End Israel's Attacks on Gaza

Send a letter below to the President, State Department, and your Members of Congress demanding 1) an unconditional and immediate cease-fire; 2) complete access of humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip and a lifting of Israel's siege; and 3) accountability for Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons as required by the Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/641/t/2439/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26379

GAZA EMERGENCY: Stop the Killing NOW!

Join CODEPINK by signing our call for a US-backed ceasefire in Gaza.

We will deliver it to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice next week.


http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1788

GAZA: STOP THE BLOODSHED, TIME FOR PEACE

With over 280 dead and continued shelling of civilians in southern Israel, now is the time to issue a demand to world leaders that the spiraling violence that has characterized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must come to an end.

Sign the petition below calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza - and for peace to be achieved between Israel and Palestine in 2009.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/?cl=161484073&v=2605

Sign Our Open Letter to President-Elect Obama; We Need a Change in Israel/Palestine Policy

As of this writing, Israeli Air Force attacks today on the occupied Gaza Strip killed an estimated 200 or more people and injured hundreds more. These Israeli attacks come on top of a brutal siege of the Gaza Strip, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe of dire proportions for Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian residents by restricting the provision of food, fuel, medicine, electricity, and other necessities of life.

While the scope of civilian casualties in today's attacks is not yet clear, it is unmistakable that Israel carried out these attacks with F16 fighter jets and missiles provided by the taxpayers of this country. From 2001-2006, the United States transferred to Israel more than $200 million worth of spare parts to fly its fleet of F16's. In July 2008, the United States gave Israel 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel. Last year, the United States signed a $1.3 billion contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and "bunker buster" missiles.

In short, Israel 's lethal attack today on the Gaza Strip could not have happened without the active military and political support of the United States . Therefore, we need to take action to protest this attack and demand an immediate cease-fire.

1. Contact the White House to protest the attack and demand an immediate cease-fire...

2. Contact the State Department...

3. Contact your Representative and Senators in Congress...

4. Contact your local media by phoning into a talk show or writing a letter to the editor...

5. Organize a local protest or vigil and tell us about it...

6. Sign our open letter to President-Elect Obama calling for a new U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine and find out other steps you can take to influence the incoming Administration..


http://www.endtheoccupation.org/form.php?modin=137

Now, Is The Crucial Time; You can make a difference!

A New Year's Message From IAC Founder Ramsey Clark

Dear friends,

We are at a crucial historic juncture.

We cannot sit back and expect that change will just happen now. In order to make real change, people must be mobilized and organized. Otherwise, all of the hopes for a new direction can be quickly diverted.

The International Action Center (IAC) is unique. Its role is recognized worldwide and here in the U.S. This is because the IAC provides—for activists and political movements—a bold, independent voice that is so needed today.

Flouting the mandate of the people of the U.S. who want the troops withdrawn and this horrific war ended, the U.S. government has just imposed a new "Status of Forces" Agreement on Iraq which would keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops and mercenaries there for the next three years (at the cost of $12 billion a month)!

While the entire Bush program has been repudiated, the atrocities and illegal imprisonment continue at Guantanamo. U.S. missiles rain down on villages in Pakistan, killing civilians, and they, together with NATO weapons, increasingly hit children, women and men in Afghanistan--where tens of thousands of U.S. troops could likely be sent. Bellicosity continues towards Iran and other nations in the Middle East. NATO is expanding which raises the danger of new confrontations with Russia in Georgia, the Ukraine, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

The military budget continues to grow at a gargantuan rate, far surpassing that of any in U.S. history, diverting massive funds and depriving millions here of needed health care, housing, and education, while infrastructures deteriorate, and thousands hard-hit by hurricane disasters have been abandoned by the government.

The spiraling economic meltdown means millions of people are losing their jobs and homes while states implement massive and harsh cutbacks in vital social programs. Yet trillions of dollars in "bailouts" are handed over to the banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions of wealth.

But there is reason for hope--there is opposition to the wars abroad, to the violations of civil liberties and basic rights abroad and at home, including the terrible witch hunt on immigrants, and to the sweeping economic attacks on poor and working people as the policy-driven greater concentration of wealth and growth of poverty intensifies. And millions of people feel hope because of the historic election of an African-American man.

It is critical that organizing grows on every front. In order to make real change, it takes mobilizing and strong, independent and decisive actions.

The International Action Center (IAC) is well-situated and long-experienced to be a major organizing force in this period. The IAC has been a consistent, determined and independent voice and major mobilizing center against U.S. wars, sanctions and military interventions for 17 years, since the first Gulf War. This principled organization of activists has courageously held protests, meetings and forums across the country, opposing U.S. aggression against Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Palestine, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Sudan, Bolivia, Panama and Korea.

IAC organizers have produced many books--translated into several languages—for the public, scholars, and anti-war protesters here and worldwide, while providing a center and resources for a new generation of activists. The People's Video Network has produced many politically-educational videos, while building an alternative media network.

The IAC has taken on struggles against racism, bigotry, injustice and more--from standing with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita survivors in their still unmet quest for justice, to supporting immigrants' rights, opposing the death penalty and challenging military recruitment.

And now, in this crucial time of economic crisis and hardship, the IAC, which is fiercely committed to a Peoples' Agenda, has helped launch and organize campaigns against home foreclosures and evictions, utility shut-offs, mass transit rate increases, and for healthcare.

The IAC looks forward to a new year of struggle against war and political, social and economic injustice!

Our New Year's Resolution for 2009 must be to organize together tirelessly to end the occupation of Iraq, to stop a new war against Iran or any nation, and to stop incessant provocations against Islam, Venezuela, Russia, Bolivia, Cuba and others. We must work to promote international friendship and respect for humankind and to oppose the policies of domination, globalization and war.

We invite you to join in the new year of activism with the IAC and to support its vital work.

You can make a difference!

Visit http://www.iacenter.org/

Call Time on Global Greed

The past few months have seen one of the most significant financial crises in North American and European history, a crisis caused by a greedy, reckless and unregulated economic system which has been biased against the poor for decades. The spiralling levels of inequality and instability created by the current economic system have created enormous social and environmental problems.



Once again, the fall-out of this crisis will have a detrimental impact on millions of ordinary people in the UK, and billions of people in the poorest countries of the world. But while those that created the crisis have been bailed out (bonus intact) with unprecedented sums of taxpayer money, the poor in developed and developing nations have received nothing.

Let’s call time on global greed. The same systems that create poverty here – unfair trade rules and tax systems, debt burdens, privatisation and attacks on welfare spending – also create poverty in the developing world.

Only a system which works for the poorest of the world will ensure a just, sustainable and prosperous world for all of us.

