Our Campaigns
Bring our National Guard Home
Let us compel Governor Richardson to bring
our National Guard Home from Iraq. Read his speech on why we
must do so here. Here
is our petition:
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Governor Richardson
A Call to Bring our New Mexico National
Guard Home Immediately and Test Each Member for Depleted Uranium
Contamination
We, the undersigned, strongly support the
men and women serving in the United States Armed Forces in Iraq,
including our New Mexico National Guard, and we recognize the
sacrifices that each of them is making.
We believe our New Mexico National Guard
would better serve our citizens by helping with New Mexico-based
emergencies, which is why they joined the Guard, unless there
was a true danger to the United States.
We believe the federalization and deployment
of the National Guard in a foreign occupation has no legal justification
and has rendered the remaining Guard Force unable to carry out
its state activities effectively.
We believe the costs of the call-up of
the New Mexico National Guard for deployment in Iraq have been
significant, as reckoned in lost lives, combat injuries, psychic
trauma, disruption of family life, health hardships due to exposure
to Depleted Uranium munitions used in Iraq, financial hardships
for individuals, families and businesses, interruption of careers,
and damage to the fabric of civic life in many New Mexico communities.
We believe stop-loss orders violate the
mutual understanding between New Mexicans in the Guard and the
State and Nation they agreed to serve. We call upon the Governor
and State Legislature of New Mexico to take whatever steps necessary
to secure the withdrawal of the New Mexico National Guard troops
from Iraq immediately, and to test all returning members for
Depleted Uranium contamination.
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A state's ability to control its National
Guard is protected by the 10th Ammendment . Furthermore, the
Supreme Court has sanctioned a Governor's right "to refuse
deployment of the state's National Guard members if deployment
would impare its ability to serve or train for emergencies at
home." With global warming, increased wildfires in the region,
and a premiere nuclear-bomb-making facility in the neighborhood,
over 1900 nuclear bomb pits in Albuquerque and no plans for evacuation
in place...we need our National Guard here.
People's Kyoto Agreement on
Global Warming
Recognizing that to date, some 163 nations
have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, in order to arrest the intensifying
destructiveness of global climate change.
and that the United States, which generates
23 percent of the world's polluting carbon emissions with only
5 percent of its population, refuses to join in this worldwide
effort to keep this planet hospitable to civilization.
and recognizing that the Kyoto Protocol
is the only existing diplomatic framework through which the entire
global community can address this unprecedented challenge.
Join the over 44,700 signatories of the
People's Kyoto Agreement on Global Warming (United Nations)
Link www.kyotoandbeyond.org/petition.html
Counter the climate crisis by reducing
your own carbon footprint. You
can become carbon-neutral for an entire year by using Forest
Guardians' (now "Wild Earth Guardians") website to
calculate your CO2 emissions and offset your carbon footprint
with tree plantings. www.fguardians.org
Support the Organization for Womens'
Freedom in Iraq (O.W.F.I.) which has established an underground
railroad for women who are escaping "honor killings"
and violence. OWFI has opened 5 women's shelters in Baghdad,
Kirkuk, Erbil, and Nasariyeh, which provide a safe haven for
women in Iraq's current environment of gender-based violence.
The US invasion and occupation of Iraq
have brought a sharp rise in violence against women, including
"honor killings." OWFI and MADRE recently launched
a new campaign to combat "honor killings:" Just as
enslaved African Americans relied on a secret network of courageous
individuals to help them make their way to freedom, Iraqi women
who are threatened with so-called "honor killings"and
violence need an escape route.
A woman who is targeted for an "honor
killing" is often hunted down by her family—even years
later. For that reason, relocating completely, even changing
her name, is often the only way for a woman to save her own life.
Yet few women have the resources to take such measures on their
own. The Underground Railroad for Iraqi Women provides women
who are threatened with "honor killing" with the means
and social support to escape and begin to build a new life. http://www.madre.org/sister/Iraq.html
Let's support our sisters in Iraq who are
suffering increased violence due to our government's destruction
and occupation of their homeland. By appointing theocratic, fundamentalist
clerics in the new government who have overturned previously-won
women's rights (the 1959 Family Law), our government is culpable
in the deterioration of the quality of women's and children's
lives in Iraq today. 1 American dollar will go a long way in
providing necessities for these women. Please give generously.
Graphic by Jose
Chicos
It
Started Here. Let's Stop it Here!
