Hey, it’s not all bad news around the spinning globe. Don’t lose your balance… we just have to keep our feet on the ground. See the message below from Senators Tom Daschle and Bill Frist.

Dear TuneInTurnOnHelpOut.org,

I just returned from a trip to Rwanda with my friend Senator Bill Frist, MD and leaders from both political parties. Senator Frist and I went to Rwanda not as politicians, but as students, to learn about people who are rebuilding their country after the unspeakable horror of genocide.

My news from Rwanda is very encouraging. The hard work of the Rwandan people and the generosity of Americans are coming together in partnership to create a model for how we can end poverty in the most desperate countries on earth.

I came home more convinced then ever that we’re all in this together. Rwandans’ daily struggle to start anew, even as they deal with poverty and disease, is also our own struggle to build a more prosperous and safer world.

To further the progress in Rwanda and spread that hope, we need to take full advantage of this election year. That’s why Senator Frist and I will be meeting with our respective parties’ leaders in the next few weeks, as they’re writing the platforms that will be unveiled at the presidential nominating conventions in Denver and Minneapolis. These platforms contain the policies on which Barack Obama and John McCain will campaign for the presidency.

We’re going to ask these committees to make sure that their platforms take on the generational challenge of tackling global poverty, and we need your help to do it.

(more…)

Dear fellow TuneInTurnOnHelpOut peeps,

United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) is an organization which gets a lot of support from us around here. For many reasons. One of its principles, Bill Dobbs, had a good hand in turning me on to what activism was really all about. I had some opportunity to watch him in action during an organized Free Trade protest event that lasted days and days a few years back and the man was just tireless. Absolutely persistent, relentless, and committed to the goal of helping to get the word out to the mass media and to the world at large about the potential dangers and pitfalls of Free Trade. I learned much from watching him work. It taught me a lot about what it means to be “an activist.”

Since that time, I have been a UFPJ member and supporter when i could be, and at the very least always try to get the word out on what they are up to. Because what they are up to is always about “us” — their main concern is helping us even during times when we may not be aware of a potential problem yet. Such as right this very minute congress is about to vote on another bill to give the “white house” more money to continue to illegally occupy another country. Now this is some tricky stuff of course. Because Iraq really is no longer another country since we took it over. It now essentially belongs to us if we’re all going to just be honest here. And yes there is also the fact that if we leave, though what the US White House Administration did was illegal and immoral and grossly barbaric, we take the risk of this new Nation falling into the hands of some who may not have our best interest at heart. This argument may be where I and UFPJ differ. I am against the invasion of Iraq. Read the statement above again. But I also understand that we just blew a hole in that part of the world the size of, well, a small country, and we don’t want to leave a gaping wound for just anyone to come and fix up. This poses a huge security risk for us and other EU nations. Unfortunately it was us who started this war, and now we are going to have to be the ones who resolve things over there until the job is done.

But at the same time, I recognize that UFPJ has been very supportive of this group of Iraq Veterans Against the War — these are the actual soldiers who have been serving over there on our behalf. If you go to YouTube, you can spend a good number of hours watching them speak right into the camera about what it is like over there. I highly recomened it. Both veterans still there, and veterans now home. Both veterans for the invasion and veterans against it. It is a good idea to get THEIR side of the story since after all they are the ones over their risking their lives, getting killed, and getting hurt, injured, deformed, and maimed for life. (more…)

Hey team, as always some great stuff here from those wild women at CodePink. Read on and lend a hand if you can. E

 

May 9, 2008

Dear Friend,

Outside Speaker Pelosi’s DC office on Thursday, we found a disconcerting site: the Congresswoman in bed with George Bush! It seems the two of them, behind closed doors, have been colluding to guarantee $162 billion more of our tax dollars for war!

With Mother’s Days approaching, we appealed to the Speaker as a mother. We asked her to please stop funding war and destruction, and instead support our family needs here at home and the Iraqi refugees who are struggling to survive. Click here to tell Speaker Pelosi to get out of bed with Bush, to stop funding this disastrous war, and to help the refugees instead!

You, too, can do something for Mother’s Day to help the Iraqi women whose lives have been shattered by the US occupation.

When you donate today, 100% of the proceeds will go toward the Collateral Repair Project, a grassroots movement working with CODEPINK to address the catastrophic displacement of the five million Iraqis who had to leave their homes and communities because of violence and instability. CRP offers food, education, job training and other vital services to refugees.

• $25 will feed one internally displaced person in Iraq for one month
• $100 will feed a family of five living in Iraq for one month
• $250-500 will support small women-based microprojects to promote economic self-sufficiency for women in Jordan
• $1,500 will launch the Najaf sewing training project, training 50+ women sewing/embroidery. They will be able to make a small living and clothe their families.

CODEPINK Co-founder Medea Benjamin recently returned from Jordan and Syria where she witnessed firsthand the urgent needs of Iraqi women.

Layla Atiya is a 50-year-old woman from Baghdad whom I met outside the UN food distribution center in Damascus. She was a Shia who married a Sunni, something very common pre-invasion. They had a large family-eight children-but Layla’s husband worked hard as a mechanic and managed to provide a decent life for his family.

In March 2005, he was kidnapped by Shia militias trying to rid the neighborhood of Sunnis. Ten days later, his body was found dumped in a ditch, riddled with drill holes from torture. A week later, masked men came and took away her oldest son. Hysterical, she packed up the seven remaining children-ages 2-16-and fled to Syria.

Layla receives $120 a month from the UN, but it doesn’t even cover her rent. She can’t afford to send her children to school. “I can barely feed my children, much less provide them with a decent future,” she cried. “What will become of us?“

This Mother’s Day, please join CODEPINK in helping Iraqi mothers. If you donate in your mother’s name or the name of a mother you love, we will send her a beautiful E-card to acknowledge your generous gift.

With love for the mothers all over the world,
Alicia, Dana, Desiree, Farida, Gael, Gayle, Jodie, Liz, Medea, Nancy, Rae, and Tighe

p.s. To learn more about Medea’s experiences in Jordan and Syria, read her blogs here.