Democracy for New Mexico

Hiroshima Commemoration: August 3-4, Santa Fe & Los Alamos

Launching lanterns at Ashley Pond as sunset nears, 2005

From Pax Christi NM:
Please join Pax Christi New Mexico, Vets for Peace and Dragonfly Sanctuary for our Annual Hiroshima Commemoration on Friday and Saturday, August 3rd and 4th. In the spirit of love and respect for all life, join us to vigil, pray and witness for peace in Santa Fe and Los Alamos, New Mexico on the 62nd Anniversary of the nuclear bombing of HIROSHIMA, Japan. Click for flyer (PDF).

Santa Fe, Friday, August 3rd: Come hear Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of the School of the Americas Watch, speak at 7:30 PM at El Museo in Santa Fe about galvanizing a Peace Community. There will also be a Mass for Peace at 4 PM at Santa Maria de la Paz with Fr. John Dear.

Santa Fe and Los Alamos, Saturday, August 4th: From 9 AM to Noon, there will be a Non-Violence Training at Santa Maria de la Paz in Santa Fe. We are lucky to have Judy Bierbaum and her husband Keith running the training. Anyone who has taken a Non-Violence Training with Judy knows that it is a moving event in one's life. We are ALL in need of Non-Violence Training to counter the 24/7 barrage of violence that we are fed in OUR country.

Also, on Saturday August 4th at 2 PM, gather at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos for Pax Christi New Mexico's Sack Cloth and Ashes action. At 4 PM there'll be various speakers, musicians and poets including Fr. Roy and Santa Fe Mayor David Coss. At 7:30 PM the Lantern Floating Ceremony on Ashley Pond will begin. For updates, go to www.paxchristinewmexico.org. Questions? bud@siochainworld.org

Bobby: 39 Years Ago Today

Robert Francis Kennedy
November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968

"There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember -- even if only for a time -- that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek -- as we do -- nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

"Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. The answer is to rely on youth -- not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to the obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress.

"... Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.

"... The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society. Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live." --Robert F. Kennedy, South Africa, 1966

I awoke to the broadcast of the devastating news of Bobby Kennedy's assassination on my clock-radio on the day I was to head home by train after finals week at the University of Illinois. It had been only two months since Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Back in April, the day after Martin was killed, I had also headed home from Champaign-Urbana to Chicago on an Illinois-Central train, at that time for Spring break. To this day, they are the two most somber and upsetting train rides I've ever taken in my life. I can remember the visceral, powerful feelings I experienced as if the tragedies happened yesterday, even if I can't really put them into words. I don't think anyone who was young during that era ever has, to anyone's satisfaction.

Both times curfews were imposed in Chicago in anticipation of violence. The violence happened after King's murder. I rode the rails into Chicago through the city's South Side with shots ringing out, buildings ablaze and passengers obediently lying low beneath window level. Fear reverberated down the line of cars. With Bobby's death, though, there seemed to be only an overwhelming sadness -- an uncomfortable resignation -- that dangerous, hateful forces had taken firm root in America, and that they would have to play themselves out. Today, the most disturbing realization is that they still haven't entirely played themselves out, 39 years later.

We are still seeking a leader who will truly unite us and set us on a path that might mitigate our human weaknesses. We are still wondering what might have been. We are still at the mercy of the haters, the narrow minded, the visciously power hungry. Keeping our hopes alive still seems like the very hardest thing. Those ripples Bobby spoke of can seem so few and far between. But they are real. We must cling to them. We must make more if we are ever to finally extricate our culture from the sway of those who appeal to the very worst of our nature, always for their own gain. We have to keep trying. And trying. And trying.

Saturday Music Club: Indigos and Havens

We went to see Richie Havens and Indigo Girls perform at the Santa Fe Opera recently, a show billed as the finale of the two-day World Peace Conference. Whatever you think about a peace conference being funded by the Department of Tourism and set in a state filled with major components of what used to be called the military-industrial complex, this show was top notch and well worth the trip up north. There's something to be said about peace music and/or acoustic music and/or harmonic vocals carrying an audience up to the higher ground and echoing away towards the bomb making machinery.

