The ONE Blog
ONE Vote ’08 grew in numbers in and excitement in Iowa today!
-At RAGBRAI, the annual bike ride across in Iowa, we signed up new members, banded people, and bike riders and spectators wore ONE shirts all over town.
-Chris Matthews taped an interview with Lance Armstrong with ONE supporters in the background. The members wore ONE shirts and placards and Chris even signed our ONE wristband! MSNBC will be rebroadcast it at 7 PM.
-Tonight ONE will have a great presence at a local Blues Traveler and The Nadas concert. A ‘The Nadas’ band members will have a ONE Vote ’08 shirt on during the performance and will mention ONE on stage.
You never know who you are going to run into on Main Street during Primary Season in New Hampshire. This is why I always travel with ONE bands in my pocket.
Today, Sen. McCain made a brief appearance in a downtown Nashua restaurant to talk with voters. I made the stop with a few ONE members to show support for the ONE Vote ’08.
I noticed Mayor Bernie Streeter and Commander Dalianis in the crowd (both are NH ONE Ambassadors), and a few local business owners that were at our ONE launch. ONE member, and staunch conservative, Kevin Keefe came with me and so did ONE member Brandon Laws who will be interning with Gov. Richardson this summer.
While wearing his ONE band, Kevin approached Sen. McCain and told him that he is a conservative that supports the ONE Campaign and noted President Bush’s past efforts to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty. He told Sen. McCain that it was important to reform the Farm Bill, especially the cotton payments, to allow the poorest people on Earth a way to trade out of poverty.
Brandon told Sen. McCain that it was important to save lives in Africa and offered him a ONE band. But Sen. McCain refused it. Instead he pulled up his sleeve and showed us the ONE band he was already wearing! He even told Brandon “Did you think I would let you catch me without wearing this”?
We were all stunned and thanked the senator for wearing the ONE band and urged him to fight global disease and global extreme poverty.
Afterward Brandon told me, “It makes you feel good to know that no matter where you fall in the political spectrum, there are candidates on both sides of the fence that are willing to fight to make the world better by supporting the work of ONE and by helping us put an end to extreme poverty and AIDS in Africa.
We ONE bloggers have been writing a lot about the Farm Bill these days,
and with good reason. The House of Representatives votes on changes to
the Farm Bill tomorrow. If substantial changes aren’t made to the bill,
small farmers will be out of luck until the next time it appears before
Congress in 2012.
With your help we can push Congress to make the right decision tomorrow,
and in the process help protect small farmers here and abroad from
subsidies that leave them unable to compete fairly. Please take a moment
to call your member of Congress and tell them to vote YES on the Fairness
Amendment. The ONE Campaign has set up a 1-800 number (1-800-786-2663)
to direct you to your congressional office.
“But Peter,” you may ask, “what if I’m not sure exactly what to say?” No
problem, loyal ONE member! We have a set of talking points to help you
with your call, as well as a form to register your call when you
finish. With just a few minutes of your time, you can lend
small farmers everywhere a much needed helping hand.
An army of ONE volunteers hit the candidate debate viewing parties on Monday night in Charleston, SC, banding and speaking to the presidential hopefuls before and after the debate.
I spoke to Senators Clinton and Biden, and they thanked us for fighting for international AIDS and poverty relief. We also signed up new ONE members at the viewing parties, including people working for the various campaigns.
All of the ONE staff and volunteers worked hard for the Charleston debate. It was well worth it and we won’t be resting anytime soon, since the national College Democrats of America convention will be at the University of South Carolina from July 26-29. Several of the candidates will be rolling through Columbia for the convention and they will be seeing some familiar faces in ONE bands and shirts.
ONE is joining 10,000 bike riders in Cedar Falls, IA, today for RAGBRAI, the popular bike-across-Iowa annual event. With all the people that will show up for the stop over and concert, the ONE team worked all yesterday morning to make sure we are ready when the crowds show today.
We signed up 9 new cities on the RAGBRAI route as “Cities of ONE,” and a team from Des Moines University will be wearing ONE bike jerseys as they arrive in Cedar Falls. Every ONE band, ONE shirt, and clipboard is ready, as well as special ONE water bottles that we will be giving to riders.
Hopefully, it will be impossible to pass through the town without seeing a ONE logo.
Listen today at 10 am (EST) to the Diane Rehm show on NPR. Please call into her show and express support in the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment. When you call in please mention BFW’s website, www.bread.org or www.bread.org/farmbill for listeners to find out how they can make a difference. Thanks everyone!
(You can listen to the live feed if you don’t have access to your local NPR station.)
This coming Thursday the version of the Farm Bill coming out of the
Agricultural Committee will be considered by the full House of
Representatives. This bill contains the same problematic subsidies that
have for decades hampered the ability of small farmers here in America
as well as the developing world to compete with big business farms.
The ONE Campaign supports The Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment
- Fairness Amendment for short – an amendment which aims to right the
wrongs of the Farm Bill in its current form. This amendment has seen a
considerable amount of support from both sides of the aisle, and with
good reason. The amendment reduces damaging subsidies, expands an
overseas school lunch program by $1.1B, implements a fair and modern
safety net to protect farmers from crop price reductions, and reduces
direct payments – a system enacted over a decade ago to wean farmers off
subsidies that has proven ineffective -overall this reform package will
save at least $10 billion.
Take advantage of this historic opportunity to tell your representative
that you support the Fairness Amendment. Right now, unfair
subsidies are distorting trade and hurting small farmers from the
Heartland to Sub-Saharan Africa. If enough ONE members like yourself let
their voices be heard, it won’t be long before we see real reform on
this issue.
UPDATE: Read the Fairness Amendment factsheet
