E-News - August 16, 2007
The Alliance for Democracy
E-News - August 16, 2007
Hello readers,
We hope you read and enjoy this monthly eNewsletter. We try to give you a selection of national and chapter news, as well as news from our international partners. We also call your attention to actions on major issues. This month in particular, we want to alert you to some national actions in time to plan local events. More and more, we believe it is people coming together in solidarity in their communities that will make a difference.
Please let us know if this eNewsletter is useful and how we might improve it. We try to balance our alerts to actions so as not to repeat what we know you may receive from other sources.
And please remember to e-mail this eNewsletter to family members and friends who will be interested in AfD’s mission and work.
We would like to thank our office manager, Barbara Clancy, who compiles and edits the eNews. Please be sure to send your chapter and member news and other items to her at afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org with eNewsletter in the subject line.
Thank you, Nancy Price and Lou Hammann, Co-Chairs
PS. Don't forget to renew your membership. We welcome and greatly appreciate your continued support of our mission and work.
In this issue:
AfD News:
· 7th National AfD Convention announcement coming soon! Watch your mailbox!
· Indiana AfD plans statewide Campaign Finance Summit
· Defending Water for Life: Barnstead NH considers the rights of nature, other towns may follow
· AfD on the ‘net
· AfD signs onto Durban Anti-Carbon trading program
· Authors tour to support new books on water and corporate globalization—can you sponsor a reading?
Calendar
· August 19: Countdown to Montebello!
· September 22-29: Encampment and March on Washington and March in LA to Stop the War.
Allied Groups
· New RTTC Alliance: We all have a right to the city
AfD News
7th AfD National Convention – November 1-4 in Tucson, AZ
Watch your mailbox!
Very soon you'll receive the brochure and registration form for our 7th National Convention entitled “Shifting Power from Corporate Rights to the Rights of People and Nature.”
We are very excited about the speakers who have agreed to participate, and the opportunity that the convention affords AfDers to meet, share skills and ideas, and learn new ways of thinking and speaking about the individual issues that confront our communities. Join us in Tucson! Let’s come together to “end corporate rule” with a focus on how to assert our sovereign rights over corporate rights. It’s up to us to shape and make the movement for “radical” democracy happen.
We also have exciting before- and after-convention events planned! Watch your mailbox and check the AfD website for details. Make plans now to be in Tucson this November!
SAVE THE DATE: September 29, 2007
Indiana AfD plans statewide campaign finance event
The “Democracy NOT for Sale: Citizens’ Summit to Change Campaign Funding,” is organized by Stevie and Jack Miller, long-time AfD members (Stevie is a former AfD Secretary and Council Member) through the Indiana Clean Elections Coalition, of which Indiana AfD is a member. This major all-day campaign finance reform event is “to educate and mobilize individuals and groups to develop a comprehensive plan for fairly funding political campaigns in Indiana.”
Featured speakers include Doris “Granny D” Haddock, nationally renowned campaign finance reform activist, author and longtime friend of AfD; Erick Ehst, Arizona Clean Elections Director; and other leaders of the clean elections movement. For more information see Indiana Clean Elections.
Be sure to check-out Indiana AfD's web page for local events and projects, including their new website, “So You Want to Move to Indy.” The site details serious problems with Indianapolis and Indiana’s infrastructure, public health, and environment, and asks why elected officials ignore public needs but pour tens of millions of public dollars into projects that benefit polluting corporations, pro sports team owners, and wealthy campaign donors. Indiana AfD notes that “most websites put up by the State, City and Chamber of Commerce fail to mention these problems. We intend to correct that.”
This could be a model project for other AfD Chapters and members to undertake. You may wish to consult with Jack by e-mail or call him at 317-726-1014.
Defending Water for Life: Barnstead NH considers the rights of nature, other towns may follow
The Alliance’s Defending Water for Life Campaign brought more New Hampshire residents together for a Democracy School July 27 – 29 in Concord, which AfD’s Ruth Caplan helped to teach. Residents of Nottingham who attended left all fired up, despite arriving feeling very discouraged after fighting USA Springs for the last five years and having the state side with the corporation at every turn. Now they are ready to consider an ordinance like the one that Barnstead passed in 2006, banning corporations from taking their water and denying corporations the rights of personhood.
