CIVLIB.ideas

GLOBAL DIALOG PROJECT << GLOBAL DIALOG HOME << Santa Fe Pages | Democracy ** Civil Liberties ** Freedom HOME >> Civil liberties: ideas for action

## NEXT MEETING!!!: Monday, July 29, 6:30 PM, Santa Fe Main Library ### Some initial ideas suggested for actions to preserve and defend our civil liberties - roughly sketched, nothing fancy, please add other ideas in the box below on this page, and sign up if you're interested on the pages for each project. Additional project pages for new ideas will be added as they come in. PLEASE NOTE: These pages cannot be gotten to from the website, they are currently only going out to those who gave their email on Monday. Please alert your interested friends to these pages! 1. Propose a resolution by the City of Santa Fe affirming the Bill of Rights and rejecting those provisions of the Patriot Act that violate the Bill of Rights. Eight other cities across the country have passed such resolutions, and other cities such as Boulder are trying to get them passed. One of the cities, Northampton, has a website on how they did it - see Bill of Rights Defense Committee. If you'd like to sign on to support this project or make comments about it, please go to http://www.global-dialog.org/mvd/mvl.cgi?NextName=wCIVLIB.brdc.html 2. Educate ourselves and our fellow citizens - After some research and analysis, paint the full picture of the various rights being violated, historical and other context, and propose reading lists, write summaries, form teaching groups, contact teachers, and other possibilites. To sign up or make comments about this option, go to http://www.global-dialog.org/mvd/mvl.cgi?NextName=wCIVLIB.educate.html 3. Set up meetings/dialogswith elected officials - in either small groups or as a town meeting- our elected officials, especially ones who have ewstablished their support of civil liberties like Tom Udall. To sign on to this effort or to make suggestions, please go to http://www.global-dialog.org/mvd/mvl.cgi?NextName=wCIVLIB.townmeet.html We have many other options but multiple people have already indicated support for these - please do add below what ideas you have for defending our civil liberties. Many of our efforts can be concurrent and may even dovetail so it may not be necessary to focus only on one effort - for instance letter writing campaigns could occur at the same time as a Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

Participant Comments follow below

The EDITORS respond to Carrol Pearson's comments We disagree that no new organization needs to be done around these issues. We support organizations like Amnesty International and are currently establishing webpages for such local groups (see Amnesty International-Tibet Association pages, and others in process). However, with the exception of the ACLU, with whom we are working to coordinate, the groups you mention are NOT currently addressing local fundamental issues of democracy and civil liberties, such as municipal resolutions affirming the Bill of Rights, dialogs with our elected officials on how we can support their efforts on maintaining civil liberties, coordination of efforts with other cities, or many of the myriad other actions concerned citizens can take. We need grassroots ingenuity around *specific issues* of democracy, civil liberties, and freedom - IF we are to keep them. Many of the issues intertwined with democracy - such as corporate control and globalization, "homeland security", media literacy, U.S. foreign policy, and many many others, are not integrated in such a way as to help people understand the importance of taking action right now. Democracy, freedom, and civil liberties as an explicit focus can help people understand how all of these issues and more are interrelated, and bring them into an arena where their knowledge, experience, and wisdom can be shared with other cities, organizations, and activist groups. We reject the idea that threat of competition to established groups should quash additional innovative organizations, research efforts, or activism. Anything that gets people inspired and motivated to follow their integrity, will benefit our society and in turn catalyze others to be inspired to follow theirs. It is up to them to choose which issues call them, and where they wish to give their time and energy. We believe that there is room for many organizations that serve many needs. When a need is not fulfilled by existing organizations, a new organization is likely to emerge. For us those needs exist around maintaining democracy in the U.S., and the Global Dialog Project has emerged. We also believe that organizations should coordinate and support each other, so we are working toward this end- please feel free to post your organizations' announcements at Events & Meetings - NM. If you, too, support other organizations, then you will support *our* efforts to address fundamental issues of democracy and freedom in ways not addressed by other organizations. The Editors democracy@global-dialog.org 07/27/02 17:13:35 GMT

Rather than setting up a whole new structure let's use and energize what we already have. Apparently there are about 50 organizations in the Santa Fe area which work on civil liberties and human rights both at home and internationally - Human Rights Watch, the Los Alamos group, ACLU, Committee for Nuclear Safety, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity and many others. Many of these organisations have only a bare handful of ACTIVE members. I suggest that interested citizens look at the list, read the mission statements of a few that seem to appeal to their interests, then chose one and GO TO SEVERAL MEETINGS. If what they find suggests that the group is not working on its mission, they should then work with the members to energize it.They should not abandon it. This will serve several purposes: it will immediately involve people in a group with established constitutions and proceedures, enable people to be active quickly, and, very importantly, encourage and inspire the existing members. I fear that if Global- Dialogs spend much energy on setting up socials, study groups and weekly meetings it will eventually come to compete for precious time slots and as well as for people with the existing groups . In my opinion one of the most valuable tasks Global -dialogs can do is to gather together information on exising civil liberties and human rights groups and list and publicise what do they work on, when and where they meet and their website addresses both local, national and international. Carrol Pearson rpearson@newmexico.com 07/26/02 21:34:45 GMT