Just Say No to Joe.

From Arizona Advocacy Network:

Each time Arpaio conducts one of his sweeps for brown people, Phoenix area activists and observers are alerted via a text message network to bring cameras to the area and document the actions of the deputies.  During Arpaio's racial profiling sweep last weekend, another of his deputies grabbed the camera of activist and radio host Carlos Galindo and erased his footage.  Fortunately, Galindo had the techie know-how to be able to recover the footage.

Sheriff Joe knows that the documentation of his actions by our volunteer activists has been getting him into to trouble.  He is determined to keep on engaging in unconstitutional actions without being inconvenienced by the First Amendment, or any other constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Without activists documenting Arpaio's raids, the rest of the nation would know little of Arpaio's abuses of power, authority and the law.  We cannot tolerate these attempts to silence the public.  

Friends in Arizona and around the country:  

Please contact your members of congress (http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/), 

Secretary Napolitano (Comment Line: 202-282-8495), 

the Department of Justice (202-514-2001) and 

President Obama (http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/) and let them know that we need their help to stop Arpaio's efforts to make Maricopa County a "Constitution Free Zone."  He cannot continue to go unchecked. 

Many thanks to Lydia Guzman, President of Somos America, for coordinating observers over the weekend.  Thanks also to CopWatch and the ACLU of AZ. 

And Congratulations to Salvador Reza, recipient of the Tides Foundation's JBL Award for Puente's tireless work to hold Arpaio accountable and push back against his abuses. 

Stay safe and thanks for all you do!

Arizona Advocacy Network

Next Immigration Forum:

Date: Thursday, September 17th
Time: Refreshments at 5pm;Program begins at 6pm
Where: Grace Lutheran Church, 1124 N. 3rd Street (SW Corner of 3rd & Moreland just south of the I-10)
RSVP by emailing us at rsvp@azadvocacy.org or by calling us at 602-297-2500.

Be a Cynic, not a nihilist. Call Congress.

This was forwarded to me by a friend/prison activist in the Netherlands:

Decisions Are Made By Those Who Show Up: 9 Reasons Why Calling Congress Isn't A Waste Of Time

By Greta Christina, Greta Christina's Blog
Posted on September 8, 2009, Printed on September 9, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142381/

So why -- specifically -- is calling Congress not a waste of time?

Recently, I wrote about why calling and e-mailing our elected officials is not a waste of time: Why it's actually one of the most powerful actions we can take to change how our government works.

Now, I want to get into specifics. I'm looking at the specific reasons people give for not calling or e-mailing their representatives ... and I'm talking about why, as understandable as those reasons might be, they aren't anywhere near as compelling as the reasons for calling and e-mailing.

The other day on Facebook, I posed the question, "If someone asks you to e-mail your representative, and you don't, even if you care about the issue -- what stops you?" Here's my response to the answers I got:

1. "I don't think they listen."
 
I said it yesterday, and I say yet again: Squeaky wheels. Grease. Especially if the squeaky wheels number in the thousands. Elected officials absolutely keep tabs of which issues people are calling or e-mailing about ... and you better believe they keep tabs on which direction those calls and e-mails are going. If your elected official cares and wants to make a difference, she'll want to know what her voters want her to do. And if she just wants to hold onto her position of power, she'll bloody well pay attention to thousands of voters screaming for her head if she doesn't vote the way they want her to.

Your one little voice may not matter so much. Your one little voice combined with hundreds or thousands of other little voices matters a whole hell of a lot. (Which is why it's such a good idea, not just to call or e-mail your representatives, but to Facebook and Twitter and such to get other people to do it, too.) Hundreds or thousands of constituents kicking up a stink is a hard thing for a politician to ignore. Again, how do you think the religious right has been so successful for so long?

2. "My representative already agrees with me about this issue, and already knows how the people in my district/ state feel. I don't need to let her know."

I can see how you'd think that. Especially if you live in a politically monolithic district.

But here's the thing. Your representative may know your opinion on the issue. But she doesn't necessarily know how strongly you feel about it. If 60 percent of the people in her district want health care reform, but they don't care enough about it to bother calling or e-mailing -- and 10 percent of the people in her district think health care reform is socialized death-panel Hitler medicine, and they take the time to show up at town hall meetings and scream about it? Who do you think she's going to listen to? How hard do you think she's going to fight for what she believes in ... and for how long?

