Democracy for New Mexico

ACTION ALERT: Darfur Genocide and the ICC

Forwarded by Roger and Mary Schense to follow up on their announcement about this at last night's ABQ DFA-DFNM Meetup:

Subject: URGENT: DARFUR - Send Letters to Washington Demanding Security Council Refer Darfur to International Criminal Court

The Security Council may act on a referral of Darfur (Sudan) to the International Criminal Court (ICC) early next week. Please send by Monday ­ and urge everyone you can reach to send - messages to the President, Secretary of State and your congressperson and senators strongly supporting this referral. Feel free to forward this message to anyone.

Background: A special commission requested by the Security Council reported to it on Tuesday, February 1. The report said that gross criminal atrocities have been and are happening in Darfur and strongly recommended that the Council refer Darfur to the International Criminal Court for prosecution of those responsible. The commission has given the UN Secretary-General a sealed list of persons who should be prosecuted. The Secretary-General will give this list to the Council once it has decided if and when these accused should be prosecuted.

The United States is actively hostile to the ICC. It opposes the referral and may well veto it. However, support for the referral in the Council is strong. Eleven of its 15 members of the Council have signed or ratified the Court¹s Rome Statute. The United States may well be alone in its veto, while other members support or abstain on a referral resolution.

The United States is proposing another improvised tribunal to be attached to the existing one for Rwanda. The commission report opposes such a temporary court. It says that while the ICC is ready to act and has funds and staff in place, it could take a year to start up an improvised tribunal which even then would be less credible and efficient than the ICC.

There must be immediate maximum public pressure on the administration to at least abstain on a Security Council resolution referring the Darfur atrocities to the ICC.

Sending Messages: We offer two options:

1) AMICC member Citizens for Global Solutions has an excellent web page where you can click on automatic transmission of e-mails to your senator and congresspersons and a fax to the Secretary of State: The website provides a standard message which you can customize and also lets you write your own.

2)  Send the standard message provided below or your own directly to the President, the Secretary of State and your congressperson and senators. The email addresses of the legislators are on their web sites.

Standard message: The International Criminal Court is the fastest and most effective way to act against the Darfur atrocity criminals. A new tribunal will take too long to start ­ while the killings continue. The United Nations Security Council must refer Darfur to the International Criminal Court immediately.

Sincerely,
Your name
Your address

Addresses
President Bush
Fax: 202-456-2461
Email: president@whitehouse.gov

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Fax: 202-647-2282
(She has no public email).

Thank you very much for these actions which are vital for Darfur and essential to the cause of the ICC in our country.

Sincerely,
John Washburn, Convener
Wasana Punyasena, Deputy Convener
AMICC
----------------------------------------
Wasana Punyasena
Deputy Convener
American NGO Coalition for the ICC
United Nations Association for the USA
801 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017
212-907-1374
wpunyasena@unausa.org
www.amicc.org

Ownership Society?

An Open Letter to the President from Progressive Democrats of America:

Dear Mr. President:

Tonight, I took great comfort from the fact that you did not describe Social Security as “a grave and gathering danger.” True, your promise that privatization will allow Social Security accounts to “grow at a faster rate” than the current Trust Fund was faith-based but I am so happy that the Frantz Luntz (I presume) focus groups have convinced you to drop the words “crisis” and “privatization” in favor of “problem” and “personal retirement accounts.”

And I am also thrilled that you are dipping into your reserves of political capital because some say your reserves of credibility seem to have dried up. Yes, I have heard with shocked admiration the familiar echo that the French, Germans, the U.N. and, damnit, even Bill Clinton agreed with you about the WMDs. Frankly, I think it is admirable when an individual doesn’t allow one lie to stop a cover-up lie. Your single-minded or should I say “single-celled” ability never to take responsibility for mistakes sets you apart from run-of-the-mill politicians. You have been apotheosized and ascended to the Pantheon of Richard Nixon and Warren Harding.

I must also admit that I love it when you talk like a Populist and not like a member of the ownership class. “Freedom” is a great word and it sounded great in the Inaugural and “ownership” also sounds just super.

However, if you don’t mind a suggestion. There are naysayers out there who question your real dedication to promoting an ownership society. Strange but true. Apparently, they come from the small number that did not help you attain your overwhelming mandate. Not to nitpick, but some of those 59+ million complain and whine that:

1) The minimum wage of $5.15 has remained frozen since 1997. If, by the way, the minimum wage kept up with CEO salaries since just 1993, they say it would now be $15.71 an hour. Where they get the nerve to compare peasants to kings just floors me.

