12 October 2006
on most Massachusetts ballots Tuesday 7 November 2006
"Shall the State Representative from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a resolution calling upon the President and Congress of the United States to end the war in Iraq immediately and bring all United States military forces home from Iraq?"
[ ] YES
[ ] NO
This non-binding referendum on the war will appear on the Tuesday 7 November ballot in 36 state representative districts across Massachusetts. For the first time Massachusetts voters will have the opportunity to officially register their position on the war.
This will be on the Tuesday 7 November ballot in the following towns:
Adams
Agawam
Amesbury
Arlington
Ashburnham
Ashby
Ashfield
Athol
Becket
Belchertown (2 of 4 precincts)
Belmont
Bernardston
Boston
(all of South Boston and parts of Jamaica Plain,
Charlestown, Roslindale, and Mission Hill)
Bridgewater
Brimfield
Brookline (13 of 16 precincts)
Buckland
Cambridge (7 of 33 precincts)
Charlemont
Chatham
Chelsea (12 of 16 precincts)
Cheshire
Chesterfield
Chicopee (20 of 22 precincts)
Clarksburg
Cohasset
Colrain
Conway
Cummington
Dalton
Deerfield
Dover
East Longmeadow (2 of 4 precincts)
Eastham
Easthampton
Easton (1 of 6 precincts)
Erving
Essex
Florida
Gardner
Gill
Gloucester
Goshen
Granby
Granville
Greenfield
Hadley
Hampden
Hancock
Harwich
Hatfield
Hawley
Heath
Hingham
Hinsdale
Holden
Holland
Holyoke
Hubbardston
Hull
Huntington
Lanesborough
Leverett
Lexinton
Leyden
Longmeadow
Lynnfield (3 of 4 precincts)
Medfield (2 of 4 precincts)
Medford (3 of 16 precincts)
Middlefield
Middleton (1 of 2 precincts)
Millis (2 of 3 precincts)
Monroe
Monson
Montague
Montgomery
Natick (9 of 10 precincts)
Needham
New Ashford
New Salem
Newburyport
Newton
North Adams
North Reading
Northampton
Northfield
Oakham
Orange
Orleans
Palmer
Pelham
Peru
Pittsfield (1 of 14 precincts)
Plainfield
Princeton
Provincetown
Raynham
Reading ( 5 of 8 precincts)
Richmond
Rockport
Rowe
Royalston
Russel
Rutland
Salisbury
Savoy
Scituate (1 of 6 precincts)
Shelburne
Sherborn
Shutesbury
Somerville (11 of 21 precincts)
South Hadley
Southhampton
Southwick
Springfield (3 of 64 precincts)
Sterling (1 of 2 precincts)
Sturbridge
Sunderland
Truro
Wales
Waltham
Ware (2 of 3 precincts)
Warren
Warwick
Washington
Watertown (11 of 12 precincts)
Wellfleet
Wendell
West Springfield
Westhampton
Westminster
Whately
Williamsburg
Williamstown
Winchendon
Windsor
Woburn
Worthington
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
And, it will do exactly zero to accomplish its purpose. Troops will remain in Iraq until at least the 2008 Presidential election, and young men and women will die unnecessarily. Bush's criminal negligence will go unpunished, and he will never see the inside of a jail cell.
How about a binding resolution on the Governor ordering all Massachusetts National Guard troops home immediately?
Shortly before the Vietnam War finally ended, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law stating that no citizen of Massachusetts could be compelled to be drafted into the US military during any war which Congress had not declared.
(The last American war declared by Congress -- as clearly required by the Constitution -- was World War II.)
Equally ineffective. The draft itself was being discontinued. To my knowledge, no young man from Massachusetts ever sought protection from being drafted under the Massachusetts law.
But it was Massachusetts' way of saying Fuck You to the war. It put our political community, our elected leaders, on record, forever, as saying: Massachusetts Say No To This War ... even to the point of enacting a direct legal conflict between Massachusetts and the federal government.
As in Vietnam, the path to ending the Iraq War will not be a clear and smooth path, even if growing numbers of Americans want it to end. An American war is a huge juggernaut that runs on its own momentum and cannot quickly or easily be stopped.
Like Vietnam, the Iraq War will end in small steps and stages -- the first of them not Legal, not Binding, but Psychological.
Bush, or whoever follows, will have to keep waging this war with a USA map with one state, then three, then nine colored OPPOSED TO WAR. Or with a USA map broken down into an exposion of OPPOSED TO WAR pimple dots in towns and cities all over the nation.
It's Happy Vote Music to me, I can't wait to put my X on that Question. I can't wait to see the final Northampton results on election night.
On an NECN news segment tonight, two opposing spokesmen: The guy from the American Friends Service Committee, and the guy from the American Legion. (He said, "This is a war, we need to leave it to the generals.")
Quakers vs. Legionnaires! Heavy Thinkers vs. Heavy Drinkers! Place your bets!
I'll bet that no matter how much this non-binding question irks you, when the tally in your part of Beantown comes on the screen and it says YES 62%, you will Smile Widely -- however involuntarily.
What's So Bad About Feeling Good?
Post a Comment