[WCUSP] No Portland Reps support war funds cut off yet

[Joyce McLean]

yes and it sounds as if we should join the coalition though I fear it willl 
some to naught because our Dems new and old are so afraid of being not tough 
on Terrorists/Moslems....like the Cold War Days not being tough enough on 
Commies............not much has changed
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "yvonne simmons" <roweenayvonne at yahoo.com>
To: <wcusp at wilpf.org>
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 9:31 PM
Subject: [WCUSP] No Portland Reps support war funds cut off yet


> Has anyone haerd of this of this legislation HR 4432
>>proposed by Jim Mcgovern D Massachusetts. Yvonne.
>  Make It a Mandate for Peace
>>       By John Nichols, The Nation
>>
>>
>>       Peace and social justice groups have formed a
>> new Mandate for Peace
>> coalition to pressure incoming Democratic majorities
>> in the House and Senate
>> to use the power they will assume in January to
>> promote the rapid withdrawal
>> of US troops from Iraq.
>>
>>       The coalition is a muscular one, comprised of
>> more than three dozen
>> national and regional organizations with strong
>> track records on an array of
>> issues. It takes in antiwar activist groups such as
>> After Downing Street,
>> Code Pink and Peace Action; internationalist groups
>> such as Foreign Policy
>> in Focus and Global Exchange; veterans groups such
>> as Iraq Veterans Against
>> the War and Veterans for Peace; religious groups
>> such as American Muslim
>> Voice, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Network of
>> Spriritual Progressives and
>> Pax Christi USA; civil rights groups such as the
>> Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and
>> the Women of Color Resource Center; and political
>> groups such as True
>> Majority, the Bankbone Project and Progressive
>> Democrats of America.
>>
>>       The coalition is supporting legislation
>> proposed by US Representative
>> Jim McGovern, D-Massachusetts, to cut off funding
>> for the war. The McGovern
>> bill, HR 4232, seeks to prohibit the further use of
>> Defense Department funds
>> to deploy United States Armed Forces to Iraq. Funds
>> could be used to pay for
>> the safe and orderly withdrawal of all troops;
>> consultations with other
>> governments, NATO and the UN regarding international
>> forces; and financial
>> assistance and equipment to either Iraqi security
>> forces and/or
>> international forces.
>>
>>       Support for the McGovern measure is growing
>> rapidly. Almost all of its
>> 18 co-sponsors (Arizona's Raul Grijalva;
>> California's Sam Farr, Barbara Lee,
>> Pete Stark, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey;
>> Illinois's Jan Schakowsky;
>> Massachusetts's Barney Frank; Michigan's John
>> Conyers and Carolyn
>> Kilpatrick; New Jersey's Donald Payne; New York's
>> Jose Serrano, Edolphus
>> Towns and Nydia Velazquez; Ohio's Dennis Kucinich;
>> Pennsylvania's Chaka
>> Fattah; and Washington's Jim McDermott) have added
>> their support in recent
>> weeks.
>>
>>       As such, HR 4232 now represents the closest
>> thing to an exit strategy
>> currently being entertained by members of Congress.
>>
>>       Unfortunately, HR 4232 is off the radar for
>> most members--even those
>> elected on antiwar platforms. To put this serious
>> alternative to the Bush
>> Administration's stay-the-course position and the
>> expected alter-the-course
>> position of the Baker-Hamilton commission on the
>> radar, supporters of the
>> Mandate for Peace coalition will be flooding
>> Congress with calls today, as
>> part of a grassroots intervention on the eve of a
>> planned meeting Tuesday of
>> House Democrats to discuss Iraq policy and the
>> release Wednesday of the
>> much-anticipated report of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq
>> Study Group.
>>
>>       There will be more than enough
>> inside-the-Beltway pressure on House
>> Democrats to embrace the tepid proposals of the
>> Baker-Hamilton commission as
>> the only alternative to White House intransigence.
>> The Mandate for Peace
>> coalition wants to counter that pressure with a
>> grassroots message that
>> says: "The Constitution gives Congress the power to
>> end this war by cutting
>> off the funding, as well as the power to investigate
>> the war's
>> justifications and to impeach its architects. Let
>> Congress know that
>> forgetting the message of the November 7 elections
>> is an option that we're
>> taking off the table!"
>>
>>       The coalition is urging Americans to call the
>> Capitol Switchboard at
>> (202) 224-3121 today to deliver an antiwar message
>> to members of the House
>> and Senate. (To get direct phone and fax numbers for
>> your Representatives,
>> visit www.usalone.com.)
>>
>>       The November 7 elections sent an antiwar
>> signal, as confirmed not
>> merely by Democratic victories but by exit polling
>> and post-election
>> surveys. It was a mandate for peace. Every new
>> member of the House and
>> Senate who was elected--from Ohio Senator-elect
>> Sherrod Brown to Minnesota
>> Representative-elect Keith Ellison to Montana
>> Senator-elect Jon Tester to
>> Wisconsin Representative-elect Steve Kagen--ran and
>> won by taking more
>> clearly antiwar positions than their Republican
>> foes. Predictably, the
>> mandate of the people is under assault by the
>> Washington establishment. It's
>> time for the American people to repeat their
>> message--loudly--at the start
>> of a week when members of Congress are going to need
>> to be reminded that
>> they were sent to Washington not to better manage an
>> illegal and immoral war
>> but to end it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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