Squeaky wheels. Grease. Politicians assume that the people who don't care enough to call or e-mail about an issue probably won't remember the issue when they vote. If they even vote at all.

So even if she already agrees with you and is planning to vote the way you want her to, it's useful to let her know, not just how you feel, but how strongly you feel about it. Let her know this issue isn't one for horse trading. Let her know that this is an issue you want her to stand firm on; that this is an issue that mattered to you when you voted, and is one you'll be remembering when you vote again. It'll make her more likely to stand firm when the fight comes.

3. "My representative already disagrees with me about this issue, and nothing I do will make him change his mind."

Again, an understandable point. (Although I am entertained to see people arguing that it's useless to call your representative if they already agree with you … and other people arguing that it's just as useless to call them if they don't.)

But I have two responses to this.

First: Part of the reason they're voting the way they do is that they think that's what their voters want. It's your job to disabuse them of that notion. Let them know that their district isn't as uniformly right wing (or left wing) as they think it is. If you can get a groundswell of people in your district/state/country who agree with you to all make calls/send e-mails, you might be able to shift your representative's thinking. If not this time, then next time. And if not, you can help make them uneasy ... and that's always fun.

Second: OK. So maybe calling your representative is a waste of time. Why not call the president? Your senators? The Senate Majority Leader? The Speaker of the House? Maybe your representative doesn't want to hear your pinko opinions ... but your president sure does. This one does, anyway.

Besides, it gets you in the habit. Calling your representative even if you think you can't sway them gets you in the habit of doing it on those rare occasions when you might be able to.

4. "I wouldn't know what to say."

I get this. You're calling an elected official who is something of an expert in government, and you don't want to sound like an idiot who doesn't know what they're talking about.

But nobody is grading you on this. Nobody is going to grill you or quiz you. You don't have to be super articulate, and you don't have to have multiple talking points in bullet form. All you have to do is say, "I am a citizen of your district/state/country, and I support X." It's nice if you can follow that up with a brief "why," but it's really not necessary. They're mostly just tallying "yeas" and "nays" anyway.

 5. "I don't have time."

This is always my excuse. Of which I am heartily ashamed, as it's the weakest one on the list. It takes 2 minutes. (Especially now that I have the "e-mail the White House/your senators/your representative" sites bookmarked on my computer, and their phone numbers programmed into my phone.) If I have time to watch Entourage and read Cute Overload, I have time to call or e-mail my representative.

6. "It's a hassle. You have to go through a whole phone tree to get your call through, and you can't e-mail them directly, you have to go through their Comments Web page."

This has also been my excuse. Again, of which I am thoroughly ashamed ... as it ranks a close second to "I don't have time" in weakness.

Here's the part it took me an embarassingly long time to figure out: You can program these phone numbers into your phone. And you can bookmark the "Leave a comment" Web pages. It's a very mild hassle the first time out -- you have to Google "senator," plus your state, and if you don't know who your representative is you'll have to look that up -- but really, it's 3 minutes of Googling if that.

Or you can use this handy "find your senators and representative" directory. Then, if you save the numbers and bookmark the Web pages, you'll never have to do that part again. And if you call, you don't have to go through a phone tree. At least, I didn't. You find their number on their Web site. You call. You leave a message on their voice mail, or you talk to a staffer. It's really not that hard.

7. "I get 20 calls to action a week. If I called or e-mailed every time I got one, I'd never get anything else done."

I totally sympathize. I get 20 of these a week, too. You can't possibly respond to all of them. If you did, you'd never do anything else.

So pick one.

Make one call/e-mail a day, or one a week, or one a month. One is better than none. Maybe as you get used to it, you'll get more efficient, and you'll be able to pick up two or three more. Or maybe not. Maybe you'll just make one phone call or e-mail every now and then, on the issues you care about most passionately. That's cool.

8. "I'd rather e-mail than call or write ... but I heard that e-mails don't have as much effect as snail mail."

