A New President for the 'Public Citizen' Organization.

Joseph Raglione
Gentle readers of this American Chronicle, we need several million more organizations exactly like: "Public Citizen", therefore, I highly recommend you spread the word and begin cloning this organization. The sooner you do it, the better, and the United States will become one big and powerful and honourable country again, respected around the world...>

Dear Friends,

My name is Robert Weissman, and I am very excited to join Public Citizen as its new president.

For nearly 40 years, Public Citizen has pioneered cutting-edge advocacy on the crucial issues of the day. As a result, we all are a lot safer and healthier, our government works for more people and our democracy functions better.

But for all we've achieved, powerful corporate interests have managed to shape the policy agenda. On each of the top-line issues of the day - climate change, health care and financial re-regulation - corporate interests are blocking the changes we need for a more just and ecologically sustainable future. The majority whip in the Senate even says the banks "own the place."

We can't allow Big Business to continue to set the agenda and write the rules. And we won't.

As we look forward to the challenges ahead, Public Citizen will continue to do everything it has done so well for nearly four decades.

We are going to do some other things, too. We will be more creative on the Internet. We will develop new ways to work with you, so that together we build new forms of citizen power. We will invest more in organizing people, both online and on the ground. Together, we will innovate ways to change the way Washington works.

For the past 20 years, I've worked on corporate accountability projects at Essential Action and the Center for Study of Responsive Law here in Washington, D.C. I've also edited a magazine, Multinational Monitor, which tracks the activities of multinational corporations and reports on the global economy. I've seen the panoply of organizations working on consumer, environmental and corporate accountability issues. Public Citizen has always stood out for its extraordinarily talented and committed staff, with deep expertise in a wide set of issues. I'm thrilled to join this team.


Public Citizen has also been unique for its fierce independence, its commitment to advancing the public interest across a broad issue spectrum, and its insistence on focusing on root problems and solutions. I promise that we'll maintain those characteristics as we go forward.

For 27 years, Joan Claybrook provided Public Citizen with inspirational leadership, boundless energy and good humor, strategic vision and the force of her personality. She has been deeply committed to advancing health and safety, defending victims of corporate wrongdoing, and campaigning for a better and more responsive democracy. I am deeply honored to follow in her footsteps. She remains on our board and will continue to guide us.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for the generosity you have shown to Public Citizen. Your commitment and dedication are what allow this organization to thrive, and I hope it will continue for years to come. Public Citizen is an organization that belongs to all of us.

I am humbled by the enormity of the task ahead but know that with your help, we will build new forms of citizen power together. Please tell me what you'd like to see in Public Citizen's future by sending an email to president@citizen.org. I'd love to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Robert Weissman

President, Public Citizen

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Joseph Raglione

About Joseph Raglione
Hi! I am the executive director of the World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement. I began as an environmental activist in 1969 and basically, never stopped! I Graduated College in Social Science and registered as a non-profit corporation in 1988 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I am one of a very few non-profit and generic freedom loving journalists left on Earth, and I continue today to study and to understand the problems connected with human activity on this Planet. My affiliates include: GreenPeace, the Nature Conservancy, the Bio-diversity organization, the Sierra Club, the David Suzuky foundation, the WWF, Amnesty International, World Vision, the IUF organization; as well as the wonderful and independant N.A.S.A. scientists studying our Planet's weather systems. Of course NASA also studies the mysteries of the Eternal Universe with satelite generated images and, over the years, have generously allowed me and thousands of our world scientists to study over their shoulder's via the Internet.
In spite of some past U.S. government repression, NASA continues to provide solid evidence of global warming.
NASA has provided me with pictorial evidence of Rainforest deforestation within: Jakarta, Peru, Africa, Brazil and even in Western Canada!
The motivation for such destruction continues to be (often illegally) for: lumber, for bio-fuels, and for Cattle ranching. Today, the perceived future profits for Palm Oil and for Bio-Fuels are prime motivators for environmental destruction. Small crop farming also contributes but that may be changing as farmers learn to protect the Rain-Forest.
With NASA imaging, there is proof that large city heat traps are helping global warming, and with (infrared images)there is proof that several hundred million gas burning vehicles (including ship and airplanes) presently create a hugh quantity of pollution tracks across both Oceans and Sky.
With oil, gas, Coal and Bio-Fuel heated buildings around the world creating C02 emissions, and with Methane release from all animal species...giant Ozone holes have been created and continue to exist above the North and South Poles. Ozone holes allow the Sun to radiate the Ice Caps and to accelerate the Ice melt, which releases more Methane into the atmosphere, which continues to thin out the Ozone. A vicious circle created by human need and also, unhappily, by human greed!
I have been asked to write to the Prime Minister of Japan to ask him to stop the murderous assault on endangered Whales. Every year, thousands of Whales are killed in the Antarctic with GreenPeace volunteers placing themselves between the Whales and the grenade tipped harpoons, and peope like myself, (I did not forget this is my "Bio," putting my old neck on the line attempting to change the situation by writing thousands if not millions of words!
Are words dangerous?
Over three hundred journalists were killed within the last ten years. You tell me if words are dangerous!
As I write these words, the desperate and starving in Darfur are waiting for rescue. I motivated a few kind hearted California Actors to visit the region and to report back. They did! They then created the Darfur coalition and they continue to fight to save the innocent victims trapped in tents in the desert of the Sudan. Darfuri's were attacked and moved from their homes because somebody believes there is Oil under the Sudan desert.
As I write this, a few sick and desperate people in Iraq are wrapping bombs around themselves in order to die in the name of God, and the list of humanitarian disasters continues. I also contribute information to the Reuter's news service. It is time for a change. Please help make it happen!