Just got an alert that Udall and presumably Heinrich are getting many more calls in favor of the wall than opposing it, something I’ve confirmed. Maybe we’ve become complacent and assumed that without raising our voice, our Senators would do the right thing? I’ve provided a few speaking points and phone #s in a blog of astonishing brevity. ;-). Call NOW!
Below a couple of important coming events, I provide information about how to contact Senators Udall and Heinrich. SHARE THIS POST!!!!!!!
This is the kind of urgent alerts you will get if you join the Statewide Rapid Response Network offering you timely information on how to act. For example, I just got word that Senator Cisneros has introduced a bill to reinstitute the Food Tax in NM. We can’t let that happen, but unless people know about it and have speaking points on why to oppose it and who to contact, these kinds of bills become law. You can be part of making sure those kinds of bills fail and our MUST PASS bills pass. Click here to join and learn more about our Response Network. Check the blog tomorrow for info on the proposed Food Tax.
Retake Our Democracy on KSFR,101.1 FM. 8:30am Saturdays! On Dec. Jan 12, I will be doing a solo show tomorrow, talking about the Roundhouse legislative session, describing some of our MUST PASS bills, some rumors I’ve been hearing, good and bad, and our plans for the session, including plans to broadcast from the Roundhouse on KSFR. Listen in. Recent shows available by pod cast include interviews with:
- Heather Ferguson, ED for Common Cause, NM
- Dana Millen, Communications Director for Health Security New Mexico,
- Camilla Feibelman, ED for the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club,
- Land Commissioner-elect Stephanie Garcia Richards and Emerge NM Executive Director Ashley Sanderson
- Amanda Viscoli from NM to Prevent Gun Violence; and
- An interview with Senator Peter Wirth and Speaker Brian Egolf.
Saturday 10am-Noon In ABQ. This event should have a few hundred folks with a variety of groups presenting or tabling. I plan to be there to share information about the Rapid Response Network. Anyone who want to help me table, write to me at paul@retakeourdemocracy.org.
Saturday, January 12, 2pm. Second “National Popular Vote Public Forum,” three days before New Mexico’s 2019 legislative session opens. Hosted once more by the League of Women Voters of Santa Fe County. The public is invited.This last National Popular Vote forum in Santa Fe will include a legislative focus and build on the forum of November 10, though previous participation is not necessary. Unitarian Universalist Santa Fe, Fogelson Hall, 117 W. Barcelona Road. Estimated length 2 hours.
Wednesday, January 16, all day, plus five additional days. Roundhouse. “National Popular Vote-New Mexico”table directly inside the New Mexico State Capitol Roundhouse’s Halls of History on the ground floor, beginning the day after New Mexico’s 2019 legislative session opens. The table (and chairs) presence on January 16 and during five additional days throughout the legislative period (see below) will allow New Mexico’s National Popular Vote supporters, including you, to have a physical space in which to meet, compare information, strategize, and hold “Lobby Days” and “Petition Deliveries.” Here is the full list of our reserved table dates: January 16, January 22, February 21, February 26, March 5, and March 6.
Udall Heinrich Getting More Pro-Wall than Anti-Wall Calls. Time to Fix This
I just received an email claiming that yesterday Senator Udall had said he was getting three-to-one calls FOR the wall! I found that unbelievable so I called and found that indeed that was the case, but that calls are starting to come in from others opposing the wall. The DC offices are taking a tally at the end of the day, so we need to contact each of our Senators and right this minute. And we need to make it very clear: NO WALL. NOW OR EVER.
So whatever you are doing, take a minute to make a call to their offices. Jam the lines. You don’t need much of a pitch: “Please tell the Senator to stand firm against the wall.” and if you want some speaking points to amplify:
- Trump’s claims that drugs are pouring through the border and the wall would prevent this is false. Drugs pour through legal points of entry that would not be impacted by a wall
- Trump’s claims that a wall would protect us from dangerous criminals were justified with anecdotes that could be found for any kind of person, but data show that refugees and immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than other US residents and citizens
- Trump’s claims that there are thousands of terrorists coming across the border and among the current refugees at the border are also false as Homeland Security has stated the most all potential terrorists arrive in US airports;
- Trump’s claims that unaccompanied children are being used to gain entrance is false, less than 1% of children seeking refugee status arrive without their parents.
Categories: Personal & Collective Action
Done. Talked to nice staffers at both Senators’ office – encouraged the Senator to oppose the stupid wall and the stupid president.
Called. Talked to someone at Udall’s office. Got a voice mail prompt from Heinrich’s office, will again again later today.
Heinrich’ s office said most calls are against wall
Our Senator is still oblivious to how the right is gaming the system. Why he would repeat a right wing talking point, that clearly does not represent a factual representation of his constituents, is concerning. Our Dems allowed 45 to do a choreographed media stunt at out border, without a response. There is no footage of the border crossing stations, where nothing much is occurring. No footage of the massive border complexes built at Santa Teresa, and the one under construction at Columbus.
