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Take Action – Progressive Activism

Take Action – Progressive Activism

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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

Take Action: Genocide is news

Take Action: Genocide is news

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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)

Take Action – Protect Health

Take Action – Protect Health

New Air Pollution Rules Threaten Public Health

Take action now

Disregarding and misrepresenting recommendations from their own scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed new air pollution standards that do not sufficiently protect public health. The new rules apply to particulate matter pollution, sources of which include agricultural activity, vehicle exhaust, and emissions from coal-fired power plants. Over 2,000 recent studies have linked particulate matter exposure to heart disease, respiratory ailments, and premature death. The EPA needs to hear from you today. We have until April 17 to urge the EPA to listen to their scientists and create standards that will adequately protect our health and the health of our children.

Take action now

Stop Forced Relocation Black Mesa AZ

Stop Forced Relocation Black Mesa AZ

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Oppose Senate Bill S.1003

Native people’s lives and livelihoods are on the line! Traditional Navajo (known in their language as Dineh) would be forcibly evicted and dispossessed of their homes under this bill. I support the right of these families, who are among the few remaining American Indians who still speak their traditional language and practice their traditional culture, to remain on their lands and strongly oppose Senate Bill 1003.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) “estimates that enacting S. 1003 would have no significant effect on direct spending or revenues.” In fact, the original Navajo Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974 forced 1000s of hardworking self-sustaining families into welfare dependency, despair and early death. This ill-conceived bill may actual force hardworking independent people into welfare dependency on the federal government and increase the cost to US taxpayers.The cost overruns and inadequate financing of the relocation program are not the fault of the Navajo and are entirely due to major miscalculations on the number of affected people and federal governmental incompetence. Adding insult to injury, the lands designated for relocation are contaminated by one of the worst uranium mine accidents in US history.

A Washington Post investigative article has uncovered massive fraud and collusion involving Peabody Coal company and a consortium of 23 Utility companies in the passage of the original relocation law, P.L. 93-531 that led to the forced relocation of over 15,000 Navajo in what experts call one of the “worst involuntary resettlements” worldwide in the modern era. To remove the remaining people based on amendments to this corrupt and fraudulent law is nothing less than environmental ethnic cleansing.

The Navajo tell us that it is no coincidence that the land from which the Navajo are being removed contains over $ 20 billion worth of coal. Jack Abramoff and his associates have been involved in lobbying for companies interested in the Navajo’s land and we support the request of the Navajo families for an investigation into any activities regarding Jack Abramoff and Senate Bill 1003. This bill comes at a time while Peabody Energy is in the process of acquiring a life-of-mine lease in the Black Mesa area even though the Black Mesa Mine is temporarily shut down.

Therefore, we support the Navajo families in opposing Senate Bill 1003 and respectfully request

  • That the Senate remove Senate Bill 1003 from consideration
  • That the Congress pass a resolution opposing forced relocation of Native Americans
  • That Congress help the communities already relocated rather than closing any federal offices that may be able to help them
  • That Congress work directly with affected families and communities to resolve any land issues and listen to them, not just Jack Abramoff or other high paid lobbyists.

More background

Send your letter today!

Hiding Monetary Policy Now?

Hiding Monetary Policy Now?

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It has been standard modus operandi of this administration that when it doesn’t like the facts, it stops the flow of information. Here’s yet another example.

We all know that the government prints money, and regulates the amount it prints to help control some factors of our economy. Whatever your theories or ideas might be about the Federal Reserve, this is public information. We deserve to know.

A number called M3 exposes the full extent of the Federal Reserve money production. M3 currently shows that the money supply is exploding.

So – guess what? They’re going to stop reporting the M3 number starting March 23.

Fortunately, there’s a bill in Congress that would force the Fed to continue publishing M3. Please support this bill!

Click here http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=44 to tell Congress to pass H.R. 4892, the Sunshine in Monetary Policy Act.

Or simply call your Senators and Representative to register your support of this bill. This is one way you really can help.

We have to register the fact that we are aware of these attempts to withhold information from the American people.

Stop AT&T Merger with BellSouth

Stop AT&T Merger with BellSouth

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AT&T and BellSouth plan to merge into a single colossus (it also includes Cingular wireless). The merger is the largest yet among U.S. telecom players. AT&T, already the nation’s largest telecommunications company, will become the largest broadband provider with nearly 10 million subscribers. This deal must be protested and stopped.

It would resurrect the Ma Bell monopoly that was busted up in 1984 with even more drastic results. We are still in the days of partially-connected media systems, but are moving into a convergence of all digital media – television, telephone, internet, etc. No one company can be allowed to take control as the gatekeepers, and no one company can be allowed to set the policies and prices. This deal would leave consumers with fewer choices, higher prices and less control over their communications.

AT&T and BellSouth have a poor track record serving Americans. They have stifled competition, eliminating choices in the marketplace. They have not kept up with global competitors. They have not bridged the “digital divide.” They appear to have little if any interest in protecting network freedoms that keep the Internet an open road for all. This is a bigger issue than many realize.

Both AT&T and BellSouth have publicly discussed pricing plans that undermine the freedoms that keep the internet open to all.

Take action! One easy form sends a message to the Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), your Congressperson, and your Senators. It’s still a democracy, speak your piece.