It’s time for a radically different economic system which reduces inequality, creates jobs, puts people before profit, ensures a sustainable environment, and puts eradicating poverty at its heart. We need a ‘green new deal’ that will revolutionise the economy :

A major recovery plan that puts people and the environment at its heart, in particular which enables countries to better feed, clothe, educate and protect their people
Effective regulation of the financial system, including just tax, debt and trade rules
A new and democratic set of institutions to govern this economic system
This fundamental global reform needs to be agreed democratically, with the poorest of the world having a full and equal say over the future economic system. In particular this system cannot be agreed at the meeting of the 20 most powerful countries in the world (G20) on 15 November. The UN, as the only organisation with such a mandate, must be empowered to lead a process of comprehensive reform of the financial and economic system which involves all governments and civil society, in an open manner.

Help us take action - sign the petition to Gordon Brown

http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/Call%20Time%20on%20Global%20Greed+4635.twl

Action Alert: Bolivia’s Amazon Riches to Be Plundered for Oil

President Morales must be encouraged to live up to his grand rhetoric, and end his government's hurried measures to decimate massive indigenous rainforest protected areas and their biodiversity and climate values, in a manner eerily reminiscent of the capitalistic system against which he rallies...NOTE: This is a protest, not a petition, sending emails to many real decision makers on matters vital to the Earth.

http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=bolivia_rainforest

How To Be an Ethical Consumer Without Breaking the Bank

There are many affordable ways to spend your hard-earned cash in accordance with progressive values.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/113496/

Tell Lowe's, Home Depot and Wal-Mart to Stop Selling Cypress Mulch

Cypress forests are the best natural storm and flood protection for the Gulf Coast, and they provide important habitat for wildlife, including endangered species...Cypress trees take a long time to grow, and changing ecological conditions mean many of them will never regenerate once cut.

http://action.healthygulf.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=5892

Take a Stand for Survival

At the UN Negotiations in Poland, youth from around the world are demanding that their countries' delegations commit to making a climate treaty that "safeguards the survival of all countries and peoples."


This message needs to be heard--please take a stand for survival by signing the survival pledge...

http://action.350.org/o/1879/t/8474/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1777

No Secret Pardons for Bush Administration!

Tell Congress to pass a Pardons Disclosure Act to prevent President Bush from issuing secretive, blanket pardons to members of his administration


For eight years, we have been forced to sit by helplessly as President George W. Bush and top members of his administration eviscerated the Constitution, broke federal laws, and defied the will of Congress.


Now, President Bush is poised to give each and every one of his accomplices -- from Dick Cheney to Karl Rove to Alberto Gonzales -- a full pardon, ensuring that they will never receive the punishments they deserve for their activities. Worse, Bush may issue a preemptive “blanket” pardon, covering all officials within his administration without disclosing either the names of the officials involved or the crimes for which they are being absolved.


Congress can, however, stop this most objectionable action before it occurs. The American Freedom Campaign has proposed a Pardons Disclosure Act, which would force the president to specifically name any political appointees for whom pardons are granted along with the crime or crimes for which they are being pardoned.


Please tell your representatives in Congress to support a Pardons Disclosure Act, by filling out your information below and clicking on “Send My Message!”


http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26316

Media Still Letting Bush Lie on Iraq Inspectors

ABC, WaPo fail to challenge president's misinformation

12/2/08

In a December 1 interview with ABC anchor Charles Gibson, George W. Bush gave a grossly erroneous history of the run-up to the Iraq War--a false version of events that Gibson failed to challenge and the Washington Post glossed over the following day...It is troubling that Gibson would not challenge Bush on this fundamental misrepresentation of reality--and that the Post would let Bush's lie go unreported.

ACTION: Ask ABC and the Washington Post to clarify--and fact-check--Bush's statements on the prelude to the Iraq War.

For details, go to:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3657

Our Ultimate Chance. Big Auto's Last Chance.

...There are 3 things we need to ask our representatives in DC to demand from the auto industry if they are to take $25 billion of our tax dollars.

1. We will not pay if you pollute!
The Big 3 (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) must commit to being the most fuel-efficient fleets on the planet. Mandate a fleet-wide fuel economy of 50 mpg by 2015.

2. Give us clean options!
Each of the Big 3 (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) must commit to producing 1 million Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) by 2012 and 3 million PHEV’s by 2015.

3. Create green industry!
Commit to retooling the entire industry to produce these vehicles and lead the way into a new green economy.



http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/703/t/6396/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=384

MASSIVE WAVE OF IMPRISONMENTS IN BURMA/Send a Message to UN Secretary General

Nearly every day, Burma's military dictator Than Shwe is sending dozens of human rights activists to long terms in prison. Those sentenced to many years behind bars include poets, actors, comedians, students, journalists, volunteers who helped victims of Cyclone Nargis, hip-hop artists, and members of the political party of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. These sentences are the biggest news to come out of Burma in a long time, and we have been posting all the news about the arrests on our blog.
More importantly, we are working around the clock to galvanize a strong international response. Here is some examples of what the Burma movement has done so far:
We are pressing the United Nations Security Council to convene an immediate, emergency meeting on Burma in order to impose an international arms embargo on Burma's military regime


Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kay Bailey Hutchison, leaders of the United States Senate Womens' Caucus on Burma -- which includes all the women in the U.S. Senate -- issued a demand for the arrests to stop


Our members have sent thousands of messages to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging him to travel to Burma and demand the immediate release of all political prisoners in Burma (mystifyingly, the Secretary General has done basically nothing about this crisis -- so keep sending those messages)


We have been providing the news media with round-the-clock updates on those sentenced to long prison terms in Burma. There have been thousands of news articles on the arrests


A coalition of 40 organizations sent a letter to the leaders of the Southeast Asian countries urging them to demand the release of all Burmese political prisoners at the upcoming ASEAN summit on December 15th in Thailand. This meeting represents a strong opportunity for Asian leaders to tell the Burmese military regime that the sentencing of political activists must stop


Members of parliament from all over Asia are galvanizing a strong effort (more on this coming soon...)


Many world leaders are preparing a major push to free all political prisoners in Burma (more on this coming soon...)


Our allies throughout the world have successfully pressed the governments of the United States, the UK, Estonia, Slovakia, Germany, Canada, and the European Union to condemn the arrests
We have much more work to do and you are going to see some even bigger actions in the weeks ahead, but we wanted to let you know some of what we are doing. And, we wanted to thank you because none of our work would be possible without your support.
Sincerely,

Aung Din, Jeremy Woodrum, Jennifer Quigley, Jacqui Pilch, Michael Haack


Support 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and the struggle for freedom and democracy in Burma:



http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1189/t/5102/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1407

Take Action: Help Save America's Fisheries

We can reverse the economic and environmental disaster of overfishing.

That's the encouraging conclusion of Oceans of Abundance, a new report by two dozen scientific, economic, political and environmental leaders.

By widely deploying a fisheries management program called "catch shares," we can make fish more abundant and fisheries more profitable—for generations to come.

You can support this vision for better fishery management.

Send an email today: Urge the National Marine Fisheries Service to adopt the recommendations from our Oceans of Abundance report.


http://action.edf.org/campaign/oceans_of_abundance

Get Started with Community Investing

You and your institution can have a social impact with your investments. Community Investing provides resources and opportunities for
lower-income communities, along with competitive financial returns.

