Democracy for New Mexico

Flood Devastation in Hatch: How We Can Help

Heath Haussamen provides his first hand account of the widespread devastation that struck Hatch, NM as a result of the recent incredibly heavy monsoon rains and flooding. He also provides contact info if you'd like to volunteer or donate money for the clean-up.  Today, Governor Bill Richardson will be asking the federal government to declare the area a disaster zone. Approximately 402 homes have been damaged in the town of about 1,600 and there's mud and water damage everywhere. Let's help our neighbors in Southern NM. Now's the time.

Wake Up WalMart: Two Great ABQ Events This Week

From WakeUpWalMart.com:
Join us for two exciting events in Albuquerque on Wednesday and Thursday of this week as part of the 2006 national "Change Wal-Mart, Change America" bus tour:

On Thursday, August 24, at 7:00 PM, join WakeUpWalMart.com for a special town hall meeting with Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish, Attorney General and Congressional Candidate Patricia Madrid, Attorney General Candidate Gary King, Secretary of State Candidate Mary Herrera and WakeUpWalMart.com. RSVP Here.

On Wednesday, August 23, at 7:00 PM, WakeUpWalMart.com will also host a special film screening and conversation at UNM. Paul Blank (former national Political Director for Howard Dean) and Chris Kofinis (former Senior Advisor for Wes Clark for President) will lead the discussion at both events. We will be showing part of Robert Greenwald's film, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" on campus. RSVP here.

The tour is an exciting and unprecedented national bus tour going to 19 states, 35 cities in 35 days with 1 mission - to change Wal-Mart and change America for the better.

The details of the events are as follows:

What: Film Screening
When: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 at 7:00 PM
Where: UNM - Student Union Building, Ballroom A
Building 60, Suite 3020. in Albuquerque, NM 87131
With: Paul Blank (former national Political Director for Howard Dean) and Chris Kofinis (former Senior Advisor for Wes Clark for President) and WakeUpWalMart.com. RSVP here.

AND

What: Town Hall
When: Thursday, August 24, 2006 at 7:00 PM
Where: ABQ Technical and Vocational Institute, Smith-Brasher Hall
717 University SE in Albuquerque, NM 87106
With: Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish, Attorney General and Congressional Candidate Patricia Madrid, Attorney General Candidate Gary King, Secretary of State Candidate Mary Herrera and WakeUpWalMart.com. RSVP Here.

As you know, the campaign to change Wal-Mart is quickly becoming one of the most important political fights of our time. The Associated Press recently called the fight to change Wal-Mart one of the "hottest, highest stakes political contests in America today."

Now, here's your exclusive chance to learn why Wal-Mart needs to change, how Wal-Mart is using our government against the best interests of the American people, and what you can do to fight for a better America.

Please join us, Democracy for America, MoveOn.org, and Change to Win on the 2006 national Change Wal-Mart, Change America bus tour in Albuquerque.

We want real change in America, but we can't have real change when big corporations like Wal-Mart contribute millions of dollars to right-wing Republicans to take America in the wrong direction. For example, Wal-Mart opposes expanding health care for working families, fought against a living wage, helped ship U.S. jobs overseas and even used its special interest organization to lobby against strengthening port security.

If you want to learn more about why Wal-Mart needs to change and how we are going to take back America from large corporations so we can have health care for all and economic security, then please join us for a community meeting to change Wal-Mart and change America.

Hope to see you there. Bring a friend! Thank you for all that you do,

Paul Blank, WakeUpWalMart.com

Sunday Video Bird Blogging

We decided to try out the capability of our digital camera to make short video clips this morning and took a couple short vids of Sunny the Sun Conure. Definitely an amateur attempt, as we have no idea what we're doing (yet), so bear with us on on the clip quality. You can hear several of our parakeets serenading in the background. And you'll see Sunny do one of his tricks -- rolling over onto his back and using his feet to play with a ball. Because he was captivated by the camera, however, he cut the trick short and rushed over to the lens instead. Ham!

What he really loves is for one of us to scratch his belly while he lies there on his back. He's a pure pleasure hound, feathered version. We had to give him a piece of a cashew when he was done being filmed, one of his favorite treats -- a legume reward!