2) They quote America’s greatest investor,Warren Buffett, as saying: “If there is class warfare in this country, my class has won.” Evidently, he was pointing to the fact that he will pay a smaller share of his income in taxes than his secretary if the tax cuts become permanent. And she is not worth $43 billion. The reality is that if the tax cuts are made permanent he would be paying about 17.8% while his secretary’s rate would be paying about 18%. The people saying this obviously want to penalize those who create the jobs. The rich lead frantic lives trying at every moment to make others rich. Such labors should not go unrewarded. Why punish the rich?

3) The $11.6 trillion price tag of keeping the tax cuts permanent dwarfs the Congressional Budget Office’s forecast of the Social Security shortfall of $2 billion and $3.7 billion by the Social Security Administration. They say that just cutting the permanent tax cuts for those in the top bracket who earn, on average, $1.2 million a year would plug the shortfall. In fact, they insist that just raising the salary cap on wages that must pay Social Security from $90,000 to $110,000 would solve the problem as the CBO sees it. Clearly, these “soak the rich” liberals just don’t get it.

4) The top 13,400 households in the U.S. have the same yearly income as the bottom 96 million. This figure is taken from David Cay Johnston’s book: “Perfectly Legal.” But then again he is a New York Times writer! His book and “Wealth and Democracy” by Kevin Phillips seem to indicate that our ownership society is one in which fewer and fewer people own more and more. And I say, “Why shouldn’t they? They’re smarter, work harder and MAKE JOBS for the great unwashed who, clearly, are not as grateful as they should be.

5) The top 1% of Americans have the same wealth as the bottom 95% and the top 15% of Americans own virtually all financial assets. God, when will these people put down the weapons of class warfare. How uncivilized!

6) Over the last 50 years corporate taxes as a percentage of federal tax receipts have fallen from 34% to 7% while taxes on workers as a percentage have increased. And they think this is wrong!

7) The average salary of American workers have increased only about a nickel an hour for the last two decades and during what the administration calls a “recovery” have increased more slowly than in any modern economic recovery. Americans who want real raises should do real work. Enough said.

8) Lastly, some people say that Health Care is in a crisis in this country because so many have little or no coverage and rates are skyrocketing for others. Read my lips. People with jobs get health care; those without don’t deserve it. And these liberals say they believe in Darwin. Funny, they don’t seem to want to live it.

Of course, I say to hell with all of them. If God wanted everyone to be wealthy he would make rich women far more fertile. I think with help from Frank and other spinmeisters we can keep the minds of young workers focused on how we should divvy up their meager Social Security contributions – not on their overall deteriorating financial health. We certainly don’t want them to think of how much more of the tax burden they bear than they should or how their wages are stagnant and savings nonexistent. Let’s keep them focused on how they can give up their life, disability and old age insurance in exchange for a random walk down Wall Street.

Young people love roller coasters. It’s a fact. I also know from watching the X-treme Games that young people love walking a tightrope without a net and we are going to provide them that opportunity.

A couple of last suggestions. A lot of people grouse about the “Transition costs” of perhaps $16 trillion and the fact that the Social Security forecasts on the economy are inconsistent with the necessary robust growth of stocks that privateers tout. Ignore them. Yes, price –earning multiples of 100 may seem excessive but I intend to sell when they reach 99. If Ari and Scott have taught me anything it’s that after you refuse to answer a question several times, the press will accommodate you and stop asking it.

Another suggestion: Do not let the Social Security actuaries or those of the Congressional Budget Office testify in front of Congress. Actuaries typically don’t understand politics. Some say that actuaries are accountants without the charisma but that is just not true. I have met numerous actuaries who have looked at my shoes rather than their own! But they are dangerous because they just say stuff without thinking of how it will sell to the American public.

Perhaps you could have former CMS head, Tom Scully, return to the government. Now, that’s a man who knows how to handle actuaries! When the chief Medicare actuary, Richard Foster, determined that the actual cost of the Medicare Drug Bill was 25 to 50% higher than the public statements, Scully knew just what to do. He told the upstart to keep the information to himself or he would kill him. Actually, he didn’t have the guts to say that but he should have. He was a voice of moderation. He only said he would fire him if he gave the information to those evil Democrats. Mission Accomplished.

