Barack Obama and the Rainbow Gathering

Those of you who have been involved know the struggles we have faced to continue gathering due to Forest Service Regulations. If you're not quite up to speed, there's a lot of good information posted at Welcome Home and Wyoming Gathering Blogspot and Prop 1.

Well change is coming to the United States Forest Service and Barack has the opportunity to deal with us straight up by appointing people to the upper reaches of the Forest Service who support the rights of the people to freely assemble. Who believe that a gathering is a recreational event of individuals. Who believe that one million dollars of tax payer money is better spent on planting trees than harassing hippies.

So what do we do next?

The number one man in the United States Forest Service Law Enforcement & Investigations division (John Twiss) just stepped down. I have heard that the acting
chief is Dave Ferrell-a man with much experience working with Rainbow Gatherings.

The current Undersecretary of the United States Department of Agriculture is Mark Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist. Mr. Rey has been working with us for the last couple of years, but he leaves his post when Barak Obama is inaugurated as the President (January 20, 2009).

The two people who fill these positions are going to have an enormous amount of influence over our gatherings for the length of their appointments, which if we're lucky will be 8 years. Think about how bad things have gotten for us under the Bush Administration. Well it's time for a change.

So I am asking you to make your voice hear. Barack has a transition website up where you can easily make your voice heard. So what to do?

Visit YOUR VISION and tell your story about going to a Rainbow Gathering and how the United States Forest Service treated you and ask that Barack Obama appoint a new Undersecretary who supports the rights of the people to gathering, who will treat gathering participants like human beings, who recognizes that gathering on public lands is a legitimate user of our forests, who will stop the violence committed by the United States Forest Service towards people who gather to pray for world peace.

Send the same message to your United States Senators and your United States Congressional Representative.

The time is now. I call on Thanksgiving Council to discuss this subject. It is the most important peace of business in which we can engage.

I call on all Rainbow circles, and individuals and people with an interest in justice and the future of the Rainbow Gatherings to make their voice heard, nominate specific candidates for Chief Law Enforcement Offices and Undersecretary. The time is now. If we wait even two months, this opportunity will have passed us by.

If we do this in a thoughtful, positive manner now, in New Mexico we will have stopped the madness perpetrated by the federal government against our children, against our elders, against all our brothers and sisters. If we let this moment pass us by, the violence will continue to escalate at the gathering.

The time is now family. Please forward this information to all your circles everywhere: rainbow and beyond. We need 100,000 voices letting President Elect Barack Obama know that we need a change in our National Forests.

As an aside, on November 4, California voted to ban gay marriage and the shock has been felt around the world. Yesterday over one million gay and straight people marched in 300 cities in ten countries demanding equal rights. This movement was born of the pain we felt in our hearts at the discrimination against our brothers and sisters who are now being denied the right to marry because they are GLBT.

Here in San Diego, two or three amazing women in their early twenties started a movement 8 days ago that brought twenty five thousand people into the streets of San Diego alone yesterday demanding equality for all. All my faith is in my younger brothers and sisters. We need you and we need you now.

~ Sí, se puede

~ ~ ~ ~ Namaste