This website contains what you need to add Community Investments to
your portfolio, and helps you choose from many high quality options in this expanding asset class.


http://www.communityinvest.org/

Let’s do it right! Restore the wetlands. Protect the people.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers is still dragging its feet when it comes to restoring the wetlands destroyed by MR-GO. In fact, the Corps says it will take at least two years to even come up with a plan! Click here to comment on the MR-GO draft plan and tell the Corps to get to work fixing the wetlands.

http://action.healthygulf.org/t/6826/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26195

Convict Bush/Cheney

Please add your name as an individual or organization to a petition demanding impeachment if Bush pardons himself or his subordinates by registering / logging in, and then signing the petition.

How to indict Bush, Cheney, et alia, at the state or local level for murder or attempted murder.

How to make a citizen's arrest of a war criminal.

How to contact the International Criminal Court.

How to pass local resolutions and ordinances.

How to stop false pardons.

Other law suit possibilities.

Play our theme song by Pat Scanlon.

Buy an ARREST BUSH Shirt.

Watch video of September 2008 conference in Andover, Mass.

Coming soon: Mandamus: How you can ask a judge to order a prosecution, and how we can all do so on the same day in a national action. It's been tried in Minnesota with this writ, yielding this refusal.

Coming soon: How to use a state initiative to create an independent prosecutor.

Coming soon: How to prosecute international crimes in Florida and other states that allow common law criminal prosecutions.


http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=taxonomy/term/15

URGE MEDIA TO ARCHIVE ALL EXIT POLL RESULTS

Please take action to urge the media to report the unadjusted exit polls for the 2008 election.

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International will again conduct all exit polling in 2008 for the National

Voters should be provided with the unadjusted exit polls and if adjustments are made to the final polls they should be explained publicly. Major media outlets are urged to archive all of the interim exit poll results to allow independent analysis later. Election integrity advocates must push for greater transparency since large-sample exit polls can and should be used be used to audit vote totals.

When the U.S. government audits the vote in a foreign country, the tool of choice is always a large-sample exit poll, which will identify problems in the vote totals. Yet, in the United States, even with the documented problems we have had in voting , our own government does not use the best tool available.

News and political divisions of the major networks must plan to archive all of the preliminary exit poll results since the overall survey will quickly be adjusted by the vendor to match the published vote totals, and will thus no longer be useful as an audit of the integrity of the vote totals.

The letter demands that the unadjusted exit polls be made public, that the preliminary exit polls be archived and that any adjustments be explained so that the National Exit Poll can be used as a tool to audit the election results.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1331/t/6410/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26158

We The People

Unless we see ourselves — individually and collectively – as the engine for real societal reform – no matter how hard that may be to imagine given our developed habits of disengagement — our vote on election day is wasted.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/27/we_the_people/

Don't Allow Coal Companies to Annihilate Streams

The Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of approving a proposal that would allow coal-mining companies to dump mining waste directly into flowing streams, filling in the streams entirely and destroying all the life in them. Since 1983 the Stream Buffer Zone rule has prohibited mining within 100 feet of flowing streams, but now the Bush administration and the Office of Surface Mining are trying to push through an under-the-table, last-minute effort to remove this protection. If the EPA approves the repeal, it will be perfectly legal for coal companies to blow off the top of a mountain, then dump the waste straight into streams, killing the rare salamanders, fish, and other species that live in Appalachian waterways. EPA Administrator Johnson could make the decision at any moment, so time is critical. Please take a minute to tell the EPA not to approve the Stream Buffer Zone revision, and pass this alert along to as many of your friends as possible.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/t/5243/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26129

Tell Congress to Break Up Milk Monopolies

Over two years ago, the Department of Justice started an investigation into anti-trust violations by Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), the company that picks up over a third of the milk from U.S. farms. The DOJ has never released the findings of their investigation and we need Congress to shine some light on what is going on in the dairy industry.

Tell the House and Senate Judiciary Committees it’s time for them to conduct hearings into anti-competitive behavior by dairy giants like DFA.

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/741/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26126

States are not providing adequate voting equipment, machines, stations and staff

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1331/t/6410/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26109

In 2004 tens of thousands of voters were denied their right to vote in Ohio when election officials provided inadequate voting machines in African American communities. Some people waited in line to vote for longer than 12 hours. Many thousands of others gave up and did not vote. This alone may have been enough to change the outcome of the 2004 election.

Well, it’s happening again.

A recent report indicated that college-age and African American precincts in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia will not have sufficient numbers of voting machines or election staff to handle the number of voters expected on Election Day. Help us to let these officials know that tens of thousands of people are watching their actions and documenting what occurs on Election Day. Even if you do not live in these states it is important for these officials to hear from you. They need to know they will be held accountable for their actions. This action is being taken in concert with a coalition of organizations working under the banner “No More Stolen Elections.” See www.NoMoreStolenElections.org.

Click and send a letter to the governor, congressional delegation (House and Senate), the secretary of state as well as election administrators where questions have been raised about the adequacy of the number of voting machines and staff.

Please take action now.

Say NO to the Gulf Council's unsafe plan for Open Ocean Fish Farming

We all love to eat fish, and we know that much of the fish we love is in high demand. Because of this demand, more and more fish are grown in huge, unsafe, and often overcrowded cages in open ocean waters called offshore fish farms, or aquaculture. In our decades of work, we have learned some tough lessons about offshore aquaculture, and unfortunately those lessons are about to be ignored by fishery managers in the Gulf of Mexico. I need your help to urge them not to go forward with their unsafe plan. Here's why:

Salmon farming has taught us a lot about the risks involved with offshore aquaculture. With so many fish packed closely together in open ocean cages, disease is much more likely. Without a doubt, some fish escape and transfer these diseases, such as contagious sea lice, to wild populations where the affects can be devastating. Studies show that some salmon populations may go extinct and most wild fish populations are declining in areas where salmon farming occurs.

Sadly, the fish farming plan proposed by Gulf fishery managers fails to protect against these substantial risks and many others. We need strong and smart national standards that will protect every part of our ocean BEFORE aquaculture moves forward in the Gulf … or any of our nation’s waters.

We must protect the health of our ocean and the environmental interests of the public before expanding fish farming in our ocean. This approach is absolutely essential to helping balance our growing demand for healthy seafood with the needs of protecting our ocean and our coastal economies.


http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11607&JServSessionIdr001=3uw4525ut2.app44b

Equal Pay for Equal Work

The Paycheck Fairness Act will make filing a discrimination claim easier, provide protection for workers who blow the whistle on pay discrimination, and strengthen the Department of Labor’s efforts to ensure fair pay for all workers.

http://www.pay-equity.org/info-leg.html

IUF Challenges Job Destruction at Nestlé, Unilever on World Day for Decent Work

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The IUF is targeting the systematic, programmed destruction of permanent work at two major food TNCs - Nestlé (the world's largest food company) and Unilever (number 3) - as unions worldwide highlight the menacing spread of precarious work on October 7 - World Day for Decent Work.