Saturday Music Hall: Rain!

With the extraordinarily intense monsoon we've been having in almost all parts of New Mexico, I thought the time was right for a little Rain from the Beatles. What's a few more drops when you can hear the first record with backwards music on it?

If you're feeling a bit more moody than that because of the sudden and powerful flooding of streets, arroyos, streams, rivers and homes, try this Patty Griffin song, with a darker take on Rain.

Campaign Kickoff for Conservation Set for 8/23

From Conservation Voters New Mexico:

Politicos, Foodies, and TreeHuggers Unite!
Come join us for the
Campaign Kickoff for Conservation
A fundraiser for Conservation Voters NM Action Fund (PAC) At the Home of Eric Griego and Michelle Rizek
1421 Marble NW Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006  6 - 8 PM  $50 suggested donation, 100% of the proceeds will go directly towards electing pro-conservation candidates

Food and drink generously donated by Slate Street Café, District Bar & Grill, & Rio Grande Brewing Co. Come hear about CVNM’s electoral strategy for electing pro-conservation candidates this November! You’ll also receive a copy of the new CVNM 2006 Legislative Scorecard just hot off the press…

Host Committee: Eric Griego, Michelle Rizek, Councilor Martin Heinrich, Neri Holguin, Mike Puelle, Maggie Toulouse, Allan Oliver, Drew Setter, Erika Anderson, Sara Berger

You can RSVP by making your online donation at then click on the link that says “Donate online to CVNM Action Fund PAC”.  Your online donation serves as your RSVP to our fundraiser.  You can also email rsvp@cvnm.org if you prefer to donate by check.

Together we can turn the balance of power to take us closer to a pro-conservation majority in the NM Legislature & Statewide offices.

www.CVNM.org

Help Democrats Take Back the House

Come Support NM Attorney General Patricia MadridDemocratic Candidate for CongressThursday, August 24, 20065:30 - 7:30 PM
~~~~~~"Rep. Heather Wilson ... faces her most difficult race yet in
[NM] State Attorney General Patricia Madrid"
-Washington Post
"Wilson ... a four term G.O.P Congresswomen, is in a
dead heat with Patricia Madrid"
-Time Magazine
"The district is so competitive that national dynamics
put the Republican at considerable risk"
-Rothenberg Political Report
~~~~~~At the Home of Linda Joyce, Albuquerque*
$50 - $100 - $250
RSVP to Trevor at (505) 242-6000
or Trevor@madridforcongress.com* See flyer (PDF) for Details

Packing Them In: Yesterday's Pelosi-Madrid Rally

www.flickr.com

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared at a packed, raucous, rowdy rally at the IBEW hall in Albuquerque yesterday with NM-01 Congressional candidate Patricia Madrid. They rocked the cheering crowd and skewered Heather Wilson's love affair with the oil companies, bigtime. (Click on photos for larger versions.)

Skyrocketing gas prices? Heather doesn't care. She voted to give oil companies massive tax cuts despite the unprecedented profits they're making off the unnaturally high price of oil.

Global warming? Heather doesn't care. She's against almost everything that would slow down the process.

The urgent need to develop alternative energy sources? Heather doesn't care. She helped Bush run up a humongous deficit caused by everything from unaffordable tax cuts for the wealthy to the incompetence and dishonesty that's on display in the Iraq War. We won't have many resources left to tackle these kinds of problems with the Iraq debacle sucking $250,000 a day out of our coffers.

Bottom line: Heather cares about the same things Bush cares about: heaping more money on our wealthiest citizens and our most unscrupulous corporations while ordinary Americans and the common good suffer.

Here's the lame response from the Wilson campaign to the rally:

"Nancy Pelosi is a liberal with a liberal agenda and she aggressively recruited Patricia Madrid to run so that they can advance their liberal agenda together," said Wilson's campaign manager, Enrique Carlos Knell.

