we need to find people willing to put in the time to study the process and go through the steps, overcome the obstacles, have determination etc.

www.911Truth.org figured out how to do a national poll and financed it. Maybe they'd be willing to help in this effort as well.

I don't know much of anything about grassroots efforts, so I would first of all point out the obvious, viz., groups that do grass roots activism, and are sympathetic to 911 truth, are good people to talk to. I suppose "We Are Change" are the first ones to talk to. Also, it turns out that Democracy for America is running their weekend class in running for office this very weekend in New Jersey. See http://www.democracyforamerica.com/training. From their website:

"Since its founding in 2004, the DFA Training Academy's mission has been to focus, network, and train grassroots activists in the skills and strategies to take back our country. Democracy for America's unofficial motto has always been "You have the power." The DFA Training Academy empowers ordinary Americans to manage successful campaigns and run for office themselves. Every weekend in cities across America, the DFA Training Academy is building a grassroots infrastructure of skilled progressive activists in all 50 states."

Maybe at least the Jersey girls could attend, and report back to us what tips they pick up in terms of making the ballot initiative happen?

I feel compelled to remind (or maybe nag) everybody that single issue activism - even if that issue is 911 - is very limited because activists don't make laws, nor do they appoint special prosecutors, nor do they conduct special investigations with subpoena power. At the federal level, those things are done by elected officials, in particular Congress and the Executive branch. Ultimately, all activists, regardless of what issue is near and dear to their heart, need to address the issue of how to get decent people elected to office, who you don't need to BEG to do the right thing. In my opinion, probably 90% + of Congress is easily guilty of having violated their oaths of office, in that they were OBLIGATED to have impeached Cheney and Bush, or at least try to, but have failed to do so. It's no wonder that they don't touch 911 with a 10 foot pole - they've betrayed the public trust in many other areas, also.

Furthermore, even if some 911 traitors are thrown in jail, what is to prevent another 911 from happening the very next day? There is systemic corruption in the US government, probably not much worse than any empire which came before us (read Noam Chomsky, e.g., on our similarities), and even a grand exposure of 10 or 20 traitors will likely not change the fundamental nature of the government.

But perhaps I digress too far. I consider the ballot initiative a very worthy cause, and don't want to discourage 911 activists as much as I want them to think deeper and more seriously about government reform.

And since I don't want to discourage 911 activists, especially if they're not psychologically prepared to adress the larger issue of SYSTEMIC corruption, let's consider further what '911-only' activists can do.

One essential ingredient that you need to do all kinds of good deeds in this world is MONEY. There are probably easily 100 million Americans who believe in at least LIHOP, one can just imagine the number of individuals across the globe who also believe this way. Why, oh why, in this day and age of the internet and paypal, can't we get 100 million people to chip in $1 per month or, say, $10 per year, to fund 911 research and activism? To put this in perspective, the NIST report cost $20 million. 100 million people dipping into their pockets and pulling out 1 measely dollar would fund 5 NIST reports, per month! And they wouldn't have to even think about it. Once they sign up, the money is deducted from their personal accounts automatically.

More to the point, I suppose, is why is nobody trying to first create such an organization and functionality, and then sign people up for such a program? Not everybody is in a position to pass out CD's or confront elected officials, e.g., or maybe they're just not inclined to do so. But there's VERY, VERY few people who can't afford $10 / year.

Part of the problem is that there just hasn't been a critical mass of mindshare (for lack of a better phrase) within the public consciousness for this sort of thing in general. Well, glory be, NOW THERE IS AT LEAST A 'ROLE MODEL', IN POLITICS. Thanks to Howard Dean 4 years ago, and principally Ron Paul and Barack Obama this year, we have seen how 'crowd funding' has finally come of age in politics. I'm not sure what the best place is to begin studying this, but dailykos.com is a good place to start. dailykos.com is not just about polls and candidates, it's also about ASKING PEOPLE TO CHIP IN TO FUND CANDIDATES.

So, to you and any other 911 activists out there, if you want 911 activism to be self sustaining, you need to study the application of crowd funding in politics, and apply the lessons. Somehow or other, you need to set up a legal organization that can take donations, and bill people's credit cards at $1/month, $5/quarter, $10/year, whatever. And you further need to allow them some latitude in how that money is used. Of course, you need a web site, also. Maybe 911blogger, itself, could be the sort of portal web site that the activist/financial organization mostly "lives" on, but a distinct, dedicated web site exists mostly to conduct business - explaining the concepts, presenting the projects, registration, functionality for directing funds, etc. In a sense, 911blogger.com could become the dailykos.com of 911 activism.

I will refer to the new, activist/financial organization that I call for, just for ease of communication, as 911kos, and it's website as 911kos.com. (No, those are NOT good names, but they'll do for the purpose of this post, especially since they'll remind people of the dailykos.com angle.)