Casual, insecure, subcontracted jobs are not an accidental byproduct of the constant redefinition of "core" business, or the search for "flexibility". The destruction of permanent work has become a major pillar of corporate human resources strategy, implemented to fund record dividends and share buybacks in the name of "shareholder value". Alongside their brands, the companies are manufacturing insecurity. Precarious jobs are corporate policy for shrinking and ultimately extinguishing the number of workers who retain a direct employment relationship with the corporations whose products they manufacture - and with whom they can negotiate their terms and conditions of employment. Precarious work is union busting.

Nestlé and Unilever have been brutally and systematically eliminating permanent work while touting the virtues of job creation and "corporate social responsibility." Behind their famous "billion dollar brands" the former Nestlé or Unilever worker has been increasingly replaced by an abusive system of outsourcing, casualization, "temporary" hiring and "co-packing" which is steadily eliminating the use of permanent employment contracts.

To highlight the leading role of these two food giants in destroying decent work the IUF is launching two new websites.

Nestlewatch and Unileverwatch are interactive sites with translation toolbars for multi-language use. We've launched them to challenge these companies' systematic cultivation of insecure, precarious work, to put a corporate face on the process of job destruction, and to assist in fighting back.

http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=5399&view_records=1&ww=1&en=1

Tell Congress: You Deserve a Better Bailout!

When the House of Representatives rejected a financial bailout package on Monday, Congress had an opportunity to address objections to the proposal and ensure the rights of Main Street were protected. Instead, the Senate hastily added provisions - many wholly unrelated to fixing the economy - that caused the bill to balloon to a colossal 451 pages. Most legislators haven't had the time to read or understand it.

This is an outrage! Public Citizen opposes this bill. If the bill is enacted, we will urge Congress to return to this issue immediately after the New Year, re-regulating the finance industry and providing needed consumer protections and relief.

Write your congressional representatives TODAY and tell them to oppose H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, as passed by the Senate.

http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26039

No Bailout for Big Oil!

Lobbyists from Big Oil have snuck more corporate welfare into the Wall St. bailout package-- this time for Big Oil's dirtiest forms of oil production. Take action now!

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/790/t/7370/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26042

Stop Putting Special Interests Ahead of the Public Interest

Don't let Congress sidestep their responsibilities. Demand that any bailout bill include oversight over how our tax dollars are being spent!

Please join us in telling Congress that any bailout bill must:

* Be completely transparent about how our tax dollars are being used.
* Include strict oversight over the actions of the Treasury Secretary. The current proposal gives unprecedented, unlimited authority to the Treasury Secretary, and makes his decisions non-reviewable by any court of law or administrative agency. The lack of oversight is what's gotten us into this mess; Congress should not compound the problem.
* Include provisions to help families who are in danger of losing their homes avoid foreclosure.
* Cap the pay of CEOs of the bailed out companies. As ordinary Americans struggle to make ends meet and taxpayers are asked to shoulder this $700 billion bailout, the CEOs responsible for these problems should not be receiving million-dollar bonuses and golden parachutes.
* Ensure that, when the bailed out companies become profitable again, some portion of those profits will be returned to the public treasury. This cannot turn into a public debt for private profit situation.
http://www.commoncause.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4559581&auid=4054358

Tell the Senate not to drill our coasts!

On September 16, the House of Representatives rushed to pass a bill that would end the current moratorium on oil and gas drilling on the outer continental shelf posing a permanent threat to our oceans. Now the Senate is moving to consider the House passed bill along with a number of other proposals that would result in drilling our oceans and coasts.


Please take action now and tell Congress not to drill our coasts.
http://takeaction.oceana.org/t/6438/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25177

No Bankers Coup D'Etat

We are witnessing a bankers' coup d’etat. In the name of saving the economy from a crisis created by their own greed and immense profits, the biggest bankers have taken a country and a people hostage.

“Give us your money and tear up what’s left of your Constitution or we will sink your economy,” is the message from Wall Street and the Bush Administration. “Give us the power and money we demand or you will be left jobless from a new economic depression."

Under the pretext of the banking crisis, the Bush Administration is changing the way this country operates. This is not simply taking trillions of dollars from the people and giving it to the richest bankers to do with as they see fit.

Click here to send your letter to Congress

Congress is poised to vote to give the Executive Branch of government, and specifically the White House’s political appointees in the Treasury Department, the absolute right to take our money and give it to domestic and foreign banks and corporations without any oversight of elected officials, from the courts, or from the people.

The new legislation states: “Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars.

We will not stand by and let the Bush Administration formalize its vision of a “government of, by and for the richest bankers."

The new system institutionalizes theft on a grand scale. Lehman Brothers bankers will receive $2.5 billion in bonuses after their company went bankrupt last week, but the new dictatorial authority under the White House and Treasury Department has ruled out any relief for the millions of working families who are being foreclosed.

We live in a $15 trillion annual economy. Instead of taking our tax dollars and giving it to the already rich and powerful, these funds should be used provide to decent paying jobs, affordable housing, health care and a good education for our children. There is another way!

Now is the time to hear the voice of the people. A spineless Congress authorized Bush’s illegal war in Iraq and rubber-stamped the Patriot Act. Now they are being herded like sheep again to give the White House and Wall Street dictatorial control over the people’s money.

Send a letter to Your Congressional Representatives
http://votenobailout.org/

Urgent: Stop The $700B Blank Check!

Campaign For America's Future

Within the next 24 hours, we expect Congress will make an historic choice to address America’s financial crisis: Cut the Bush administration a $700 billion blank check for Wall Street OR demand sensible public checks and balances in the $700 billion bailout. Write an emergency letter to Congress now, and tell them: No $700 Billion blank check to the Bush administration for Wall Street!

Co-Sign Senator Sanders' Petition to Paulson!

Sign the petition and join the thousands that have already added their names -




Dear Secretary Paulson:
As a representative of the Bush Administration, you have proposed a financial bailout program of $700 billion – over $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. We are appalled that your proposal puts the cost of this bailout on average Americans; that it contains no provisions reversing failed deregulatory policies; that it allows executives at these failed institutions to continue to make exorbitant salaries and bonuses, and that your proposal contains no help for average Americans who themselves are facing severe economic hardships.

While the Administration has quickly rallied to help Wall Street, it has ignored the needs of the declining middle class. Since President Bush has been in office the wealthiest people in this country have made out like bandits and have not had it so good since the 1920s. The top one-tenth of one percent now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent of Americans and the top one percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Incredibly, the richest 400 people in our country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion during the Bush presidency.

Having mismanaged the economy for 8 years while continually insisting that, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” the Bush Administration, six weeks before an election, wants the middle class of this country to bail out Wall Street to the tune of one trillion dollars. Meanwhile the wealthiest people, those who have benefited most from Bush’s policies and are in the best position to pay, are being asked for no sacrifice at all. This is absurd.

