Activism

Ask Your Congress Member to Co-Sponsor H Res 375, which will be acted on in the International Relations Committee on Sept. 14. Every member should co-sponsor, whether or not they serve on that committee.

If passed, H Res 375 will require the White House and the State Department to "transmit all information relating to communication with officials of the United Kingdom between January 1, 2002, and October 16, 2002, relating to the policy of the United States with respect to Iraq."

We have the Downing Street Memos from the UK.  This Resolution, if passed, will demand similar evidence from the US.  It has the support of most, and possibly all, of the Democrats on the IR committee, and of at least one Republican on that committee.  We need every Dem and three Republicans to pass it.

Email Your Congress Member.
Phone and Fax Your Congress Member.
Or call switchboard tollfree at (888) 818-6641.
Fill out feedback form.
Here are current co-sponsors.
More Info.
Send this letter to all your friends!

SENATE
Meets at noon for debate and at 2:15 p.m. to consider the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005 and the estate tax bill.

SENATE COMMITTEES
2:30 p.m. -- Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing on gasoline prices and factors contributing to high prices. Witnesses include Guy Caruso, administrator of the Energy Information Administration; James Overdahl, chief economist for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; and Johnnie Burton, director of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service.

HOUSE
Meets at 2 p.m. to consider commemorating the 60th anniversary of V-J Day and the end of World War II in the Pacific, and calling on the president to issue a proclamation recognizing the 30th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act.

Dishonest Dubya Lying Action Figure

A lot of unions are going to be donating aid in the coming days and weeks.

One of two things will happen.

1) They will give to Red Cross and other mainstream aid organizations and
then walk away.

2) They can support grassroots, democratic, people-of-color-led
organizations who are fighting for a say in how (or if) New Orleans is
reconstructed. These grassroots organizations will be fighing for, among
other things, stable, union jobs for those doing reconstruction. Aside from
being the right thing to do, it is also in labor's direct interest to
support these organizations.

Greetings All!

I just spoke with Dennis Kyne in Covington, LA. Our VFP Peace Tour group kept a shelter going and is working now hand-in-hand with Natl'l Guardsmen just in to town. They're continuing to cook and distribute meals - the propane kitchen on the bus has been the only working equipment in the community. They're continuing to assist with first aide & medical triage. Their generator has been the only operating system. Their satellite link has been one of the only reliable means of communications in the area.
They are no longer able to purchase any of the following in Baton Rouge or communities within reach of the Big Easy and need them desperately:

ACORN's Headquarters, in New Olreans, LA, and the homes and neighborhoods of many of its members there, have been devestated by hurricane Katrina. We are working to find and relocate out 9,000 New Orleans member families, provide mortgage counseling, and ORGANIZING to get the victims of Kartina the voice and services they need. Read more at www.acorn.org. Please donate to the ACORN Hurricane Recovery and Rebuilding Fund to help us reopen, rebuild, and serve our communities in this time of need. Read more about how your donation will be used.
http://acorn.org/index.php?id=9673

All donations to ACORN® are used to better the lives and communities of low- and moderate-income Americans.

Phantoms of Lost Liberty: The U.S. Constitution in Crisis

It is often said that September 11th changed everything. Does this mean the U.S.
Constitution, too? There’s a Constitutional debate raging right now and it is over
how much power the government has in its War on Terror. Are secret arrests
permissible? Torture? Surveillance? Restrictions on speech and protest? Lying
by police and government officials? Is the Constitution even relevant in this
new kind of warfare? Or is it quaint and outmoded? Many people have argued
that Americans now face the greatest Constitutional crisis of our history.

By David Swanson

On September 15, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and other congress members will be holding hearings on Capitol Hill on the issue of creating an exit strategy for Iraq. This event will be nine days before what organizers are hoping will be the biggest ever march against the war in Washington. Many of the same groups organizing the march on Sept. 24th have decided to hold a smaller rally in front of the White House on the 15th to support the action in Congress and the demand to get U.S. soldiers out of Iraq.

This has resulted in confusion for at least some small number of people. Here is an attempt to clarify.

Help Needed - PLEASE Call Your Representative's Office TUESDAY Re: HRes
375 the Downing Street Minutes

A few months ago, Rep. Barbara Lee introduced a Resolution of Inquiry
[H.Res. 375 Re: the Downing Street Minutes] to investigate Bush
Administration deceit and wrongdoing leading up to the Iraq War. The
After Downing Street Coalition - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org - is
working with Rep. Lee's office and others to gain Congressional
cosponsors for this Resolution. Unfortunately we are running out of
time. The showdown vote is drawing near. You can help us win! We need
your help. Especially if your Representative is a member of the

Special Prosecutor to Investigate Criminal Negligence
Submitted by Mary Jeswald (not verified) on Sun, 2005-09-04 19:10.

