Browsed by
Tag: rights

Take Action – Progressive Activism

Take Action – Progressive Activism

Comments 0 Comment

Here are some of the progressive actions that you can take today. Please consider each of these carefully, and take action if you agree.

Oppose Attack on Iran
Join Gold Star Families for Peace, CODE PINK, Progressive Democrats of America, Democrats.com, Traprock Peace Center, Global Exchange, Velvet Revolution, Democracy
Rising, Truthout, OpEdNews, Backbone Campaign, Consumers For Peace, Campus Antiwar
Network, and The Young Turks in signing a petition to Bush and Cheney opposing the
launching of a war of aggression against Iran. The petition, with all the signatures and
comments you add, will be delivered to the White House by Cindy Sheehan and many other
activists.
Sign Petition at Don’t Attack Iran

Reports that the Bush administration may be planning a nuclear attack against Iran are alarming. A strong statement of opposition from the American public before that idea becomes credible is important. Please sign the MoveOn message to Congress today: we don’t want a nuclear attack on Iran.

A “preventive military strike” upon Iran is illegal under international law. It threatens to destroy 30 years of efforts toward non-proliferation and disarmament, and could even trigger a global war. It’s time to declare a hot pink alert! We weren’t able to stop the last war, but we must stop the next one…NOW! The United Nations, which is the mandated to uphold international law, must speak out against the Bush Administration’s plans.
Send a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan imploring him to denounce this threat and call for a diplomatic solution.

Corrections: Washington Post
The Washington Post’s editorial page has been printing blatantly false statements about the White House’s Iran-is-buying-uranium hoax and Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s exposure of the fraud.
Read more and ask the Post to correct its statements

Impeachment Investigation Resolution 635
Thirty-four members of Congress have signed onto House Resolution 635 which would create a select committee to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics. This committee would make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.
Ask your Congresspeople to sign on

Reverse the Raid on Student Aid
Tuition rates at four year public schools have skyrocketed by 40% since 2001.1 Today’s typical student borrower is $17,500 in debt after graduating from college. Yet, earlier this year, Congress – in a virtual party line vote forced by the Republican majority – cut $12 billion out of student aid programs – even as interest rates on student and parent loans are being hiked UP this year. Instead of helping to deal with rising costs, the Republican-led Congress is making college more expensive. In response, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) have introduced the Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act of 2006, which would cut interest rates in half for students and parents — a move that would save a typical student $5,600 in interest payments. The Reverse the Raid Act will not move forward if the Republican majority continues to put special interests ahead of students, so please petition House Majority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH) to endorse the Miller-Durbin bill and lead the House to make college affordable.
Call on House Majority Leader John Boehner to immediately lead the House of Representatives to slash the interest rates on college loans in half, and increase student grant aid.

Protest Expansion of Offshore Drilling
For more than two decades, most of America’s splendid coastline has been off-limits to oil and gas drilling. Unfortunately, anti-environment Senators and Representatives have recently introduced a flood of proposals to open our nation’s priceless coastline to oil and gas drilling, benefitting wealthy oil giants like ExxonMobil in the process. Drilling off our coasts is not the answer to America’s energy problems. Destructive offshore drilling would only produce a few months’ worth of fuel that won’t even be available for another seven years. Meanwhile, government data shows that clean energy solutions like fuel efficiency and wind and solar power would cut down on energy usage and lower costs right away. Offshore drilling produces huge amounts of mercury and other toxic pollution that could poison and even kill dolphins, manatees, sea turtles and other marine wildlife. And that’s if everything goes well! The consequences of an accident would be far worse — an oil spill could contaminate Florida’s beaches in as little as 24 hours. The Senate will vote on offshore drilling early this spring.
Please urge your Senators to oppose efforts to open Florida’s gulf coast and others to destructive drilling.