The Drug Bill passed, the Drug companies got their $140 billion in guaranteed profits and Medicare was put on the chopping block. What’s not to admire?

Lastly, while it is not their area, I think Condi Rice and Alberto Gonzales could help. Americans were awestruck when they didn’t answer whether drowning another human is torture. With their help we can define poverty as only major organ failure and cut Social Security benefits to where they should be: bare sustenance level. I also like the John Ashcroft suggestion that paupers, those receiving Social Security, be forced to wear a “P” on their chest as they did in Colonial Days. Never encourage dependency. While Ashcroft has not made his plan public I am certain he will after he finishes his legal paper on the efficacy of Judge Hawthorne’s decisions at Salem.

Women also deserve your tough love. Turning Social Security into a defined contribution plan will finally help level the life expectancies of men and women. Because women earn less, have fewer years of earnings and live longer, a defined contribution plan absolutely guarantees that they will receive less per month than men – even men that earn the same wages! By cutting their caloric intake and the BTUs in their homes, I know that we can finally have women and men expire at the same ages. What could be more compassionate than aiding spouses of the same age to expire together?

Most of all you need to mobilize your core supporters. Those who believe the world is 6,000 years old despite all the evidence to the contrary. Get these people out on the talk show circuit because evidence never confuses them. They know what to believe and they stick with it. While you already have Rush, Michael, Sean and Bill, they seem embarrassed to ever raise the issue of intelligent design, so they need help from more junior high graduates.

Thanks for listening. Did you finish the book on Joe DiMaggio? Class guy that Yankee Clipper and you, sir, are also in a class of your own!

Your devoted fan,

David Kelley
PDA Senior Policy Advisor
Chair of the Subcommittee on Social Security
https://www.pdamerica.org
david@pdamerica.org
**********************************
Editor's Note: You can use some of David's talking points in your own letter to President Bush or to the editor of your newspaper.

Higher Pay for Teachers Better Investment than Charters

From Judy Binder:
Response to Albuquerque Journal OP ED, “School Choice Helps Low-Income Families” by Micha Gisser and Sarah Hunt, January 6, 2005 (A slightly different version of this appeared in the Albuquerque Journal.)

Economist Micha Gisser, whose research generally covers agricultural economics, water rights and industrial organization, and Sarah Hunt, a UNM graduate in political science, have taken an assault on public education based on results gathered from the 2003 Terra Nova tests. Unfortunately, there is no data on how many children were tested, what subject matter was covered, or that their results might have been compared with other states that use the Terra Nova. Did a thorough analysis of their research show such startling results that all schools and all districts in New Mexico are hopeless? It is no great secret that students from minority or low economic neighborhoods do poorly on standardized tests; these tests are already culturally skewed, and testing results can be controlled.

The authors have analyzed the testing and cite “At least one study of the Milwaukee school choice program demonstrates that when compared to demographically similar students who remain in the public schools, low-income students show measurable gains in scholastic achievement after merely three years in a choice school.”

However, the results of the Milwaukee schools have been found by others to be lacking in scope and subject to interpretation.

The authors further suggest that to correct the imbalance in local test scores, brought on by residence in low-income neighborhoods, New Mexico ought to consider a school choice program.

This is a rather simplistic approach to a significantly complicated problem. In New Mexico, school choice within the public school system is an option for every student. It is called open enrollment. Unfortunately, school choice is unknown to many low-income families because some parents have not understood that this service is available and others are unable to read the documentation sent home. Having inquired from several classrooms of students in grades four through eight of the reading material found in their homes, we learned that most families, especially in low-income neighborhoods, did not subscribe to newspapers. However, children who have received vouchers are enrolled in private schools because their families—usually middle or upper class—are focused on academic success and have made the effort. Other parents may prefer their children to be safely educated close to home because a sibling or neighbor offers companionship. And others may feel self-conscious traveling into distant neighborhoods. In addition, studies have shown that the pressing need is for more qualified and better paid teachers. It is also important to note that parents and taxpayers would have to share the burden of supporting two school systems, public and private.

As an economist, Dr. Gisser has equated students, teachers, and administrators with widgets, assembly lines, and auto-ejection. If a widget is flawed, it is tossed on the trash heap. When a child comes through the system safe and sound, we bestow a diploma; those children who cannot make progress must still find a place in society.