(Editor's note: This letter was posted on an earlier thread.)

Here is the letter that I am sending to my congressional representatives:

Dear Senators Santorum and Specter and Representative Hart:

After watching the Weather Channel repeatedly warn of the approach of Hurricane Katrina, I was shocked after the storm hit to read in the news that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on Sunday, August 28, 2005 had called Louisiana Governor Blanco to offer to send National Guard troops from New Mexico to assist the State of Louisiana. On Thursday, September 1, 2005, permission from Washington was finally given.

Sponsor The Veterans For Peace Bus in Covington, LA
[VFP Road Trips Bus, Fresh From Camp Casey, Has Set Up Aid Station In Covington LA To Disaster Relief To Those In Need]

The Pine View Middle School
1115 West 28th Street Covington, LA. [You Can Mail Supplies Via UPS to this Address; care of VFP]

We are using the school to support Veterans For Peace hurricane relief efforts from Covington, LA.

This petition is to the US government to open closed military bases to house the Hurricane victims- please sign and pass on

http://www.petitiononline.com/10000008/petition.html

paypal donation to Chapter 116

From TomDispatch

I officially closed down for the Labor Day Weekend, but the Bush administration's response to Katrina was simply too much for me. So I've written today a summary piece, especially emphasizing the way in which Iraq has proved a grim coming attraction for Katrina's aftermath: "At the Front of Nowhere at All: The Perfect Storm and the Feral City."
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=19806

New Orleans is, of course, the "feral city" that thirty years of sci fi movies and post-apocalyptic novels (think: Escape from New York) have brought to our consciousness. It is clearly a defining event of our moment, possibly our lives, and it has swept up all Bush policies -- every way in which they have tried to "starve the beast" -- into a perfect toxic storm.

300 U.S. airmen return home from Iraq and Afghanistan
9/3/2005 8:00:00 PM GMT
Aljezeera.com

The airmen have already begun redeploying (from Iraq and Afghanistan.)

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Image created by highacidity on Sat Sep 3rd, 2005 at 23:55:56 PDT at the Daily Kos. LINK TO ORIGINAL PHOTO AND DIARY

Truth is stranger than fiction. Thanks to jpgod for the heads-up here.

Link to CSPAN video of briefing here. Sorry, I did not keep track of the time this quote occurs, but it is somewhere around halfway through, when they are taking questions.

Can we hold fundraiser concerts for killing Iraqis but use public funds for protecting the public? Would that be less heart-warming? Would the concerts raise more or less than 700 billion dollars?

Is New Orleans part of the Homeland? Where exactly does the Homeland start?

If you send the guard to fight for oil, promote burning the oil, create storms, and then need the guard back, is everything the fault of the residents of New Orleans who earn $5.15 because the Louisiana Supreme Court said $6.15 was too much?

Or does the hurricane hate us because we're free?

And when you finally bring in the troops, should they help people or hunt them?

If you invested all of our money in renewable energy and mass transit instead of in the Pentagon, and you had fewer wars, fewer storms, and more public participation in our democracy, would we still be free or could people stop hating us then?

If everybody knew about the danger to New Orleans, if even CNN admits it, if Knight Ridder papers are reprinting an article about it from last October, if George Curry has documented scientists' warnings, if David Sirota has compiled evidence that Bush cut funds in the face of dire warnings, then who does this guy think he's fooling?

Putting food on a family is not rocket science.

LINK TO ORIGINAL INCLUDES PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS

Putting food on a family is not rocket science.

I've seen the satellite photos, and I do grasp the magnitude of this disaster. I know that roads must be cleared before quantities of aid can be brought in.

But get this- food and water don't just have to come in on trucks.

Our collective anguish and heartbreak at seeing our fellow citizens starve and dehydrate for days might have been eased in some small way if we could have seen you demand just one thing be done right away. You've done it before,
remember?

I do. You said -

"At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan."

Remember?

Wow, 37500 packs of food! Thats a lot.
If I had a plane, thats what I would do.
If I had an Air Force, maybe I would send more.

