Activism Across America

The latest news from the Alaska Wilderness League has to do with a government plan to grant drilling rights to big oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in Alaskan waters. These waters serve as the primary habitat for the only polar bear populations in the United States of America, so preservation of this habitat is no small matter - especially not when the polar bears are already suffering under the dramatic shift in climate.

Of course, the megafauna aren’t the only ones suffering in the region. The Chukchi and Beaufort are also critical to birds, fish, and all sorts of other critters. Opening the area up for oil exploration and extraction can only make matters worse in the sensitive waters.

The Alaska Wilderness League has been working hard to defend the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas from the plan to lease to big oil, recognizing all the while that it’s a battle against the odds for as long as the Bush Adminstration remains in office. The lease is scheduled for February, 2008, so there isn’t much time, and we cannot count on a new, more enlightened President to put an end to the deal.

The public comment period on the deal on July 16, but the Alaska Wilderness League promises more for activism on the issue. I’m grateful to have this organization at work on behalf of us all.

Let’s start out at the beginning of the alphabet with a progressive organization in Alabama. It looks as if the Alabama Green Party is in trouble. The latest update on the Alabama Greens’ web page is from December 11, 2004. The Alabama Green Party forum link is dead.

The Alabama Green Party is still listed as an active political party by the sources that I know, though the mainstream press has not reported on the Alabama Green Party in years. Of course, lack of mainstream news coverage is pretty ordinary for the Green Party.

Tennessee Indymedia mentions a lecture sponsored by the North Alabama Green Party on April 13, 2007, so it’s obvious that some Alabama Greens are still active.

If anyone is able to give some news of what the Alabama Green Party has got going on lately, I’d love to hear from you.

We have been working on the Irregular States Progressive Directory since 2003, searching out great politically progressive organizations, sources of information and candidates, and putting them together for the benefit of the good causes they represent.

Now, we’re adding this Progressive States Directory blog to the static, though updated, Irregular States directory. We wanted to give people an easier way to get in touch and suggest sites, and comment on the sites we’ve put up. We also wanted to have state-focused progressive political information available for us to spread through RSS.

Most importantly, we wanted to help the progressive organizations and sources of information we’ve already linked to by giving readers news of what the people behind these resources have been up to lately. There are too many progressive web sites that operate as little more than parrots for the mainstream media and national organizations, repeating or commenting on what they’ve said. This new blog will give news from the perspective of the progressive groups that are in our directory. Imagine - news that hasn’t been approved by the Associated Press or MSNBC.

Give us a bit of patience as we seek to fill you in - it’s a big country, and we’re just a small group of people working on many projects. It will take a while to get to each and every organization in each and every state, but we will get there, and then back again, given time.

In the meanwhile, don’t let us do all the talking. If there’s a state or local progressive organization or source of information that we don’t have in our directory that deserves a look, leave a comment and let us know.