Tidbits

So I have taken a long break form writing. I’m making a new resolution about myself.  Its no secret that I someday want to run for office. And I think I need to start acting that way. By August 9 I’m going to have my finances, living situation, employment, school, and family life all figured out, organized and ready to start building my campaign. For what? Who knows. When? Who knows. But it’s a start. (maybe I’ll do all my laundry this weekend just to get going on it all)

Anyway I had a very exciting lunch today, with a friend of mine who I met recently though my sex ed work.  She isn’t going to stay involved in that but mostly because it’s a mess and doesn’t need to be doing it. I understand that, and we’ll see how long I stick around, I don’t have much patience for things that aren’t well organized unless folks are willing to make that happen.

Anyway, she and her husband are starting something very exciting!!!  Changing building codes.  Why is this exciting? I’m not sure I understand it but I know this much.  Buildings use something like 50% of the energy in this country.  And something like 60% of that can be saved by changing the way a building site is determined, and the window structure (not the TYPES of windows, but where they are,) as well as the placement of sky lights and other things.  Its very exciting. I mean, ok, the details are probably very mundane, the key is we can be cutting the use of energy in this state, and others but tons, literally TONS if we were to do this.  Keep an eye out for this thing, but for now they are, rightly so, keeping stuff VERY low key!

Also, exciting, details to come, there are people in the state talking, finally, about getting young people elected to office.  It’s a great idea.  Hmmm…

There will be strategic planning on sex ed stuff next week, it will be great.

Well I may not be blogging for a few days, I know, big surprise, but I’m headed to Alamogordo this weekend, and part of my weekend will be spent helping people rebuild after the floods last week. Let’s hope God gives them some help too…

Keep in touch kids, let me know what is on your mind so I’ll have new topics to blog about.

Latinos, Wilson, and Money

So I have a new friend, not really a new friend but an old friend I finally met…

I think it is no secret that I use internet chat rooms and such to meet people.  The reason usually is to try to meet gay men who are NOT at the bars every night of the week. I met this guy, Paul a few weeks back when he was looking to see what kind of scene is here in NM before moving out here for Grad School.

Well he and I have hung out a few times, nothing too interesting or exciting but he’s a great guy.
Well we started having this conversation about Latino people in New Mexico. Now this was a treat. He is born and raised in NYC, Brooklyn to be exact.  He is Honduran-American and very gorgeous.

But none of this is the key here, he was very curious about the Latino People in NM and how we identify ourselves.  See they didn’t have this problem we have in NM in NYC.

We currently have what one might call resurgence in NM of Latino/Chicano activists. And they are working to preserve our culture, and heritage. But many of us are coming from a place of trying to regain that culture, language, and heritage.  As he said “so much of the struggle is being able to hold onto that language.” Well here in NM we had a different struggle.

My father is 40 something years old.
He never really spoke fluent Spanish until his early 30s. My grandma laughed because when a cousin asked me why I don’t speak Spanish, I said because my dad never taught me.  Well she said because your dad doesn’t know.  My grandparents were excited when their kids were born. They had only had 3rd or 6th grade educations themselves, in the southwest and had been treated horribly most of their lives because of the color of their skin, their culture, and their language.  When my aunt, uncle, and father were born, they knew it wasn’t to be the same for them.  They were all light skinned, they gave them names that blended with White people, Hilda, Danny, Corky. (ok ok I got my dad’s name and it doesn’t blend well with any culture but you get the idea.)

So my grandparents, who had been beaten for speaking Spanish at school, and had lived a pretty hard life because of their race were excited about the prospects for their children.   So they never taught them Spanish at home.  They didn’t really teach them much of their culture, and as a result my parents’ generation was whitewashed to the core.  Then I was raised by a half white, half white washed father.  So when I called myself a Chicano, in conversation with Paul he was amazed. He thought of it like a political identity. And I tried to explain to him it IS a political identity. The problem is brown people can’t get together enough to understand where we all come from, and to understand that the struggle isn’t just about language, but about so many other things.

Props to Paul for wanting to know more.  I’ll keep you all updated as we continue our conversations…. (feel like this was a tease, well it was… deal with it)

Onto other news.  

George W Bush will be in Fabulous Albuquerque tomorrow. I know, I know this makes Albuquerque a little less fabulous for a short period of time, but I wanted you all to know.  He is coming to fundraise for Heather Wilson BLAH

Well PAC505 and the State Democratic Party of New Mexico are having a press event and protest outside of the fundraiser tomorrow to show our objection.
Why should you be there?