Just got back from the dome and I was overwhelmed by the huge numbers of folks they have put in there. The media was complaining that its not the 23,000 promised but in actuality there is probably close to 100,000 here throughout the Houston metroplex.It made me think of a modern day Hoovervile, by the sadness and magnitude of the trauma but the living conditions here seemed wonderful. I spent only an hour or so in the dome where around 17,000 people are living(its virtually a small US city) and was told they had just opened up the Astro Arena and that 3,500 new folks had been set up there. It felt more personal to be connecting with a mere 3500 folks. A pittance of people where I felt more comfortable. There are huge trucks rolling in with food, baby supplies and clothing and every conceivable medical supply. There are plenty of sick people but I didn't sense the horible coughing and general sickness I expected to see.

Camp Casey Covington

I know I sound like a loon, (NO COMMENTS PLEASE) but between Camp Casey II in Crawford, the hurricane, and the interference of the federal government your humble out of the frying pan into the fire activist has finally launched upon a solution.

Covington is just North of the Lake in New Orleans. It is a small community with a population of about 8,500 people that has been forgotten by the media hype and photo op moments by the Bush Administration.

I received this email about 2 hours ago.

My friends are renting a truck and filling it with the goods...I and my trusty companion Puppies for Peace President Lokken will be driving down in the morning.

http://crawfordpeace.nfshost.com/node/1794

Where did the food go? What about the Medical supplies? How about all the water that was never sucked up in the 109 degree heat of Camp Casey? It got loaded up by the team and members of the Veterans For Peace Chapter 116, Mendocino County, www.vfproadtrips.org and hauled out with Annie and Buddy Spell of the Louisiana Activist Network, Commanding the way to as close as Camp Casey could get to the catastrophe in Louisiana. Alberto signed on the tour in Austin and we we were joined by Alex and Ella of Minnesota who spent a lot of time at Camp Casey the past month.

Hurricane Katrina exposed an uncaring face of a government that does not believe in its basic role. Americans are expressing our shock and disgust with an Administration that failed to adequately mobilize to help the largely poor and minority communities of the Gulf Coast. We strongly protest this Administration's shortchanging of Homeland Security and disaster preparedness needs while lavishing tax breaks on a select few.

We write to ask your help for ACORN, a group that that needs your help now so that they can provide critical help to those in need and continue to hold public officials accountable. The ACORN national headquarters in New Orleans has succumbed to the flood waters and many ACORN family members throughout New Orleans have been displaced.

ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545 | Click to subscribe

THE GULF WARS

Statement from United for Peace and Justice

Sept. 2, 2005

www.unitedforpeace.org

The effects of Katrina are tragic, causing death, the disruption of lives, and the loss of property on an unimaginable scale. Although Katrina was a natural catastrophe, its effects were largely avoidable and parallel another tragedy unfolding daily near another Gulf, 7000 miles away. Both disasters flow from the criminal behavior of the Bush administration and are closely related. Much can be said about how long-term policies -- from denying the existence of global warming to permitting greedy developers to destroy protective offshore islands and wetlands -- may have contributed to the severity of Katrina. But now there are more immediate concerns.

~~~~~~~
Katrina Marches on Washington?
by FluxRostrum

A thought. Which would be backed up with my complete, in-person, suppport, if there is serious interest in making this thought a reality. I am not currently close enough to NO to start the ball myself.

Evidence of bureaucratic failures in the handling of Katrina are starting to piss a lot of people off.

The fact that hotels are not offering - even temporarily - free rooms to refugees... the gas gouging... the depiction of survival as "looting", blocking domestic & foriegn workers and aid from entering the city ...

All of these issues clearly illustrate the fact that "Profit Over People" is not right or acceptable, at least in this level humanity.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Write your Congressmen...DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!!
Here's the address:
http://www.house.gov/writerep /

Here's the letter that I wrote to mine (copy or hack away):

Dear Sir,

I am writing you to express my great sadness and anger regarding our Federal Government's handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis. It is becoming painfully obvious that our government has abandoned tens of thousands of our most vulnerable citizens and is letting one of our great cities fall to chaos and ruin. I am writing to ask you how, nearly four years after 9/11, we found ourselves without a plan to evacuate the sick, poor and elderly from what has been regarded as our most vulnerable city? As a formerly proud American citizen, I am outraged to see images coming from our own soil that are indistinguishable from those of a third world country. The Federal Government's response to Hurricane Katrina has been irreprehensible and I am asking for your pledge that you will demand the accountability of those responsible. Please be my voice.

Sincerely,

Friday September 2, 2005

UPDATED* BUSH in Hurricane Destruction Areas: Bush tours the Gulf Coast
today, making stops in Mobile, Biloxi, and New Orleans. In Mobile, Ala.,
the president was to get a briefing on the damage, followed by a
helicopter survey of areas along the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana
coasts. He was to walk through hard-hit neighborhoods in Biloxi,
Mississippi. But Bush was avoiding an in-person visit to the worst areas
of New Orleans, mostly drowned in rank floodwaters and descending in
many areas into lawlessness as desperate residents await rescue or even
just food and water. Instead, the president was taking an aerial tour of

ANNOUNCEMENT

A rally will be held at Lafayette Square Park (in front of the White House) at 5 p.m. ET on September 15, 2005. Earlier the same day, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey will host hearings on Capitol Hill on exit strategies for Iraq. Also the same day, a coalition of organizations will hand in to Congress a petition for an exit strategy. (See http://www.peoplespetition.org )

Speaking at the rally will be Congresswoman Woolsey and other congress members who support ending the war. The rally will bring together a broad coalition, including military families and leaders from throughout the peace movement (including some not supporting the petition cited above).

Wisconsin Green Party
wisconsingreenparty.org

August 29th, 2005

Contacts:
Arif Khan, Chair, Libertarian Party of Wisconsin, 920-251-0844
Jeff Peterson, Campaign Coordinator, Referendum on Troop Withdrawal from Iraq 715.472.2728
Jill Bussiere, Co-Chair, Wisconsin Green Party
920.388.0529, cell 920.255.2175, jdt@wisconsingreenparty.org

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Green Party have joined in calling for support for U.S. troops in Iraq by bringing them home as soon as possible.

The Green and Libertarian Parties both oppose the current U.S. occupation. Both believe war should be waged only to defend the United States, and that the war on Iraq did not meet that condition. Both parties' 2004 presidential candidates proposed withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Both are concerned that the longer the U.S. occupation remains in Iraq, the more long-term will be the damage. They agree the best thing for the United States and Iraq is to bring U.S. troops home as quickly as possible. "The United States was not threatened by Iraq," said Jill Bussiere, Co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. "Many of us knew there were no weapons of mass destruction well before the invasion, and the administration knew it too, having fixed the 'intelligence around the policy' as the Downing Street memo notes. Now, we find that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have decreased our national security - just the opposite of what the administration claims."

Dallas to house 25,000 refugees (Reunion Arena and the convention center)
LINK TO ORIGINAL. REGISRATION REQUIRED

Dallas soon will be the temporary home for at least 25,000 Hurricane Katrina refugees from Louisiana, state and local officials confirmed on Thursday. City and county leaders scrambled to locate suitable shelter for such an influx of storm victims, who they expected to arrive primarily by bus and plane beginning Saturday.

Reunion Arena and a 200,000-square-foot portion of the Dallas Convention center, both downtown, could house as many as 12,000 people, City Manager Mary Suhm said.

LINK TO WEBSITE HERE

Florida State University is rallying to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and is asking fans coming to Monday's football game against Miami to lend a hand.

With hotel space at a premium this weekend as hurricane refugees seek shelter, FSU is asking local FSU friends and families to open their doors to old friends from out of town. If you're coming to the game from out of town, FSU asks that you consider staying with FSU friends who live in or around Tallahassee. This could free up much-needed hotel space.

Hotels to evacuees: Go before big game

Many Tallahassee hotels have told hurricane evacuees they'll have to move by the day of the FSU-Miami football game so that fan bookings can be honored.

You have to register to get whole article.

Some of the hotels asking people to leave & links to their corporate headquarters:
Howard Johnson: owned by Cedant http://www.cendant.com/contact/
Marriott Courtyard: http://marriott.com/corporateinfo/default.mi
Doubletree & Homewood Suites: owned by Hilton
LINK

From ACORN:

As we write this to you, thousands of New Orleans residents at the Superdome are stranded and without water. According to many news reports, people are dying from dehydration while 82 buses sit outside the Superdome. There are confusing reports about why they are not evacuating people.

We know for certain that there are ACORN members and their families in the Superdome. They need water. We do not know why FEMA is not bringing water. We also heard there was water available at the Ritz Carlton Hotel nearby, but we can't enter the city or reach folks there.

Please call your Members of Congress and ask them to pressure the Administration and FEMA to save the people at the Superdome. You can call toll-free 1-800-643-9557 and ask to speak to your representative.