Darfur
Ron Sider's article in today's issue of ESA's PRISM ePistle about Darfur convicted me. He wrote, "Senator Paul Simon said shortly before his death 'that if only 100 people in each Congressional district had demanded a stop to the Rwandan genocide, that effort would have generated a determination to stop it. But Americans didn't write such letters to their members of Congress then, and they're not writing them now.”
Sider and Simon are right. The only way our government is going to take genocide in Darfur seriously is if we all start writing some emails. Here's what I wrote to my senators, my representative, and the president:
Dear _________:
We in the U.S. have the resources to stop the genocide in Darfur. But do we have the will? I hope so. I commend to you Nicholas Kristof's piece, which appeared in the November 29th issue of the TIMES entitled “What's to Be Done About Darfur? Plenty” for ideas about how to stop the first genocide of the twenty-first century. Americans elected you into office, and now we are pleading with you to do something--something historic that changes life on the ground in Africa--about this issue.
Sincerely,
For information on how to reach your legislators, click here for Senators, here for your Congressperson, and here for the president.
Christian social activists are not asking for our money on this one. They're asking for our voices. Let's make some noise!
Sider and Simon are right. The only way our government is going to take genocide in Darfur seriously is if we all start writing some emails. Here's what I wrote to my senators, my representative, and the president:
Dear _________:
We in the U.S. have the resources to stop the genocide in Darfur. But do we have the will? I hope so. I commend to you Nicholas Kristof's piece, which appeared in the November 29th issue of the TIMES entitled “What's to Be Done About Darfur? Plenty” for ideas about how to stop the first genocide of the twenty-first century. Americans elected you into office, and now we are pleading with you to do something--something historic that changes life on the ground in Africa--about this issue.
Sincerely,
For information on how to reach your legislators, click here for Senators, here for your Congressperson, and here for the president.
Christian social activists are not asking for our money on this one. They're asking for our voices. Let's make some noise!
posted by ChadRAllen @ 2:41 PM
1 Comments:
At December 27, 2005 ,
Margaret Feinberg said...
After reading your posting last week, I talked to a friend of ours who works in one of our congressmen's offices (the fortune of being in the state capitol--even if it is Alaska) [hey is it capitol or capital?] Anyway, he said letters do make a difference...emails, too. But it's important that they aren't just cut and paste letters or emails because those are disregarded. So for example, say if a large Colorado Springs-based Christian organization encourages you to write letters to your congressman and makes it easy with a cut n' paste letter...take the time to rewrite and personalize it even if you use the same basic ideas. This will have a larger impact. Anyway, those are some thoughts.
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