1. I’m speaking


2. This is a campaign where Heather will paint her “independence” form Bush and yet she’s happy to have him raising money for her


3. We will have black balloons to show how the Bush/Wilson regime has clouded New Mexico’s future.


4. This race is going to be won or lost in New Mexico and we need to stand up and do something. I’m not usually a fan of the protests action but in addition to this we need to help out with the Madrid for Congress Campaign.

Also I’m co hosting a fundraiser for Patsy Madrid Saturday at 1pm, with Barney Frank as the guest speaker at a luncheon.  Please contact me if you are interested in attending!!!!
Marshall Martinez
505-363-0152

Depression

I’ve been trying like crazy lately to find something that inspires me enough to write about it on this blog. But there is a huge lack of writing inspiration and energy onmy part, or there is nothing happening that is interesting in the world today. I doubt that’s true…
Its probably just me. That’s terrible…
So I’m going to be giving this Community Organizing training for the Health Council here in town next week. I’m super excited because I love teaching this stuff and getting people engaged in this stuff.

The problem is, I’m feeling a little, cynical about it all. This very well may be that I’m coming out of two weeks of non stop stimulation (my friend Robert mentioned to me he’s bored in Santa Fe now because he had this over-stimulation going the week leading up to election day and then ABQ pride, and he’s like depressed coming down off the hormones that are flaring during excited times. Adrenaline and you know those others…)
And so I’m not quite ready to concentrate on the things we need ot be doing to make this world a better place.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be on my game by then and I’ll be good at it! But I’m worried.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had a few conversation lately and indication that things are just not going the way they ought to be…

So Community Organizing is about power right? Its about building power to make change, owning power to prevent power hungry people from misusing it, and empowering communities to help themselves.

I was calling people for GOTV in the north and south valleys Election Day and they were telling me “we really want Geno to win, but he’s got it taken care of, we don’t need to vote for him to win, everyone else is voting for him too…” This was painful to me because these people are regular voters, they know the power of their votes and they know the importance of their votes.  And yet they still didn’t’ show up, this is a simple task voting, and people take it for granted, or feel like by not doing it they are making some sort of statement.

I had a conversation with a girlfriend of mine recently about the election and she didn’t know she couldn’t vote in the primary because she isn’t a registered democrat.  This is something that is often confusing to people but I was upset about this anyway.  Why don’t these people know this? Why don’t we have people who are educating themselves on the civil system of change? And Especially why wouldn’t a young woman of color who’s culture, livelihood, and gente have been oppressed and hurt by the system, want to be educating herself about how to change the system? (I have since helped her with that registration thing by the way)

I’m thinking more and more that the people of this country don’t want to help themselves or anyone else.  We have done the ultimate disgrace to democracy we have de-legitimized our government and system.  We no longer have the greatest government on earth because people feel like it doesn’t represent them and therefore it doesn’t impact them or warrant their attention.

What do we do about this?

It must be nice

It must be nice…

I was walking into Pride Saturday and I ran into someone I used to consider a friend and mentor. Her name will be kept secret but many people know who I’m talking about already.  She is an instructor in the Political Science Department and taught me my first Political Science class.  She was the reason I became President and later Co-Chair of College Democrats and the reason I became a political science major to begin with.  She has an awesome history when it comes to academics, and she was a great teacher.  But I was having a conversation with her about the upcoming elections and she mentioned she wouldn’t be voting for Patricia Madrid for Congress.  She said she probably wouldn’t vote for Heather either but she wouldn’t ever vote for Patsy if her life depended on it.  Because Patsy was the one who stopped the couples from getting married in Sandoval County two years ago.  The woman in question was in line with her partner and maintains patsy didn’t have to stop the marriages at 430 but rather could have let us have one day of legal marriages in this state.  Now there are a few reasons that I think this was the best thing to do and I’ll definitely write a blog about them later.
But for right now I have to say what I really thought about this reaction.

It must be nice…

It must be nice to be a wealthy white lesbian couple one of whom teaches at a University that has granted domestic partnerships to queer couples for many years.

It must be nice to not have any kids or family to take care of and never worry about putting food on your table.

It must be nice to sit in that ivory tower of social theory and academia and not know what its like to be living in the real world.

It must be nice not to think of all the people straight and queer who are losing their jobs because of republican congress and bush administration screw up.

It must be nice to not worry about the future generations and the sex education they’re currently receiving, or the types of restrictions and hurdles young women will soon have to go through to get the reproductive healthcare they and their doctors think are right for them.

It must be nice not to be worried about the affects of your one vote on the thousands of people in the city you inhabit, or the hundreds of thousands nationwide that are impacted by the vote of your congressman.