Widgets, like dollars, have no feelings, no emotions, and no need for special attention. In APS we have 87,000 students and 10,000 teachers and administrative personnel, each of whom deserves proper compensation and respect.

From an educational forum co-sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trust and Georgetown University, Stanford Professor of Education and Economics Martin Carnoy, argues that “close examination of several existing voucher programs in the United States and abroad reveals that the academic gains for struggling students and schools are marginal at best, and often simply non-existent.

In addition, more and more data reveal that children educated in charter schools "do no better in math and reading than their peers at regular public schools...” (Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, Albuquerque Journal, Dec. 2004).

In conclusion, Gisser and Hunt lack the necessary background and research data to be able to come to the conclusion that poor kids would be better served by private schools.

What has actually happened? “A Nation at Risk,” published in 1983, indicated that “education is the major foundation for the future strength of this country;” [and] “education occupied first place among 12 funding categories considered in the survey—above health care, welfare, and military defense and that survey respondents ranked education first among categories including health care, defense and welfare.

Sadly most politicians only pay lip service toward improving education. We believe that it is economically productive to make teachers’ salaries commensurate with those of business leaders and other professionals in order to keep smart, dedicated, and powerful teachers in the classroom. Students who receive a first-class education will earn higher salaries. It is likely that we will need their contributions to support us all in our old age.

Judith Binder, Substitute Teacher, Albuquerque Public Schools
Julia Rosa Lopez-Emslie, Professor Emerita of Education, ENMU

Real Moral Values

Must see video: Jon Stewart's interview on The Daily Show with Jim Wallis, author of "God's Politics."

Boxer Gives Thanks

Read Senator Barbara Boxer's thank you to the blogosphere on Daily Kos. One of our most classy and effective Democrats, isn't she? A long-time member of the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party. Oh, do we need more of those.

Here's an excellent piece on her by The Nation's John Nichols: Boxer Rebellion Spreads.

No On Gonzales

I'm writing this to add our voice to Daily Kos :: No on Gonzales:

"With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him."

If you'd like to contact your Senator on this, go here.

Human Rights First has an excellent Flash video on Gonzales and his role in the torture scandals, as well as other revealing information about him.

And Stars and Stripes has a letter signed by many prominent, retired military leaders questioning whether Gonzales is the right fit for GIs.

ACTION ALERT: Fight BLM's Move to Allow Drilling on NM's Otero Mesa

Photo courtesy of Stephen Capra. Click for larger image.

On Monday, the Bureau of Land Management approved a drilling plan for Otero Mesa, one of North America's remaining natural Chihuahuan desert grasslands, and an ecological gem. The plan would allow exploratory gas and oil drilling on virtually all of the Mesa. Only 124,000 acres of the roughly 2 million-acres would be permanently protected. According to an AP article,

Gov. Bill Richardson and environmentalists, including the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and Denver-based Earthjustice, promised a court battle.

"The state is going to fight this with everything we've got," Richardson said.

The opponents argue the plan fails to consider the effect on groundwater and grassland at the mesa, extending about 40 miles north of the Texas-New Mexico line.

Richardson –- who once called the mesa "sacred" and wanted to set aside 640,000 acres as a national conservation area –- accused the federal government of ignoring its policy of working with states on major land management decisions.

"By failing to compromise, the federal government might have taken two steps backward, tying this issue up for years," the Democratic governor said.
[. . .]
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and New Mexico Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons applauded the plan, saying the BLM balanced the need to protect the environment with the need to develop new sources of oil and gas.

Stephen Capra of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance acknowledged there were novel parts to the BLM plan, but declared: "The protection the BLM is talking about, it's window dressing."

"These are some of the last unfragmented desert grasslands anywhere in the world and they're just essential to protection of numerous desert species, from the pronghorn antelope to the endangered Aplomado falcon," said Mike Harris, an attorney with Denver-based Earthjustice.

To find out more about Otero Mesa and how you can help, visit the websites of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and the Coalition for Otero Mesa. The Coalition is also organizing a Protect Our Public Lands Rally at Albuquerque's Kimo Theater on February 5th from 2:00 to 5:00 PM to raise awareness and funds to fight the BLM plan.

Special guest speakers will include: Gloria Flora, activist and former Forest Service employee; Poet Jimmy Santiago Baca; Terri Swearingen, activist and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize; Gwich'in activists from the Arctic; Martha Marks, President of Republicans for Environmental Protection; Pojoaque Pueblo dancers, and some Surprise Guests! Plus a musical performance by : "Holy Water and Whiskey. "

Call Nathan Newcomer at 505/843-8696 for more information.