If you can throw this together quickly enough, you could start the ball rolling with appeals for people to sign up and dedicate the lion's share of their first year's donation to the ballot initiative. As the Jersey girls have had national exposure, and most people still remember them, if they could make a brief video explaining A) what 911kos is all about and why it's necessary B) how crowd-funding has revolutionized politics C) what the ballot initiative is and D) asking people to contribute at least $10/year on a recurring basis, with an extra 1 time donation if they can afford it for a 'ballot initiative money bomb' , then I think this could go viral and be extremely successful.

I don't have a head for business, but the initial appeal for funds might have a suggested (and default) funding division amongst 3 911 projects that I can think of off the top of my head, that I consider important, viz.,

Project 1 - Ballot Initative (mostly to pay workers to collect signatures, I suppose), $5.00
Project 2 - Laboratory work on WTC dust sample, $2.00 (Professor Stephen Jones has mentioned that some of the research would go more quickly if some of the people working on this had funding.)
Project 3 - Verification of claims made by Daniel Hopsicker re associates of Mohammed Atta, $2.00

(The extra dollar would go for overhead, such as web hosting fees.)

I'm sure the founders of such a program can think of additional worthy projects, but you want to keep it simple in terms of an initial appeal, and having a simple set of default values.

I've long been fascinated by just how ineffective activists of many stripes are - 911 activists really aren't that different, in this regard. (If we judge the success of 911 activism by how many members of Congress are willing to admit that, as Max Cleland told us, the 911 commission report was a "whitewash", and furthermore that we need a re-investigation, we can only honestly conclude that the 911 movement has, so far, failed.) The meager results of activists, in general, is not simply by (repeated) accident, it also has to do with deliberate actions taken to sabotage the activists' efforts. I don't know a whole lot about this subject, but I know that you can read Chomsky, in various books of his on the subject of propaganda and "control of the public mind", to start grokking it from some perspectives.

Chomsky often remarks about the disempowerment that results from the sense of feeling isolated - even when polls shows that, on a given issue, your attitude can be the majority one! One thing that crowd-funding, and cyberspace 'gathering places' like dailykos accomplish is that people realize that a) they are not alone and b) by combing their efforts, however humble individually, they can have a HUGE effect

I think the least we can do for our country, for the memory of those Americans who died on 911, and for memory of the 100's of thousands of Iraqis who have died, directly or indirectly, in a war fraudulently justified by 911, is to get a 911kos and 911kos.com going.

If we do so, I think we'll find that not only we Americans who suspect the worst regarding 911 aren't alone, but millions of our brothers and sisters throughout the world will join us.

But first, we need to get organized. Correct?

http://www.pdamerica.org
http://www.change-congress.org

"We, of the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative Campaign, have initiated a petition drive in order to secure the required number of signatures of registered voters necessary to get the referendum on the November 2008 New York City ballot. We have until June 4, 2008 to do so."
http://www.nyc911initiative.org/mission_statement.htm

"The procedure for any one proposed statute is simple. A total of 30,000 Petitions must be signed by NYC registered voters (and verified at the bottom of each Petition by another NYC registered voter). After these signatures are obtained, the Petition is submitted to the NYC City Council, which has 60 days to accept (i.e., approve the proposed statute) or reject the proposed statute. If the proposed statute is rejected, then the persons behind the proposed statute have to gather an additional 15,000 signatures within a 60-day period, and if this is accomplished the Petition should be placed on the ballot during the following general election for a Yes or No vote by NYC registered voters. If a majority of the persons voting on the Petition approve the Petition, it becomes a NYC statute."
http://www.lawmall.com/nycballotinitiatives.php

"7. The Commission shall have a budget not to exceed $10,000,000 per year [for five years] for the conduct of its investigation and related activities. Financing shall be entirely drawn from private contributions. No public funds shall be requested or accepted...The work of the Commission will commence upon the expected realization of the full funds specified in our anticipated budget."
From the petition: http://www.nyc911initiative.org/PetitionFinal-01.pdf

Summary:

Before the work of the commission can commence it must have reason to think it is going to acquire the total sum of an unprecedented budget. Before the commission can exist, the voters must pass the initiative. And before the voters have that option 30,000 signatures will have to be collected before June 4th and then possibly an additional 15,000 in as little as two more months.

Commentary:

I share this information not to suggest that this concept is impractical, but to point out that this particular attempt may not be able to succeed. That is my belief based on many factors in addition to those presented here.

However, it might be possible to acquire the signatures. I think a key piece of information we would need in order to determine this is how many signatures have been collected, and roughly how many of them people are acquiring per hour. With this information we might be able to estimate the number of people and work hours needed to succeed.

***

So that's me approaching this with a bit of practical rigor. Essential facts and critical questions. Lofty hopes and cheerleading do have their time and place. But this plan could very well take up a great deal of time and energy and so I think it very important to bring a pragmatic view to how we proceed.