Any plan to clean up the mess on Wall Street must:

Ensure that middle income and working families are not the ones who are paying for this bailout by
Imposing a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue over five years;
Ensuring that assets purchased from banks are realistically discounted so companies are not rewarded for their risky behavior and taxpayers can recover the amount they paid for them; and
Requiring that taxpayers receive equity stakes in the bailed-out companies so that the taxpayers’ assumption of risk is rewarded when companies’ stock goes up.

Taken together these three provisions will substantially reduce the likelihood that this bailout will end up on the backs of average American taxpayers.


Include a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages. Among many other areas, we can create millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and moving our country from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Further, we must protect our must vulnerable families from the very difficult times they are experiencing.


Repeal the disastrous de-regulatory legislation that facilitated this crisis.
End the danger posed by companies that are “too big too fail,” that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up.
In closing, we believe it is appropriate to act quickly to address any systemic danger to our economy. But that does not mean that we need to give a blank check to the financial sector.

Sincerely,

Senator Bernie Sanders

Citizen Co-Signers (that's us!)

Urgent: Stop The Bush Bailout!

The Bush administration is trying to ram this through in only 72 hours by claiming there will be dire consequences if we don't pass the bailout exactly as written. Once again they're using fear to scare Congress and the American people into submission. We have to stop them.

http://www.truemajority.org/NoBailout/switchboard.php

Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights

The United States government recently bailed out some big Wall Street banks. Now it’s time to help consumers – people across the country who’ve been fleeced by predatory credit card practices during two decades of “anything goes” policy in Washington. While the large financial corporations on Wall Street are being bailed out of a mess that they created for themselves, millions of consumers on Main Street are still drowning in a sea of debt.


On July 31, 2008 the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, H.R. 5244, passed through the House Financial Services Committee despite vigorous opposition from the credit card industry. The industry is still fighting this bill, but we can pass it next week.

The entire House of Representatives must vote on this bill next week – before it adjourns for the year. You can help to make sure it does!

Please CALL your representatives today to ask them to vote FOR the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, H.R. 5244, without any amendments that would stall or weaken the bill.


As the New York Times said, “The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights would help rein in some of the worst abuses.” Specifically, H.R. 5244 would:


• Stop unjustifiable interest rate increases on existing balances.

• End bait-and-switch contract clauses.

• Apply the consumer's payment proportionally between high and low rate balances.

• Stop "double cycle" billing, which requires consumers to pay interest on debts they've already paid off.

• Give the consumer a chance to set a fixed credit limit and avoid over the limit fees.

• Prohibit the granting of credit cards to consumers who are younger than 18 years-of-age.

Please take a moment out of your busy schedule - right now - to call your representative and tell them to support the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights - without any amendments.


If you can’t call, then please personalize the letter below and insist that your Representative support legislation to stop the most predatory practices of credit card companies.
http://action.citizen.org/t/1153/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25964

PRO-DEMOCRACY GROUPS CALL ON DEBATE COMMISSION TO MAKE SECRET CONTRACT PUBLIC

For Immediate Release

September 18, 2008

Contact: George Farah (617-828-8296)

http://www.opendebates.org/makecontractpublic.html

Washington, D.C. – Ten pro-democracy groups – Open Debates, Common Cause, Fair Vote, Judicial Watch, Democracy Matters, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, Rock the Debates, Personal Democracy Forum, Reclaim Democracy, and Essential Information – call on the Commission on Presidential Debates to make public the secret debate contract negotiated by the Obama and McCain campaigns.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) of the McCain campaign and Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) of the Obama campaign have negotiated a detailed contract that dictates the terms of the 2008 presidential debates, including who can participate and the structure of the debate formats. The Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation created by the Republican and Democratic parties, has agreed to implement the debate contract. In order to shield the major party candidates from criticism, the Commission on Presidential Debates has refused to release the debate contract to the public.

“In denying voters access to critical information about our most important political forums, the Commission on Presidential Debates is more concerned with the partisan interests of the two major party candidates than the democratic interests of the voting public,” said George Farah, Executive Director of Open Debates.

“In a sound democracy, it is vital that voters have full access to information, including the rules that govern influential presidential debates, in order to hold the candidates accountable and to make informed choices,” said Bob Edgar, President of Common Cause.

“The partisan, corporate-funded Commission on Presidential Debates should be replaced with a non-partisan, publicly-funded Citizens’ Debate Commission that will operate transparently and champion the public interest,” said Rob Richie, Executive Director of Fair Vote.

The Commission on Presidential Debates was created by and for the Republican and Democratic parties. In 1986, the Republican and Democratic National Committees ratified an agreement “to take over the presidential debates” from the nonpartisan League of Women Voters. Fifteen months later, then-Republican Party chair Frank Fahrenkopf and then-Democratic Party chair Paul Kirk incorporated the Commission on Presidential Debates. Fahrenkopf and Kirk still co-chair the Commission on Presidential Debates, and every four years it implements and conceals contracts jointly drafted by the Republican and Democratic nominees.

A copy of the 2004 debate contract negotiated by the Bush and Kerry campaigns is available at: http://www.opendebates.org/news/documents/debateagreement.pdf

Help Protect Idaho's Buffalo Gulch

A cyanide gold mine proposed in Buffalo Gulch

A cyanide heap leach gold mine is proposed on public lands in Idaho's Buffalo Gulch. This area, administered for all Americans by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), lies in the South Fork Clearwater watershed.

A cyanide gold mine proposed where it's illegal to pollute
Both the South Fork Clearwater and Buffalo Gulch are listed as impaired 303(d) streams under the Clean Water Act. This means that Idaho Law and the EPA require that no further degradation occur in either of these drainages.

The mine threatens local drinking water and fisheries
Many local residents depend on Buffalo Gulch-fed springs and wells for their drinking water.

The project could negatively affect treaty rights and public recreation, as fishing in the South Fork Clearwater River is important both culturally and economically.

And since the completion of Dworshak Dam, which blocks native fish migrations between the Pacific Ocean and North Fork Clearwater River, the South Fork has gained added significance as a rare, local, anadromous fishery. Westslope cutthroat trout, Pacific lamprey, threatened bull trout, Chinook salmon, and steelhead inhabit the area’s waters.

TAKE ACTION
The BLM is now taking public comment on the mine proposal. Please write the BLM and tell them that pure water is more precious than gold.


http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/676/t/572/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=249

Be a "Pollworker for Democracy"

This year, you have an amazing opportunity to ensure a fair election, protect the right to vote, and get paid for doing so. How? By becoming a pollworker.

That's why CREDO Action is proud to sponsor the "Pollworkers for Democracy" project - a nonpartisan effort to get more people involved in protecting our elections - in order to support our democracy. We'll provide you with information to supplement your pollworker training, and also a system to report and track any problems on and before Election Day.

Your county still needs pollworkers for the November 4th general election. By signing up as a pollworker, you can support our democratic system...and get paid!

