|
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS
ALIVE AND WELL IN ROOSEVELT COUNTY!
GET INVOLVED:
Democratic
Women
meet the third Monday of each month (except December, June, July
& August) at noon in the Conference Room at Roosevelt General
Hospital. Contact: Linda Uttaro, 356-1404
Friends for Democracy
meet the second
& fourth Tuesdays at 7 p.m., at 2120 S. Ave. I Place, Portales
(except during ENMU finals and vaction times) Contact: Dolores
Penrod, 356-5980
College
Democrats
Contact: Gene Bundy,
562-2636 or 356-8061

LOCAL LINKS:
Roosevelt County
City of Portales
Eastern
New Mexico University
Portales Municipal Schools
Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce
Cannon Air Force Base
KENW
/ KMTH--local NPR & PBS stations
Portales Weather

STATE
LINKS:
Common Cause New Mexico

NATIONAL LINKS:
Congressional Voting Records
American
Civil Liberties Union
West Point Grads Against the War
National Weather
Portales New Tribune
Mother Jones
The Global Beat--Boston University
IPS-Inter Press Service--International
Guardian Unlimited--UK
Electronic Iraq
Common Dreams
AlterNet
New York Times
Washington Post
|
|
|
Barack Obama's administration:
President, Barack Obama
Vice-President, Joe Biden
Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel
Chief Advisor, David Axelrod
Advisor, Valerie Jarrett
Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs
Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Gaithner
Director of National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers
Director of Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer
Director of Domestic Policy Council, Melody Barnes
Director of Office of Management & Budget, Peter Orszag
Director of Economic Recovery Board, Paul Volcker
Liaison for Economic Recovery Board, Austan Goolsbee
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Health & Human Services, Tom Daschle
Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates
Attorney General, Eric Holder
Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano
Ambassador to United Nations, Susan Rice
National Security Advisor, James Jones
** Secretary of Commerce, Bill Richardson (withdrawn)**
Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki
Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu
Climate Czar, Carol Browner
Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, Shaun Donovan
Secretary of Education, Arnie Duncan
Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar
Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack
Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood
Chairman, Securities & Exchange Commission, Mary Schapiro
National Intelligence Director, Dennis Blair
Secretary of Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson
Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis |
_________________
EVENTS (out of date...stay tuned) |
 |
HUMAN RIGHTS FILM SERIES presents:
Pete Seeger:
the power of song
Tuesday,
April 22, 7:30, Room 120, College of Education, ENMU |
Pete Seeger: the power of song - Documents
the life and times of one of the most important and influential
singers and songwriters in US history.
For further
information contact: doug.morris@enmu.edu; PH: 562-2207 |
___________________________________________________________
FRIENDS
FOR DEMOCRACY

