GfP Newsletter - January 2007

January 2007

Dear GFP member, and friends (Hope you will join in 2007):

I don't know how to begin this news letter. I won't bore you with a review, and I don't want to make a whole lot of resolutions, but I promise to try to be just as active and involved in the New Year as I was in 2006.

The fabric of the world is woven out of small gestures. The large ones, like the terrible war in Iraq, just rend the world and leave more to mend. The newspapers, TV, and radio blast us with these stories every day. The small gestures tend to get overlooked. I am grateful to one of our members, Tony Ehrlich, who sent me a report of dozens of small, and not-so-small victories which activists won for human rights and the environment in 2006.

Here are some of them:

. Indigenous people won victories all over the world, perhaps beginning with the inauguration of labor leader Evo Morale as president of Bolivia on January 22nd.
· In July the Nigerian courts ordered Shell Corp. to pay $l.5 billion for compensation of environmental devastation.
· In November the people of the Peru-Ecuador rainforest succeeded in blocking a major oil producer and forced it and the Peruvian government to implement substantial environmental reforms.
· In October a major U.S. citizen achievement was the defeat of attempts to privatize and jack up usage fees on the Internet, despite $200 million in corporate spending on the issue.
· Another grassroots groundswell that mattered was the immigrants' rights marches. In Los Angeles more than a million Latinos and others marched in defiance of the crackdown against immigrants.
· Mexicans rose up in 2006 and the country seems to be on the brink of revolution.
· The Bush administration continued its slide into ignominy. It was a lousy year to be a Republican president, though not nearly as bad as being a U.S. soldier or an Iraqi citizen.
· In September five central Asian nations signed a treaty forswearing nuclear weapons anywhere on their territory.
· Ronald Rumsfeld was obliged to resign after the 2006 elections.
· It wasn't such a great year to be a Free Trade advocate either. The World Trade Organization continued to falter.
· Hugo Chavez's Bolivian revolution continued to evolve.
· Wal-Mart too met with major set backs.
· Late this year even the European Union struck a blow against the reign of corporations (such as Monsanto) when it adopted the Reach Regulation, a set of laws that essentially implements the precautionary principle that corporations will have to prove their chemicals are safe, rather than requiring government agencies to prove they are dangerous.

What all these victories add up to is a message that the grim superpowers of militaries and corporations can be resisted, and that the power of small activist groups, of workers, of citizens, of indigenous tribes, of people of conscience matters.

That's where Grandparents for Peace comes in!

No one person can be concerned for all issues reported, or similar issues. We must each choose our priorities. Then work on them patiently and consistently. Victory will be ours. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't ask you to support our organization. Remember, dues are due! And thanks are also due, for your past, present and future for cooperation.

May 2007 be a healthy and rewarding year for each of you.

Peg

P.S. Checks for dues and/or donations should be made out to Grandparents for Peace, and mailed to me, Peg McIntire, at 21 Village Las Palmas, St. Augustine, Fl. 32080.

Thanks again.