News:

Events Calendar

Political Activism Gets Popular - TV, Sports and Elite Controllers Lose Ground as Citizenry Awakens - Leland Lehrman

Check It Out: Filmmaking in New Mexico Update - Priscilla Vanik

Congressman Udall Rallies Santa Fe Farmer’s Market Film and Fundraiser - Leland Lehrman

Google Goes Solar, National Energy Policymakers Take Note - Leland Lehrman

Top 14 Reasons to Buy Local

Letter to President Bush from NM State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino - Reporting by Stephen Fox

Funnies:

Darwin Awards: Jet Assisted Take-Off

FDA Announces New Trade Names for Viagra

The Vote

Political Activism Gets Popular - TV, Sports and Elite Controllers Lose Ground as Citizenry Awakens
by Leland Lehrman

Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, between 200 and 250 people including Mayor David Coss, State Senator John Grubesic, and Green Party PRC Candidate David Bacon showed up for the World Can’t Wait general strike, rally, and old-time town meeting on October 5th. All were united by the desire to drive out the Bush regime. Even more impressive, more than 100 people marched on to Senator Bingaman’s office, and 60 or so to Senator Domenici’s office.

Although there is now an understandable call to make a proposed Santa Fe rally on November 4th focus on electing Democrats, it is important that we not create a partisan debate out of the major issues facing Americans and instead focus on unifying solutions. We encourage the effort to unseat Heather Wilson in Albuquerque and to impeach Bush for flagrant and continuing violations of his oath of officewith a Democratic majority in Congress. However, Democratic Party warmonger Madeleine Albright disturbed some when she appeared within Patricia Madrid’s campaign recently, reminding us once again of our civic responsibility to hold the leaders of all parties accountable.

Santa Feans and Americans are richly blessed with organizations and events dedicated to recreating natural and beautiful solutions for human settlement. Last week’s Santa Fe Design Week featured internationally famous peace negotiators, designers, architects, and planners who came together to cooperatively design the future of loving civilization. More than 80 events integrated environmental innovation with design for living. This author was there, presenting the Santa Fe Project, a theoretical and practical alternative to the Manhattan Project , but the conference spanned an entire week. The yearly Bioneers conference, held in California, but run from New Mexico, fuses science and ecological politics into a shining star of hope. It focuses on Biology above all, re-enabling Mother Earth to express herself in our culture and providing access to Her blessings for our alienated modern children. Sustain Taos hosted our regional-beaming Bioneers event.

I pray for the day when organizations like Santa Fe Design Week and Bioneers get official roles guiding national and international policy. And yet, I fear that day will not come unless we undertake necessary political action to empower sympathetic leaders and policies. We must clear the thorns from these killing fields and broadcast to the Four Corners the loving nature, foresight, and talent that flowers during these conferences. Like dandelions in the city; they encourage the trees growing up through the concrete.
In the 3rd Congressional District of New Mexico, we rarely acknowledge that we have inadequate representation in the House. I will forever honor Representative Tom Udall’s vote against the Patriot Act, but we need even stronger leadership now. Although he is of course not alone in this regard, Congressman Udall, in his recent interview for the Sun Monthly, had the nerve to suggest that “militant Islamic fundamentalism” is the prime concern of foreign policy today. Compared to the unbelievable assault on the citizens of our world mounted by the United States, Britain, Israel, and NATO, Islamic fundamentalism - the manipulated bogeyman of George Orwell’s nightmares - hardly rates a mention other than to dispel the myth of this so obviously manufactured enemy.
What both Democrats and Republicans of good faith have long missed is that appealing to fundamental human nature and sticking to policy is the best way to engage our citizens. Democrats don’t realize that Republican Congressman Ron Paul has called for the impeachment of President Bush based on his violations of the Constitution, and Constitutional Republicans don’t realize that Democrats like Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney are leading the fight against the Patriot Act, a new war with Iran, globalization, and domestic repression.

But there is a reason this is so. The two party political system is a textbook divide and conquer system. Find lesser issues that confuse and alienate Americans from each other, blast televised bombastic statements from both sides of the aisle, and presto, Americans end up cowering in their living rooms begging partisan leaders to deliver them from their guilt and fears. Or they simply check out in search of distraction and relief.
Americans and Citizens of the World, stand up. It is long since high time we remembered our responsibility to compel our elected leaders to represent us adequately. This, of course, involves convincing them that we represent both the majority viewpoint as well as the moral viewpoint. And although this task is daunting, we mustn’t shy from it.

Leland Lehrman can be reached at: leland.lehrman@gmail.com or 982-3609