[Sac-news] Anniversary of Iraq War - Call for Debate

[Susan Leslie]

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SOCIAL ACTION CHAIR (SAC)- NEWS
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Dear SAC-News Readers:
 
As I write a major corner has been turned in developments to halt the
Iraq War.  
Bi-partisan momentum is growing for an open debate! There are currently
more than 8 Iraq-related bill languishing in committee in the House of
Representatives. The one with the most support is H.J.Res. 55, the
"Homeward Bound" resolution introduced last year by Rep. Walter Jones
(R-NC) and Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), with the support of several
other colleagues. H.J.Res. 55 would require the president to develop and
implement a plan for the withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq. 

Representative Abercrombie has filed a discharge petition for the
Homeward Bound Act which would force the bill out of committee and
guarantee consideration on the House floor. In order for this to happen,
218 Representatives need to sign the petition. The petition itself is
H.Res. 543. 

The discharge of the Homeward Bound Resolution is not about passing this
particular bill, but rather securing an open discussion about the war-17
hours to be precise. By contacting your representative and urging them
to sign the petition, you can help make this happen . It is likely that
forcing debate in the House will lead to action in the Senate as well.
Find out if your Representative has signed the petition.

See http://www.uua.org/news/2003/iraq/060316_congress.html for further
details, including how to contact your Members of Congress.  Please note
that Members of Congress will be in their home offices from March 20-24
so that you can arrange a visit with a delegation from your
congregation.

See President William Sinkford's stirring Call for a Public Debate and
for action at http://www.uua.org/ and for reports on congregational
actions see http://www.uua.org/news/2003/iraq/060316_congaction.html.
Let us know what your congregation is doing.

You may want to participate in Faith Voices for the Common Good's Beyond
Iraq On-Line Write-In on March 20-21.  See
http://www.faithvoices.org/programs/iraqreg.html.

Peace, Susan

Also in this Issue:

(1) National Tour for Darfur: Eyewitness to Genocide
(2) Report on So. Dakota UU Congregations Fight Abortion Ban
(3) Community Investing Opportunities


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(1) NATIONAL TOUR FOR DARFUR: Eyewitness to Genocide

Brian Steidle, a former Marine captain and observer to the African Union
peacekeeping forces, will be traveling over 21,000 miles on his national
tour in support of the Million Voices for Darfur Campaign. Captain
Steidle will be speaking from his firsthand experience as a witness to
genocide and mass murder, and he will be telling Americans what they can
do to help stop genocide. 

Please see http://www.savedarfur.org/go.php?q=brianSteidleTour.html to
find the exact location and time of the tour stop in your city.

The UUA is a member of the Save Darfur Coalition.  

The overall goal of the Million Voices Campaign is to raise the level of
public awareness and outcry so that President Bush and Congress take
significant action. To that end, the UUA, UU Service Committee, and
other partners in the campaign will collect one million postcards from
concerned people across the country. 

**We're hoping to collect 25,000 postcards from Unitarian Universalists
before the Rally for Darfur in Washington , DC , on April 30 and May 1.

We are asking congregations to print out the postcards and send them to
the UUA Washington Office for Advocacy.

See http://www.uua.org/news/darfur/congaction.html for details.

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(2) REPORT ON SO. DAKOTA UU CONGREGATIONS FIGHT ABORTION BAN

UUWorld.org is a weekly electronic version of UU World that includes
lots of coverage of UU congregations.  I will be including stories here
regularly and suggest that you sign-up yourselves as well.

For the story on S. Dakota see
http://uuworld.org/news/articles/southdakotauusfoughtstateabortionban288
1.shtml.

To subscribe, go to:
http://uuworld.org/subscriptions/emailnewsletter.shtml

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(3)COMMUNITY INVESTING OPPORTUNITIES

In the Spring Issue of UU World there is an excellent article by Rev.
Dorothy May Emerson on Community Investing:

See Seeds of opportunity
Community investing brings economic opportunities-and Unitarian
Universalist congregations are joining in to help.
By Dorothy May Emerson 
Spring 2006 2.15.06 at
http://uuworld.org/life/articles/communityinvestingplantsseedsofopportun
ity2712.shtml

And go to http://www.uua.org/finance/sri/ for an on-line power point
presentation on community investing by the UUA Committee for Socially
Responsible Investing 

Susan Leslie
Director for Congregational Advocacy and Witness
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon Street, Boston MA  02108
(617) 948-4607; sleslie at uua.org
www.uua.org/justice
Subscribe to SAC-News, Advocacy-News, JTW-News & SRI-News at
www.uua.org/mailman/listinfo