Wednesday, January 28, 2009

More on School Board

Less than a week less. Go visit Lorenzo Garcia for School Board! And learn more about Lorenzo and how you can help.

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David Peercy is running to represent the Northeast Heights. He seems to carry the values for the type of changes we need. You can download his brochure, or visit Peercy for APS to learn more.
Please read David's message:
I'm David Peercy, Candidate for the APS Board of Education in District #7 (basically North of Montgomery and East of I-25). I very much appreciate the La Raza Unida endorsement. Please vote in the upcoming election. See my website at PeercyForAPS.net for more personal information. I'd like to share the following YouTube presentation as a way to emphasize a commitment all of us need to make to our children's education. The additional text and discussion points are of potential interest as well... but, my main focus is the video. Enjoy!

Friday, January 23, 2009

La Raza Unida School Board Endorsements

After last night's Anti-Racism in Education Candidates Forum, La Raza Unida Organizing Committee decided to endorse and support 3 candidates for School Board. They are Lorenzo Garcia in District 3, Mary Lee Martin in District 6, and David Peercy in District 7. They were chosen because of their ability to understand the systematic issues that perpetuate the achievement gap in the Albuquerque Public School system.

More information is available at the Raza Unida website

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

1/20/09

HOPE - that's what people have said today is about. Hopefully this will lead to an expanding of democracy, civil liberties, and economic justice.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Tax Breaks (1/15/09)

New Mexico gives away $5 billion of our tax dollars every year. Some of these tax giveaways make sense. Some of these breaks might not, but a law that would have made it easy to track this was vetoed. Hopefully we get a law that lets us see this so things can be assessed. It may be that some things are over taxed and that can be changed. It could also be that some things are under taxed and that could help deal with revenue shortfalls. We wouldn't have to worry about Richardson cutting the education budget.

Taxes are the dues we pay for benefits like schools, emergency responders, and parks. Knowing our common wealth is put to good use makes us feel good. Making sure our taxes serve the common good requires that we know what is going on and respond to that. It also requires that make requests and demands on how our money is spent.

So your voice and your vote is important. We may start by individually letting politicians know what we think. Then we may move toward making a request. If we are civic-minded in any way we realize that this works better as a part of a group.

From there you make your stance on the issue public, creating more pressure. Now if you are only concerned about issues and think the political system is fine you stop there, winning or not. But if you think the system has problems you continue.

You start to identify leaders that really represent your community and you ask them to run. You build a voter base through voter education and get out the vote drives. After the elections you keep people on the elected officials and get commitments for action.

La Raza Unida is doing just that. What we are adding is the building of an independent political base by registering people La Raza Unida (LRU). This is an extra challenge and also exciting. There is little vision and knowledge for most people on multi-party democracy. That's fine, we'll build it one person at a time. We have a small and solid base, and it is growing as the 60% of people who want more alternatives find them.

Nuestra Familia E-News.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Join the Party 1/8/09

Our next Join the Party Party is January 17, at 5:30pm.
2131B Lead Ave. SE

For more information email magonista66@yahoo.com

Come learn about LRU, Register LRU and get involved!

If you would like to host a Join the Party Party let us know.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

What about the poor?

Here's a cartoon I found in the Journal. It's very true. Our government can bailout corporations, but not its own people.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Join the Party!

This is going to be a great year!

With a mayoral race already heating up we have the opportunity to push some issues to the front. Human dignity is important for any community and if we are going to be a dignified community we need to treat everyone well. That is why we will be supporting Safety Plans for people leaving incarceration.

Human dignity also includes giving people the support to be free from addictions and mental health problems. Providing more services to prevent incarceration, addiction, and hospitalization will be a major step forward. This will require political will and lots of organizing, especially during difficult budget times.

Democracy is the foundation of what we say we are about. Of course Instant Runoff Voting, Voter Choice, Same Day Voter Registration, etc. will be a major part of that. That will require more people to register, more to register third party, and more to actually get involved. This will be our foundation this year as we move forward.

Hopefully you'll be able to make it to one of the "Join the PARTY Party" events we will hold this year. Maybe you'd like to host one.