A Vision of Our Own

Highly recommended read: A Vision of Our Own: Four Ideas for the Left to Redefine Itself, by John Powers in the LA Weekly. After an impressive delineation of what we are facing and how we got here, Powers sets out four things Democrats must take back from the right:

. . . the left needs to do what the right did. It needs to define what it stands for. And it must be willing to fight for what it believes over the long haul, even if it means losing some elections. In particular, it must begin to take back four things that it has ceded to the right.

1. It must reclaim virtue. After the election, you heard endless talk about how Bush won on "values." This wasn’t true — the so-called values vote was no more powerful in 2004 than in earlier years. But what is true is that conservatives are scarily comfortable talking about morality, while the left (still influenced by "scientific" socialism) is made nervous by moral language. Because of this, our political culture’s idea of virtue has been whittled into a sad, mingy thing, a question of private behavior. Yet one historic strength of the left was its belief that morality is also a matter of public virtue — justice, equality, generosity, tolerance. The loss of this idea has been catastrophic. While Republicans rouse their troops by attacking Clinton’s immorality or gay marriage, Democrats couldn’t make hay from the moral outrage of corporate executives (who make 1,000 times their employees’ wages) selling off stock options for top dollar while letting pension funds collapse. Morality should be our issue, not theirs. Where’s The Book of Liberal Virtues?

2. It must reclaim freedom. One of the left’s glories has been its tradition of heroic internationalism, still alive in the anti-globalization movement’s insistence on workers’ rights around the world. (Typically, though, "anti-globalization" sounds negative rather than positive.) But when it comes to foreign policy these days, the left appears lost. I get depressed hearing friends sound like paleocon isolationists or watching them reflexively assume that there’s something inherently tyrannical about the use of American power. It’s not enough to mock Norman Podhoretz’s insistence that the battle with Islamic terrorism is World War IV. Just as the left lacked a coherent position on what to do with murderous despots such as Milosevic and Saddam — it won’t do to say, "They’re bad, but . . ." The left now needs a position on how best to battle a Muslim ideology that, at bottom, despises all the freedoms we should be defending. America should be actively promoting the freedom of everyone on the planet, and the key question is, how would the left do it differently from the Bush administration?

3. It must reclaim pleasure. For the last 30 years, the right’s been having fun — Lee Atwater playing the blues, Rush Limbaugh giving that strangulated laugh, The Weekly Standard running those mocking covers — while the left has been good for you, like eating a big, dry bowl of muesli. This isn’t simply because leftists can be humorless (a quality shared with righteous evangelicals), but because, over the years, they’ve gone from being associated with free love and rock & roll to seeming like yuppified puritans; hence the Gore-Lieberman ticket talked about censoring video games and brainy leftist Thomas Frank tirelessly debunks the pleasure of those who buy anything Cool or find Madonna meaningful. (Clinton was an exception — he enjoyed a Big Mac and an intern as much as the hero of a beer commercial — and he was the one Democrat in recent years that most average Americans really liked.) While the left is correct in talking about the gas-guzzling horror of SUVs, it’s a losing cause to tell a nation full of proud drivers that they should feel guilty about the car they love. Rather than coming off as anti-consumerist puritans in a consumerist culture, the left should be fighting on the side of freedom and pleasure — for instance, arguing that ordinary people should have more time off from the endless hours of work that increasingly devour our souls. This is the kind of idea we should own — and force the right to argue against.

4. Finally, and above all, it must try to reclaim utopia. Back during the horrors of mid-20th-century Germany, the great Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote, "This is not a time to be without wishes." He knew that any successful political action had to begin in hope and dreams. The same is true as we enter the second Bush administration. The right controls the machinery of government and isn’t shy about using it to change the world to make it fit the twin religions that drive it — Christianity and untrammeled free-market economics. To fight such a radical, all-encompassing vision, we need an equally big countervision of our own. I’m not talking about some mad fantasy of heaven on earth (those usually lead to death camps), but a dream bigger than hopes that the Democratic Party will come back into power four years from now. To create the world we want, we have to regain the hopeful belief that we are trying to create a world thrillingly better than the one we now live in. Promising more prescription drugs for seniors just won’t cut it.