Amy and Emily led some warmly received sing alongs of their old stuff, and featured a lot of their newer material, like songs from their latest album "Despite Our Differences." The video above, submitted for a contest by a fan, is set to one of my favorite numbers from that release called "Pendulum Swinger."

Indigo Girls were at the top of their strumming and vocal forms and the crowd was dominated by folks who had clearly been fans in the beginning and ever since. It was like old home day for the hippie-dyke enchantment dwellers of yore -- grayer and more wrinkled than before, but still parading their stuff. In other words, we were among family. Hugs were abundant. I even saw a fair number of spiked hairdos and mullets. Time for a retro comeback? Not yet, not yet.

They made great use of the top-of-the-line opera house acoustics and audio system, with the sound as clear as a bell. They changed guitars (or electric mandolins or banjos) every song. I've seen them live so many times in so many eras and in so many states of mind that they're like a part of my life fabric, comforting and pulsating warmth and good will. My favorite was a pounding version of Amy's "Go Go Go," tracing the protest movements from the suffragette days onward. Emily did some high vocal explorations that chimed like a bell. Wow. Nothing like being among friends, musical or otherwise, as the cold winds blew in off the still snowy peaks of the Sangre de Cristos and the lightning crackled across the skies as if on cue, I swear.

Richie Havens was rousing, funny and spiritual all at the same time. His energy and high intensity rhythm guitar playing are still going strong, as is his voice. I'm pleased to report he now has teeth of some sort, a big improvement over his physical state when he opened the Woodstock Arts and Music Fair oh so many years ago. His beard is now long and white and the top of his pate shiny. His foot pounding is still some of the best in the music biz, and his thumb is still wider than the guitar neck.

He was accompanied by tasty licks from talented lead player Walter Parks and a woman sawing expertly on an electric cello, much like in the video above. Yes, he did "Freedom (Motherless Child)" and "Here Comes the Sun," but also a rather somber rendition of "Woodstock." He opened with a wary and moody version of "All Along the Watchtower" that set just the right tone for an America as dangerous as the one we're experiencing. In between he performed a bunch of his own songs and told some funny stories. He noted how it was rather silly to be spending billions to get into outer space when we were already riding a chunk of rock zooming through it. Richie Havens -- still high on life.

Memorial Day Contemplation

A Veteran Speaks of the Forgotten Wounded of Iraq by Ron Kovic: A Vietnam veteran, paralyzed in the war, talks about his own struggles, those that the recently wounded in Iraq face, and how we can break this cycle of violence and begin to move in a different direction. Excerpt:

We who have witnessed the obscenity of war and experienced its horror and terrible consequences have an obligation to rise above our pain and suffering and turn the tragedy of our lives into a triumph. I have come to believe that there is nothing in the lives of human beings more terrifying than war and nothing more important than for those of us who have experienced it to share its awful truth.

We must break this cycle of violence and begin to move in a different direction; war is not the answer, violence is not the solution. A more peaceful world is possible.

I am the living death
The memorial day on wheels
I am your yankee doodle dandy
Your John Wayne come home
Your Fourth of July firecracker
Exploding in the grave.

(More about Ron Kovic here. He recited his poem above at the 1976 Democratic National Convention.)

There is also this from yesterday's Washington Post, entitled "I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty," by Andrew J. Bacevich.

ABQ Chapter of UN Association Announces Annual Public Meeting

From Bill Pratt:
The Albuquerque Chapter of the has announced its annual public meeting. This year's program will focus on the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in developing countries, and the United Nations response.