This is no longer true. I'm not sure it was ever true; if was, it's not now. (In fact, ever since the anthrax scare, physical mail to Congress and the White House is now much slower to get processed than e-mail.) I too heard, once upon a time, that e-mails to representatives didn't get listened to as seriously as letters or phone calls, but that's just not true anymore. They're not complete idiots. They know that e-mail is how people communicate these days.

And besides:

Yes, it's possible that some methods of contacting your elected officials are more effective than others. But all of them are more effective than not doing anything. It makes no sense at all to stay completely silent simply because you can't make your voice heard as loudly as you might like.

Some people may tell you that one way of contacting your elected officials is better than another: that phoning is better, or e-mailing, or using carrier pigeons. I am not one of those people.

I strongly believe that contacting your elected officials is like exercise: the best way to do it is whatever way you'll actually do.

9. "I don't know enough about this issue."

If you genuinely don't know enough about an issue to have an opinion about it, OK. You're off the hook. I'm not asking anyone to e-mail their representative on issues they don't have an opinion about. (Although it might make for some entertainingly Dadaist politics: "Dear Senator, I'm a voter in your state, and I'm e-mailing you today to tell you that I have no opinion about health care reform. I don't know very much about the issue, and I haven't yet made up my mind about it.")

But if you know enough about an issue to care? If you know enough about it to have an opinion? If you know enough about it that you'll be really happy if it comes out one way, and really ticked off if it comes out another?

Then you know enough about it to call or e-mail your representative.

I mean, do you think the people showing up at the town hall meetings screaming about Nazi socialist death panels have read the health care bill? Any of the health care bills? They haven't. They know nothing.
Do you want them to be the ones who set the terms of the debate? Do you want the only voices that get heard to be the voices of easily frightened know-nothing idiots, just because you don't have an advanced degree in economics and therefore didn't want to express an opinion?



* * *

I get that it's easy to be cynical about politics. Boy, howdy, do I get it. You don't have to tell me about the massive role that big money and corporate lobbying plays in government and policy; or about the short attention span of citizens and how easily distracted they can be by the Drama of the Day; or about the great advantage incumbents have over challengers and how it contributes to inertia and indifference in politicians; or about how easy it is for voters to be manipulated by fear.

I am 47 years old, and I've been participating in my government for almost three decades and observing it for longer than that, and I am under no illusions about how deeply sucky government can be. I get it.

But I also think that cynicism is the easy way out. Cynicism is just a way of not having to care, so you don't risk being disappointed. Not calling or e-mailing an elected official, because you think they don't care and won't listen, is like never asking out the girl or guy you think is really cute, because you're afraid they'll say no. It's giving up before you've even started.

I keep thinking about that quote from Voltaire: "The perfect is the enemy of the good." Politics is never, ever, ever perfect. Politics is the art of compromise, and the art of compromise is often an ugly, messy, dumb art.
But giving up is not the answer. Giving up is not going to make government better. Giving up is actively making it worse. Giving up on government because we can't make it perfect is the enemy of making it good. Or at least, making it better.

And better is ... well, better. As my friend Nosmo King points out: The lesser of two evils is less evil. How is that a hard decision?

This isn't idealism. It's harm reduction.

Stay cynical if you want to. Keep being a jaded, cynical hard-ass who thinks all government officials are selfish, power-hungry jerks. But be a jaded, cynical hard-ass who thinks all government officials are selfish, power-hungry jerks ... and who calls or e-mails them to tell them what jerks they're being and what exactly you expect them to do to be marginally less jerky.

Be a jaded, cynical hard-ass. But don't be a nihilist. Don't give up. People fought and died for the idea of participatory democracy: not just in the United States, but all over the world. In many parts of the world, they're still fighting and dying for it.

You're lucky. You don't have to fight and die to keep this idea alive. You just have to call or e-mail your elected officials. You just have to program the phone numbers of the president, your senators and your representative into your phone. Or else Google the "contact the president/your senators/your representative" Web pages and bookmark them.

Do it now. It's the best shot we have of taking this "participatory democracy" thing back, of making it better, of making it ours again.