****************
What do YOU think about Power's take on this?

Thanks to John McAndrew for this article.

NOT IN OUR NAME

The following statement by Not In My Name will appear as a full-page ad in tomorrow's New York Times and has so far been signed by more than 7,000 people. Click here to add your name to the statement:

As George W. Bush is inaugurated for a second term, let it not be said that people in the United States silently acquiesced in the face of this shameful coronation of war, greed, and intolerance. He does not speak for us. He does not represent us. He does not act in our name.

No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries, torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason.

Not In Our Name

In our name, the Bush government justifies the invasion and occupation of Iraq on false pretenses, raining down destruction, horror, and misery, bringing death to more than 100,000 Iraqis. It sends our youth to destroy entire cities for the sake of so-called democratic elections, while intimidating and disenfranchising thousands of African American and other voters at home.

In our name, the Bush government holds in contempt international law and world opinion. It carries out torture and detentions without trial around the world and proposes new assaults on our rights of privacy, speech and assembly at home. It strips the rights of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in the U.S., denies them legal counsel, stigmatizes and holds them without cause. Thousands have been deported.

As new trial balloons are floated about invasions of Syria, or Iran, or North Korea, about leaving the United Nations, about new “lifetime detention” policies, we say not in our name will we allow further crimes to be committed against nations or individuals deemed to stand in the way of the goal of unquestioned world supremacy.

Could we have imagined a few years ago that core principles such as the separation of church and state, due process, presumption of innocence, freedom of speech, and habeas corpus would be discarded so easily? Now, anyone can be declared an “enemy combatant” without meaningful redress or independent review by a President who is concentrating power in the executive branch. His choice for Attorney General is the legal architect of the torture that has been carried out in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib.

The Bush government seeks to impose a narrow, intolerant, and political form of Christian fundamentalism as government policy. No longer on the margins of power, this extremist movement aims to strip women of their reproductive rights, to stoke hatred of gays and lesbians, and to drive a wedge between spiritual experience and scientific truth. We will not surrender to extremists our right to think. AIDS is not a punishment from God. Global warming is a real danger. Evolution happened. All people must be free to find meaning and sustenance in whatever form of religious or spiritual belief they choose. But religion can never be compulsory. These extremists may claim to make their own reality, but we will not allow them to make ours.

Millions of us worked, talked, marched, poll watched, contributed, voted, and did everything we could to defeat the Bush regime in the last election. This unprecedented effort brought forth new energy, organization, and commitment to struggle for justice. It would be a terrible mistake to let our failure to stop Bush in these ways lead to despair and inaction. On the contrary, this broad mobilization of people committed to a fairer, freer, more peaceful world must move forward. We cannot, we will not, wait until 2008. The fight against the second Bush regime has to start now.

The movement against the war in Vietnam never won a presidential election. But it blocked troop trains, closed induction centers, marched, spoke to people door to door -- and it helped to stop a war. The Civil Rights Movement never tied its star to a presidential candidate; it sat in, freedom rode, fought legal battles, filled jailhouses -- and changed the face of a nation.

We must change the political reality of this country by mobilizing the tens of millions who know in their heads and hearts that the Bush regime’s “reality” is nothing but a nightmare for humanity. This will require creativity, mass actions and individual moments of courage. We must come together whenever we can, and we must act alone whenever we have to.

We draw inspiration from the soldiers who have refused to fight in this immoral war. We applaud the librarians who have refused to turn over lists of our reading, the high school students who have demanded to be taught evolution, those who brought to light torture by the U.S. military, and the massive protests that voiced international opposition to the war on Iraq. We affirm ordinary people undertaking extraordinary acts. We pledge to create community to back courageous acts of resistance. We stand with the people throughout the world who fight every day for the right to create their own future.

It is our responsibility to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively.

