This Just In from BTHN

Hello Carol (and Greg, as well, as he also emailed us this morning),
Thank you so much for raising awareness about our Support the Troops, Bring Them Home Now postage stamp.� Regrettably, the suppliers of these stamps have refused to continue printing them after their initial production runs.� We've been through two suppliers, and both printed the stamps initially, only to inform us soon afterwards that the stamps violated the "no overt political nature" clause of the USPS guidelines regarding custom stamps.� As these suppliers did not want to risk losing their authorization to print legal postage, they simply told us they could no longer supply us with new stamps.� �Other printers we've approached have refused to print them at all, citing the same USPS guidelines.
We negotiated with them and other vendors for a few months to no avail.� �Our coalition of groups has debated what action to take over these matters for some time, but no clear plan of action presents itself.� Complicating matters is the fact that the USPS hasn't officially come out against our specific stamps, which would naturally incite a vigorous fight against blatant censorship by a government agency.� To date though, there has been no evidence presented that USPS officials have pressured or ordered our suppliers to discontinue printing our stamps.� Is it likely, of course, especially following all the media attention our campaign earned last year during and after our kick off concert with Cindy Sheehan and others and the ensuing outreach encouraging Americans to mail in their tax returns using the Bring Them Home Now stamp.� But without evidence of�such serious accusations,�we can take no action.� Also working against us is the simple fact that these are private companies acting in accordance with transparent USPS and/or company guidelines, we cannot demand that they print our stamps.� You can see the conundrum.� For your reference, I've attached a fax of the USPS guidelines that were cited when further printing was refused.
That is all we know for now.� If anything further develops we will be sure to let you know.� In the meantime, the unique and iconic "Support the Troops: Bring Them Home Now" symbol of the yellow ribbon overlaid with the peace symbol, is still a powerful meme and we urge your visitors to buy our t-shirts, stickers and buttons emblazoned with this image at�http://bringthemhomenow.com/article.php?id=60, as proceeds continue to support the four anti-war groups fighting for change:�Military Families Speak Out (http://mfso.org/), Gold Star Families for Peace (http://mfso.org), Iraq Veterans Against the War, (http://www.veteransforpeace.org) and Veterans for Peace (http://veteransforpeace.org/).
Thanks so much for your interest.� Keep up the good fight.�
Greg Laden - A Call for Peace is a Partisan Political Act takes an in depth look at this issue.

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