Click here to sign up to become a pollworker.

http://act.credoaction.com/event/events/index.html?id=&action_id=11&rc=dems

This is America. We don't jail journalists here.

Jailing journalists is unacceptable in a democracy. But that's exactly what is happening at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Award winning journalist and host of "Democracy Now" Amy Goodman was arrested by St. Paul police while covering a protest outside the Republican National Convention. Though clearly identified as press, Goodman was charged with "obstruction of a legal process and interference with a 'peace officer.'" Two of her producers were arrested for "suspicion of felony riot."

This video is upsetting, but you deserve to know what's really going on.

Goodman and her producers were released last night. (An AP photographer was also arrested and released). But the charges are still pending.

This story has been virtually ignored by the mainstream press. The cable channels are providing extensive coverage of events related to the Republican National Convention, but there has been a virtual news blackout on the arrest of Amy Goodman and the Democracy Now team.

Americans deserve to know that journalists are being jailed for trying to do their jobs. E-mail CNN President Jonathan Klein and NBC News President Steve Capus today (NBC News controls MSNBC) to demand coverage of this brutally important story.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/dont_arrest_journalists/?r=1376&id=796-834353-WjrLCJx

Safe Energy For the Gulf: Hold the Line on Fish-Killing Machines

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals pose a threat to commercial and recreational fishing in the Gulf. Despite the fact that Gulf Governors have vetoed the development of any further open-rack vaporizer, or open-loop systems, which would run Gulf seawater through radiator-like racks, energy companies continue to try to gamble with our marine wildlife to increase their profits.

The TORP Bienville LNG terminal is currently seeking a permit to use 127 million gallons of Gulf water a day to vaporize imported natural gas. The drastic temperature change, and physical damage caused by the process would destroy billions of fish eggs and larvae by the day. While the terminal is proposed for 63 miles off the Alabama shore, it is close to critically important, marine wildlife reef habitat.


Alternatives to open-loop terminals exist and are supported by fisheries experts at the federal and state level throughout the Gulf. Take action today to tell the Coast Guard, the Department of Transportation, and Alabama Governor Bob Riley to allow only fish-friendly technology.



http://action.healthygulf.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25392

Don't Buy Big Oil's Land Grab

Did you know that oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of leases that they aren't even drilling? Which kind of makes you wonder: Why are Big Oil and its allies suddenly desperate to get their hands on the last few places that are still protected -- our natural treasures, wildlife refuges, and pristine coastlines? They wouldn't use the concerns caused by high gas prices as an excuse to grab it ALL, would they?

Big Oil and its allies would like you to think that more drilling will ease your pain at the pump, but that's not the truth.

The bottom line is this: More oil drilling will not lower gas prices or create energy independence - it will only make the world's richest oil companies richer.

Check out our map showing how much of our country Big Oil already has.

Average Americans are being squeezed by high energy prices, and the oil companies are taking advantage to push their long-term drilling agenda. They have been spreading a map full of lies though the Internet.

Help us counter their propaganda -- pass this map and the truth along to your friends and ask them to pass it along too.

http://www.sierraclub.org/bigoil/map.asp

Tell McDonalds to be a Leader and Not a Laggard!

Mc Donald's is the biggest of the 11 Fast Food Junkies buying their paper packaging from Southern forests. We know that McDonald?s is in the process of completing their latest Corporate Social Responsibility report and we know that it will include new language about an environmental paper packaging policy.

What we don?t know is whether McDonald?s will step out as a corporate leader with a policy that supersizes their commitment to protecting forests and increasing the post-consumer recycled content of their packaging and packaging efficiencies like right-sizing and light-weighting.

We need to make sure that their commitment is truly sustainable and not just greenwashing. Tell McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner that Southern forests are too important to be wasted for fast food packaging!


http://dia.dogwoodalliance.org/da/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25345&t=nwTemplate.dwt

Support the TRADE Act

The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act, cosponsored by fair trade champions Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine), was introduced on June 4, 2008 with over 50 House and Senate original cosponsors! This landmark legislation sets forth in concrete, detailed terms a progressive vision for good trade agreements in the future and criteria to renegotiate existing failed pacts like NAFTA and the WTO.

Fifteen years of the NAFTA/WTO model has led to massive job loss, downward pressure on wages and the loss of nearly 300,000 family farms. It's given broad, expansive new rights to foreign corporations to challenge our environmental and public health standards and flooded the U.S. with unsafe imported food and products. And it has devastated developing nations, where millions of family farmers have been forced off their land, and where poverty, despair and desperation-driven mass migrations have grown.

The TRADE Act lays out in detail a new path forward for U.S. trade policy to achieve societal goals such as good jobs, safe food and promotion of basic human rights, healthy communities and environmental protection.

What you can do:
We now need as many representatives and senators as possible to publicly support this bill by signing on as cosponsors. Write your members of Congress now and urge them to cosponsor the TRADE Act!

To use the Global Trade Watch contact form, click here: http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24836

For more information:
Available here: http://www.citizen.org/trade/tradeact/


http://www.citizen.org/trade/tradeact/

Allow Testimony or Face Impeachment!

Tell President Bush that he must allow executive branch officials to testify or he will face impeachment
On September 26, congressional oversight may be dead. The Constitution that has served our nation so well since 1789 may be hopelessly and forever diminished. Our federal government and, in turn, our nation may never be the same.

Those are the stakes.

In order for our government to function, we must have checks and balances. In order to prevent a president from assuming king-like powers and to ensure that all presidents are held accountable for their actions, Congress must have effective congressional oversight ability. And, of course, our presidents must respect that power.

George W. Bush does not.

It is time to put an end to this defiling of our Constitution. The U.S. House of Representatives has set September 26 as a target date for adjournment. By that time, Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and Josh Bolten must comply with the congressional subpoenas they have been issued – and which a federal judge has ordered them to follow.

If they do not, then George W. Bush must be impeached and removed from office.

If he is not removed from office, Congress will have established a standard under which a president may deny Congress’s investigative power without penalty. That simply cannot happen.


Please take a moment to speak for your nation at this link:

salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25316

Do Not Pass Go. Go Directly to Pass223.com

Do you have five minutes to help bring the U.S. Senate into the 21st century? Do you have a phone? Are you at your computer? (If you're reading this, you probably are.) Then we've got a favor to ask. The Senate is considering a bill -- S. 223 -- that would require senators to disclose their campaign contributions electronically, just like the House and presidential candidates have been doing for years. The Sunlight Foundation, CRP and other transparency advocates have been pushing hard to get this bill passed this session, and we now have more than 40 co-sponsors of the bill. We need your help to get it passed into law.

http://pass223.com/

Want Some Basic Human Dignity with that Burrito?

The Nation Peter Rothberg on 07/29/2008 @ 12:48pm

In recent years, Taco Bell and Burger King have foolishly resisted efforts by activists to marginally raise the piece rate they pay tomato pickers only to eventually buckle under the pressure of well-deserved bad press. Chipotle Mexican Grill seems to have learned nothing from their lessons.

