Create Peace in 10 Minutes or Less!
Two-thousand-seven is already on fire in terms of peace activism...locally we observed two vigils in January alone! There's plenty to do for those with the energy to do it, so i proudly present ten minutes' worth of online actions that you can take RIGHT NOW to create a more peaceful, democratic, and just world!
HUMAN RIGHTS: Amnesty Int’l has a five-point agenda for restoring America’s human rights integrity: close Guantanamo, ban torture, close secret prisons, restore Habeas Corpus, and end extraordinary renditions. Sound good? Tell our "leaders".
HEALTHY FOOD: Starbucks is STILL using Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone in some of its milk! Tell ‘em we want rBGH-free dairy!
(more below the digital fold)
IMPEACHMENT: we can see locally how a city attorney can be simultaneously dangerous and seemingly untouchable...on the national level, that danger is all the more amplified. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has authorized war crimes, dismissed the Geneva Conventions, redefined torture to allow most types of torture, helped establish military commissions that deny defendants the right to a fair trial, claimed the U.S. Constitution does not provide the right to habeas corpus, and defended violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Let's impeach him FIRST.
UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE: Mr. Bush’s plan is “better health care for more people”. Wow, how bold. Tell Congress to push for real, universal health care.
VOTING SECURITY: the Voter Confidence Bill has been introduced and would Require all voting systems to produce paper ballots, Require election officials to conduct random audits of the machines, and Require that the source code inside the computer be open for inspection. Urge our Representatives to support it.
MEDIA/LIES/9-11: when ABC aired the docudrama “The Path to 9/11” last September, public outcry helped them choose to pull out several scenes which were outright fabrications. This Sunday, Fox Lies’ Sean Hannity is planning to broadcast the fictitious scenes. Write to him to make sure he tells America that these things never happened.
END THE WAR!: Reps Woolsey, Lee, and Waters (all from California!!) introduced the "Bring the Troops Home and Iraqi Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2007," H.R. 508, and now our Representative needs to know we want him to support it! Tell him here, OR do it from the angle of an organic consumer.
SUPPORT WAR RESISTERS: send a message to the President and Congress: soldiers have a right to refuse illegal wars...accept Lt. Watada’s resignation!
SURVEY: still open HERE ...i’ll leave it up for a little bit longer, then report on the results! THANKS SO MUCH for participating! Response on this one is already over FOUR TIMES what it was on the post-parade survey last July.
"We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life."
~A.J. Muste
(i’m not crazy about attacking anything, but i like the insight here)
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Comments (6)
Thank you so much for this post, Evan. You are right, it only took 10 minutes or so.
Comment #1 Posted by: Michael Didj | January 28, 2007 01:22 PM
thanks, Mike! the world's feeling more peaceful already!
a response from Starbucks: (bold terms added by me as items of concern)
Hello Evan,
Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company.
At Starbucks, we are dedicated to upholding strict standards that help ensure the products we offer, including milk, are high quality and safe for consumption while meeting our customers' different needs and preferences.
Starbucks has made single-serve flavored organic milk, organic milk for our hand-crafted beverages, and organic soymilk as an alternative to cow's milk available to our U.S. Company-operated stores. Furthermore, we are actively engaged with all of our dairy suppliers to explore a conversion of all core dairy products - fluid milk, half and half, whipping cream and eggnog - to rBST-free in our U.S. company-operated locations. Significant work on this front has already been accomplished, in fact 27 percent of the dairy we buy is already rBST-free and 37 percent will be rBST-free starting in January, 2007.
For more information about Starbucks efforts to continue to learn about this issue, we invite you to visit Starbucks Corporate Social Responsibility Report at http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/csrannualreport.asp .
To learn more about synthetic bovine growth hormone, please contact the Food and Drug Administration and www.fda.gov
Again, thank you for contacting Starbucks. If you have any further comments or concerns, please feel free to contact us at info@starbucks.com or call (800) 23-LATTE to speak with a customer relations representative.
Warm Regards,
Rachel A.
Customer Relations
Starbucks Coffee Company
Comment #2 Posted by: evan | January 28, 2007 08:39 PM
How 'bout just not going to Starbucks. Their coffee sucks anyway, and they kill local business while homogenizing culture. What is the point of asking them to stop using hormones. Don't be a lame-assed trend junkie and stay away from Starbucks. Here's a helpful site that will locate independently owned, often organic, fair-trade coffee houses anywhere in the country instead of stooping to a Starbucks:
http://delocator.net/index.php
Comment #3 Posted by: spk | January 29, 2007 11:17 PM
good call, Sean. it's often frustrating to see Starbucks full of people when it seems so god-awful trendy and soul-less to us.
i dont go to Starbucks. but the point for me is that while we exist in the reality that a lot - a LOT - of people do, my concern for them is that they not be drinking hormones. AND my concern for Starbucks (because let's face it, they're not going anywhere anytime soon) is that they not feel too big or too powerful to be responsible to the human beings they serve.
YES, the next step is to buy fairly-traded coffee from independent houses - and many of us already are. (great link, by the way)
Comment #4 Posted by: evan | January 30, 2007 09:38 AM
Doesn't Starbucks have that bottled water that is helping the rainforest though?
Comment #5 Posted by: Brian | January 30, 2007 09:44 PM
perhaps they do, Brian. and the Gap has those (red) campaign shirts. and the military can build roads and bridges.
one redeeming value does not a social saint make, i'm afraid.
Starbucks ALSO pays shit to the growers of their coffee and is using hormone-full milk products. the Gap ALSO charges out the ass for sweatshop-made clothing. the military ALSO kills people.
Comment #6 Posted by: evan | January 31, 2007 01:08 AM