Rebuilding Haiti

Democracy Now! & Al Jazeera (English) ran a story on the politics of rebuilding Haiti. It's a question that comes up all the time and this piece explores several of the options that exist:

“Haiti–The Politics of Rebuilding”: A Video Report from Avi Lewis of Al Jazeera




http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/16/haiti_the_politics_of_rebuilding_a

Amy Goodman has long covered Haiti and all the articles and videos are available in the Democracy Now! archives. If you're interested in a first hand account of events in Haiti from 1996 to today spend some time here:

http://www.democracynow.org/tags/haiti

Nov5.org

November 5. 2008 from Tarek Milleron on Vimeo.

http://november5.org

In this case, at the end of the road that is the presidential election, we do actually come to a fork. It's called Congress -- the House and the Senate. And we should follow Mr. Berra's famous advice and take that fork.

Whomever President-elect Obama chooses for his various cabinet posts, chief of staff, and so on, he is now pretty much out of reach of the American people. To sway a vote to Nader/Gonzalez, one could speculate on Obama's potential appointees, given his campaign contributors, and the thick phalanx of former Clinton advisers and hawkish military types around him. Now is the time to rapidly shift the focus to Congress.

Bringing our efforts to bear on Congress is the only way we can achieve a single-payer system of health care, a living wage comparable to that at the end of the 1960s -- $10 -- and a less belligerent foreign policy. In each Congressional district we need to start organizing ourselves -- and quickly. Ralph Nader showed how much could be done in just a single day in Massachusetts with the marathon he did there of 21 campaign stops in 24 hours. And that was done with the tough goal of trying to convince voters to support his candidacy, which was overwhelmingly ignored by the news media.

Imagine a campaign for results that a majority of Americans already support before you start campaigning! We figure that it will take about 60 days to solidify this new effort.

But, clearly, it won't be easy, and we don't want to underestimate the task. Here's the thing: with your generous donations to the Nader/Gonzalez campaign, you helped us design systems of organizing (that's how you get on 45 state ballots) that lend themselves perfectly toward the idea of organizing around Congress to pass the major laws that we want, laws that respond to people's needs.

Though some of us are now involved with the new effort at November5.org, it's not part of the Nader/Gonzalez campaign. Please visit that website and sign up today. Let your friends and family know about it. We're all shifting direction, and the faster we go about it the better.

Regrouping Fast to Continue Onward,

The Nader Team

Third Party Vice-Presedential Debate

http://www.freeandequal.org/

Live from Las Vegas, NV

Sunday, November 2nd

6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 8pm Central

Free and Equal Elections has partnered with TheyWillBeHeard.com,Restore The Republic, and Restore the Republic Radio to host a Vice-Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, NV this coming Sunday. 

Darrell Castle, the Constitution Party VP candidate, Matt Gonzalez, Independent Ralph Nader's running mate, and Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party VP candidate, have all formally agreed to the Vice-Presidential Debate in Las Vegas. 

Third Party Debate on C-Span

Third Party Debate from the City Club of Cleveland (October 31, 2008) shown on C-Span.  This is a debate between:

Ralph Nader (Independent)

Bob Barr (Libertarian)

Chuck Baldwin (Constitutional)

http://www.c-span.org/

video1.c-span.org/archive/c08/.../c08_103108_thirdparty.rm

"Both major parties are very clever," Nader said. "They don't like competition. If they were businesses in the marketplace, they would be indicted for violation of the antitrust laws."

Amnesty International's Write-a-thon 2008

50,409 Letters Pledged!
2,081 Participants Registered So Far!

Each year around International Human Rights Day (December 10), activists from across the world take action on behalf of selected individuals at risk of human rights abuses. Through the Write-a-thon, tens of thousands of participants in more than 30 countries bring concentrated pressure to elicit positive change in the lives of the highlighted human rights defenders, prisoners of conscience, and other victims of human rights abuses.

Q&A

Letter writing tips

Jackson Browne in Town

Rhonda and I took in Jackson Browne at the Alabama Theater in Bham last night.  It's an intimate venue and it was clear that Jackson enjoyed the crowd's constant requests!  The highlight of the night was an impromtu performance of "Where Were You" from his latest album, "Time the Conqueror".  The night was filled with political commentary, reviews of domestic and foreign policy and an all out passionate performance.  I'll probably always prefer the solo acoustic performances but the band was tight, the vocals dead on and the fogoten lyrics were as funny as ever.