Over 7,000 people have now signed this statement. Among the initial signers are:

James Abourezk, former U.S. senator
Janet Abu-Lughod, professor emerita, New School
As`ad AbuKhalil, California State University, Stanislaus
Michael Albert
Edward Asner
Michael Avery, president, National Lawyers Guild
Russell Banks
Amiri Baraka
Rosalyn Baxandall, chair, American Studies/Media and Communications, State University of New York at Old Westbury
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Global Exchange and Code Pink
Larry Bensky, Pacifica radio
Michael Berg
Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
William Blum, author, US foreign policy
St. Clair Bourne
Judith Butler, author and professor, University of California at Berkeley
Julia Butterfly, director, Circle of Life Foundation
Leslie Cagan, national coordinator, United for Peace and Justice
Kathleen & Henry Chalfant
Noam Chomsky, MIT
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney-General
Marilyn Clement, nat’l coordinator, Campaign for a National Health Program NOW
Robbie Conal, artist
Peter Coyote
Diane di Prima, poet
Michael Eric Dyson
Nora Eisenberg, author of War at Home and Just the Way You Want Me
Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense and State Department official
Eve Ensler
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Carolyn Forché
Michael Franti
Boo Froebel
Peter Gerety
Jorie Graham, Harvard University
André Gregory
Jessica Hagedorn, writer
Suheir Hammad
Sam Hamill, Poets Against the War
Danny Hoch, playwright/actor
Marie Howe
Abdeen M. Jabara, past president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Bill T. Jones
Rickie Lee Jones
Barbara Kingsolver
C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Evelyn Fox Keller, Professor of History of Science, MIT
Hans Koning, writer
David Korn
David C. Korten
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN magazine & Rabbi, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue , SF
Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead
Staughton Lynd
Reynaldo F. Macías, chair, National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies
Dave Marsh
Maryknoll Sisters, Western Region
Jim McDermott, Member of Congress, State of Washington
Robert Meeropol, executive director, Rosenberg Fund for Children
Robin Morgan, author and activist
Walter Mosley
Jill Nelson, writer
Odetta
Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate Center - CUNY
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter (Bulworth)
Frances Fox Piven
James Stewart Polshek, architect
William Pope
L|Francine Prose
Jerry Quickley, poet
Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights
David Riker, filmmaker
Stephen Rohde, civil liberties lawyer
Matthew Rothschild, editor, The Progressive magazine
Luc Sante
Roberta Segal-Sklar, communications director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Wallace Shawn
Zach Sklar
Starhawk
Tony Taccone
Naomi Wallace
Leonard Weinglass
Peter Weiss, president, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
C.K. Williams, poet, Princeton University
Saul Williams
Krzysztof Wodiczko, director, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT
Zephyr
David Zeiger, Displaced Films
Howard Zinn, historian

(for a more complete list of signers, click )

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Please note that the statement text above is slightly edited from the text originally posted.

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Thoughts on Martin Luther King Day

A different view of MLK. Excerpts from The King we've lost -- On Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and what we've lost as his historical memory fades on Working for Change:

"King is not a legend because he believed in diversity trainings and civic ceremonies, or because he had a nice dream. He is remembered because he took serious risks and, as the Quakers say, spoke truth to power."

"What little history TV will give us in the next week is at least as much about forgetting as about remembering, as much about self-congratulatory patriotism that King was American as self-examination that American racism made him necessary and that our government, at every level, sought to destroy him. We hear "I have a dream"; we don't hear his powerful indictments of poverty, the Vietnam War, and the military-industrial complex. We see Bull Connor in Birmingham; we don't see arrests for fighting segregated housing in Chicago, or the generations of beatings and busts before he won the Nobel Peace Prize. We don't hear about the mainstream American contempt at the time for King, even after that Peace Prize, nor his reputation among conservatives as a Commie dupe."

"If the King of 1955 or 1965 were alive today, he would be accused of treason for his pacifism, as he was reviled for "Communism" then; instead of the FBI trying to bring him down, he, and most of his associates, would be prosecutable under new anti-terrorism statutes. And the moral outrage of Americans that made his work so effective? We don't do that any more. We can torture thousands of mostly innocent Iraqis and Afghans, in plain sight, and nobody is held accountable. It'd take a whole lot more than police dogs to make the news today."

"Instead, for white America, King's soft-focus image often reinforces white supremacism. (See? We're not so bad. We honor him now. Why don't those black people just get over it, anyway? We did.)"

Click for the MLK Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, which contains text and audio of many of King's important statements, as well as a wealth of information about the Reverend King's life, words and deeds. There's a whole lot more than the "I Have a Dream Speech."

Here are direct links to the audio and text of and "A Time to Break the Silence", MLK speaks about Viet Nam. Listen to an excerpt of King speaking about voting rights in Selma, Alabama and it will give you chills, even after all these years. Think about the voting "problems" in Ohio when you do so. King was murdered at age 39. He would have been 76 years old today.