WHEN: Saturday, June 9, 2007 at 3:30 PM
WHERE: Albq. Peace and Justice Center, 201 Harvard SE
COST: None
INVITATION: All are welcome

PROGRAM: Showing of two documentaries from the World Security Institute:

• : Cheap, portable, easy to use and widely available, small arms are responsible for 90% of conflict related deaths since WW II.
• : Unregulated trade in small arms is reflected in bloody regional conflicts and in the epidemic of violence in our cities.

The Speaker will be Representative Elias Barela: NM House of Representatives, District 8 Valencia County; Veteran, US Army Lt. Colonel, NM National Guard; Attorney

Rep. Barela will relate his past experiences in Latin America while on active duty with the US Army as well as the current dangers facing US military personnel resulting from the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in the hands of insurgencies and corrupt governments. Using his background as an attorney and legislator, Rep. Barela will explain the processes of developing laws and treaties that would reduce the illicit trafficking in such weapons.

For more information email Bill Pratt: prattsalwm@comcast.net

Taking Back Mother's Day for Peace

From Brave New Foundation, CodePink and No More Victims: Brave New Foundation launched a new short viral video in honor of Mother’s Day featuring actresses Felicity Huffman, Vanessa Williams, Alfre Woodward, Christine Lahti and feminist icon Gloria Steinem, as well as two Muslim women, Fatma Saleh and Ashraf Salimian. The video celebrates the original meaning of Mother’s Day, founded during the Civil War as a call upon women to unite for peace in the name children everywhere. The video is being distributed virally over the internet by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation via You Tube in partnership with a large coalition of groups including the Unitarian Universalists, SEIU, Soldiers of Yesterday and Tomorrow, National Organization for Women (NOW), Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, United For Peace and Justice and others.

In 1870, after the devastation of the American Civil War, social activist and poet Julia Ward Howe wrote the original Mother's Day Proclamation calling upon the women of the world to unite for peace. This Mother's Day, celebrate the true meaning of the holiday by giving your mother an e-card with a donation to No More Vicims. No More Victims is a non-profit organization which brings war-injured Iraqi children to the United States for medical treatment. Learn more at MothersDayForPeace.com.

Contributions made through the site will go to help bring Salee, a ten-year-old girl who lost both of her legs in the Iraq war, to Greenville, South Carolina where she will receive surgical treatment and prosthetics.

On November 7, 2006, ten-year-old Salee was playing outside her home in Hasswa, Iraq with her brother, cousin and some friends when US jets circled overhead. Suddenly the jets fired three missiles, apparently at two passenger vehicles. One of the missiles hit Salee's home, killing her brother and taking both of Salee's legs.

Happy Springtime (Bush Is Over)

Music video presented by JTMP.org and performed by Op-Critical featuring the Harmonic Angels. Please see BushIsOver.org , www.A28.org, and AfterDowningStreet.org to be a part of this rebirth movement.

: U.S. Troop Deaths 3,333 (85 this month). U.S. Non-Mortal Casualties 26,188. Untold Iraqi Security Force and Civilian Wounded and Dead. War in Iraq Costs: $420,320,000,000 and counting.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney. Learn more.

A28 impeachment events everywhere on Saturday. Find one near you: https://www.a28.org

Also visit: https://www.impeach07.org

Impeachment Put on Table at Capitol Today
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2007-04-25 23:15.

At noon today a distinguished group of public elected officials, prominent voices of conscience, actors and artists, and military families gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

With debate sharpening between Congress and administration over including withdrawal dates from Iraq in the Supplemental Spending Bill, today's press conference continued the growing momentum against the Bush Administration. Dennis Kucinich, having filed an impeachment resolution Tuesday against Vice President Cheney appeared at today's press conference and said that yesterday the press said he was alone in calling for impeachment. Today standing together with the 100 of us gathered in front of the Capitol, he declared that he is not alone, he is standing with the people for impeachment.

Among today's speakers were Mayor Rocky Anderson (Salt Lake City); Pultizer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges; Daniel Ellsberg; Cindy Sheehan; World Can't Wait Director, Debra Sweet; The Nation correspondent, John Nichols; co-founder of Afterdowningstreet.org, David Swanson; and Washington State legislator, Eric Oemig.