That's right, Enrique. We're Democrats. We're "liberal" because we're dissatisfied with the failures that make up the current status quo of the Bush team (including Heather). After all, "liberal" is defined as:

• Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
• Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Some synonyms for "liberal" include: advanced, avant-garde, big, broad, broad-minded, enlightened, flexible, free, high-minded, humanistic, humanitarian, impartial, interested, magnanimous, rational, reasonable, receptive, reformist, tolerant, unbiased, unbigoted, unconventional, understanding, unorthodox, unprejudiced. Not a bad bunch of adjectives, are they?

Basically, the word "liberal" refers to an open-minded problem solver. And Madrid certainly is that, as evidenced by her long public service career. If you can relate, go help her beat the Heather-Bush-Rove cabal: https://madridforcongress.org/. Help steer our nation in a Democratic New Direction, where open-minded problem solving returns as the defining American M.O.

War vs. Cosmopolitanism

From blog contributor Anne Kass:
Recently I happened onto a lecture given by  Dr. Mary Kalder, a professor at the London School of Economics.  She used terms that I was unfamiliar with --"new" wars, "spectacle" wars, and cosmopolitanism, and other terms in ways new to me, including globalization, nation-state and legitimate killings. I made notes of the lecture which I hope will provoke you to Google Dr. Kalder and cosmopolitanism. I also hope you will agree that her way of framing issues and ideas provides new and useful ways to think and talk about the mess we are in. 

Dr. Kalder noted that WWII ended in a military victory for the U.S., and it spawned an American narrative about America having saved the world. The narrative was enhanced by 50 years of cold (imaginary) war and is now deeply embedded in the American culture. It is a narrative that, of industrialized nations, only America continues to believe.

Globalization -- some worry it means the end of the nation-state/sovereignty and is a danger; others believe it happened because nation-states made conscious policy decisions designed to let corporations take control; others believe it merely means that something is happening to the nation-state -- that the nation-state is changing.

The nation-state, in its first form, was headed by kings who set about to build armies to gain territory. Kings were concerned about building tax structures, eliminating private armies, and creating financial institutions from which to borrow money to pay their armies. Along the way Kings made compacts with their subjects to provide security and other governmental services, generally under threat of revolution. Dr. Kalder noted that one historian said of nation-states, "they are a monopoly on legitimate violence and soldiers are legitimate killers." In any case the nation-state had police and the rule of law and public services on the inside and armies to acquire territory on the outside.

However, war has steadily been losing favor, because of (1) growing destructiveness of weapons and their widespread availability and (2) growing international norms against war -- both formal in the form of the UN and treaties and informal in the form of peace movements. World citizens are ever more opposed to war with human rights as the foundation for their opposition. That is to say, the old view was/is that war is legitimate killing. The new view is that war is a violation of human rights. 

The new view about war is growing but not yet in place, witness Israel and Palestine. Many, many more Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli soldiers than have Israeli civilians been killed by suicide bombers. However, for much of the world, because the Israeli killings are done by soldiers, they are legitimate killings.

New wars are fought not to control territory as were "old" wars such as WWII, but for identity, meaning ethnic, religious, tribal or political oneness. New wars are fought by ethnic cleansing, or genocide, and the violence is directed at civilians. They are fought in failing nation-states and are a process of state un-building. Failing states are those where public services are no longer provided and the tax base has eroded, which damages the legitimacy of the government and gives rise to a criminalization of the economy and law enforcement in the forms of selling illegal items and taxing through hush/safety demands

Spectacle wars are wars fought by the United States and by terrorists. For terrorists, they use a spectacular event to draw the media and to draw people of a like-mind to their cause. For the U.S., spectacle wars are undertaken with spectacular display of military power, against weak states. American spectacle wars are spectacles for Americans but not for the people against whom they're fought.

Spectacle wars help maintain an illusion of a nation-state by creating cohesion through fear and hatred. Spectacle wars are a way to maintain a nation-state without the government having to provide government services to the public as was originally contracted for. Spectacle wars exacerbate the causes for terrorism by encouraging criminalized economies and law enforcement in the weak states and by adding to the polarization by fear, hatred, and general insecurities.

Spectacle wars are difficult to stop because they create groups based on fear and hatred of otherness, and because they create still other groups who make enormous amounts of money from the criminalized economy.

