Shouldn't a NL party person be doing this?

The following copied from e-mail.

In his opening remarks at a June 7 political rally in Fairfield, Iowa, NLP 2000 presidential nominee Dr. John Hagelin strongly supported the bold stance taken by Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) demanding verification of Administration claims about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

“It’s time to challenge President Bush and his false intelligence pretext for war,” Dr. Hagelin said.

Rep. Kucinich was visiting Fairfield, home of the national headquarters of the Natural Law Party, to speak about his presidential campaign and his recent Congressional initiatives.

On June 5, Kucinich led 30 Members of Congress in introducing a Resolution of Inquiry in the House of Representatives that would force the Administration to turn over the intelligence that supported yet unproven claims that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

“It is long past time that the President and this Administration show its evidence,” stated Kucinich, the leader of the opposition to the war in Iraq in the House. “We are introducing this Resolution of Inquiry to compel the White House to substantiate its claims. The President led the nation to war, and spent at least $63 billion on that war, on the basis of these unfounded assertions.”

The resolution seeks substantiation of claims made by the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and the White House Press Secretary that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons and therefore posed a threat to the United States.

The resolution is a privileged resolution and must be voted on in Committee within 14 legislative days. Kucinich used the same procedure in March to force the Administration to release the 12,000-page weapon report that Iraq has submitted to the United Nations.

“This Administration owes an explanation to this Congress and to the American people,” continued Kucinich. “Now is the time for truth telling.”

Joining Kucinich on the Resolution are Reps. S. Brown, J. Carson, Conyers, Cummings, Farr, Frank, Grijalva, Hinchey, Honda, Jackson-Lee, Jackson Jr., Tubbs Jones, Kaptur, Lee, J. Lewis, Maloney, McDermott, George Miller, Nadler, Owens, Rahall, Schakowsky, Serrano, Scott, Stark, Van Hollen, Waters, Watson, and Woosley.

Dr. Hagelin congratulated Kucinich on the Congressional resolution and strongly encouraged NLP supporters to contact their U.S. Representatives and urge them to support the resolution.

What You Can Do

Please contact your Representative immediately and urge him or her to support the Kucinich Resolution of Inquiry. If your Representative is already a cosigner of the Resolution (see above list), please contact him or her to offer your support and congratulations. You can obtain the phone number, email address, and mailing address for your Representative at http://www.congress.org; just enter your zip code at the top of the page and click “GO.” (See sample emails below.)
Please contact your family, friends, and business associates and ask them to do the same.
Please also support Rep. Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign by visiting http://www.kucinich.us and making a generous donation. Contributions of up to $250 will be matched dollar for dollar by the federal government.
Thank you in advance for your timely action.

Sample Emails

• For Cosigners of the Resolution

I want to thank and congratulate you for joining Rep. Dennis Kucinich in introducing a Resolution of Inquiry to compel the Administration to substantiate its claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. I want to know the truth about this issue—and about how the Administration evaluated intelligence data. As your constituent, I look forward to your continuing support of this resolution. Thank you.

• For Representatives Who Have Not Signed the Resolution

I strongly urge you to support the Resolution of Inquiry introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich and 30 other Members of Congress to compel the Administration to substantiate its claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. I want to know the truth about this issue—and about how the Administration evaluated intelligence data. As your constituent, I look forward to hearing from you about your support for this Resolution. Thank you.

Blue: I haven't checked my e-mail today, otherwise I would've posted that. But thanks anyway.

BTW, I forgot to thank you Blue for withholding your, um, usual style of comments.

Here's two more NL articles I found.

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Dear Supporters of Natural Law ... this is a great email that was sent to us from a member.
We hope that you enjoy reading the articles. See you all at our next conversation circle.

Patrick West
State Chair, Natural Law Party of Colorado

***************************************************************
Excerpt from "Dimensions of the Great Turning"
http://www.sevmedia.net/clients/gt/Main/Dimensions/expanded-def.html
by Joanna Macy

I like to imagine that future generations, even as close as the 2030s,
2040s, will look back on this time and call it "the great turning."

