FISA Fight – Take Action Today to Protect Your Liberty

I can hardly believe what I’ve been reading. The Senate is about to give away your protection from government spying. They are going to limit debate on amendments the FISA bill before Congress.

It’s time for US to act now. PLEASE flood congress with calls and letters demanding:

1. Only pass a FISA modernization bill that has individualized warrants for people in the United States.
   
2. DO NOT to provide telecom companies with immunity for breaking the law.
   
3. Blanket or program “warrants” that allow the government to vacuum up the international telephone calls and emails of Americans aren’t really warrants at all, and they aren’t constitutional. Do not allow blanket warrants.
   
4. Americans are looking to the Senate to stand up to the Bush Administration, not cave into threats of being labeled soft on terrorism.

It’s up to us. Only we can stand up and protect our liberty. As Woodrow Wilson said, “Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it.”


Background: For a historical background on the FISA fight, start here. To hear Chris Dodd give a brief explanation of what is at stake, go here.

Can a Political Speech Make you Cry?

Can a political speech make you cry? This one did. God, I hope this man means what he says. Let’s hope our next president comes within 10% of this rhetoric. We would all be well served to think about what John Edwards has to say and then go out and act…today. Don’t wait for the next election. Join One Corps and get started today.

ACTION ALERT – Help Lift Women and People of Color out of Poverty!

Call Your Senators about the Minimum Wage bill, S-02.

According to the Washington Post, inflation has depleted the value of the minimum wage to the lowest level in more than 50 years. The House passed a minimum wage bill on a vote of 315 – 116. Now the Senate is about to take up the bill. But some in the Senate want to add other provisions to the bill that would create extra breaks for businesses. Please call today to ask your Senator to pass a clean minimum wage bill with no other riders.

Currently, a minimum wage worker who works 40 hours a week every week of the year earns only $10,700 -- barely enough to keep a single person above the federal poverty line. And working 60 hours a week without taking any time off still isn’t enough to keep a family of three out of poverty.

According to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:

Women and people of color make up a disproportionate percentage of minimum wage earners: overall, 40 percent of minimum wage earners are people of color. In fact:

• 59 percent of minimum wage workers are women;
  
• 16 percent are African-American, though African-Americans make up only 11 percent of the workforce; and
  
• 19 percent are Hispanic, though Hispanics make up only 14 percent of the workforce.

Take action! Call your Senators today. Tell your Senators to support a “clean version” of the minimum wage bill.

Faith Without Works is Dead – the War in Iraq

You’ve probably heard that saying, “Faith without works is dead,” or more precisely, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” So, now let’s apply that to the war in Iraq. It is not enough to say we want the war to be over. We have to take massive action if we want to end the war. If we believe in peace, but we take no action, our belief is dead. But with massive action, our belief can be realized on the earth.

Here are a few actions you can take today to bring peace to the middle east right now.

1. Take to the streets! Join in the March for Peace. See http://www.unitedforpeace.org. They brought the troops home from Vietnam, after we took to the streets in massive numbers. It's time to take to the streets today.



2. Support a candidate who supports peace. Two declared presidential candidates have come out in favor of bringing our troops home - Tom Vilsack and John Edwards. You can contribute to their campaigns. You can volunteer to work for them. You can hold rallies in your home to support them. If you contact the campaigns, they will give you plenty to do to work toward peace.



3. Believe it or not, you can end the war with a little popcorn. That's right - popcorn. Screen a film about the war in your home. Brave New Theaters makes it easy. Go there and sign up to screen Iraq for Sale, The Ground Truth, or Sir No Sir.



4. Make a suggestion to your Congressmen/women. How about this for a practical suggestion? Do NOT cut off the funding for the troops on the ground. Instead, cut off the billions of dollars for missiles and ships and other methods of traditional warfare. That will get some attention at the Whitehouse and the Pentagon without harming our troops. If the Pentagon wants to choose to spend their billions on a pointless war, let them. But they're going to have to give up their toys to do so.



5. Heal the real wound that is causing much of the strife in the Middle East. End the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Join with others at PeaceNow.org.

So, there’s the bottom line. If you want peace now, you’ve got to work for it. Faith that we will have peace in Iraq without direct action, is dead. Let’s work together to bring peace to Iraq today.