Los Alamos National Laboratory plans to become the premiere nuclear bomb-making
facility in the world. Plans are to mass produce plutonium
pit (nuclear bomb core) production, up to 80 and possibly even
200 a year. This, when we are pre-emptively threatening Iran
with annihilation though we have no evidence of nuclear production
there, and when we already have available nearly 24,000 nuclear
bomb "pits" (about 9,800 in stockpile weapons and another
14,000 pits in storage). How many nuclear bombs do Americans
need?? Are we going to USE them?
Radionuclides that traveled in the smoke
from the infamous Cerro Grande fire at Los Alamos have been found
in the Embudo Valley watershed, soil, air and food. Tons of highly
radioactive nuclear wastes sitting in unlined trenches at Los
Alamos are seeping into nearby canons every time the rain falls
or the wind blows. New Mexicans are becoming "collateral
damage" in the perennial "war on terror".
Los Alamos watchdog groups have been working
tirelessly for years to put an end to this madness. Your participation
is welcome and vital...
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety
(CCNS) is a Nationally recognized
organization protecting all living beings and the environment
from the effects of radioactive and other hazardous materials
now and in the future. Research, litigation, public education.
www.nuclearactive.org
- 505-986-1973 - Joni Arends.
Embudo Valley Environmental Monitoring
Group (EVEMG) focuses on the public and environmental health
and safety issues related to air emissions generated by LANL
activities. Does independent monitoring of air, soil, food. serit@cybermesa.com - Sheri
Kotowski.
Nuclear Watch-New Mexico provides timely and accurate information to the
public on nuclear issues in the American Southwest. Promotes
greater environmental protection, safe disposition of radioactive
waste, and federal policy changes to curb nuclear proliferation.
www.nukewatch.org
- 505-989-7342 - Jay Coghlan
Los Alamos Study Group seeks nuclear disarmament, environmental protection
and enhancement, social justice, and economic sustainability...Goals
are to:
- Prevent successful plutonium bomb core
(“pit”) production at Los Alamos National Laboratory
(LANL) and help prevent production from starting anywhere else.
(Halt pit production.)
- Increasingly encumber waste generation
and disposal at LANL and bring it to a halt as quickly as possible.
(Stop nuclear waste dumping.)
- Halt new weapons development at LANL,
to some extent at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and to
a lesser extent at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
and elsewhere. (Prevent new weapons development.)
- Stigmatize and impede the indefinite retention
of a nuclear arsenal, especially a large one. (Impel nuclear
disarmament.)
- Generate intellectual products which lay
out the case for conversion of the New Mexico economy and provide
a road map for getting there. (Create a Charter for New Mexico.)
www.lasg.org
- 505-265-1200 - Greg Mello
Faithful Security - National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear
Weapons Danger: multi-faith coalition made up of national religious
bodies and denominations committed to building a world free of
nuclear weapons. www.faithfulsecurity.org.
Tribal Environmental Watch Alliance
(TEWA) Alliance of indigenous
Tewa-speaking Pueblo Indian Nations addressing environmental
racism and serious impacts of LANL on health and environment.
tewacowboy@hotmail.com. Gilbert Sanchez
Volunteer for and support these additional
organizations:
Contact your Congresspeople and let them know your views;
New Mexico Office of Peace Initiative
Purpose:
to establish a state office dedicated to peacemaking, justice
and human rights, training that will enable the prevention, management
and resolution of conflict without violence, and the study and
implementation of conditions that are conducive to a culture
of peace.
Duties:
- Impact the Prevention, Management, and
Resolution of Conflict
- Organize public dialogues throughout the
state to address controversial issues and conflict
- Coordinate, support and collaborate with
established efforts to build upon existing programs as well as
develop new approaches
- Establish community-based violence prevention
programs
- Support the Education of Future Generations
- Develop a peace education curriculum
- Make available supporting materials to
school districts throughout the state
- Provide peace education grants for expansion
of peace studies and skills at all educational levels
- Promote Conditions that Build a Culture
of Peace
- Support victims of violence and family
members of perpetrators of violence
- Promote tolerance and understanding among
the diverse peoples of the state
- Study and promote ways to insure a sustainable,
life-affirming economy
- Keep the Public Informed
- Disseminate information on effective community
peace-building activities
- Make studies available that address the
role of media and its affects on conflict
- Publish activities of the office
- Sponsor conferences to provide forums
for peace issues and studies
Action:
Contact your state legislators and the Governor and urge them
to support and fund the NM Office of Peace. Complete bill availabe
at www.thedepartmentofpeacenm.org.
Contact: Virginia Miller, vjmopus@cybermesa.com,
505-986-8676 link here to history of New Mexico legislation.
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