They'll look back at us and say, "All those ancestors back then, bless
them. They were involved in the great turning, and they didn't know
whether they would make it or not. At times it looked as if it was
hopeless, futile. Their efforts seemed paltry, darkened by confusion,
and yet they went ahead and they took part in it." And I'm
imagining that they'll look back with almost a kind of envy, seeing more
clearly than we can now the high adventure that it represents, this
great turning from a growth-addicted, unsustainable society to a stable,
life-sustaining one.

Lest I sound too wildly optimistic, let me acknowledge that we don't
know if this great turning is going to happen fast enough or fully
enough to stop the unraveling of the systems supporting complex,
conscious life forms on this planet. It's not clear yet whether we're
going to pull it off. There's no guarantee.

You know, when you make peace with that, you realize something. It
liberates you from having to be braced all the time against bad news and
constantly feeling you have to work up a sense of hopefulness, which can
be very exhausting. That's one thing the Buddhists have taught me.
There's a certain equanimity and moral economy when you're not
continually trying to evaluate your chances of success.

Yet we can certainly see the great turning happening now, and most
clearly if we look at three particular dimensions of it. These three are
interdependent and mutually supportive.

The FIRST I call "holding actions." These are the many forms of legal,
political, legislative, and regulatory activities by which we are
slowing down the destruction caused by the industrial growth society. To
be included also are the many kinds of direct action -- blockades,
boycotts, civil disobedience, tree sitting. Through these we are
managing to save some species and some ecosystems, save some lives, save some genetic material for the life-sustaining society that's coming.

These holding actions can be exhausting, though. It's good to know that
it's OK to step back. Many of us, if we step back when we feel bruised
and bent out of shape from being there in point position on issue after
issue, feel as if we are abandoning ship. We feel guilty about it. But
we need to know that the great turning is vast, and if we step back,
it's like the lead goose dropping back from point position to fly in the
windstream of the others. We're not abandoning anything. We don't cease being who we are, and we don't stop being deeply allied with the
ongoingness of life.

The SECOND dimension of the great turning comprises the new structures, institutions, agreements, and ways of doing things. It is extraordinary how swiftly these are springing up like green shoots through the rubble of our dysfunctional civilization. I don't think there has ever been a time in human history when so many new ways of doing things have appeared in so short a time -- from ways of owning land, to co-housing, to eco-villages, to cooperatives, to new local currencies, alternative schools, alternative modes of healing. They reveal an amazing degree of ingenuity, an awesome readiness to experiment and create. Even though these emergent and often embryonic systems sometimes look fringe, perhaps, or marginal, they are the seeds of the future.

Yet these new forms will wither and die unless they're deeply grounded
in our values. So the THIRD dimension of the great turning is in the
way we see things and understand our connection and requirements for
life. There is a revolution going on in our grasp of what we really
need, and it is quietly spreading now in the simple living movement.

I teach general living systems theory because it helps us understand
that our true nature is in relationship. Deep ecology, which is also
very important for me, is the moral and intuitive expression of this
systems view, where we give up clinging to some special status as the
crown of creation and rejoin the earth community. Then we can experience our own specialness in ways that allow us to see the specialness of every other life form.
++===++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==

Guidelines for Power Politics, Cooperative Politics and Holistic
Politics
by Tom Atlee
(For my full "spectrum of politics" see "Transformational Politics"
http://www.co-intelligence.org/CIPol_TransformPol1.html )

Here are some guidelines to help us explore the extent to which any
particular political (or activist) activity involves power politics,
cooperative politics, and/or holistic politics:

To the extent that
(a) someone loses and/or (b) people are working _against_ something or
someone adversarial power politics or activism is involved.

To the extent that
(a) everyone involved benefits or has their basic needs met or their
legitimate interests satisfied and/or
(b) people are working _with_ each other, or _with_ the realities of the
situation *cooperative politics or activism is involved.

