Please make checks payable to Udall for Us All and bring with you to the event. Credit Card contributions can be made using the Udall Contribution Form. Contributions to Udall for Us All are not tax-deductible for Federal income tax purposes, and are limited to $2300 per individual ($4600 per couple) per election. Federal multi-candidate PACs may contribute $5000 per election.

Please RSVP by Wednesday, April 23 to Tiffany Deinzer at 505.884.3055
or by email: tdeinzer@tomudall.com

Nine delegates sent to the State Nominating Convention

The Roosevelt County Democratic Party sent nine delegates to the State Nominating Convention in Rio Rancho. They were: Meb Bolin, Jeff Burmeister, Pauline Clark, Geni Flores, Pilar Moreno, Dolores Penrod, Kirby Rowan, Giana Uttaro, and Linda Uttaro. All nine delegates voted to place Don Wiviott, candidate for the Third Congressional District, on the ballot. They also voted for Tom Udall for the Senate, and Charles Daniels for the Supreme Court. All three of these people will have their names on the ballot in the June Democratic Primary.

 Friends for Democracy present some reasons NOT to vote for John McCain:

His election would mean a third term for George Bush. He would appoint the same Republicans to governmental offices.

He is militaristic, and he would be willing to keep troops in Iraq for one hundred years.

He wants to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.

He has a dangerous temper problem. We do not want his finger on the button.

In television interviews he appears oblivious to advice.

His Senate voting record earned him a 0 on environmental issues.

He is dishonest because he has flip-flopped on the religious right, torture, immigration, and tax-breaks for the rich. He is not a maverick; he is hewing the Republican line.

He admits that he does not understand the economy.

He has lost touch with reality when in the last month he has said that the United States has the best health care system in the world.

THESE ARE OUR REASONS. WHAT ARE YOURS? LET US KNOW.

Friends for Democracy, 2120 S. Ave. I Place, Portales, NM 88130, 356-5980, dolorespenrod@msn.com

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THE COLUMN

Apathy or Action?

by JAMES LEE
Chair, Roosevelt County Democratic Party

Apathy is no longer the exception. This sad reality looms over and around us as the biggest threat to what genuine Democrats stand for. The primary prevailing attitude in our great nation these days seems to be, "We have survived worse," or "There's nothing I can do about it." Would we have our country now if that attitude prevailed back in 1776? Scary thought, isn't it?

Yes, compared to most countries, we enjoy a free society, but whatever liberties we still possess need constant protection. Authoritarian predators are at the front door, and somebody has left it unlocked. We must never forget that freedom is high maintenance.

We still have a voice, my friends, but we'll lose it if we don't use it. If we do not continually speak up for what is right, we will lose the right to do so. Then what? The laws of nature tell us that which ceases to function ceases to exist. Maybe it seems easier to be quiet and not get involved, but we must find the courage within ourselves to resist the false comfort of apathy. We have to care. If we do not, no one else will.

We also need to stand together to retain our principles and promote human decency. We need to reach within ourselves for the courage to speak out. Together, we must nurture our common voice and use it to keep the hope of freedom alive in America. It is simply not adequate only to believe in freedom. We must actively cultivate that belief, or it will wither and pass to dust. Our Democratic Party is our bond and our strength to keep the dream of liberty alive.

Think of the McCarthy victims of 50 years ago. Apathy is slapping the faces of these martyrs of freedom. They embraced their solidarity and spoke up for the rights so many of us take for granted. They took nothing for granted other than their obligation to act.

Now we have the USA Patriot Act with its new version of McCarthyism. Are we not every bit as obligated to act?

We can no longer simply call ourselves Democrats and let the world just take care of itself. The Democratic Party is our collective voice-liberals, moderates, all of us. This voice could be silenced if we allow ourselves to become Democrats in name only. Nominal Democrats are pawns and drones. Active Democrats are patriots.
So, what's it going to be: becoming an active Democrat or falling into the pit of apathy? It is up to us.

The Column, by James Lee, will appear periodically on this website. James is chairperson of the Roosevelt County Democratic Party. He can be reached at (505)562-2675 or (505)359-2204. More about James Lee.

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LOCAL VOICES

Reflections on Iraq

by KIRBY ROWAN
Portales, New Mexico

Author's note: This was written some weeks/months after Saddam was out of power. As you can see, I had misgivings....not to mention a lot to learn.

It's true, and unfortunate from our perspective, that Iraq until the war was a police state. But it should be heartening that a police state could not prevent dissent and 'perversion' from the influence of the West. This is an implicit recognition of the limitations of a police state regulating a society confronted with modern mass communication technology. Saddam was not actively in the business of suppressing technology as we understand it per se, but rather preventing modernization that would undermine centralized, brutal control imposed over an historically short period. His state didn't fear technology, but what it would inevitably bring to the people--a desire to be more free.

Mr. Bush states that we must bring democracy to the Middle East, but he conveniently leaves out the fact that freedom and democracy are not the same thing. This lapse of judgment is a profoundly ethnocentric and dangerous aim in a world of developing freedom and heterogeneity, a world which includes the evolving political imperatives of the Iraqis. It is EXACTLY the wrong thing to do to impose our kind of political system upon them. This is why there are intractable bloody confrontations all over the world in 'developing' countries. Within a system like ours it would be absurd to regulate dissent as has been done in Iraq for decades. But the answer is NOT 'Do it my way or else' but rather some sort of 'This has worked for us. Would you consider it?'

The aged concept of enlightened self-interest would seem to apply here, both for evolving governments and the individual concerns they profess as their justification. Political systems can and do change, as they learn what does and does not work within their sense of history and possibility. History seems to me to show the 'We're right, you're wrong' frame of mind just breeds endless horrible violence, over and over, as one group or another seeks to impose its concept of justice upon another.

At some point people and governments have to grow up enough to stop the endless cycle of violence, to recognize that the common goals of people are best served with negotiation, accommodation, tolerance, and appreciation of differences of historical perspective. This won't happen in the modern age with outdated notions of 'our' superiority vs. 'their' oppression.

We manifestly cannot slap the Iraqis into democracy as we know it. We can and must talk with them, reason with them, negotiate with them, and COME TO TERMS with them regarding the supreme issues of our day, and the relative freedoms of our two peoples. This is statecraft at its best; for the benefit of all vs. the advantage of the few. It is the unreasonable regime which seeks to impose its view of righteousness upon another. We must not allow ourselves that unreasonableness.

LOCAL VOICES ARCHIVE:
Proud to be a Democrat by PAULINE CLARK