A look back at yet another tumultuous week; alerts about Holtec and Chaco hearings; and plans for Santa Fe County to spend $88K on tasers, assault weapons, and other tools of destruction.
Before we review posts from the past week, we remind you about our Zoominar tomorrow. And in the right-hand column below (bottom of post if you are viewing by phone), you’ll find actions related to Santa Fe County Commission plans to purchase assault weapons, the upcoming Holtec hearing, and opportunity to comment on 3,000 proposed additional wells near Chaco Canyon. With the price of oil plunging, they really feel the need to drill near one of the most sacred indigenous treasures?
Tuesday Zoominar Exposes PNM
How PNM Runs Circles Around Our Legislature and PRC, and How A Group of Local Shareholder Activists Are Exposing PNM’s Dissembling, a Zoominar Conversation from Retake Our Democracy, Tues., June 9, 6:30 – 8 p.m. Please share information about this Zoominar with friends.
For years, PNM has been laying the groundwork for foisting the costs of its own business mistakes onto the ratepayers of New Mexico. In the past year’s debate about the Energy Transition Act (ETA) many of us have been confused by the competing rhetoric, with environmental groups often pitted against each other. This Zoominar hosts a group of local activists who purchased shares in PNM stock five years ago and formed PNM Shareholders for a Responsible Future. In the process of their work, they have come to understand how PNM has maneuvered, especially during the creation of the ETA, to turn its failed policies into a corporate gold mine.
For the past five years, these activists have introduced resolutions and asked questions at the PNM Annual Meeting to increase attention to the urgency of climate change, and to pressure the utility to strike a balance between shareholder profits and the company’s responsibility to the people and environment of our state. Group members will share their questions from the May 12 Annual Shareholder meeting, exploring how the ETA dramatically restricts the regulatory power of the PRC not only with respect to the San Juan Generating Station, but also Four Corners and Palo Verde. The questions also illuminate how badly both ratepayers and the environment are served by PNM’s plans for replacement power at San Juan. If you want to get clarity on what is really going on at the PRC and how PNM is running circles around our legislature and the PRC, you won’t want to miss this discussion. Click here to pre-register. You must Pre-Register to secure a “seat” in the Zoom Room.
Transformation Study Group: We will be sending out a doodle poll this afternoon to those who have signed up to explore participating in this study group. The purpose of the group is to examine an array of policy areas where reinventing new paths can result in systems more responsive to the needs of our people and planet. We will do research on how other states and nations have adopted entirely different approaches to organizing our communities, our resources and our people. We will then use this research to educate legislators, develop local and state legislation and advocate for a new kind of future. Click here to read more about the areas we will be examining initially and write to us at RetakeResponse@gmail.com if you want to explore joining our first zoom meeting.
A Look Back at a Momentous Week
New Mexico held a primary, the country erupted, the President did what he always does: blunder. If I had to pick one piece to review, it would be Tuesday’s examination of what could replace the “normal” life that lies tattered around us. Wednesday’s post was more of a celebration of the primary wins than analysis of policy or news, but “What the Wins Mean” is an important and, we hope, motivating read. And “America Rises Up” is an interesting assessment of how Trump’s regime may actually be unraveling, with key institutions and leaders finally speaking up.
A Look At What Could Be in a New Normal
Tuesday, June 2. This post comes in two parts. The first is an examination of the normal we must reject. We review excerpts from “Normal Is the Problem: So is normal’s idiot child, ‘the new normal’ – What we’ve made normal never was natural” by Andrew Nikiforuk, a powerful piece that dissects the many ways our systems have failed us and what we’ve grown to accept as “normal.”
We then turn to what could be. It is not enough to say “no” to the normal we have endured, we must invent a new path to a transformed future. Click here to read the full post.
Mission Accomplished:
Bye-Bye Senate DINOs.
Wednesday, June 3. After brief review of election results, we kept it celebratory with music from Kool & the Gang, Queen, and Playing for Change, and then offered an inspiring video from Valarie Kaur. Click here to read the full post.
What the Wins Mean
Actions & Alerts
Chaco Hearings Continue Remotely Despite COVID
Read this excellent piece on the shameful way the Bureau of Land Management has proceeded apace with plans to install over 3,000 drilling operations in the Chaco area, despite the Navajo Nation reeling from COVID. Excellent article from the Navajo Times outlines the issues.
June 9, 2pm, Comment Online. Santa Fe County to vote on spending $88K on assault weapons, tasers & more. Click here for an easy way to weigh in. Contact info, speaking points, and links for how you can participate in the hearing.
Holtec Online Hearing
Tuesday, June 23, 3 pm MDT (5 pm EDT). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently announced an online meeting to give the public and state officials an opportunity to comment on problems with the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) Holtec submitted as the last step before the NRC issues them a license.
There are huge inadequacies in the DEIS, and people are needed to attend and comment. You must register by June 22, 2020, here: https://usnrc.webex.com/usnrc/onstage/g.php?MTID=e518b15b4271391e6b7c7232571f289d3
In order to speak, you must also contact Antoinette Walker-Smith at: Antoinette.Walker-Smith@nrc.gov.
Read an excellent overview of the issue here.
From La Jicarilla: An Excellent Blog from Rio Arriba County
Verso Books is currently offering free e-book downloads (asking for donations if possible) of two books in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. To order, follow the title links below and click on the e-book tab.
Alex Vitale’s book, The End of Policing: “The problem is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last forty years, a fundamental shift in the role of police in society. The problem is policing itself.”
David Correia and Tyler Wall’s book, Police, A Field Guide is an illustrated handbook to the methods, mythologies, and history that animate today’s police. It is a survival manual for encounters with cops and police logic, whether it arrives in the shape of officer friendly, tasers, curfews, non-compliance, or reformist discourses about so-called bad apples. In a series of short chapters, each focusing on a single term, such as the beat, order, badge, throw-down weapon, and much more, authors David Correia and Tyler Wall present a guide that reinvents and demystifies the language of policing in order to better prepare activists—and anyone with an open mind—on one of the key issues of our time: police brutality. In doing so, they begin to chart a future free of this violence—and of police.
Thursday, June 4. The importance of this post lies in its zeroing in on how the primary results point to what we must do this summer. The primary does not yet represent a victory, but an opportunity. We now have the chance to Fix the Senate, earned on the heels of five smashing NM Senate wins. I was heartened by the response we received — several emails from readers saying that while they had not done calls before or had not enjoyed it, they were in for making calls this summer. Very heartening. Click here to read the full post.
America Rises Up
Saturday, June 6. We begin with observations on Trump’s intolerance for dissent within his ranks and on our streets, and then we shift to examine how much of America is reacting quite differently to the protests and the implications for what could be viewed as an erosion of Trump support in more and more critical institutions
Click here to read the full post.
In Solidarity and Hope,
Paul & Roxanne
Categories: Uncategorized
What’s a little strange about the June 9th County Commission meeting “call to action” (in the link) is that $36,000 of the $88,000 request is for lapel and helmet video cameras for the deputies and SWAT personnel. Not only are those not “tools of destruction” we totally WANT sheriff deputies and SWAT to have and to use video cams. Also the call to action does not include contacting the most important person on this issue – County Sheriff Adan Mendoza – only the Commissioners. It’s Sheriff Mendoza, an elected official, that is making the request for more weapons, and he’s the one in charge of the deputies and SWAT.
Very good points. Thank you for highlighting these key aspects.