Several speakers brought out the full array of crimes of the Bush Administration. Chris Hedges said: "The President is guilty, in short, of what in legal circles is known as the "crime of aggression." And, if we as citizens do not hold him accountable for these crimes, if we do not begin the process of impeachment, we will be complicit in the codification of a new world order, one that will have terrifying consequences."

More on Tuesday's de-MILITARIZE UNM Effort

From Stop the War Machine: Demilitarizing UNM of war profiteers is on the UNM Regents agenda for this Tuesday, April 10, at 9 AM or shortly thereafter, in the SUB ballroom B. We are about third on the 9 AM agenda.

History: On September 29, 2006, Bob Anderson, anti-war activist for Stop the War Machine (SWM) was assaulted and arrested at the UNM sponsored Lockheed Martin meeting for speaking out against the university helping promote the new generation of nuclear weapons, Reliable Replacement Warheads (RRW). Concerned citizens went to regents meetings to protest the weapons research and support by UNM. David Harris, interim president of UNM later had a meeting with SWM, at which time he promised to let us have an agenda item for all the regents to hear our concerns and to consider a resolution which we have prepared.

Contact person is: Jeanne Pahls 858-0882 or 401-4808, StoptheWarMachine@comcast.net

This presentation is on behalf of four groups:

• Stop the War Machine
• Democracy for New Mexico
• Los Alamos Study Group
• Progressive Action Coalition

Here is the outline of our UNM Regents presentation:

1. Robb Chavez (Democracy for New Mexico): Brief overview and history of how we came to be presenting today.
2. Paul Eichhorn (Stop the War Machine): Brief review of the Resolution.
3. Vicki Johnson (UNM alumnus): Samples of UNM contracts and funding agencies.
4. Greg Mello (Los Alamos Study Group): Accepting military research contract money changes the agenda of the university from public education center to a private research center run as a subsidy of private weapons corporations; the effect of this on New Mexico.
5. Vicki Johnson (alumnus): The community looks to UNM to be on the right side of US commitments to international treaties.
6. Andrew Marcum (UNM student): UNM's responsibility regarding research
7. Sebastian Pais (Progressive Action Coalition) or Andrew Marcum (both UNM students): student sentiment
8. Carla Josephson (parent of two UNM students): closing

We are submitting this resolution to the UNM Regents for discussion and vote:
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
DEMILITARIZE UNM RESOLUTION
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO BOARD OF REGENTS

UNM Regents have formed a partnership to operate a research technology park and contracted for weapons research. This has caused great concern.

Accepting research grants from military agencies and contractors has changed the agenda of a university from public education center to that of a private research center run as a subsidy of a private weapons corporation. A corporation like Lockheed Martin may reap large profits while UNM is the one
doing key parts of the technology research used for weapons.

Because the University of New Mexico (UNM) has close relations with two of the nation's nuclear weapons research and design laboratories and the world's largest arms manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, UNM stands at the center of an unfolding ethical, political and ecological crisis.

For instance:

(1) Assisting, as we have seen on September 29, in the promotion of an entirely new nuclear weapons arsenal called the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which is in contradiction to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and,

(2) Providing research for components of ground, air, space and nuclear weapons system required for the new arsenal of the United States.

This has led to the unacceptable situation where dissent against these policies by our students and community has been ignored and even criminalized.

In response the Board of Regents of the University of New Mexico regret the appearance of the University supporting the RRW symposium that was held on campus on Sep. 29. We have decided it is necessary for the University of New Mexico to heed former President Eisenhower's warning of the dangers to our nation of the military-industrial-academic complex.

To improve the quality of education and better serve the needs of students and citizens in the state, we resolve to begin a three-year phaseout program to reduce aggregate value of contracts transacted with military agencies and contractors.