To the extent that
(a) the community as a whole benefits -- ending up more healthy,
prosperous, secure, wise, sane, capable, etc. and/or
(b) the full range of relevant perspectives, stories, resources, types
of people, etc., are creatively engaged, holistic politics or activism is involved.

These three modes of politics and activism are not always separate. For
example, most political coalitions are (or strive to be) groups that are
cooperative on the inside and adversarial in their engagements with
their opponents. And it is possible to fight for something --
environmental health, strong democracy -- that benefits the whole
community, thus using adversarial means for holistic ends.

Gandhi helped clarify this by saying he was fighting against undesirable
conditions while cooperating with the deepest truth in his opponents.
He used cooperative or holistic politics on the people even while he
used adversarial politics on the issues.

Non-adversarial and co-intelligent activism
To the extent politics or activism is coooperative and, especially,
holistic, it can be considered non-adversarial.

Co-intelligent activism _tends_ to be non-adversarial. In particular,
it focuses on increasing the capacity of human systems of all kinds to
respond sanely and intelligently to changing circumstances. Efforts to
enhance "wise democracy" can significantly enhance that capacity. (see
http://www.co-intelligence.org/CIPol_publicjudgment.html and
http://www.taoofdemocracy.com )

However, sometimes adversarial events can provoke a system (group,
community, nation) into cooperative or holistic activity. We saw this
in the global response for peace triggered by the US drive for war in
Iraq. So co-intelligent activism is motivated by holistic ends and may
use any or all parts of the political spectrum in ways that elicit the
life-serving energy of the whole system to heal and transform itself.
_________
*FOOTNOTE: "working with the realities of the situation" means working
with the opportunities, tendencies, resources or energies present in a
situation. This is the spirit of Aikido which uses the energy of an
attacker to neutralize him. This is the spirit of permaculture, which
claims that all problems can be viewed as opportunities and resources;
it is up to us to creatively see and use them as such. When the forces
of death and degradation prevail, their extremism can be used to wake up people of good will. When mistakes are made, lessons can be learned. When two adversaries are negotiating, a smart facilitator can help them see their conflict as a shared problem they can both work on to solve together for mutual satisfaction. These are all "working WITH the realities of the situation" rather than fighting them.
++===++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==++==
The Third Side -- a creative brige between cooperative and holistic politics
http://www.thirdside.org/

As the old African proverb goes, "When spider webs unite, they can halt
even a lion."

No more critical challenge faces each of us, and all of us together,
than how to live together in a world of differences. So much depends on
our ability to handle our conflicts peacefully - our happiness at home,
our performance at work, the livability of our communities, and, in this
age of mass destruction, the survival of our species.

The Third Side offers a promising new way to look at the conflicts
around us. The Third Side is the community - us - in action protecting
our most precious interests in safety and well-being. It suggests ten
practical roles any of us can play on a daily basis to stop destructive
fighting in our families, at work, in our schools, and in the world.
Each of our individual actions is like a single spider web, fragile
perhaps but, when united with others, capable of halting the lion of
war. Although the Third Side is in its infancy in our modern-day
societies, it has been used effectively by simpler cultures for millennia to reduce violence and promote dialogue.

We cannot eliminate conflict - nor should we. Conflict is a natural part
of life. It brings about change and confronts injustice. The best
decisions result not from a superficial consensus, but from surfacing
different points of view and searching for creative solutions. If
anything, we need more conflict, not less. What the Third Side enables
us to do is to transform conflict, to change the form it takes from
bitter arguments, power contests, violence, and war into dialogue,
negotiation, and democracy.

The idea of the Third Side and much of the text of www.thirdside.org are
drawn from "The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop" by William Ury (Penguin 2000).

The Third Side is: People from the Community Using the Power of Peers
From a Perspective of Common Ground Supporting a Process of Dialogue &

Nonviolence Aiming for a Product of a "Triple Win"

Here are these five elements in more detail:
People from the community - Unlike the ultimate arbiter in the form of
a king or authoritarian state, the third side is not a transcendent
individual or institution who dominates all, but rather the _emergent
will of the community_. It is an impulse that arises from the vital
relationships linking each member and every other member of the
community.