A few days later at a meeting in Nottingham, townspeople came out to hear the Barnstead story told by our local organizer Gail Darrell and to hear Thomas Linzey of CELDF explain rights-based law. After the presentations they voted overwhelmingly to move forward with proposing an ordinance.
The campaign is also very pleased to announce that Maude Barlow, probably the best known international spokesperson on the right to water, will be traveling from Ottawa to speak at the Tin Mountain Conservation Center in Albany NH on Thursday, October 11th at 7 p.m.. The newly built solar conference center is just across the border from Fryeburg and Denmark, Maine, where citizens are concerned about Nestle's purchase of spring water for bottling in Fryeburg and its plans for developing a new site in the adjacent town of Denmark. Recently citizens in Conway have been worried that Pennechuck, a private water company seeking permission for a new spring, may sell excess capacity to Nestle.
Meanwhile Barnstead is considering amendments to their ordinance to make it stronger by recognizing that nature has rights (see Justice Rising, Summer 2007) and by giving the town the authority to protect these rights. We hope the amended Barnstead ordinance will become the model for towns like Nottingham and its neighbor Northwood and that more towns will follow. The first step will be to get the ordinance before the town meetings next March for a direct vote of the people—real democracy in action!
AfD on the ‘Net:
AfD Portland on video… On June 1, AfD Vice Co-chair and Portland Chapter Co-chair David Delk helped organize a Portland OR visit by Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Before Kucinich took the stage, David spoke to a large, energetic and appreciative audience on Fast Track, and fellow AfD member Cheri Lambert Holstein spoke about health care. The video has just been posted to Google. To see David, Cheri (and Dennis), go to http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4221261460895389846&hl=en (note: this is a long video clip which may take a while to download—David and Cheri’s remarks begin about 3 minutes in to the clip).
…And, Nancy Price “Live” from the US Social Forum: Get a sense of the excitement of opening day at the USSF on June 27. Listen to an interview with Nancy Price by Wes Brain, long-time AfDer and labor organizer in Ashland, OR. Wes now hosts his own web-based radio-program, the “Brain Labor Report” and you can listen to his lively interview at
http://www.kskq.org/blr/2007/06/27/a-report-from-the-us-social-forum/
AfD signs on to Durban Anti-Carbon trading program
The Alliance has signed onto the Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading, sponsored by the Durban Group for Climate Justice, an international network of independent organizations, individuals and people's movements who reject the free-market approach to climate change.
This Declaration condemns carbon trading as a commodification of the earth’s carbon-cycling capacity. It stresses that government carbon trading schemes create billions of dollars worth of rights and award them free of charge to polluters, drawing attention and resources from development of renewable energy.
Carbon trading is also no cure for the social inequities rooted in extractive economies and oil dependence, whether it’s indigenous people driven off their land or denied traditional livelihoods due to climate change, or the working class, poor, and rural youth in this country who'll be sent to fight future oil wars. For the full text of the declaration, see http://www.carbontradewatch.org/durban/index.html
Authors tour to support new books on water and corporate globalization—can you sponsor a reading?
Here’s two opportunities to arrange stops on book tours and introduce great authors and ideas to your community – at your locally-owned independent bookstore, of course, if you still have one! Arrange with your local community cable station to tape an interview or the talk itself.
Maude Barlow will have a new book out in October, titled Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Fight for the Right to Water. Her previous book, “Blue Gold” addressed the problem of water privatization; this book focuses on the people's response. The AfD Portland Chapter has already inquired about sponsoring Maude’s appearance there. You can contact the publisher, New Press, at http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_contact&task=view&contact_id=1&Itemid=20
Sharon Delgado, an ordained Methodist Minister and founder of Earth Justice Ministries has a new book, Shaking the Gates of Hell: Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization, to be published by Fortress Press in September. It has been endorsed by Bill McKibben, Catherine Keller, Carol Robb, Jurgen Moltmann, Ched Meyers, James Douglass, and others.