Although Chipotle, the expanding Colorado-based restaurant chain formerly owned by McDonald's, touts its fair treatment of animals and its locally-sourced organic avocados, its colorful, interactive website neglects any mention of the fair treatment of farm workers. While CEO Steve Ells boasts about his "Food With Integrity" brand, he has ignored countless letters and petitions from all over the country, asking for an extra penny per pound for his tomato pickers.

Migrant pickers typically work ten to twelve hour days, earning a piece-rate of about forty-five cents for each thirty-two pound bucket of tomatoes. Work is never guaranteed, there is no health care, and no overtime pay. The average annual income for a farm worker is $10,000.

Or take this snapshot of the average workday of a Florida tomato picker (with credit to the fine blog, The Pump Handle):

*4:30am: Wake-up. Prepare lunch in your trailer.
*5:00am: Walk to the parking lot or pick-up site to begin looking for work.
*6:30am: With luck, a contractor will choose you to work for him for the day. The job may be 10 to 100 miles away.
*7:30am: Arrive at the fields and begin weeding or waiting while the dew evaporates from the tomatoes. You are usually not paid for this time.
*9:00am: Begin picking tomatoes--filling buckets, hoisting them on your shoulder, running them 100 feet or more to the truck and throwing the bucket up into the truck. Work fast because you must pick 2 TONS of tomatoes in order to earn $50 today.
*Noon: Eat lunch as fast as you can, often with your hands soaked in pesticides. Return to work under the smoldering Florida sun.
*5:00pm: (sometimes later, depending on the season): Board bus to return to Immokalee.
Between 5:30 pm and 8:00 pm: Arrive in Immokalee and walk home.


(And the next day, get up and do it all again. Photos here)

Surely a company that took over $1 billion in annual sales last year can afford a modest raise request. Instead, Ells has tried to side-step the issue by looking to purchase tomatoes from places other than Florida.

Galvanizing the grassroots organizing by and for the Florida tomato pickers is the same group that led the successful fights against Taco Bell and Burger King -- the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), founded in 1993 as a "community-based worker organization" with members from diverse backgrounds, in low-wage agricultural jobs throughout Florida.

On Friday afternoon, August 8th, the CIW along with hundreds of members of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) will be in Denver at Chipotle's corporate headquarters to demand that the restaurant chain work to ensure fairer wages and more humane working conditions for farmworkers. If you're in the Denver area, please join what should be a large and powerful action. if you're not, see what you can do to help the campaign, which has garnered the attention of Congress, with lawmakers earlier this year calling for the Government Accountabilty Office to launch an investigation into working conditions.

CIW's website is filled with details on the demonstration, sample letters to Steve Ells, and other ways that you can do something for some of the poorest and hardest working people in America, including urging Chipotle customers to print out this letter and hand it to the manager at your local Chipotle restaurant. The CIW has gone up against Goliath before and won. With dedication and solidarity, this fight can also be won.

Co-written and researched by Mica Schlosser.



http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/340332/

14 Wolf Pups Executed in Alaska

Soon after Alaska's Board of Game approved the killing of all wolves in an area near Cold Bay, state officials illegally killed 14 wolf pups after gunning down their mothers -- yet another grisly chapter in the Alaska’s out-of-control wolf slaughter.

Please make an emergency donation to help save the lives of Alaska’s wolves and fight the barbaric policies of the Board of Game.

Here’s what happened: State wildlife agency personnel staked out a known wolf denning site -- a practice that is illegal under Alaska law -- and, using helicopters, they gunned down 14 adult wolves from the air, part of an effort to boost caribou populations in Southwest Alaska.

When they landed, they found the 14 helpless pups in the nearby dens -- just weeks old -- and methodically shot each one in the head. 28 wolves gunned down in all.

Please donate now to help save Alaskan wolves from Alaska’s out-of-control Board of Game.

Alaskans are now moving to end the Board of Game’s barbaric aerial hunting of wolves through a ballot measure.

On August 26th voters can pass this ballot measure and ban this awful practice before another deadly season begins.

We are helping Alaskans for Wildlife, a coalition of local grassroots activists, hunters and citizens who secured the 55,000 signatures to put this measure on the ballot. Already, they have reached thousands of voters across the state with their hard-hitting mailings.

Please help us raise $80,000 by August 7th so that we can help Alaskans for Wildlife reach 125,000 voters with mailers like the one on the right -- and end barbaric aerial hunting.

We’re up against wealthy groups like Safari Club International who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat the ballot measure.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has even signed off on a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to justify the state’s barbaric wolf slaughter from the skies.

Your support is crucial to combat this million dollar campaign.

On August 26th, Alaskans can end the wolf slaughter from the skies. With your help, we can win for the wolves.


https://secure.defenders.org/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=6465&autologin=true&s_einterest=C4&s_Affiliate=C4akwolf_&s_src=4JY08WDCSAW&s_subsrc=4JY08WDCSAW_EJG08D1&JServSessionIdr010=wyrsxdup42.app25a

TELL CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP TO PASS A STRONG TOY SAFETY BILL
Congressional Leadership needs to hear from you, instead of the industry, on the Product Safety Bill. As the two bodies decide the fate of the final bill, it’s a crucial time to make your voice heard.

http://www.uspirg.org/action/product-safety/toy-safety-bill?id4=ES

It was more than a year ago that we first began to see the reports about the millions of toys recalled for toxic lead and other hazards. The news was shocking, and we weren't alone in calling on Congress to take swift action to protect our kids.

But more than a year later -- despite the outcry, despite the clear need for reform -- Congress hasn't delivered a bill to make toys safer.

And you won't believe what's holding it up now: ExxonMobil, the world's richest oil company, is standing in the way. Why? The company wants to kill a provision that would ban toxic phthalates from plastic toys. ExxonMobil just happens to be one of the largest manufacturers of that chemical.

Unbelievable.

Please sign our letter to the congressional leadership. Tell them to stand up to ExxonMobil and deliver a toy safety bill that really protects our kids:

After 45 million children's products were pulled from store shelves in 2007, I can hardly believe that we're still waiting for Congress to act.

Earlier this year, both the House and Senate passed a version of a bill to improve toy safety. But now, as the final bill is being hammered out, ExxonMobil has joined forces with the toy industry and the chemical industry in an all out attempt to weaken this bill.

And with precious little time left to pass a strong bill -- Congress will recess in August -- ExxonMobil just might get its way. That is, unless we can keep the pressure on Congress to deliver the strong toy safety bill they've promised

Let Olympic Sponsors Know You Want Positive Change

We are asking people all over the world to voice their concern to Olympic Sponsors over the Chinese government's continual support of atrocities in Burma.

Please send an email to the corporate Olympic Sponsors and ask them to use their leverage with the Chinese government to urge political change of their policy towards Burma. The Olympics should not be tainted. Let them know that if China's policy does not change than you are planning on boycotting all Olympic merchandise and purchasing of their merchandise during the Oylmpics.


http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1189/t/5102/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=23631

League of Women Voters ~ Stand Up and Fight for Civil Liberties

Before Congress left for the Independence Day recess, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a bill that would seriously threaten the civil liberties of all Americans. The Senate is poised to act on this same bill when it returns from recess on July 8.