Demand Clean Air
The EPA is accepting public comments on the issue of air quality standards until April 17th. Air quality is not a political issue; it is a most basic human issue. It is critical that Administrator Johnson hear from all of us who care about the quality of the air that we breathe each and every day. The Bush administration needs to hear loud and clear that it’s time to stop catering to corporate polluters and start protecting public health and the environment. Unfortunately, the standards the EPA recently proposed would jeopardize the health and safety of Americans across the country. The science is clear. Particle pollution in the air causes serious health problems, including tens of thousands of premature deaths, increased use of medications, missed school days, emergency room visits, strokes, and heart problems. Millions of Americans are at risk from particle pollution, especially those with asthma and other chronic lung diseases, children, seniors, and those with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The EPA is refusing to propose adequate standards. Despite their mandate, they are caving to some of the nation’s biggest polluters. EPA Administrator Steve Johnson has even ignored recommendations from the EPA’s own staff scientists who agree that the proposed soot limits are too weak to protect public health. Why? See if you can put it together. Johnson recently headlined a fundraiser for a Republican congressional candidate in Denver. Representatives of coal, oil and gas industries paid to have some private time with the head of the agency that affects their businesses.
Please take a moment to insist that the EPA stand up for clean air and a healthy environment instead of bowing to pressure from polluting industries.
Send your comments through the American Lung Assocation campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists, or the
League of Conservation Voters
. Deadline April 17th! Sign today.

Junk Mail Opt-Out
Urge your members of Congress to support the petitions and support citizens’ rights to easily opt-out of wasteful ad mail targeted into our private homes. The production and disposal of unsolicited mail wastes trees, pollutes our water, and consumes more energy than 2.8 million cars at a time when energy security is more important than ever. Worst of all, it forces citizens and local governments spend more than $370 million per year to collect and dispose of unsolicited waste and it violates the privacy of our homes. Three years ago, the Do Not Call registry rightfully returned control over one aspect of citizen’s privacy. A Do Not Junk registry is needed to restore another. As the Supreme Court ruled in Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Dept., there should be no distinction between unwanted ad mail, marketing call, door-to-door sales, or any other form of commercialism targeted into our private homes.
Take action

Casualness and Swagger

Casualness and Swagger

Comments 0 Comment

“What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department.

My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions–or bury the results.

Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon’s military leaders is quite another. Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military’s effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were simply intimidated, while still others must have believed that the principle of obedience does not allow for respectful dissent. The consequence of the military’s quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort.”

– Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, former director of operations at the Pentagon’s military joint staff, writing in Time magazine.

Newbold resigned four months before the invasion of Iraq, but has now gone public with his criticism of the war.

Thanks to Sojourners – faith, politics, culture

Liar Liar – What more proof?

Liar Liar – What more proof?

Comments 16 comments

Yesterday I wrote a very long and detailed post on the Plame leak situation. It had quotations and it had links. It had the whole history, the timeline, and it had several compelling points. Just as I was about to publish it, a site in another window crashed my browser. Bummer. I have really got to start writing these things offline. I’m just too disheartened to reconstruct the whole blasted thing. Since you can easily look up everything to do with it, I’ll just contribute my own thoughts to the public conversation.

I believe that Plame was outed intentionally, which is a felony crime if not outright treason. Either Cheney or Bush authorized it. I actually suspect that it was Cheney (with Rove?), and that the official story is a backdated version for coverup purposes. The outing of Plame was meant to punish Plame’s husband (Wilson) for stating the truth – and it was also a message to the intelligence community that they had better give them the “intelligence” that is wanted, rather than assessing reality.

Although people within the administration knew that Bush’s claims weren’t true – and there were efforts to remove them (including by Tenet), these claims kept getting re-added to Bush’s State of the Union speech, which was delivered. It was just one of the ways in which Americans were manipulated – playing on their fears to drum up support for our illegal and unethical invasion of Iraq. This has proven to be a disaster, and all of the people who were demonized for speaking their minds at the time have been proven correct. We took over in Iraq for reasons that will become abundantly clear in future, if they aren’t clear enough to you already (hint – permanent bases on the oil pipeline, Cheney’s secret energy meetings, Enron, Halliburton, record oil profits, corruption, fraud…).