Not one of our Democrats or any Media outlet has posted any graphic representation of how much money we have already spent at our Border. They are however telling us about the hardships of federal employees, having to sell their old junk to survive the shutdown. This kind of “Adversity Porn” did not change sentiments on the healthcare debacle. Our local newspapers have not been running any fact based information on any of this. Two small children, that we know of, died in Border Patrol custody, not while they were trecking through the desert.
There were no questions raised about why the medical facility released that young boy. They did not release him to a warm bed and a caring parent, they relased him to a long cold ride in a detention vehicle, to a cold unheated and remote closed border patrol station. Racism, and contempt for poor people, is well documented in the medical community. The agencies involved in these deaths have made racist public statements, and 45 has justified punishment as a deterent to refugees.
We have a serious problem, even so called “activism” is being used for marketing. The Neoliberal Ideology promoted by Facebook, “Always Be Selling.” We are seeing Fascism in our communities, and for many it is a marketing opportunity. The right wing has more money and media coordination, they have used to game the system. Our Senator and the rest of our elected officials should be asking how is this undermining our Democracy. Our airwaves, which used to belong to Americans, not mega corporations, are full of propaganda. Even the religious programming has turned to Trump promoting propaganda. The Internet, and Social Media are full of targeted right wing trolls, spreading propaganda.
Our Sentor should be aware that even repeating the number of “calls,” feeds into right wing propaganda. He must have forgot about how the commnets were rigged for the FCC public input. We are not seeing much investigation into the use of social media, to manipualte public opion. They failed to regulate any of the tech companies, and still seem to be unaware or confused about all of it. New Mexico media has been silent about all of it, only doing postive tech stories. A good percentage of our state, if they only have accsess to locla TV stations, and newspaers are being seriously misinformed.
Mavis, it’s clear that you are heartbroken and demoralized by our current state of affairs, and I believe anyone reading this blog shares your feelings about the violations and atrocities you listed in your comment. Udall and Heinrich are our game pieces, and based on the game they’re stuck in, I believe they’re doing a good job. Most of us who find our way to Retake Our Democracy know the situation only too well, and some of us are old enough to know precisely how we got here. What we haven’t found yet is how to address the root cause of our dilemma effectively … not just with change, which can be too easily undone, but with transformation.
What we need right now are strategies for empowering humans to rise above the battlefield long enough to re-envision our world. Democrats will be the first to lift their heads above the smoke and look for a new passage. That’s our job. Their job is to create more smoke and strife to distract and preoccupy us, thus keeping the old paradigm in place and compounding daily in its horror.
The strategic planning effort I invite you to engage will require new ways of perceiving and interpreting reality as we know it—skills that cannot be accessed while in survival struggle (why things are so challenging right now).
We didn’t pick this fight, nor can we possibly win it against oligarchs, tyrants, mega-corps, and the venal, greedy passions being chummed and manipulated by Trump, et al. This coup d’earth was meticulously planned and covertly deployed for over half a century by those who call themselves Republicans, Neo-cons, The Elite, etc., and they are far better resourced, organized, networked, and way more ruthless than we will ever be. Dirty fighting is not in our nature; they’re masters of it. They have been preparing for this coup since the end of WWII, but we are just now learning how big their machine has grown, how corrupt, how deep, and how demonic its purpose actually is.
One way to disempower their machine is to think galactically and act globally. We can create a new gameboard without confronting their old one, and hallelujah, that aikido is in motion. We simply sidestep the old system and create a new one right alongside it, in full view. We change the physics of our reality. They will keep using and inventing new dirty tricks, but the tricks will stop working; they will continue fighting, but will not land a blow because the rest of us will have moved beyond their dimensional reach.
Most importantly, we will keep uniting with each other—annexing previously “they” groups into a collective vision that ultimately raises human nature so far beyond its current level that our reality will be invisible to the masters of the universe—as if one of the known dimensions were removed, or a new one added. If you look closely, you’ll see evidence of this progress seeping into the matrix. Midterm elections were a preview. It’s just a matter of time.
Choices. We could give up, continue playing their game on their board using our puny weapons against their multi-billion-dollar arsenal, and this beautiful planet will soon become a dystopian penal colony with all enslaved to a small, vampiric clique of tyrants (conservative agenda). Or we can make of this emergent epoch a glorious adventure that unleashes equality, freedom, benevolence, prosperity, cooperation, and unlimited opportunity for all living things (progressive vision).
This is a brand new opus for humanity, not just a new chapter. Even the planet we’re on is transiting a portion of the galaxy that has never been felt by human beings, using a 200,000 year timeline. Dinosaurs walked beneath this sky, but no homo sapien has. Who knows what possibilities a new heaven will bring?
Lets greet our galactic destiny with the eagerness befitting a Big Bang for the human spirit. This is not a renaissance event, there’s nothing “re” about it, but rather, it’s a new evolutionary turn on the spiral, a new Creation Story. If we start right now telling the new story to ourselves about ourselves and our future—one that builds upon the infinite potentials of an awakened human consciousness—and that story spins out into seven billion imaginations, our urgently needed transformation process can begin in earnest. And this time, according to all the oracular indications and prophecies I’ve encountered, not to mention the impetus of a high stakes poker game for the soul of humankind, this time, finally, it will work.