We need you to encourage your Senators to keep protecting civil liberties by opposing legislation that would authorize warrantless wiretapping of American citizens without judicial protections and would grant immunity to telecommunications companies for possible illegal eavesdropping!

Tell your Senators to oppose H.R. 6304 and limit the ability of government agencies to obtain information about Americans without the appropriate judicial constraints. While the intelligence community needs the authority to track terrorists abroad, this can and should be done without threatening our civil liberties.

TAKE ACTION

1. Contact your Senator now, by phone or by email, and tell them to stand up for civil liberties and vote against H.R. 6304. Tell them that warrantless wiretapping of Americans is unacceptable in a democracy. Remind your Senators that retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies is wrong. To contact your Senator by email simply enter your zip code in the box above.

2. Send this alert to other concerned citizens - your grassroots network, your friends and coworkers. Encourage them to contact their Senators today!

BACKGROUND

Learn more about what the League has done to protect civil liberties.

Sign up to receive Action Alerts directly by email. Don't miss an opportunity to take action! It's easy to sign up and the League will never share your email with others: http://takeaction.lwv.org/lwv/mlm/signup/.


http://capwiz.com/lwv/issues/alert/?alertid=11573871&type=CO

Exxpose Exxon

As the world's largest private oil company, ExxonMobil has the power to direct the energy industry and policy makers toward a cleaner, more secure energy future. Instead, it is using its wealth and power to take America backwards.

ExxonSecrets.org has been tracking ExxonMobil's funding of front groups and junk science for close to a decade.

Find out what you can do to counter ExxonMobil's deliberate and deadly obfuscation to prolong their obscene profitmaking.

http://www.exxposeexxon.com/

When Words Fail

Climate change activists have chosen a magic number

by Bill McKibben
Published in the July/August 2008 issue of Orion magazine


I ALMOST NEVER write about writing—in my aesthetic, the writing should disappear, the thought linger. But the longer I’ve spent working on global warming—the greatest challenge humans have ever faced—the more I’ve come to see it as essentially a literary problem. A technological and scientific challenge, yes; an economic quandary, yes; a political dilemma, surely. But centrally? A crisis in metaphor, in analogy, in understanding. We haven’t come up with words big enough to communicate the magnitude of what we’re doing. How do you say: the world you know today, the world you were born into, the world that has remained essentially the same for all of human civilization, that has birthed every play and poem and novel and essay, every painting and photograph, every invention and economy, every spiritual system (and every turn of phrase) is about to be . . . something so different? Somehow “global warming” barely hints at it. The same goes for any of the other locutions, including “climate chaos.” And if we do come up with adequate words in one culture, they won’t necessarily translate into all the other languages whose speakers must collaborate to somehow solve this problem.

I’ve done my best, and probably better than some. My first book, The End of Nature, has been published in twenty-four languages, and the essential idea embodied in the title probably came through in most of them. It wasn’t enough, though, nor were any of the other such phrases (like “boiling point” or “climate chaos") that more skillful authors have used since. So in recent years I’ve found myself grasping, trying to strip the language down further, make it communicate more. This year I find myself playing with numbers.

When the Northwest Passage opened amid the great Arctic melt last summer, many scientists were stunned. James Hansen, our greatest climatologist, was already at work on a paper that would try, for the first time, to assign a real number to global warming, a target that the world could aim at. No more vague plans to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or keep it from doubling, or slow the rate of growth—he understood that there was already enough evidence from the planet’s feedback systems, and from the quickly accumulating data about the paleoclimate, to draw a bright line.

In a PowerPoint presentation he gave at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco last December, he named a number: 350 parts per million carbon dioxide. That, he said, was the absolute upper bound of anything like safety—above it and the planet would be unraveling. Is unraveling, because we’re already at 385 parts per million. And so it’s a daring number, a politically unwelcome one. It means, in shorthand, that this generation of people—politicians especially—can’t pass the problem down to their successors. We’re like patients who’ve been to the doctor and found out that our cholesterol is too high. We’re in the danger zone. Time to cut back now, and hope that we do it fast enough so we don’t have a stroke in the meantime. So that Greenland doesn’t melt in the meantime and raise the ocean twenty-five feet.

For me, the number was a revelation. With a few friends I’d been trying to figure out how to launch a global grassroots climate campaign—a follow-up to the successful Step It Up effort that organized fourteen hundred demonstrations across the U.S. one day last spring and put the demand for an 80 percent cut in America’s carbon emissions at the center of the political debate. We need to apply even more pressure, and to do it on a global scale—it is, after all, global warming. But my friends and I were having a terrible time seeing how to frame this next effort. For one thing, the 180 or so countries that will negotiate a new international treaty over the next eighteen months are pretty much beyond the reach of effective lobbying—we can maybe influence the upcoming American election, but the one in Kenya? In Guatemala? In China? And for another, everyone insists on speaking those different languages. A Babel, this world.

But a number works. And this is a good one. Arcane, yes—parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. But at least it means the same thing in every tongue, and it even bridges the gap between English and metric. And so we secured the all-important URL: 350.org. (Easier said than done.) And we settled on our mission: To tattoo that number into every human brain. To make every person on Planet Earth aware of it, in the same way that most of them know the length of a soccer field (even though they call it a football pitch or a voetbal gebied). If we are able to make that happen, then the negotiations now under way, and due to conclude in Copenhagen in December of 2009, will be pulled as if by a kind of rough and opaque magic toward that goal. It will become the definition of success or of failure. It will set the climate for talking about climate.

So the literary challenge—and the challenge for artists and musicians and everyone else—is how to take a mere number and invest it with meaning. How to make people understand that it means some kind of stability. Not immunity—we’re well past that juncture, and even Hansen says the number is at best the upper bound of safety, but still. Some kind of future. Some kind of hope. That it means kids able to eat enough food, that it means snowcaps on mountains, that it means coral reefs, that it means, you know, penguins. For now 350 is absolutely inert. It means nothing, comes with no associations. But our goal is to fill it up with overtones and shades and flavors. The weekend before we officially launched the campaign, for instance, 350 people on bicycles rode around the center of Salt Lake City. That earned a story in the paper and educated some people about carbon dioxide—but it also started to tint 350 with images of bicycles and the outdoors and good health and pleasure. We need 350 churches ringing their bells 350 times; we need 350 spray-painted across the face of shrinking glaciers (in organic paint!); we need a stack of 350 watermelons on opening day at your farmers’ market; we need songs and videos; we need temporary tattoos for foreheads. We may need 350 people lining up to get arrested in front of a coal train.

It makes sense that we need a number, not a word. All our words come from the old world. They descend from the time before. Their associations have congealed. But the need to communicate has never been greater. We need to draw a line in the sand. Say it out loud: 350. Do everything you can.