Progressive Calendar 02.01.08
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 02:07:20 -0800 (PST)
              P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R   02.01.08

1. Catalyst/KFAI   2.01 11am
2. Ffunch          2.01 11:30am
3. Latino migrants 2.01 12noon
4. YAWR metro      2.01 4:30pm
5. