Geoff Chesshire
Presented at Generosity Sunday – A Festival of Giving,
Santa Fe, June 22, 2008.

Thank you all for coming out on this lovely summer afternoon, to this beautiful gathering-place.

For the second year in a row, we are here to celebrate “Generosity Sunday,” co-sponsored by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and Warehouse21, Santa Fe’s Teen Arts Center, with the support of the City of Santa Fe for the use of this park and for free buses all day throughout the city.

Our theme this year is “A Festival of Giving.” To me, a festival of giving is a celebration of generosity in the spirit of community. I am speaking not only of the community of people here today, nor only of the many communities of people who share in making Santa Fe a city with such wealth of cultural diversity, the “City Different.” I am speaking also of our community among all of the living beings who share this place, this bioregion, and this planet. I am speaking also of our community with the beauty of the land, the sky, the water, and all the others who have no voice but who nevertheless share their gifts with us. (Perhaps someone would like to come up here after I’m finished, to share the meaning of “all our relations” in native cultures.) How shall we celebrate here today, with so much to be thankful for? I would like each of you to think about this question, even while I continue to speak, because this microphone is here not for me, but for you. Your creativity in sharing your personal stories of generosity, stories of receiving, giving forward and giving thanks, will make this Festival of Giving as powerful an opportunity for building the connections and relationships of community as you choose for it to be. I invite you to share briefly your stories of generosity through spoken word or song, and offstage to share through the visual arts, dance, theatre, story-telling, conversation and play. This is your day!

I would like to begin by offering my thanks to all of you who have brought your gifts to share. This includes every one of us, as we have all brought with us the gift of our goodwill to others, the gift of our time, our energy, our creativity and our will to live joyfully and so to bring joy into the lives of others. All of us have brought with us also our needs, whether physical needs such as food, clothing and shelter, or emotional needs such as connection and recognition, to be seen and heard, to know that someone cares. Our needs are gifts in disguise, as they provide the opportunities to build the relationships of mutual support that are the real wealth any community, not only among people but also within nature. This is the ecology of generosity.

Today we wish to honor especially several of those community organizations that give tirelessly and serve those whose basic needs would otherwise remain unmet, those who need help to rebuild their community support networks. In particular, we wish to honor St. Elizabeth’s Shelter, Hope-Howse, the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, Youth Shelters and Family Services, and the Food Depot. I would like also to thank the businesses who have brought such a cornucopia of food to share with us: Cowgirl Hall of Fame, Pranzo Italian Grill, Subway, Zia Diner, Furr’s Family Dining, Albertsons, Lowe’s Super Save, Smith’s, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Market, and Coca Cola Bottling Company. I will defer to others the privilege of expressing thanks to those who have contributed in so many other ways.

I would like to illustrate the ecology of generosity with a couple of brief stories, personal stories such as I am inviting you also to share. About six years ago, I was sitting on the patio of the Aztec Cafe after closing time, and a woman I had never met walked in from the street and sat with me. She was grieving for her children, whose custody had been taken from her (temporarily). She needed to tell her story, to be heard and to know that someone cared. I listened and was deeply touched by her story. Afterwards, she gave me this postcard and then continued on her way. On the postcard is written the Prayer of St. Francis, which I will read to you:

Lord,
Make me an instrument of Your Peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy

O Divine Master
Grant that I may not so much
Seek to be consoled, as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to love
For it is in giving, that we receive
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned
And it is in dying, that we are born to
Eternal Life

Permit me to repeat: “For it is in giving, that we receive.” Again: “For it is in giving, that we receive.” The gift of this postcard and this message, as much as any other story I might share with you, has steered me on the path that brings me before you today.

Here today we also have cards to go along with the gifts that you give and receive, as invitations to the recipients in turn to give forward and keep the spirit of generosity flowing. These “Smile Cards” have been provided through the generosity of Brian Brigham at Pinon Fast Print. On the cards is written, “Smile! ... you’ve just been tagged. Experiments in anonymous kindness is the name of the game, and now you’re it! Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going!” Smile cards are the brainchild of Nipun Mehta, who gave the keynote presentation on Gift Economy at a conference that I recently attended. Nipun told us several stories, including this one, as I remember it:

I was driving on the freeway and realized as I approcached a toll bridge that I was in the wrong lane to pay cash. I had to change lanes quickly, which enraged the driver of whose car I had cut in front. Not wishing to anger him, I paid the toll-booth attendant my fare and the fare for the car behind me. I left a Smile Card and asked the attendant to give it to the driver. Now, instead of leaving him angry, I left him joyful, and with a story that, who knows, maybe he passed on to his family and to anyone else he met that day.

Kindness is contagious, especially when it is unexpected. I invite you to take extra Smile Cards to give forward along with your anonymous acts of kindness.

Most of the time, of course, we don’t receive such obvious hints as a Smile Card, to remind us when we are participating in the ecology of generosity. How shall we know, in the absence of such clues? It is not enough to consider whether or not we had to pay for what we received. Consider, for example, the gifts of the earth that we purchase, such as food, water, fuel, building materials and so much else. How do we know whether these were given generously by the earth, and not just taken disrespectfully? The question itself is the answer to the question; we must only remember to ask it. Whenever we give genuine thanks for what we receive, we are also asking ourselves how it was given. I hope someone will share a story of indigenous ceremonies that respectfully request to share in nature’s generosity, as honorable participants in the ecology. In this way, too, we may answer the question. Creative people know they are participating in the ecology of generosity, when they feel themselves taken over by their creations as instruments for their expression, as for example, when musicians say, “The music played the band.” Finally, we know we are participating in the ecology of generosity when we gather together in celebration, because then the question does not arise, “Who is giving joy to whom?” Instead, we all express and share our joy together, at the same time giving and receiving. I hope today’s Festival of Giving will be just such a celebration for all of you.

Thank you.

Gioia Berlin (age 11)
Presented at Generosity Sunday, Santa Fe, April 15, 2007

I feel that generosity is very important and that there isn’t enough of it around the world. There are some people that are very generous and give plenty to the people in need. Then there’s the other people that have plenty, but don’t choose to share what they have, and give it to charity or something like that. I don’t think that everyone has to give mountains of things and money to other people; they just have to give what they can.

If everybody gave what they could I don’t think there would be as much poverty as there is now; here and all over the world. And maybe the poverty that was still going on wouldn’t be as bad.

I feel that the US has created some of the poverty around the world. Big companies like Nike and Wal-Mart go to foreign counties like Mexico and China and pay their worker barely anything to make the stuff that they sell in their stores. Those companies have billions of dollars and that can’t find it in there hearts to give the Chinese and Mexicans enough money to even just survive. I don’t think it’s that they want to work for those companies, but that it’s the only work they can get.

I was recently in Acapulco and when we would walk the streets at night I saw moms with their little kids sleeping on the ground next to them. The moms would be selling something like gum or cigarettes and sometimes they would just be begging. It made me want to cry. It must be so hard for those kids growing up with barely enough food to survive. They probably didn’t always have a meal a day. That made me realize how lucky I am to have enough, and most of what I want.

I think that if the US was more generous and kind to the rest of the world there wouldn’t be as many terrorists. It might not seem so, but I think that we have a lot to do with terrorists coming to America.

I don’t know what goes through the terrorist’s heads or why they want to do what they do, but I’m almost positive it has something to do with the way the US treats the countries that they’re from. We go bomb Iraq because we think they have weapons of mass destruction and then start a war. Could that have any thing to do with it? I don’t think that fighting is the answer. I know it’s not this easy, but why can’t we just have people talk it out; and why do people blame other people so quickly for things that might not even be true??

Since the US does things like go bomb people for reasons that might not even be true. I think that the people they bomb (or whatever they do to them), don’t know any other way to protect themselves, but to send a terrorist to come do something just as bad to us. I don’t think that terrorists are any different from the other people in their country or culture except that they’re willing to risk their lives more then other people. I’m not saying that everyone that lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and places like that are terrorists, but that there upset and mad at the US and the terrorists are the ones that are willing to do something about it. They might not do it in the best way, but they do it the only way they think they can get through to us. Then what happens is the US gets even madder and they go start another war. I’d say that right now the US and the Middle East are in a vicious circle and we need to find some way to end it.

I feel that generosity could really change the world and make it a safer place to be in. A little generosity can go a long way.

Craig Barnes
Presented at Generosity Sunday, Santa Fe, April 15, 2007

It might be instructive, today, to look at some of the major wars of the twentieth century, to see which have succeeded and then to ask the question whether war as a tool of policy is still useful, and if it is not useful then to ask what have we learned about what works better.

All the major western powers were complicit in the build-up to the First World War in 1914, but more than any other Kaiser Wilhelm launched his attacks on the French and the English because he sought to achieve a kind of respect and military equivalency. His empire had been slow to enter into the world colonial business and Germany had been one of the last in Europe to unify as a consolidated state. In the first decade of the 20th century, to give himself and his empire place, Wilhelm engaged in an arms race, primarily against the English, and then used the excuse of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo as the opportunity to test those arms. His intention to establish Germany as the leader of western powers ultimately failed and in fact had the opposite result, reducing Germany to poverty, industrial ruin, spelled the end of its empire and, as well, the end of the dynasty. All these were consequences the exact opposite of those Kaiser Wilhelm had intended. War did not work for him.

American efforts, in the 1920s, to colonize Central America for the United Fruit Company, to send the marines dozens of times attempting to make the region safe for banana profits, ultimately also failed. Nor did later efforts by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, to support military governments in Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador solidify American empire in those countries.

During this same period World War II began when the Japanese attempted to create a Greater Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a military empire stretching from Tokyo through Southeast Asia to India and down to the borders of Australia. Just as it had for Kaiser Wilhelm, war failed as a tool of Japanese policy and the country was reduced to ruin.

Hitler, in the same delusion, imagined war as an instrument of National Socialism and attempted to re-establish German superiority in Europe through aggressive war. He meant to establish a German Reich to endure for 1,000 years. He invaded France to the west and Russia to the east and ruthlessly bombed civilians in London. He intended to establish Aryan supremacy from Stalingrad to Ireland. In the end, another simple, old-style aggressive war failed in the same way as had the others with similar disastrous consequences for Germany’s economy and Hitler’s people.

In the modern world, something about the use of military power seems to spawn an equal and opposite military response. Whereas empires of Ghengis Khan and Caesar might last for centuries, modern military empires are unstable from the moment they are founded. Whereas once war might have worked for medieval kings, for St. Louis of France and Edward III of England, in today’s world wars are simply losing propositions.

That is what we mean when we now say that war, once perhaps actually useful, is today outmoded, counterproductive, desperately wasteful, horrendously expensive and unbelievably cruel to those it is supposed to protect. In sum, in a word, war is obsolete.

In 1950, the North Koreans tried to take South Korea and failed. The Chinese joined them, and they failed, too.

The French tried to hold their empire in Vietnam militarily and learned at Biendienphu, in 1954, that they could not. The Americans came to their aid in the late 50s, at first with indirect support and then bringing in masses of troops, starting in 1964, once again attempting through the use of force to hold in place an empire established by force, and once again, without success.

Just as the American Revolutionary War had succeeded in throwing out the British in 1776, so too did the Vietnamese succeed in throwing out the Western occupying powers. Those Americans, like Lyndon Johnson, who thought that old-style war would be effective to re-impose a western empire, and who invested something over 54,000 American lives in the catastrophic effort, were wrong. In the modern world, war does not work to subordinate or kill whole peoples.

When Americans tried, through a CIA sponsored coup, to impose a western government on Iran, beginning with the ouster of Mossedeq in 1953, we failed again, and the consequences of that violent attempt are being suffered by us all even today, more than 50 years later. When the Soviets tried to secure their southern flank in Afghanistan in the 1980s they had the same experience.

Ronald Reagan, who seems not to have learned from the Soviets, had the same failure experience trying to overthrow the legitimate Nicaraguan government, also in the 1980s.

There is, therefore, an on-going and abiding truth to the saying coined by the radicals of England and America in the 18th century that all legitimate power derives from the consent of the governed. Today we forget that truth at our peril.

War may have worked for Caesar or the princes of medieval Europe, but today it does not achieve its intended ends when those ends are the imposition of a foreign philosophy, or a foreign system of government, or a foreign economic system, upon an unwilling people. Aggressive war may still be tried by those who are slow learners, but they will eventually learn with the rest of us that war is ineffective, and as the record of the last century shows, it fails.

That is the long and short of the times in which we live. The unfortunate fact that certain political philosophers like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle and power mongers like Dick Cheney took their advice about war from ancient medieval teachers like Machiavelli, should be a clue. They are looking backward to medieval realities, not forward to the world of global economies and global, instant communication, two realities which make modern war destructive of the very gains it attempts to achieve.

It is consistent with this historical evaluation that the Cold War, a contest that lasted for over 70 years, was not ended by conquest. It is now abundantly clear, too, that the battles in Iraq and for control of Middle Eastern oil will not be ended by conquest. The record of the last 100 years is overwhelming that, in the age of mass information, of cell phones and computers, of the internet and radio, of massive self consciousness of peoples in their own identity, their own religions, and their own pride, conquest no longer works. The consent of the governed is still the basis of true power and without consent of the governed, power is an illusion.

War worked for Ghengis Khan because he was willing to kill and frighten all the leaders in a village and corral them and burn them. No government on earth can now do that because cell phones and radios and rifles and explosives are everywhere; knowledge to use them is everywhere, escape for some part of the population is always possible. Look at Fallujah or Najaf or the West Bank. No one and no nation today possesses the overwhelming power to eliminate all these means of self defense and self discovery which dissolve and dilute and undermine empire. Worse, no one can threaten the use of overwhelming power without expecting to receive equal blows in return.

So if we cannot kill all the people who do not look like us, or think like us, we shall have to persuade them, talk with them, learn to think like them, which leads to the question of the role in foreign policy of generosity and empathy.

Foreign policy that is aimed to give people dignity and strength is different than foreign policy that is aimed to seek dominion over them, or make certain American industries rich, which is a kind of economic colonialism. Our efforts to stabilize Iraqi oil and pledge its oil profits to Chevron and Exxon and its supporting industry revenues to Haliburton could not have been attempted without force, and the lesson of the century is that they cannot succeed precisely because they have been attempted through the use of force.

The only thing that will bring stability is dignity, and the only thing that will produce dignity is compassion and generosity and sharing of what we have. Empire is by definition unstable because it is based on the idea that one power is supreme but empire is like a chair resting on one leg; it is inherently not stable and cannot help but wobble.

We did well with the Marshall Plan in Europe after the Second War. We did well in Japan with assistance after that war. We became world wide leaders because of our reputation for fair play and honor for the rule of law. When that reputation is destroyed, as it has recently been destroyed, we have turned from being the most generous nation on the planet to become generally known as the most dangerous and threatening power on the planet. As the most feared power, we are become the most likely target for violence, war, opposition and terror. We have ignored the immutable truth that only honorable action will produce honorable relationships. Only peaceful actions will produce peaceful relationships. Only generosity will produce trust. Ghandi was right; the ends and the means must be consistent and we cannot build a generous or a peaceful world by means of torture and intimidation, shock and awe, and unrestrained self interest.

If we seek to regain a foothold in the world of ideals, the world that yearns for and seeks progress for the working classes and for the poor, if we seek to pioneer, not just profits, but also health benefits for the old and the young, schools for the impoverished as well as the rich, then we shall have to have a foreign policy that sees these advances as a part of a whole philosophy of pride—that’s right, pride—in human beings. Our generous story is that we care about human beings as human beings, because we are glad to be human and rejoice in the human possibility. We are not just consumers of the corporate product or warriors for corporate markets; we care about all of those intangible, not-necessarily material things that breed a quality in life, for healing and compassion, for the power of relationship. That, in turn, means that we do not care just for those who run the banks and oil cartels, or have the multi-billion dollar markets to open up and to defend.

We shall have to have a philosophy that sings the possibilities of equal opportunity, mediation and collaboration, of law and justice, of process and procedure, rather than a philosophy that preaches, relies upon, and is founded upon the central principle that human nature is evil and dangerous and to be contained. We shall have to have a foreign policy that reaches out to all of those who are not like us rather than one that attempts to overcome diversity with something like genocide.

We have no choice, really. All those efforts to impose our own form of society, through the use of military power, from Kaiser Wilhelm to George Bush, all these efforts to establish dominion through the agency of war, have failed.

On the other hand, we can, if we are open to the idea of human progress, notice this: War is now unthinkable between France and Germany who considered constant war more or less inevitable from at least Napoleon in 1812 to 1945, but probably going all the way back to Fredrick Barbarossa in the 12th century.

Or notice this: War between France and England is also unthinkable, although war was a staple between these two peoples from at least the Battle of Hastings in 1066 until 1914, for nearly 1,000 years.

Or this: War between the capitalist West and the Russians was considered a commandment of history by Karl Marx, and Marx’ followers in Russia maintained the inevitability of war between communist and capitalist powers for 70 years. That whole episode now is simply a bad dream and the story of inevitability is the idea that is in the dustbin of history. It was not inevitable; not at all.

War between the US and the Russians is gone from our daily planning because the use of military power to establish stability and economic gain is obsolete, because war to gain territory for corporations is most likely to destroy the very territory and the infrastructure upon which those corporations would depend were they to invade and conquer. Today, American business would find it useless to attack so-called communist China because we need China’s economy intact and China needs our economy intact, and the corporate world has no use for a country that has been leveled, like Iraq, by war. Similarly, although we fought against the Japanese only 60 years ago, today we need Japan and Japan needs us. The idea of war between us is absurd.

The human species is coming hard up against the idea, or the old story, nurtured since Herakles and Achilles and Agamemnon of the Trojan War era, 3,000 years ago, that war is the way to riches and empire. We are coming hard up against a story that has outlived its time and turned out to be an illusion, a fraud, a temptation to the weak minded and uneducated, but still only a deadly delusion.

We shall have to believe in human beings, believe in our capacity to love and to share and to progress to higher levels of consciousness, and at the same time maintain a smart awareness of our defects and shadows; we shall have to hold this double mind with benign detachment, but if we do so, we can move the human experience to a new adventure, the broad up-lit plain of tolerance and diversity and decency and law and compassion. It is never too late. It is never too late. We shall always keep trying.

Thank you.

Craig Barnes
www.craig-barnes.com

Mayor David Coss’s Proclamation Declaring April 15, 2007 Generosity Sunday in Santa Fe, New Mexico

WHEREAS, the Network of Spiritual Progressives of northern New Mexico (NSP-NNM) brings people of all paths together to uphold the ethical and moral values common to every faith tradition;

WHEREAS, the strength and stature of our nation depend on its upholding the values of compassion, generosity, equality, freedom, justice, social responsibility and the interconnectedness of all life;

WHEREAS, the United States has lost much of its moral leadership and international stature by pursuing foreign policies perceived by many to be based on a desire for military and economic domination;

WHEREAS, the foreign policies of the United States in recent years have created more, rather than less, enmity, global instability and insecurity;

WHEREAS, in order to regain its moral leadership and international stature, the United States must adhere to a new way of achieving peace and security in the world;

WHEREAS, a campaign to shift the security paradigm from domination to generosity, understanding and compassion would be a more effective means to peace;

WHEREAS, the key to global security is working with the rest of the world to reduce poverty, hunger, homelessness and disease; and

WHEREAS, NSP-NNM proposes a Global Marshall Plan to address these destabilizing problems, similar to the plan that rebuilt the war-torn nations of WWII;

THEREFORE, BE IT DECLARED, that Sunday, April 15, 2007, shall be designated GENEROSITY SUNDAY in Santa Fe in recognition of the principle that generosity, understanding and compassion should be the basis for all human interactions, be they commercial, political or social; or be they personal, local, national or international.

David Coss, Mayor of Santa Fe

Bruce Berlin
Presented at Generosity Sunday, Santa Fe, April 15, 2007

On behalf of Warehouse 21, the City of Santa Fe teen night program and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, I want to thank you all for coming and helping us celebrate Generosity Sunday. I also want to let you know about the message of Generosity Sunday and why the Network of Spiritual Progressives felt it was so needed at this time.

Generosity Sunday marks the first step in the Network of Spiritual Progressives’ national campaign to shift our country’s security strategy from one of domination, control and militarism to one of generosity, understanding and compassion. Our country has lost its way, and it is on the verge of losing its soul, which is embodied in our country’s democratic values. But America has not only lost its direction. It has lost its sense of fair play; its belief in freedom and justice for all. In short, our nation has lost its moral compass, and with it, its reputation and standing in the world.

We can’t just blame America’s decline on George Bush and his Republican allies. The United States has been on a course of domination and control since the European ancestors of many of us here today began subduing native Americans hundreds of years ago. Americans like to feel that we are the good guys in the world. But, in fact, we have a repressed history of being the bad guys, aggressors in pursuit of our own economic and territorial interests. America has a repressed history of taking over and dominating other countries, from Hawaii in the late 1800s to Iran in 1953, when we overthrew its democratically elected government that merely wanted control over its country’s most precious natural resource, it’s oil, and we enthroned the Shah, so American and British companies could maintain their control over Iranian oil. American policy in Iraq today is just the culmination of years and years of America’s insatiable appetite for control of natural resources and economic power. And international terrorism is the inevitable backlash from people in many lands, from Palestine to Indonesia, who feel raped of their culture, their resources and their right to self-determination; who feel so hopeless against the wealth and power of the United States, and so desperate that they resort to suicidal acts of terrorism in an effort to bring down what they experience as the “evil empire” of America.

It’s time we exposed the truth about our nation’s policies and the self-interest of the people in power who make them. When the truth is told, I believe that the vast majority of Americans who hold the same American vision as we do, will get on board and help turn our ship of state around. As the last election and recent polls indicate, that is already beginning to happen. And Generosity Sunday is an important expression of America’s effort to recapture its true essence.

As Mayor Coss said a few minutes ago, in order to regain its moral leadership and international stature, the United States must adhere to a new way of achieving peace and security in the world as well as here at home. If this country had taken the half billion dollars we have spent to date on the Iraq War and used it instead toward ending poverty and hunger, promoting human rights, curing disease and protecting the environment, here and around the world, I believe that the United States would be a lot more secure today than it is. And we would have made a lot more progress in our struggle against terrorism. Those who recruit terrorists would be having a much tougher time finding new recruits.

Of course, there are those who will say that this is pie in the sky and beat the drums of fear ever louder. But all the great spiritual teachings in the world say the path of peace is one of compassion, understanding and generosity. So, I want to encourage all of you to join this monumental venture. Spread the word. Take the postcards we have at the literature table requesting Senators Bingaman and Domenici and Representative Udall to endorse the Global Marshall Plan which would dedicate at least one percent of our Gross Domestic Product towards international assistance in the ways I have just mentioned to make our country more secure in two ways: “It would heal the conditions that provide fertile soil for the hateful rhetoric of our enemies, and it would restore our reputation, dramatically reducing support for those who wish to harm us ... this modest commitment would help us to become the beacon to other nations our founding fathers always envisioned, and would make America safer.”

So, before you leave, make sure you take a few postcards. Spread the word. Come to the Network of Spiritual Progressives next potluck meeting, next Sunday at 6:00&nbps;pm at the Unitarian Church on Barcelona. And thanks again for coming.

Shannyn Sollitt
Guest Editorial in the Sun Monthly, January 7th, 2007

According to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, LANL has lost track of at least 300 kilograms of plutonium ... enough to make 60 nuclear bombs.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), is proposing their vision for the future of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile in a program called Complex 2030. They intend to renovate nuclear weapons facilities across the country and revive nuclear weapons production with new designs they call “reliable replacement warheads” (RRW). They are scoping out five potential sites to consolidate these manufacturing facilities into one “Bombplex.” As they eliminate weapons in the stockpile, they want to assure that they can redesign and remanufacture new nuclear weapons designs rapidly if the need arises. Because New Mexico already has so many preexisting nuclear facilities, this is the state that is the best suited to their purposes.

In early December 2006, NNSA held scoping hearings in four locations in New Mexico to take testimony from residents to prepare the Complex 2030 Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). NNSA wants the public to limit their comments for this PEIS to the alternatives they offer: either establishing the proposed Complex 2030 or maintaining the current dangerous nuclear weapons infrastructure that includes the production of new nuclear weapons and new designs. However, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) says NNSA has to look at all alternatives. The hearings are over, but NNSA is taking written testimony up until January 27, 2007. As this is hugely important for the future of all humanity, I hope that my letter below will be a model to inspire you to write a letter of your own expressing your concerns. If you present a request for “reasonable alternatives,” NNSA must respond to your concerns. In 1996, citizen outrage impressed upon Congress to defeat NNSA ’s previous plans for “modern pit facilities.” With support and involvement from citizens, we can do so again.

Dear Theodore A. Wyka, Complex 2030 PEIS Document Manager, Please enter these comments into the record for the Supplement to the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, also known as the Complex 2030 PEIS, and answer the following concerns. These comments will also be sent to New Mexico legislators and press, as matters of such gravity are too important in a democracy to leave up to an agency of unelected officials. As stated in the NNSA mission, it is your mandate to respond to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the United States and abroad. If the Complex 2030 proposal is allowed to go forward, it will continue to exacerbate an enormous preexisting nuclear and radiological emergency here in New Mexico and the rest of the world. The entire nuclear weapons program has been run irresponsibly, is an environmental disaster, and is, in itself, a nuclear and radiological emergency. NNSA literature states that your mission is to enhance national security through the military application of nuclear science and to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction. Is this not what the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that the U.S. government entered into force in 1970 is designed to do? The treaty states an intent “to further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Please explain in your response in this draft Complex 2030 PEIS how NNSA is upholding the mission to reduce global danger of nuclear weapons by creating a new nuclear weapons production complex, thereby ignoring the intent of an international treaty ratified by the U.S. government to eliminate nuclear weapons. Should NNSA pursue the Complex 2030 initiative, NNSA would be in violation of article VI of the U.S. Constitution that states, “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land. ” It is the responsibility of the federal government to comply with the constitution that was written to insure the preservation of our union. Your literature also states that the mission of NNSA is to “provide safe and reliable nuclear weapons, and to accomplish this in a way that protects the environment and the health and safety of the public and the workers. ” This statement is a classic oxymoron. The only safe nuclear weapon is one that has been dismantled and rendered completely useless. This dismantlement alternative is not presented as one of the alternatives listed. The dismantlement and safe consolidation of the extremely toxic nuclear materials are an extremely important national-security concern. According to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, LANL has lost track of at least 300 kilograms of plutonium ¾ enough to make 60 nuclear bombs. Securing the inventory is a very “reasonable alternative” to be addressed in the draft Complex 2030 PEIS. You state that NNSA’s mission is to protect the United States from the threat of an “adverse change in the global political climate.” Please take into consideration an adverse change in the American political climate as part of the global landscape. We currently have a president who has led us into an illegal and immoral war, and has done so in the face unprecedented opposition from U.S. citizens and the world. We witnessed his “shock and awe” display of military might over Baghdad ¾ an act of state-sponsored terrorism against Iraqi noncombatant citizens with no means to defend themselves. In the hands of a president who might fraudulently find himself in office (which many believe has happened in this country), who erodes the checks and balances in the Constitution, (as has been the current American experience), there is a frightening potential that the largest nuclear arsenal under the command of such a president could destabilize and cause an “adverse change in the global political climate” ¾ posing a clear threat to its citizens. Please address this distinct possibility as well in the draft Complex 2030 PEIS. The idea of deterrent works both ways. The other countries of the world with resources that the United States wants to control, like oil, have good reason to fear the U.S. military strength and nuclear weapons capability. Fear is what motivates the need to create a deterrent. A stepping up of our capability to produce nuclear weapons engenders fear and restarts the global arms race, which is what we see happening in the world. Please respond to this cause-and-effect argument in the light of the proposal for the draft Complex 2030 PEIS. The best deterrent for nuclear proliferation in the world is to present clear evidence that we are reducing the stockpile with the intention of eliminating it. By using our available resources for humanitarian aid across the world, the United States would transform fear and the motives behind terrorism into mutual respect. The prophecy that these weapons would be weapons to end all war would then be realized. We live in an evolving world. The environmental impacts are painfully obvious to everyone suffering from the toxins in the environment from all facets of weapons production. The nuclear-production industry is dealing with the most toxic substances known to humankind. Los Alamos National Laboratory has dealt with our environment unbelievably irresponsibly. The radioactive contaminants are evident everywhere downwind and downstream from the lab. How is NNSA intending to deal with the 12,500 drums of nuclear waste at Area G < span class="text127"> buried before 1971 that are currently contaminating the aquifer? According to a study from LANL, contaminants have moved off-site and are contaminating the potable wells for Los Alamos County and the Buckman Wellfield, which serves 40 percent of the Santa Fe population. Neptunium-237 is well above the EPA standards and strontium-90 is 13 times the EPA standards for potable water in Los Alamos County wells. How do you intend to remediate the aquifer? And what about the tritium, plutonium and other radionuclides found in the canyons? On top of the Pajarito Plateau is the largest nuclear-waste dump in the world, with the waste in barrels stored in tents in a fire-prone zone. Is the plan to continue the storage of this waste in tents? What happens in the event of a fire or some major weather calamity? Plutonium doesn ’t burn, but when carried by the wind or transported through the watershed it can land on any farmer ’s land. One particle of plutonium if breathed or otherwise ingested can cause cancer. Why would any rational agency want to put a nuclear weapons production facility on top of a windswept mountain, on an earthquake fault, in the middle of a wildfire zone, and at the source of a watershed that serves 10 million people? Please answer these questions in the Supplement to the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, and state a clear intent as to how you are preparing to take care of these current environmental emergencies that are the legacy of environmental abuse by LANL and all other nuclear weapons facilities. And finally, senior scientists concur that the existing nuclear stockpile is not degrading . The nuclear pits will be reliable for another 80 to 100 years or more. There is no need to rebuild the stockpile by creating replacement warheads. The most appropriate stewardship activities according to your mission would be to steward the stockpile out of existence. Please address the following reasonable and necessary alternatives in the draft Complex 2030 PEIS: (1) insist upon the massive cleanup of the contaminated areas; (2) support research in the remediation of radioactive wastes; (3) find the means to make reparations to those communities whose soil, air and water have been contaminated; (4) dismantle the stockpile without replacing the warheads; and (5) present a clear plan for consolidating and maintaining the security of the extremely toxic and dangerous nuclear weapons materials in the inventory into perpetuity. This is the most important work that can be stewarded by NNSA in our nuclear labs and for the generation who will be bearing children in the year 2030. Please understand that American citizens who are opposing your Complex 2030 alternatives are striving to create a sustainable, socially responsible and compassionate global society. Please join us and participate in this vision for the role of NNSA, and for the Department of Energy as a whole, for the year 2030. Respectfully yours, [insert your own name here]

At the end of your comments, please also request a hard copy of the full draft of the Complex 2030 PEIS (Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement) to show NNSA that you are interested in whether they have responded to your comments. Be sure to include your name and mailing address. They will send you a big book. When you are finished reviewing it, you can donate it to the Cranes for Peace project for the children to recycle into origami peace cranes. Also write cc to the governor and legislators so NNSA knows that they are not the only recipients of your comments. Please send your signed comments as well to the Los Alamos Peace Project, PO Box 9509, Santa Fe, NM 87504, to help build a record of responses. We will be glad to forward them to your legislators.

If you would like to send the letter above, you can download a PDF from LosAlamosPeaceProject.us.

Send comments by January 27, 2007, to: Theodore A. Wyka, Complex 2030 PEIS Document Manager, Office of Transformation, U.S. Department of Energy, NA-10.1, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, D.C. 20585, or e-mail them to: Complex2030@nnsa.doe.gov.

I would like to extend huge gratitude to Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Watch New Mexico for informational assistance in drafting this letter and for all the extremely difficult work they do to protect the environment from the scourge of the nuclear industry for the citizens of New Mexico and the rest of the world.

Dear Friends,

In a time of great danger and greater fear, I want to speak to you, not of disaster and horror – for they are obvious and flaming out everywhere, but of what is more hidden and infinitely more important – of the birth that is taking place in and partly through this apocalyptic crisis.

Let me be clear as to what I believe this birth is. It is a birth of a new kind of human being – an embodied divine human, able to co create with and in the divine, a wholly new kind of world, one rooted in all its institutions and actions in Love and Wisdom Consciousness.

The means of this immense all transforming birth is also becoming clearer to me. Sacred Activism is this means – the fusion at great clear passion and great clear depth of mystical knowledge, joy, stamina and divine blessed power with wise balanced radical urgent action in the world. Sacred Activism – understood and lived in it’s widest and most undogmatic interpretation – will be the way the Birth happens in clusters of awake and embodied divine human beings everywhere working together in selfless joy to save the planet.

The Alliance as I understand it, has as it’s most profound purpose the embodiment of divine love and wisdom in the world. So it is pledged to experiencing and living and pioneering and propagating sacred activism in all its transforming forms. Thank you for this great work and may you be blessed in it.

I believe that the Birth will take place in overwhelming response to overwhelming disaster – in an overwhelming response of awake human beings plunging into love in action, and in the Birth, through this overwhelming and illumined and interlinked response, of a new kind of human being, turned to alchemical gold in the cauldron of apocalypse and so empowered and embodied with the powers to transform and heal disaster into gardens of grace.

I want to thank you all dear friends, for the quality of your commitment to this birth. We must work very urgently and very passionately now, but in great peace and great joy also knowing that the divine blessing is with us, and that the great force of divine evolution, that is the secret of human evolution, will accompany and bless us.

We are on the brink of a great revolution, a quantum leap into embodiment of the divine human. Let us make this revolution together and leap calmly together into the only possible future – a sacred future, built in love and reverence by sacred activists.

With my love and respect,

Andrew Harvey

NSP has sent the following letter and questions to Democratic and Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Please follow up with each of them by calling their offices to ask that they respond to our questions. We intend to invite newspapers to publish our questions and the candidates' responses.

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Dear [Candidate's Name],

As your constituents and as members of the northern New Mexico chapter of The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP), we are writing to ask that you respond to the enclosed questions on four issues of critical importance to New Mexico and our country.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives is a growing national collaboration between religious, spiritual and secular people who want an America rooted in the universal values of compassion, fairness, generosity, peace, honesty and human rights as well as in ecological and social responsibility and reverence for our fragile planet and all living beings.

A non-profit organization, NSP neither supports nor opposes political candidates. The four issues are: public campaign financing, election integrity, the war in Iraq and our oil dependency/energy policy.

The views you provide us on these issues will be used for educational purposes only, to provide voters with the information they need in order to make responsible choices on election day. We will share your responses with our members (over 250 on our mailing list) and will make your views known to as many of the electorate as we can reach.

We will appreciate answers that provide as much insight into your views and your values as possible.

Please mail your response by September 29 to:
[NSP Address]

Or, you can respond via e-mail to: brucember@yahoo.com

Thank you for providing this essential information to the voters of New Mexico for the November election. We look forward to joining you in advancing the well-being of our people and our planet.

Sincerely, Bruce Berlin, Ll.D., President
Denis Carville, Ph.D., Chair - Election Committee
Network of Spiritual Progressives, Northern New Mexico

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The War in Iraq

Initiated on the basis of deception, the US war in Iraq has resulted in the violent deaths of an estimated 40,000 Iraqi people and over 2,600 Americans, and a cost to American taxpayers estimated to amount, finally, to one trillion dollars.

Bearing in mind that more than two thirds of Americans oppose this needless war, will you, as an immediate legislative priority, take the initiative in the United States Senate to enact – and then require executive implementation of - a concrete and comprehensive plan for the rapid termination of all US military action in Iraq, to include:

1. withdrawal of all US troops within 12 to 18 months,

2. closure of all US military bases in Iraq,

3. relinquishment by the United States of control, whether direct or indirect, of the oil resources and of political and economic processes in Iraq,

4. provision of economic aid, to be controlled by Iraqis, toward rebuilding the infrastructure of the country?

Public Campaign Financing

As you know, there is a deep and growing conviction among Americans that lobbyists and big money interests are corrupting both our electoral process and the legislative decision-making of our elected representatives.

Will you exercise leadership to enact legislation requiring:

1. exclusive public financing of all election campaigns,

2. putting an end without exception to the provision by any person or agency to elected representatives of any and all favors, gifts and emoluments under any auspices, specifically including as an exchange for “access”,

3. prohibition of elected officials during their tenure in office from “moonlighting” activities through which they receive any form of payment?

Oil dependence, renewable energy sources and energy policy [House]

Our Network of Spiritual Progressives is concerned that initiatives such as those proposed in H.R. 4623 will be effectively negated by bills such as H.R. 5049, which stipulates profoundly inadequate initiatives and goals for the reduction in the use of oil, authorizing the slowest possible response to the environmental threats we face.

It appears that initiatives such as H.R. 5049 are designed to satisfy oil companies and automobile manufacturers, rather than to apply our national resolve and resources to coping with the imminent and potentially catastrophic threats of global warming as well as the economic and geopolitical upheaval which our continued dependence on oil will foment.

Will you demonstrate your commitment to address the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming and our continued dependence on oil by:

1. championing adoption of the Kyoto protocol on an accelerated implementation schedule, and

2. providing House leadership toward establishing a fast-track program to develop alternative energy sources such as renewable biomass fuels, solar and wind energy?

Oil dependence, renewable energy sources and energy policy [Senate]

Recent Senate legislation regarding energy includes the "Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006", the "Energy Security Tax Incentives Act of 2006" and the "Energy Policy Act of 2005". These acts, however, target profoundly inadequate initiatives and goals for reduction in the use of oil.

It appears that these acts are designed to satisfy oil companies and automobile manufacturers, rather than to apply our national resolve and resources to coping with the imminent and potentially catastrophic threats of global warming and economic and geopolitical upheaval entailed by our continued dependence on oil.

Will you demonstrate your commitment to address the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming and our continued dependence on oil, by:

1. championing adoption of the Kyoto protocol on an accelerated schedule, and

2. providing Senate leadership toward establishing a fast-track program to develop alternative energy sources, focused on renewable fuels, solar and wind energy?

Election Integrity

Please explain to voters what concrete steps you will initiate or visibly support to safeguard the integrity of voter registration, voting processes, vote counts and recounts, and voting machines. Specifically,

1. What measures will you propose and actively champion to establish clear and consistent criteria and processes, and non - partisan positions of oversight, for:

   1. safeguarding the voting rights of all Americans, and preventing specious challenges to the registration of voters,

   2. ensuring that ballots are clearly designed and worded, that the processes for voting are fair and impartial, and that all ballots are accounted for and counted in the election results?

   3. safeguarding recounts against illegitimate or unethical maneuvers such as premature erasure of machine memories, demands by state officials for exorbitant bond to cover the supposed cost of a recount, and other such tactics?

2. What measures will you propose and/or support to require that, prior to their use in elections, voting machines be vetted, by non-partisan individuals unaffiliated with the manufacturer of the machines, against loss or inaccurate tabulations of votes, that machines be voter-verified and provide a paper trail that can ground an accurate recount?

By Ross C. Anderson
The Nation
Thursday, August 31st, 2006

As President Bush visited Salt Lake City August 30 to promote his policies in Iraq and the "war on terror," Salt Lake City Mayor Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson delivered this address at a peace rally outside City Hall that drew more than 2,500 people.

A patriot is a person who loves his or her country. Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation - and for our world?

And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth?

Let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

Let no one deny we are patriots. We love our country, we hold dear the values upon which our nation was founded, and we are distressed at what our President, his Administration, and our Congress are doing to, and in the name of, our great nation.

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating President.

That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a sycophant. That person is a member of a frightening culture of obedience - a culture where falling in line with authority is more important than choosing what is right, even if it is not easy, safe, or popular. And, I suspect, that person is afraid - afraid we are right, afraid of the truth (even to the point of denying it), afraid he or she has put in with an oppressive, inhumane regime that does not respect the laws and traditions of our country, and that history will rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.

In response to those who believe we should blindly support this disastrous President, his Administration, and the complacent, complicit Congress, listen to the words of Theodore Roosevelt, a great President and a Republican, who said: The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

We are here today as truth-tellers.

And we are here to demand: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

We are here today to insist that those who were elected to be our leaders must tell us the truth.

We are here today to insist that our news media live up to its sacred responsibility to ascertain and report the truth - rather than acting like nothing more than a bulletin board for the lies and propaganda of a manipulative, dishonest federal government.

We have been getting just about everything but the truth on matters of life and death...on matters upon which our nation's reputation hinges ... on matters that directly relate to our nation's fundamental values ... and on matters relating to the survival of our planet.

In the process, our nation has engaged in an unnecessary war, based upon false justifications. More than a hundred thousand people have been killed - and many more have been seriously maimed, brain-damaged, or rendered mentally ill.

Our nation's reputation throughout much of the world has been destroyed. We have many more enemies bent on our destruction than before our invasion of Iraq.

And the hatred toward us has grown to the point that it will take many years, perhaps generations, to overcome the loathing created by our invasion and occupation of a Muslim country.

What incredible ineptitude and callousness for our President to talk about a Crusade while lying to us to make a case for the invasion and occupation of a Muslim country!

Our children and later generations will pay the price of the lies, the violence, the cruelty, the incompetence, and the inhumanity of the Bush Administration and the lackey Congress that has so cowardly abrogated its responsibility and authority under our checks-and-balances system of government.

We are here to say, "We will not stand for it any more. No more lies. No more pre-emptive, illegal war, based on false information. No more God-is-on-our-side religious nonsense to justify this immoral, illegal war. No more inhumanity."

Let's raise our voices, and demand, "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

Let's consider some of the most monstrous lies - lies that have led us, like a nation of sheep, to this tragic war.

Following September 11, 2001, the world knew that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for the horrific attacks on our country. Our long-time allies were sympathetic and supportive. But our President transformed that support into international disdain for the United States, choosing to illegally invade and occupy Iraq, rather than focus on and capture the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.

Why invade and occupy Iraq? Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice represented to us, without qualification, that there were strong ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

In September, 2002, President Bush made the incredible claim that "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam."

President Bush represented to Congress, without any factual basis whatsoever, that Iraq planned, authorized, co?mitted, or aided the 9/11 attacks.

Our President and Vice-President, along with an unquestioning news media, repeatedly led our nation to believe that there was a working relationship between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, a relationship that threatened the US.

Even last week, when I met with Thomas Bock, National Commander of the American Legion, I asked him why we are engaged in the war in Iraq. He said, "Why, of course, because of the 9/11 attacks on our country." I asked, "What did Iraq have to do with those attacks?" He looked puzzled, then said, "Well, the connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq."

I was shocked. Here is a man who has criticized us for opposing the war in Iraq - and he is completely wrong about the underlying facts used to justify this war.

Not only has there never been any evidence of any involvement by Saddam Hussein or Iraq with the attacks on 9/11, but there has never been any evidence of any operational connection whatsoever between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Colin Powell finally conceded there is no "concrete evidence about the connection." "The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track Al Qaeda" disclosed that "his team had found no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein." And the top investigator for our European allies has said, 'If there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever.'"

President Bush himself finally admitted nine days ago during a press conference that there was no connection between the attacks on 9/11 and Iraq. It's terrific that the President has now admitted what others have known for so long - but where is the accountability for the tragic war we were led into on the basis of his earlier misrepresentations?

Besides the fictions of Saddam Hussein somehow being linked to the 9/11 attacks and his supposed connection with Al Qaeda, what was the principal justification for forgoing additional weapons inspections, failing to work with our allies toward a solution, refraining from seeking additional resolutions from the United Nations, and hurrying to war - a so-called "pre-emptive" war - in which we would attack and occupy a Muslim nation that posed no security risk to the United States, and cause the deaths of many thousands of innocent men, women, and children - and the deaths and lifetime injuries to many thousands of our own servicemen and servicewomen?

The principal claim was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - biological and chemical weapons - and was seeking to build up a nuclear weapons capability. As we now know, there was nothing - no evidence whatsoever - to support those claims. President Bush represented to us - and to people around the world - that one of the reasons we needed to make war in Iraq - and to do it right away - was because Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons. His assertions about Saddam Hussein trying to purchase nuclear materials from an African nation and about Iraq seeking to obtain aluminum tubes for the enrichment of uranium were challenged at the time by our own intelligence agency and scientists, yet he didn't tell us that!

Ten days before the invasion of Iraq, it was proven that the documents upon which President Bush's claim about Saddam Hussein trying to obtain uranium was based were forgeries. However, President Bush did not disclose that to the American people. By that failure, he betrayed each of us, he betrayed our country, and he betrayed the cause of world peace.

Neither did the vast majority of the news media disclose the forgeries - until it was far too late. It took our local newspapers here in Salt Lake City four months - until after President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over - to report the discovery that the documents were forgeries - and, therefore, that there was no basis for the false claims about Saddam Hussein trying to build up a nuclear capability. By its failure to promptly disclose the forgeries, the news media betrayed us as well. Had the Americ?n people known we were being lied to - had President Bush informed us that the documents were forged and that he had no other basis for his claim - had our nation's media done its job, rather than slavishly repeating to us the lies being fed to it by the Bush Administration - our nation may well not have allowed the commencement of this outrageous, illegal, unjustified war.

To President Bush, to his Administration, to our go-along Congress, and to our news media, we are here today, demanding, "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that high-strength aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," warning "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Undisclosed by President Bush or Condoleezza Rice was the fact that top nuclear scientists had informed the Administration that the tubes were "too narrow, too heavy, too long" to be useful in developing nuclear weapons and could be used for other purposes. Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed. So much for the phony claims of Saddam Hussein building nuclear weapons - the primary claims justifying the rush to war. What were we told about chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction? These claims were as baseless and fraudulent as the claims about nuclear weapons.

President Bush told us in his January 2003 State of the Union address that Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. Then, in May of 2003, he made the outlandish statement that, "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told us, "We know where the [WMDs] are." Vice President Cheney and then-Secretary of State Powell also joined in the chorus of lies and misinformation about weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, no stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons were found. Bush Administration Weapons Inspector David Kay noted that Iraq did not have an ongoing chemical weapons program after 1991 - a conclusion remarkably similar to statements made by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice before the 9/11 attacks - and before they sacrificed the truth in the service of promoting the Bush Administration's case for war against Iraq.

On February 24, 2001, less than 7 months before 9/11, Colin Powell said that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors," said Colin Powell.

And in July 2001, two months before 9/11, Condoleezza Rice said: "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

It is astounding how they changed their claims after the President decided to make a case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq! To think that we could be lied to by so many members of the Bush Administration with such impunity is frightening - chilling. Yet these imperious, arrogant, dishonest people think we should just fall in line with them and continue to take them at their word.

The truth has been established. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on the United States. There is no evidence of any operational ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What a tragedy, leading to greater tragedy. We are fed lie after lie, our media reinforces those lies, and we are a nation led to a tragic, illegal, unprovoked war.

We are here because of our values. We love our country. We cherish the freedoms and liberties of our country. We don't call those who speak out against our nation's leaders unpatriotic or un-American or appeasers of fascists.

We have good, wholesome family values. In our families, we teach honesty, we teach kindness and compassion toward others, we teach that violence, if ever justified, must be an absolutely last resort. In our families, we teach that our nation's constitutional values are to be upheld, and that they are worth standing up and fighting for. Our family values promote respect and equal rights toward everyone, regardless of race, ethnic origin, and sexual orientation. In our families, we teach the value of hard work and competence - and we are left to wonder about a President who, after receiving an intelligence memo about the threat posed by Al Qaeda, decides to continue his month-long vacation - just before the 9/11 attacks on our country.

As we demand the truth from others, let us also face the truth. Our government all too often has not cared about the human rights of people in other nations - and it doesn't really care about democracy, unless it leads to the election of those who will do our bidding. Consider the irony regarding the claims that Saddam had chemical weapons and, because of that, we needed to rush to war in Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons - first against Iranians, then against his own people, the Kurds - our country provided him with biological and chemical agents and equipment to make the weapons. Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush refused even to support economic sanctions against Hussein for his use of weapons of mass destruction. What did our nation do in response to Hussein's use of chemical weapons, killing tens of thousand of people, when he actually had them?