It must be really nice to have an ideal, like your right to marry your lover and be absolutely hard and fast about that issue when it comes to casting votes.

It must be really nice to not really care about anyone else but yourself and little things that make you comfortable.

It must be really nice to be her, I’m living a life that’s a little less luxurious, forgive my anger…

Mental illness

So I took a little hiatus again, but this time with good reason.

I attended a GOTV Meeting (that's Get Out The Vote) for Geno Zamora last Thursday and was asked if I would run the GOTV office for his campaign, as a volunteer, the last four days to election day. I of course said yes without hesitation.
The thing about the GOTV part of a campaign is there is no way to really prep for it.
Its kind of like running a short race (5 or 6 K) without training. The thing is, you do train. If you've done it before you know what to expect, and you try mentally, and physically to prep yourself. Most people end up dreading election day, until it happens. We prep by eating right (ha ha ha) and sleeping well the night before (another joke) and we get up at 5 am and try to say, ok lets go get this over with. But by 10 or 11 we're hoping it lasts forever. The rush, the adrenaline, the pure excitement.

So then its over, you look at the clock and its 6:45pm. The polls are about to close, you've done all you can do. You can't remember where the time went, but you've dropped literature, sent volunteers out to walk door to door, made phone calls and supported volunteers while they make those phone calls, telling everyone you know or think will vote for your candidate to get out and vote. And praying to God there'll be enough of them voting to actually win it.
Then you go home, shower and center yourself and head to the victory parties. I've never been at a real victory party, I've always been on the losing end of things.

Then you go to watch the results come in, and the first hour or so is fun, drinking, and chilling, and networking. Finding out how the other races went on E-day and waiting.

Then it comes, the precincts start reporting, and its looking good. In fact you're excited, and then, you see that one county that you were counting on, and, no good. The excitement and adrenaline and pumped up attitude you have, are all crashing at once...

This is the part of the day that is the most extreme, as every precinct somes in you go one way or the other, wondering if there is anyway to come back from that margin of votes.

Then you're drunk, or exhausted, and depressed and you go home (someone takes you of course) and so you stare at the computer hours longer, refreshing the SOS website and wondering what happened.

Then you wake up the next day, feeling horribly and exhausted and you think: Well there's always the general coming up.

So now that you've read this, do you agree that we're probably mentally ill, those of us who love this?

yeah I think so....

My Personal Endorsements

As Promised a copy and paste from the email I sent out a couple days ago...

So as usual Im reminding all folks to get out and vote this next Tuesday, if not before. This election is incredibly important especially for us Democrats. There are a number of contested primaries and and I'll just go ahead and list those along with my personal endorsements and reasons for supporting these candidates.

The US Senate race is open on the Democratic Primary, Jeff Bingaman has been pretty decent on a lot of issues, but it might not hurt to remind him is liberal base of supporters are watching him.

The US congressional races statewide are safe primaries, Patricia Madrid, Al Kissling, and Tom Udall are all running in unopposed primaries.

Governor and Lt governor are also running in unopposed Primaries. Bill Richardson and Diane Denish are doing a fabulous job and we need to be sure to keep them in November.

The contested races are further down on the ticket and no less important to be attentive to:

Attorney General: This office is the lead prosecutor into he state of New Mexico, and defends the State of NM laws on a federal level. My pick for the race is Geno Zamora http://www.geno2006.com/Geno was assistant Attorney General to Tom Udall and chief Legal Counsel to the Governor Richardson/Denish Administration.

Secretary of State: There are four women running in this Primary and they are all good candidates. I am personally supporting Shirley Hooper for Secretary of State. She was a former Secretary of State, and has the experience to do the job. My friend, current Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron has started a great number of programs that have increased voter turnout, and I believe Shirley is the best candidate to keep up this important work...

State Auditor: This office audits the State Agencies, and contractors who work for the state. The primary is contested, and the two candidates running are Jeff Armijo and Tom buckner. I have to make a pitch for Jeff as a great guy whom I enjoy greatly. But Tom is an auditor, has been for many years, and really knows how to do the job. Jeff isn't an auditor and doesn't have the experience for the job.
Land commissioner: There are two former Land Commissioners running in this primary both fully qualified to do the job. The Thing about the Land Commissioners office is that you have to be able to work with the Oil and Gas industry as well as Enviros to accomplish the betterment of the state. Powell was not able to bridge these two interests together when he was in the office the first time and I don\'t think he will be able to this time either. Jim Baca is going to be great as land commissioner and is the guy to take down the Republican Pat Lyons...