Spectacle war does not maintain security or order as is claimed, but it does provide the political achievement of creating cohesion through fear of external enemies. Terror feeds war and war feeds terror and it all undercuts the rule of law and civil liberties.

Cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitanism refers to a process and philosophy where nation-states strengthen themselves by banding together -- multilateralism. It is what is happening in Europe (perhaps aided by post WWII NATO and similar structures which promoted cooperative efforts).  Under cosmopolitanism, nation-states remain nation-states, but with conditions. One condition is that they agree never to go to war with one another, to only use force to protect or defend and only in multilateral/international efforts. They use force only to contain, never to compel.  A second condition on the nation-state authority is a commitment for a respect for basic human rights of their citizens.

This all requires persuasion, debate and respect for rule of law, not coercion.

Dr. Kalder ended her lecture by saying that before 9/11, international treaties were growing in number. The Bush Administration used 9/11 as an excuse for the U.S. to act unilaterally using the politics of fear, polarization and intimidation. Given that the idea of cosmopolitanism is relatively new and does not yet have deep roots, it remains to be seen whether politics by debate and reason will win the day.

My own thinking is that the recent debacles in the Middle East, although not having made a dent in the thick skulls of the neo-CONS, have captured the attention of much of the world's population.  Whether the neo-CONS will allow or provoke yet another "catalyzing" event similar to 9/11 in furtherance of their apparent desire to continue waging spectacle wars remains to be seen.  We can only hope that the world citizenry will chose to embrace human rights and reject the notion of legitimate killings.

Editor's Note: Anne Kass is now a regular contributor to the DFNM blog.

The Road to Guantanamo to Screen at First Unitarian Church Tonight

From the :
The film The Road to Guantanamo will be shown on Friday, August 18th, at 7:00 PM, at the First Unitarian Church, in the Wesson Room (South building) at Carlisle and Comanche in Albuquerque. No charge and popcorn provided. It is the story of the mistreatment of detainees and the policy of holding suspected terrorists at the detention camp. It is based on the testimony of three British Muslims captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and held at Guantanamo for more than two years. It is not a documentary, rather it relies on interviews of these three men and then faithfully reproduces their version of events and the known facts. The narrative is enacted by nonprofessional actors and mingles the techniques of documentary and fictional filmmaking. Rated R for language and violence.

The Social Justice Council is sponsoring the film to inform and inspire a letter-writing campaign against torture.

Valle Vidal: Urgent Call for Support

From the Coalition for the Valle Vidal:
“The Valle Vidal has become a battleground in the drive to expand energy exploration on public land, attracting the attention of a growing coalition of hunters, anglers, environmentalists, ranchers, homeowners and politicians across the ideological spectrum. Here and elsewhere in the Western United States, this coalition is starting to resist the push for energy exploration in some of the nation's most prized wilderness areas.

Although it remains unclear how successful they will be, these new activists have brought a new dynamic to the public debate over energy development in the West.” --from The Washington Post 8/6/06

The Fund for the Valle Vidal helps defend the Valle Vidal in the courts, in the legislature, in Forest Service policy-making, and works to enable communities to organize effectively to protect the Valle Vidal. We are presently engaged in a “full-court press” media campaign designed to encourage New Mexico’s United States Senator Pete Domenici to sponsor the passage of The Valle Vidal Protection Act in the Senate this September. 

He can make it happen. The future of the Valle Vidal is in his hands.

Please help us with these efforts by contributing online at: www.vallevidal.org.

Urgent call for support
Please call Senator Pete Domenici.
The future of the Valle Vidal is in his hands. Your calls and letters WILL make a difference. Call now. DC 202-224-6621; FAX 202-228-3261. AND write to: Senator Pete Domenici, 328 Hart Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510

We need your help to expand this campaign. Please contribute to: THE FUND FOR THE VALLE VIDAL
WWW.VALLEVIDAL.ORG 

Urgent call for support
Please call Rep. Heather Wilson and ask her to talk to Senator Domenici and let him know how important protecting the Valle Vidal is to you. Call now: DC 202-225-6316; FAX 202-225-4975. AND write to: Representative Heather Wilson, 318 Cannon House Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20515