* * *
E-mail or call the White House: (202) 456-1111

Call or e-mail your representatives and senators (This takes you to a directory: you plug in your ZIP code and it tells you who your senators are, and links you to their Web sites with contact info)

E-mail or call Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi: (202) 225-4965

E-mail or call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: (202) 224-3542


Read more by Greta Christina at her blog.

© 2009 Greta Christina's Blog All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/142381/

Parole The Move 9

Remember the MOVE Family?

We've had more than thirty years to forget - unless you count the day the Philly PD dropped a bomb on their house. That was May 13, 1985. No one paid much attention to it then, either.

Most people probably don't know who I'm talking about, I guess.

Not long ago I saw MOVE; the 2004 documentary narrated by Howard Zinn.

They were revolutionaries.

They still are.

We have to raise our voices to set these people free.

If you don't take my word for it, then watch the film, scan the net, check out Mumia, try YouTube hit Wikipedia, do what you need to do to be "well-informed" (there are plenty of anti-Move sites too) - but do it soon. Here's the alert I received from the Jericho Movement about the Move 9 today:
-----------------------------------

"Call the PA Parole Board all day tomorrow, Wednesday. Ask for names and write down the content and response of your call. If you’re on Facebook blog about your call on the wall of the Free the MOVE 9 cause. Help us keep a record of these calls so we can better strategize on behalf of the MOVE 9!"

Don’t forget to write your letters to the parole board in conjunction with this action!

(717) 787-5699

Chairwoman Katherine McVey
Charles Fox
Michael L. Green
Jeffry R. Imboden
Matthew T. Mangino
Benjamin A. Martinez
Gerald N. Massaro
Judy Viglione
Lloyd A. White

[name of Board member]
Board of Probation and Parole
Attn: Inmate Inquiry
1101 South Front Street, Suite 5300
Harrisburg, PA 17104

(717) 787-5699

Since the prison system insists on having DIN numbers, make sure to have them on hand when you call or write.

Charles Simms Africa #AM4975
SCI Graterford, Box 244, Graterford PA 19426

Debbie Sims Africa #006307
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238

Delbert Orr Africa #AM4985
SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA 18612

Edward Goodman Africa #AM4974
301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932

Janet Holloway Africa #006308
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238

Janine Phillips Africa #006309
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238

Michael Davis Africa #AM4973
SCI Graterford, Box 244, Graterford, PA 19426-0244

William Phillips Africa #AM4984
SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA 18612

----------------------

Merle Africa died while incacerated in Indiana.
----------------------

Finally, this wasn't part of their ask but I think it's okay to say: Historically the parole board has stipulated that the MOVE family dissociate from one another and have no contact with eachother on the outside. They are being told they must disown their family.

MOVE has argued unsuccessfully - but I think rightfully - that such a requirement is a violation of the freedoms of religion, speech, and association. I believe this prevented their parole before.

It seems to violate something even more fundamental than constitutional liberties to keep people in chains until they betray loved ones, forsake their religion, or otherwise completely submit to the will of the state. That's a violation of human rights.

MOVE and supporters have been family to eachother over years and across countless prison walls; their love must be deep and renewing to sustain the brutalities of incarceration. Their faith - their adherance to their beliefs - must be more sound than most, that they would spend another year in prison before they renounce them.

The MOVE 9 (now 8) are no threat to neighbors or the state.

What kind of twisted society really wants to punish these politics, anyway? Love, radical ideas, and sustainable living are so hard to come by anymore: we might as well be locking up all the writers and artists too (oh, wait - we are. See all those links on the left....).

Just something to keep in mind when you make that call or write that letter for MOVE 9 members tomorrow. Thanks for whatever you can do for MOVE

Write a Letter. Save a Life.

I have an old Amnesty International poster I've been lugging around for 20 years now; I always hang it on the wall in front of my desk, so I see it when I look over the top of my computer screen. It's a black and white photograph of an old Royal typewriter, with the caption at the bottom reading: "This is one of the most powerful weapons in the fight for human rights. Write a letter. Save a life."