|
Friends for Democracy
adopt Action for Change for Democrats in Roosevelt County:
|
A. |
Support the goals
of the Campaign for Change |
|
|
1. |
Link economic recovery
to energy independence and universal health insurance. Each of
us do this in conversations and look for other opportunities
to support the goals for change. |
|
|
2. |
Invite a friend to ride
along to Democratic meetings and to get involved in achieving
the goals for change. |
|
|
3. |
Help reorganize College
Democrats at ENMU. Gene Bundy will take the lead, but we all
need to help. |
|
B. |
Harness the energy and
enthusiasm of the volunteers in the Obama campaign by involving
them in a recycling project. Joan Brown will take the lead in
this endeavor. |
Friends for Democracy,
2120 S. Ave. I Place, Portales, NM 88130, 356-5980, dolorespenrod@msn.com |
|
_____________________________
THE COLUMN
The Election is Over, Now
What?
(posted December 16,
2008)
by JAMES LEE
Chair, Roosevelt County Democratic Party
We have entered that murky,
gray twilight zone between the election and the swearing in of
New Mexico's Congressional delegation and the inauguration of
our new president. In the campaign Democrats did the hard work
that resulted in a celebration, and now face the opposite: the
celebration of taking office that will result in the hard work.
Time to switch from the silly convention hat to the proverbial
thinking cap. We now have to shift from rhetoric to reality.
This new reality requires
acknowledging the valiant efforts of the Roosevelt County Democratic
Party and recognizing our roles in the journey toward decent,
responsible, and effective government, and it requires a practical
attitude toward the presidential transition.
Although Barack Obama won
the presidency while all five Democratic candidates won the state's
new Congressional delegation, many Democrats must be bitterly
disappointed in Roosevelt County. Despite all that work and all
those (apparent) declarations of support, this county went to
John McCain by over 2,000 votes out of a total 6,555 votes cast
(65.37% for McCain). Republicans Steve Pearce and Dan East also
carried Roosevelt County in a year in which "Democrats couldn't
lose."
We should look at the results in a positive way. Because of the
hard work of some dedicated, hard-working Roosevelt County Democrats,
Roosevelt County contributed 2,270 votes to Barack Obama's New
Mexico total. Without all that effort, the county's total would
have been much less and possibly help defeat our candidates in
this state. Roosevelt County may well have been significant in
putting New Mexico's electoral votes in the Obama column. Our
county also contributed to the winning totals for Senator-elect
Tom Udall and Representative-elect (Third Congressional District)
Ben Ray Lujan. Incidentally, the First and Second Congressional
Districts will also be represented by Democrats for the first
time in many years. Roosevelt County can be regarded as a winner
because RCDP volunteers helped New Mexico come out a big winner
in Election 2008.
This victory puts us in a
new place in our political environment. Instead of limiting ourselves
to criticism of those in office, we now must prepare to support
our office-holders in governing wisely and fairly. We now have
the responsibility that was so abused and mishandled by the Republicans
(no Democrat in the White House for 20 of the past 28 years,
and a Republican Congressional majority six of the past eight
years). As of January 2009, January 3 for Congress and January
20 for the White House, we will no longer reside on the outside
looking in. In short, we must shift from opposition to advocacy.
This begins with reason overruling ideology.
This does not mean we give
up our principles. It means we need to create practical possibilities
based on our beliefs. Among the many gems my friend Dolores Penrod
has taught me is the starkly simple reality that "politics
is the art of the doable." Nowhere does this statement fit
better than the appointments to the Obama White House team at
this point. These choices may not appear to embody the big change
the campaign promised, and our president-elect appears more centrist
than the progressive we supported for the office.
We need to consider a very
basic reality before drawing conclusions we could live to regret,
particularly judgments about "Obama's Clinton retreads."
If President-elect Obama wants Democrats with White House experience,
he has to appoint people who worked in the Carter administration
or the Clinton administration. Carter and Clinton are the only
Democratic presidents to take office since Nixon was inaugurated
nearly 40 years ago (January 20, 1969). Do we want Clinton "retreads"
with reasonably recent White House experience, or do we prefer
Carter "retreads" from 28 years ago?
Also, do we want our new president
surrounded by "yes-people," or do we want a variety
of views from which the president may select his policies? If
his advisors automatically agree with him on everything, why
does he need advisors? The absence of disagreement means the
absence of deliberation. Without deliberation we have reaction
rather than decision. Do we want the ideology-driven automatons
that have headed the executive branch for the past eight years
(and the legislative branch six of those years)?
The executive branch must
no longer be ruled by ideologues controlled by knee-jerk reaction
rather than intelligent decision-making. An effective leader
must have a vision and a plan, not just the ideology that spawned
it. The vision should embody principle, and the plan must spark
a policy that can be accepted by the nation. The policy of our
new president will be one of progress and decency, but when he
assumes office on January 20, he should be the only progressive
advocate in his administration. The president must be the only
guiding force. His cabinet members should administer their respective
departments within the confines of the policy established by
the chief executive. These department managers, along with advisors,
must submit their honest, independent opinions during the decision-making
process because alternatives are needed if the president is to
choose a reasonable policy. Once the policy is established, however,
it must be implemented by the president's administrators whether
they agree with it or not.
This is why Barack Obama needs
independent thinkers with practical experience to head his departments
and serve as his advisors. "Yes-men" and "yes-women"
would provide validation, not information. Rather than contributing
to the deliberative process, it would feed the emotional need
to be right rather than the thoughtful intention of doing the
right thing. Obama will not need people who agree with him all
the time. He has said himself he wants strong, smart people.
It looks like Cheney/Rove-style sycophants may be gone, at least
for the next four to eight years. Instead of whining about his
cabinet choices leaning too far toward the center, or even to
the right, we should celebrate the triumph of reason over the
dominance of reaction.
The election is over. The
candidate had the pressure of getting everyone to agree with
him in order to get enough people to vote for him. That's over
now. It's time to organize a dynamic new administration. Time
for information instead of validation. No more team to get the
job, now the team to do the job. As he puts his policy together,
Obama has to put the team together that will make it work. So
far, he certainly seems to have done that superbly well. So let's
not pick on the progressive because he has centrist administrators.
He will still be the progressive we got elected, and those centrists
will make his ideas realities.
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.
THE
COLUMN ARCHIVE:
Apathy
or Action by JAMES LEE |
|
_________________________________
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 |
|
ROOSEVELT
COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
2009 CALENDAR
Sunday, January
4, Change in Portales Meeting, 1 p.m., Linda Sumption's house,
915 W. 16th Lane. MEETING CANCELED.
Friends for Democracy
will not meet in January because the university will not be back
in session on the second Tuesday.
Monday, January
19, noon, in the conference room at Roosevelt General Hospital,
Roosevelt County Democratic Women will meet. New officers will
be elected and Gene Bundy will lead a discussion of Thomas Friedman's
new book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." All Democrats are
invited to attend. Thomas Friedman says, "We must help Obama
be as radical as the moment demands."
Thursday, January
22, 7 p.m., in the Meeting Room at the Memorial Building, Roosevelt
County Central Committee will meet. All Democrats are invited
to attend.
Tuesday, January
27, 4:30 p.m., City Hall, Beautification Committee will meet.
Everyone is invited to attend. Recycling may be discussed.
Please let
me know of any additions, subtractions, or corrections.
-Dolores |