We befriended, coddled, and rewarded him - with government-guaranteed loans totaling $5 billion since 1983, freeing up currency for Hussein to modernize his military assets.

Perhaps those in the US government who aided and abetted Saddam Hussein to further US business interests, while he was gassing the Kurds, should be sharing his courtroom dock as he is being tried now for crimes against humanity. No more lies, no more hiding of the truth, no more wars that more than triple the value of stock in Dick Cheney's prior employer, Halliburton - and which, as of last September, has increased the value of the Halliburton CEO's stock by $78 million.

We are patriots. We're deeply concerned. And we demand change, now. No more lies from Condoleezza Rice about whether she and President Bush were advised before 9/11 of the possibility of planes being flown into buildings by terrorists.

No more gross incompetence in the office of the Secretary of Defense.

No more torture of human beings.

No more disregard of the basic human rights enshrined in the Geneva Convention.

No more kidnapping of people and sending them off to secret prisons in nations where we can expect they will be tortured.

No more unconstitutional wiretapping of Americans.

No more proposed amendments to the United States Constitution that would, for the first time, limit fundamental rights and liberties for entire classes of people simply on the basis of sexual orientation.

No more federal land giveaways to developers.

No more increases in mercury emissions from old, dirty, dangerous coalburning power plants.

No more backroom deals that deprive protection for millions of acres of wild lands.

No more attacks on immigrants who work so hard to build better lives.

No more inaction by Congress on fixing our hypocritical and inconsistent immigration laws and policies.

No more reliance on fiction rather than the science of global warming.

No more manipulation of our media with false propaganda.

No more disastrous cuts in funding for those most in need.

No more federal cuts in community policing and local law enforcement grant programs for our cities.

No more inaction on stopping the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

No more of the Patriot Act.

No more killing.

No more pre-emptive wars.

No more contempt for our long-time allies around the world.

No more dependence on foreign oil.

No more failure to impose increased fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.

No more energy policies developed in secret meetings between Dick Cheney and his energy company cronies.

No more excuses for failing to aggressively cut global warming pollutant emissions.

No more tragically?incompetent federal responses to natural disasters.

No more tax cuts for the wealthiest, while the middle class and those who are economically-disadvantaged continue to struggle more and more each year.

No more reckless spending and massive tax cuts, resulting in historic deficits and historic accumulated national debt.

No more purchasing of elections by the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country.

No more phony, ineffective, inhumane so-called war on drugs. No more failure to pass an increase in the minimum wage.

No more silence by the American people.

This is a new day. We will not be silent. We will continue to raise our voices. We will bring others with us. We will grow and grow, regardless of political party-unified in our insistence upon the truth, upon peace-making, upon more humane treatment of our brothers and sisters around the world.

We will be ever cognizant of our moral responsibility to speak up in the face of wrongdoing, and to work as we can for a better, safer, more just community, nation, and world.

So we won't let down. We won't be quiet. We will continue to resist the lies, the deception, the outrages of the Bush Administration. We will insist that peace be pursued, and that, as a nation, we help those in need. We must break the cycle of hatred, of intolerance, of exploitation. We must pursue peace as vigorously as the Bush Administration has pursued war. It's up to all of us to do our part.

Thank you everyone for lending your voices to this call for compassion, for peace, for greater humanity. Let us keep in mind the injunction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

We are calling upon the international community to foster a new approach to resolving conflicts. We recognize that both sides in the Israeli/Palestinian and Arab conflict have legitimate grievances and both sides have acted with insensitivity and cruelty toward the other. We do not accept that one side is the "righteous victim" and the other side the "evil aggressor." We do insist that both sides halt immediately their attacks on each other.

As citizens of the world, we demand that the Israeli government, the leadership of Hezbollah and Hamas, the U.S. Government, the international community and the United Nations immediately take the following steps to stop the war in these countries:

1. We demand that the Israeli government immediately halt its attacks on Lebanon. We join with the thousands of Israelis who demonstrated against this war in Tel Aviv on July 22, 2006 in their insistence that these attacks are utterly disproportionate to the provocation by Hezbollah, have killed innumerable innocent civilians, displaced half a million people, destroyed billions of dollars of Lebanon's infrastructure, and will not secure peace or security for Israel. We also call on the Israeli government to supply food, electricity, water and funds to mitigate the humanitarian crisis caused by its invasion of Gaza.

2. We demand that Hezbollah and Hamas immediately stop their attacks against Israel. These actions, which have killed numerous Israeli civilians, terrorized the people of Israel and damaged many towns and cities, have played a central role in provoking the current crisis, and will not bring independence for Palestine or strengthen democracy in Lebanon.

3. We demand that the U.S. government and governments around the world call upon Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas to observe an immediate ceasefire, place an immediate embargo on all shipments of weapons to all parties in the war, and join an international conference to provide security on the border between Israel and all its neighbors. By endorsing Israel's attacks and explicitly giving it time to do more damage to the people of Lebanon, the U.S. government has become a party to this violence. This, together with American military actions in Iraq, is sure to create enmity towards the U.S. and Israel in the Muslim world for generations to come.

These are the minimum steps necessary to stop the violence and the humanitarian disaster in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

We call upon the international community to hold an International Peace Conference to end the violence once and for all and create conditions that will allow the peace and reconciliation forces in each country to flourish. We propose a strategy of generosity - to act on the understanding that people have an enormous capacity for goodness and generosity. By beginning now simultaneously to commit our economic resources and to change the way that we talk about those whom we previously designated as "enemies," we can begin the long process of letting go of anger and fear that have existed for many generations.

This approach requires a commitment from the international community to participate in:

1. The creation of an economically and politically viable, independent Palestinian state (roughly on the pre-1967 borders including portions of Jerusalem and with minor border modifications if mutually agreed upon between Israel and Palestine); and simultaneously the full and unequivocal recognition by Palestinians and the State of Palestine and all surrounding Arab states of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state offering full and equal rights to all of its non-Jewish citizens;

2. An international consortium to provide reparations for Palestinians who have lost homes or property from 1947 to the present, and reparations for Jewish refugees from Arab states from 1947 to 1967; and

3. A long-term international peacekeeping force along the entire border between Israel and its neighbors in order to separate Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon and to protect Israel and Palestine from each other and from other forces in the region who might seek to control or destroy either state.

Our own country must take the lead in a whole new approach to security and well-being. This may well be the last chance we in the advanced industrial societies have to avoid international catastrophe (either environmental or nuclear) by modeling something else besides brute power, military might, and indifference to the well-being of others.

We believe that this is the only real chance for peace between Israel and its neighbors. What has proved unrealistic time and again, whether we are talking about US policy in Vietnam and Iraq or Israeli and Arab policies in the Middle East is the fantasy that one more war will resolve the conflict and bring peace. The path to peace must be a path of peace.

Signed,
Bruce Berlin, Steering Committee Chair
Network of Spriritual Progressives, Northern New Mexico
PO Box 9509, Santa Fe, NM 87504