We, the Regents of the University of New Mexico, want transparency and citizen involvement in compliance with this resolution. To ensure public involvement and accountability, UNM will no longer conduct research oversight in secret such as through the Security Managerial Group.  We will instead form an open Oversight Committee that will have citizen input and implement this resolution concerning controversial research.

Action taken: __________________ Date: ______

Editor's Note: Also see our updated previous post on this action.

(Updated) de-MILITARIZE UNM

From Stop the War Machine:

Attend the Regents Meeting to Support Peace Resolution!
Bring signs, too! Speak out against war and empire!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 9 AM, SUB Ballroom
Need info: www.StoptheWarMachine.org or 505-268-9557SEE UPDATED INFO BELOW

From Bob Anderson of Stop the War Machine: The UNM Regents meeting definitely begins at 9 AM on Tuesday, 4/10 in the UNM SUB  ballroom.

A group of 7 people representing 4 groups (Stop the War Machine being one of them; Robb Chavez of Democracy for New Mexico being another) will be making a presentation at the UNM Regents meeting on Tuesday, April 10 regarding the need to Demilitarize UNM.  The time itself of the presentation is yet to be determined. 

We are inviting folks to support these 7 folks by coming to the Regents meeting and bringing signs that call for the demilitarization of UNM. (For those who aren't sure: Signs are allowed at Regents meetings.) Possible suggestions for signs:

• "De-militarize UNM!"
• "No Weapons-Related Research at UNM"
• "Lockheed Martin out of UNM"

We are also inviting people to support these 7 presenters by writing a letter to the UNM Regents that we can present to them at the meeting. You can send your letter to StoptheWarMachine@comcast.net and we will print it out and put it in an envelope for you.

Please spread the word! Please come out and support the team of "De-Militarize UNM" presenters!

Two websites you may want to check out - very interesting reading, and you will probably see some folks you know here:

• Minutes from the UNM Regents meeting 10-10-06
• Minutes from the UNM Regents meeting 11-14-06

Editor's Note: Also see our later post on this action.

2007 Peace and Justice Awards Dinner Set for 4/21

From the :

Saturday, April 21
Doors Open 6 PM - Dinner 6:30 PM - Program 7 PM
Saint Timothy's Lutheran Church
211 Jefferson NE at Copper, ABQ
Your Donation: Fifteen Peaceful Dollars
NM Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino
Kief Henley and Peter Conhein of Guild Cinema
Keynote speaker Col. Ann Wright
Make your reservations today by calling 505-268-9557

State Senator and Lifelong Activist for Justice, Jerry Ortiz y Pino
Jerry's work for peace with justice spans many years and issues, from solidarity with Central America to improving the lives of New Mexico's youth. Many of us got to know Jerry a little better this year when he sponsored numerous pieces of Peace and Justice Legislation, including Impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, and balancing military recruiters' messages in schools. Even in the midst of a busy legislative session, Jerry continued to enlighten 'Burque with his Weekly Alibi columns.

Kief Henley and Peter Conhein of the Guild Cinema
Kief and Peter are the latest proprietors of the Guild Cinema, which has served Albuquerque as the only independent, single-screen theater around, and celebrates 41 years in 2007. The Guild brings the latest independent documentaries, classic movies, and great music to the big screen. With Kief and Peter at the helm, the Guild Cinema is a true community partner, helping to get the word out about important issues and providing space for local organizations working for peace and social justice to reach a larger audience with their message.

Keynote speaker Ann Wright was the deputy chief of mission in several U.S. embassies. She has also been a U.S. Army colonel, with twenty-six years of military experience. She resigned March 19, 2003 due to her disagreement with the decision to go to war on Iraq without UN Security Council authorization.

Editor's Note: Col. Ann Wright will also be speaking the following evening, Sunday, April 22, at the Mennonite Church in Albuquerque, on the topic, "Iraq Now - Iran Later?" Click to read our previous post on this event.