GfP Newsletter - April 2007

Friday, April 27, 2007

Dear GFP members & friends:

A reminder:

Tomorrow Saturday April 28th is IMPEACH DAY. in St. Augustine (and many other places across the nation). From 10 to 12. Great timing as it follows closely on the Kucinich Resolution to impeach Cheney. Thank you, Mr. Kucinich. I say IMPEACH BOTH OF THEM. Join us in the downtown Plaza de la Constitution. Bring signs, bring a friend, bring your kids. Spell it out!

Monday, May 7: A Guest activist from Nicaragua: potluck at 6, slide show and discussion from 7 to 9. My condo, 21 Village Las Palmas in Ocean Gallery, 4600 A1A South, St. Augustine.

Sunday, May 13. a gentle Mother's Day gathering in the Plaza. Bring a poem, or a photo. Bring your Mom, and your kids.

MODERN-DAY INDENTURED SERVITUDE:

GFP has received an urgent appeal from the Southern Poverty Law Center, asking each of us to write to President Bush, Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez, and Representative John L. Mica.

"For too long our country has reaped economic benefits from the labor of foreign guest workers - but has ignored the incredible abuses they endure: cheated out of wages, charged exorbitant fees to obtain low wage, temporary jobs, virtual enslavement by employers, forced to live in squalid conditions and denied medical benefits."

We can right this terrible wrong. We must reform our immigration system, not by perpetuating the exploitation of guest workers but by acting to insist that strong labor protections are enacted and vigorously enforced.

If you want to support the SPC's work for justice, write letters or email the President and your Congressmen, and/or send a check to the Southern Poverty Law Center, P O Box 548, Montgomery, AL 36177..

COLLEGE DEBTS:

How many of you have children or grandchildren attending or graduating from college, burdened with debt? Last month the N Y Times had an article about this very sad situation.

"Young men and women are leaving college with debt loads that would break the back of a mule," wrote Bob Herbert. "Families in many cases are taking out second mortgages, loading up credit cards and raiding 40l(k) to supplement the students' first wave of debt, the ubiquitous college loan. Bright students have been forced to leave college or never went to college at all. Two-thirds of all graduates now leave with some form of debt. The average amount is close to $20,000. Some owe many times that... In a nation as rich as ours, it should be easy to pay for college. For some reason, we find it easier to pay for wars."

ILLINOIS STATE SEN BARACK OBAMA:

In October of 2002, Sen. Barack Obama said: "I don't oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

"I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics."

In the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, Obama called for an effective coordinated intelligence, a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and an efficient homeland security program.

He called for a vigorously enforced non-proliferation treaty, for the elimination of all stores of nuclear material, and for the arms merchants in our own country to stop feeding the countless wars that were raging across the globe.

He urged Bush to demand that our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

He challenged the Bush administration to wean ourselves off Middle East oil with a creative energy policy, not one that simply serves the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Today, nearly 5 years later, all of the Democratic Presidential candidates, oppose the war in Iraq, but Sen. Obama's voice is the strongest and clearest. There are many who say he is too young, too under funded, and too inexperienced for the job. Maybe so, but I support his candidacy because I respect his intelligence, his courage, and his values.

How about you?

Peg.