Other races include the

PRC:Depending on your district the candidates in the primary to support are:

Stephanie DuBois

Shirley Baca

Derrith Watchman-Moore

Other races to watch are county-wide

Here in Bernalillo

Moises Gallegos County Accessor

Rachel Al Yasar for judge

Loretta naranjo-Lopez County Commission

around the state there are multiple contested primaries for legislative seats. Email me your State House district and I'll let you know who the most progressive canddiate in that race is going to be!\n \nwww.sos.state.nm.us is where you can find a list of County Clerks, Early Voting is open until Saturday at the county clerk of your hometown's office!

Thank you and please don\'t forget to vote, Geno, Jim, Shirley, Tom, and the list keeps going!!

Counting Down

So there are only a few days away until Primary Election. An aquantinace of mine came by my house yesterday to tell me he was angry at me that he hadn't heard from me in tow weeks and then all he had gotten was a text message telling my friends to vote and for whom I would have liked them to vote. He was shocked when my reasoning was that I wanted my candidates to win, needed help to make that happen, and had been too busy to socialize much since E day was only a few days away. I've often wondered how a person could "know me so well" and still be shocked by this behavior of mine, so heres the gist, this is a warning. I'm proud of who I am and my passion, its not going away.

Now onto better news:


http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/05/053106repro.htm

Groups Rank States On Gay & Reproductive Rightsby David Crary, Associated Press
May 31, 2006 - 7:00 pm ET

(New York City) New Mexico and New York share the top spot while Ohio and South Dakota are tied for last in a new state-by-state ranking compiled by three liberal advocacy groups that analyzes laws dealing with gay rights and reproductive rights.
Most efforts to gauge state positions on such socially divisive topics stick to one theme, but the rankings released Wednesday look at two hot-button issues in hopes of encouraging new alliances between gay-rights and abortion-rights groups.
Reactions to the report varied. Alexis Blizman, a New Mexico gay-rights activist, said her state deserved its position in part because of its "live and let live attitude." A conservative Republican legislator from South Dakota, Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, described the results as "a badge of honor."
"I'd have been disappointed if we'd finished any higher than last," he said.
The rankings were compiled by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and two abortion-rights groups, Ipas and the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective.
States were scored cumulatively based on 25 different laws, ranging from restrictions on abortion to recognition of same-sex partnerships to the availability of emergency contraception. Officials from the advocacy groups said the rankings call attention to sharp discrepancies among the states.
"In this country, freedom depends on where we live," said Leila Hessini, a policy adviser with Ipas. She said South Dakota's recently passed abortion law - which would ban abortions even in cases of rape and incest if it goes into effect - "has more in common with Afghanistan than Oregon."
Jason Cianciotto, research director with the Gay and Lesbian Task Force, recounted the story of a lesbian couple who felt compelled to move from Florida because it did not allow them to jointly adopt their child. "No one should have to shop around for rights, from state to state," he said.
A moderate South Dakota legislator, Democratic Rep. Pat Haley of Huron, said the ranking of his state was justified.
"I believe we are on the extreme," he said in a telephone interview. "South Dakotans seem to pride themselves on independence, yet they have this legislature that comes at them with bill after bill interfering in all different kinds of ways in how they live their lives."
In Ohio, the Republican-controlled legislature has passed numerous bills in recent years restricting access to abortion. In 2004, voters approved a constitutional amendment that not only banned gay marriage but also any other legal recognition of same-sex couples.
"I think it's a virtue that we'd be known as a traditional, family-friendly state," said State Rep. Bill Seitz, a Republican from Cincinnati. "However, the perception that we're a big homophobic state is not accurate. You can be a family-friendly state without hating anybody."
He noted that GOP legislative leaders recently quashed a bill that would have outlawed adoptions by gays and also balked at promoting a South Dakota-style abortion ban.
While New York's place at the liberal end of the rankings was predictable, New Mexico's share of that position will likely surprise many people outside the state, said Blizman, the executive director of Equality New Mexico.
She noted that New Mexico was among the first states to expand their anti-discrimination laws to cover gays and transgender people, and remains among a handful of states with neither a law nor constitutional amendment explicitly restricting marriage to heterosexual couples.
Brian Sanderoff, president of an Albuquerque-based polling firm, said New Mexico is less liberal politically than New York, yet has avoided passing many of the social-issues laws that conservatives have pushed through in other heartland states.
"Politicians in New Mexico stay clear of the abortion issue and the gay rights issue," he said. "It's a no-win situation - it's too risky for both sides."


How exciting is this?!?!?!?!??!

Election Day is June 6th here in New Mexico. www.sos.nm.us please go vote. my list of endrosements will be posted later today!