Neither American lives nor Iraqi lives (remember, we’re “rescuing” them?) matter enough to this administration for them even to answer the basic question of what cause our soldiers are fighting for. Modus operandi: when in doubt, change the subject – when in doubt, use doublespeak – when in doubt, use your media assets or run commericals as news – when in doubt, change the “reason” we’re there – when in doubt, hide everything. If they had nothing to hide, we’d be getting a lot more information instead of being under surveillance ourselves.

To claim that “declassifying” Plame and leaking her CIA status to their kiss-butt reporter friends (remember, it wasn’t a White House press release) was in the interests of national security is an outright lie.

Tell me – how does disrupting a valuable source of intelligence, undoubtedly along with others who could be tied to her, help our national security? Isn’t it obvious that it is actually a serious breach of our national security? I wonder how many people died as a direct result, and how much real intelligence has been squandered. It is a felony for good reason.

When he was asked about this leak, he stood up and said he’d get to the bottom of it, that whoever was responsible would be fired. Fire Cheney and yourself, Mr. President. Resign. If there wasn’t anything wrong with what your administration did, you would have explained yourself at the time, not years later when Libby was in court.

Oh wait, we still haven’t really gotten an explanation from the mouth of the king. His sycophant messengers have just given us some spin, that’s all.

Whatever voting machines haven’t been hijacked yet will tell you our judgment – if that matters anymore. We’ve seen what the interests of the American people mean to you – that is, nothing at all.

Take a good look around. Our land and water are being polluted. Corporate interests are all but writing our laws. Our system isn’t functioning – ask people from New Orleans, ask people who have to face new interest rates, ask people who are working part-time in more than one job, ask people trying to navigate Medicare and Medicaid, ask the children who are left behind or who graduate from our schools with a substandard education. Many people who believe they are religious have been hookwinked into following false prophets who would like to see this country turned from the land of the free into a pseudo-christian theocracy – money-grubbers of hate and corruption are even attempting to start ’em young with home schooling and bible classes in the public schools. People openly assert claims of empire and world domination. Now you’re deliberating whether we might use nukes on Iran? So what, we’re worse than Hussein now? Wasn’t that the ultimate no-no? Oh, and didn’t you just make a deal on that very topic? What was that all about?

I’m watching to see what happens in November. We know about the election fraud, the hidden programming in the voting machines. We know that even now Diebold technicians are making the rounds. With popularity in the 30-40 percent range, it would be very strange if the Republicans retained control of both houses, wouldn’t it?

So what’s on the menu? Planning to blow up a few more towers? Maybe a Bin Laden sighting in Chicago? A nuclear meltdown in Florida? A small dirty bomb in some suburban neighborhood?

Contact your congresspeople – it’s time for them to show some spine. We still – so far – have only the soft version of fascism. There is still a chance to use our democratic system the way it was intended.

Wherever you are, do whatever you can – while you still can.

How can anyone still support this President, this Vice-President, these cronies of theirs? What more proof do you need?

Vote. Vote. Vote.

Take Action: Genocide is news

Take Action: Genocide is news

Comments 1 comment

Genocide is news

Genocide is the ultimate crime against humanity. And a government-backed genocide is unfolding in the Darfur region of the Sudan. As the horror in Darfur continues, our major television news networks are largely missing in action.

…

The vast majority of Americans continue to rely on broadcast and cable television as their primary source of information. No other source of information, including newspapers, radio and the internet, comes close to the power of television. For many of us, if an event is not reported on television, it does not happen.