Using the Power of peers - The third side possesses the power of peer
pressure and the force of public opinion. It is people power. It uses
the power of persuasion. It influences the parties primarily through an
appeal to their interests and to community norms. In every conflict,
there usually exists not just one possible third party but a multitude.
Individually, we may not be able to intervene effectively, but
collectively we are potentially more powerful than any two conflicting
parties. Organizing ourselves into a coalition, we can balance the
power between the parties and protect the weaker one.

From a Perspective of common ground - While most issues in contention
are presented as having just two sides - pro and con - there usually
exists a third. From this third perspective, the truth of each
competing point of view can be appreciated. Shared interests often come to loom larger than the differences. People remember that they all, in the end, belong to the same extended community.

Supporting a Process of dialogue and nonviolence - Silently or loudly,
the Third Side says "No" to violence and "Yes" to dialogue. Thirdsiders
urge disputants to sit down and talk out their differences respectfully. They focus, in other words, on the process. To them, how people handle their differences is just as important as what outcome
they reach.

Aiming for a Product of a "Triple Win" - Thirdsiders strive for a
resolution that satisfies the legitimate needs of the parties and at the
same time meets the needs of the wider community. The goal of the
third side is, in other words, a "triple win."
________________________________
Tom Atlee * The Co-Intelligence Institute * PO Box 493 * Eugene, OR
97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org * http://www.democracyinnovations.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brian Webber,

It's OK. You did in the links.

John Hagelin and Other Third-Party Leaders File FEC Complaint Against Commission on Presidential Debates



Dr. John Hagelin
Natural Law Party 2000 presidential candidate Dr. John Hagelin and other leading third party candidates and their parties joined together on June 17 to file a legal complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) that would block the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) from sponsoring the 2004 presidential debates—and would also require the return of millions of dollars in corporate contributions made to the Republican and Democratic parties in the 2000 elections.

The FEC complaint cites new evidence showing that the CPD’s conduct is partisan and thereby violates election laws requiring that debate-staging organizations be non-partisan.

In particular, the complaint describes a “face-book” of major third party candidates that was used by the CPD to exclude these candidates from even attending the October 2000 presidential debate in Boston. This and other evidence demonstrates that the CPD deliberately excluded all third party candidates from the debates—and even from the debate audience—thus showing that the CPD is partisan.

Since the CPD provided the Democratic and Republican parties and their candidates with valuable campaign and press opportunities, the complaint holds that the CPD—a nonprofit organization—violated federal laws prohibiting nonprofit organizations from aiding or opposing any political parties or candidates. The complaint also holds that CPD use of corporate funding for partisan activities violates a federal ban on corporate campaign contributions.

“This is not the conduct of a nonpartisan organization,” said John Hagelin. “Not only was the CPD expressly created as a partisan organization, but its Board is made up of leading Democrats and Republicans, with no third party representation. The icing on the cake is that the CPD’s leadership decided to exclude all third party candidates from even attending its debate, and documented this partisan act by creating a picture book of candidates and parties marked for exclusion from its event.”

The FEC complaint was filed by the Natural Law Party and its 2000 candidate John Hagelin, the Green Party of the United States and its candidates Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke, and other 2000 candidates and their parties. All these candidates were pictured in the CPD’s face-book and targeted for exclusion from the debate audiences.

Co-counsel Bonita Tenneriello of the National Voting Rights Institute said, “The CPD’s conduct flouts laws that prevent corporations from using their treasuries to influence elections. The FEC must now investigate these complaints and should stop this back-door subversion of democracy.”

In his book Crashing The Party Ralph Nader reocunts how not only was he barred fromv ieiwng the debates on a close-circuit TV in a nearby college hall (I think this was for the first debate), but only HE was shut out. All his friends an aides were allowed in. He also goes on to point out the heads of the CPD are all Republicrats.

James Randi has an interesting piece on the German Natural Law Party here.