So, when Amnesty asks me to sign a petition, send an email, or write a prisoner a card, I often do. I write even if it looks my letter will be just one of thousands going to an embassy mailroom. Even if it looks like my letter may be just one of a handful drowned out by the silence of millions, I write. And I write even if it seems like it won't really matter, because for all I know that letter could be just what was needed for the collective conscience to finally register a resounding "no!" to torture, rape, genocide, slavery, and the death penalty.

As a result of organizing by Amnesty, the NAACP, and several other international groups and celebrities, a couple of congressmen from Georgia are looking at drafting legislation specifically to stop the execution of Troy Anthony Davis. The Supreme Court is giving the case one final look - they've refused to consider it several times already. In the meantime, the NAACP is training 300 organizers to take up the PR campaign to get Georgia - or someone - to stop the execution and give him a new trial.

The link at the bottom of the column to the left goes to Amnesty International's website about Troy. Whatever else one thinks about the death penalty, we have a principle of justice in America that precludes us from executing the innocent, and if Troy Davis' jury had available to them then what we have now, they never would have found him guilty - much less sentenced him to die.

I don't believe in the death penalty for either the innocent or the guilty, but I hope this campaign saves Troy's life, and that it leads to the truth about innocence. Troy's case may not be all that exceptional. In one prominent study, 68% of all death sentences were reversed on appeal because of serious errors in the original trial. Black men have been found to be mistakenly identified as guilty parties in cross-racial identifications more often than white men. Black men are also intentionally portrayed as criminals to deflect attention from white people's crimes. And then there are the Baldus studies, which demonstrated that in Georgia defendants convicted of killing whites were 4.3 times more likely to get the death penalty than anyone convicted of killing blacks - evidence that the state values the lives of white people more than it values the lives of blacks. That pattern has been repeated in studies across the country.

Need I say that Troy - an African American man - was convicted of killing a white police officer?

I'm inclined to agree with Thurgood Marshall: that if most Americans really knew the truth about the death penalty, it would be so disturbing to them that capital punishment would be abolished. Specifically, we would find it "shocking, unjust, and unacceptable..." Yes, it costs a lot more money to prosecute someone under the death penalty than it does to just send them to prison for life. And yes, sometimes the innocent are condemned and executed. But that's not what Justice Marshall found so repugnant about it. It's that it's outright racist, and has a long history of racist application across the country. Out of the approximately 16,000 executions conducted in America from 1608-1945, only 30 were of whites for crimes against blacks. Thirty. Now look at the Baldus findings, presented to the Supreme Court in the McCleskey v. Kemp case in 1987. By a 5-4 majority the Court ruled that evidence of institutionalized racism isn't enough to show that one's consitutional rights are violated by discrimination. As Powell essentially argued in the majority opinion, if we give an inch on the death penalty, the legitimacy of the whole criminal justice system is in question. In retirement he said that was one decision he would rule differently on now, by the way. Think of what that might have changed...

So I have concerns about the direction of death penalty abolition campaigns these days, though I understand the temptation of an open door where there was once a stone wall. A campaign emphasizing abolition because of the risk of executing the innocent implies that executing the "guilty" is okay, leaving open the use of capital punishment in cases where evidence of guilt is "incontrovertible". Having abandoned the whole principle of humanity and dignity, then, where are we on arguing it's cruel and unusual to execute anyone?

Then there's the economic argument - some bills are getting pushed through to repeal the death penalty because implementing it is so expensive. A few states, though, did what I'd expect death penalty adherents to do: they tried changing their laws to expedite the capital punishment process, making it cheaper to ultimately execute someone. The economic argument would suggest skipping the appeals process altogether and having everyone summarily shot once sentenced. That would save money.

But it's not like I'm the one in there fighting on this one - I just write letters, sign petitions, and try to spread the word. I want to make it clear why I oppose the death penalty, though: it's racist and it brutalizes us as a people. I hope the folks leading the charge to abolish it don't let us forget those very basic things. If Americans abolish it because it's too expensive or needs to be tweaked, then there's room for improvement. State executions, we should maintain, cannot be "improved"; there's no such thing as a good death penalty.

It may be awhile yet before the death penalty is abolished across the country. In the meantime there are people like Troy Davis. Even the Innocence Project has taken up his case. So, if you get a minute, visit Amnesty's site, and write a letter today; save a life.