Whether it is coverage of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s, or recent coverage of the tsunami, television news can help stop grave injustices and end human suffering. Increased television coverage of the genocide in Darfur has the power to spur the action required to stop a devastating crime against humanity. Increased coverage will raise public awareness and put pressure on our government to help accelerate the deployment of the African Union forces to the region, to apply coordinated international pressure on the Sudanese government, to insure that the guilty are held accountable, and to build a lasting settlement for peace. In short, increased television coverage of the genocide in Darfur has the power to help save thousands of lives.

Television reporters often complain about not having enough time to cover important events around the world. What recent coverage shows, however, is that this precious time is being devoted to matters of far less consequence than the massive loss of life in Darfur.

Call on television networks to be a witness to genocide in Darfur and to cover the real news of our world.

(thanks for sending, Elainna)

No Tax Money for GA Public School Bible Classes

No Tax Money for GA Public School Bible Classes

Comments 0 Comment

The Georgia State Senate has passed two pieces of legislation that pose a serious threat to the separation of church and state.

One would create state-funded Bible classes in Georgia public schools.
The second would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed by county governments.

Both bills are on Governor Sonny Perdue’s desk, and he is contemplating whether to sign them.

Take action now and demand that Governor Perdue defend the Constitution and Georgia’s citizens from these attacks on the separation of church and state.

If these were really christians, they would want to post something that better represented Jesus’ teaching. The focus on the ten commandments is symptomatic of their seeming inability to understand love, forgiveness and grace. Neither do they take into account hundreds of years of Jewish and Christian scholarship and debate on issues of interpretation, translation, or socio-historical context. Their “take” on christianity is a perversion of their own religion. Their absolutist views of human beings show little evidence of any of the spiritual virtues. Think I’m overstating? Try Googling “Christian Reconstruction” or “theonomy” – they want a theocracy here, complete with the total control of women, even stoning!

From the Forerunner – I’m not linking to this site – Google a phrase:

We are not looking for a “voice a the table” nor are we seeking “equal time” with the godless promoters of pornography, abortion, safe-sodomy subsidies, socialism, etc. We want them silenced and punished according to God’s Law-Word.

They use God as a tool. Jesus would think they were jerks. This is about votes! This is about scapegoating and turning us against one another so that we don’t notice that we’re all getting robbed. I mean literally robbed – of our traditions, our ideals, our treasury, our natural resources, our futures.

From Apologetics Index:

Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of Biblical ”warfare” is the centrality of capital punishment under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen) call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, ”sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, ”unchastity before marriage.”

I can’t believe this. Really. I’m shaking my head. So now they want to get ’em while they’re young – and use our own tax dollars to do it! Already they have uniforms. What next, a special salute?

The separation of church and state protects religious rights, the freedom of religious expression. There should be no state sponsorship of a specific religious tradition. Religious training of minors is the right and responsibility of families and their own religious tradition.

There is no proposal here to teach a wide range of religious texts or religious themes across the world’s traditions. The cuts to more fundamental educational areas serve only to highlight the political motivation of these bills.

Bible classes for minors are an unconstitutional use of funds. At the college level, courses related to religion, such as comparative religion and mythology, spiritual autobiography, Bible as literature, and the like are appropriate as elective courses at state universities. I have been trained in theology and ethics at a state university, and taken courses in religion at the undergraduate level at another. But courses and departments of religion have a different set of approaches than the ones we can expect to see from public school teachers. They started with home schooling, now this. Questions of belief will enter the classroom, and we will see a newly indocrinated “Christian Youth” if they get their way. Wake up, sheeple.

No – you can’t use our tax dollars to indoctrinate our children. No – you can’t fool us, we know what this is all about, and we’re not all as ignorant as you seem to think. Add these totalitarian “religious” power freaks to the neo-cons of empire and the puppets of corporate interests, and you see the unholy trinity that is killing this country and all it stands for! Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, take heed!

Stop the pseudo-religious right from pushing their dubious “theology” in our public schools and our public square.