Recently, Nancy Price met Sharon at an event in Nevada City, CA. Sharon was delighted to learn about AfD and our campaigns and shared concerns on water and corporate globalization and is eager to collaborate with AfD chapters on a book tour. To find out more, go to www.shakingthegatesofhell.com . To schedule a speaking and/or book-signing event, use the “contact us” function on the website.
In her book, Rev. Delgado asserts that humanity faces a living hell of widespread poverty, social upheaval, repression, war, ecological collapse, and human misery, thanks to institutional “Powers” that make up the system of corporate globalization, including transnational corporations, the IMF, the World Bank, and WTO, and the US military/industrial complex. Her overview and theological analysis of these “Powers” points to an alternative that includes spiritual awakening, reverence for God’s creation, faith-led resistance, hope for the earth, and personal and social transformation. People of faith can join with others to “shake the gates of hell,” and build a peaceful, just, and sustainable world.
Calendar:
August 19, Ottawa: Countdown to Montebello!
AfD is part of a US coalition that will release a joint statement in solidarity opposing the SPP on Friday, August 17.
The Council of Canadians is organizing events in collaboration with other activist and labor groups across Canada to coincide with the Security and Prosperity Partnership Leaders Summit in Montebello, Quebec.
Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council, will speak at the lead-off rally, Saturday, August 19, from 1 to 3:30 p.m., at Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, followed by a march to the US embassy and back. This family-friendly event is sponsored by the Ottawa Stop the SPP Coalition.
A free public forum on the SPP will follow at the University of Ottawa, with speakers from Canada, Mexico, and the US, and MPs from Canada’s three opposition parties, as well as Canada’s Green Party.
Thanks to public pressure, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Quebec police appear to have eased security restrictions to allow a peaceful protest close to Chateau Montebello, site of the summit. Some groups will maintain a vigil in Montebello for the duration of the Leaders Summit.
August 20 has been designated a National Day of Action and Council of Canadians chapters are organizing forums, community picnics, lobbying and media outreach.
To learn more about the SPP from the Canadian perspective, the Council has excellent materials at www.canadians.org . Read how the SPP affects democracy, energy, water, security, war and public health, and on what you can do to help fight deep integration!
AfD is preparing factsheets for our Chapters and members that will be available soon to download from the website.
September 22-29, Washington DC and Los Angeles: March and Encampment to Stop the War
On Saturday, September 29, thousands (and hopefully hundreds of thousands) will march in Washington and Los Angeles to demand an end to the war and bring the troops home. A week-long encampment precedes the Washington march. Both events are organized by the Troops Out Now Coalition, which currently has 41 organizing centers operating in 23 states. For more information, links to local organizers, fliers to download, and updates on co-sponsoring groups and march speakers, see www.troopsoutnow.org
Allied Groups
RTTC Alliance: We all have a right to the city
As a result of collaboration at the US Social Forum, a new coalition group has formed to protect urban neighborhoods. Right to the City (RTTC) calls for a united response to gentrification and displacement, and stands together under the notion of a right to the city for all.
Over the past decade, a web of neo-liberal economic policies have destroyed working-class urban communities, especially communites of color, at a rate not seen since the heyday of “urban renewal”. Resistance, says RTTC, “is often local, dispersed, and reactive.” In opposition, they’re organizing a national urban movement for housing, education, health, racial justice, and democracy. Their goals: to strengthen local capacity, build regional collaboration, advance a national platform, and support community reclamation in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
RTTC officially launched at the US Social Forum, where representatives from 20 groups and eight major cities demonstrated and presented workshops on gentrification, self-determination, leadership development, and the centrality of race, gender and nationality in the struggle for the right to the city. To learn more about the movement, connect with a participating group, and read their resolution to the People’s Movement Assembly, go to www.righttothecity.org .
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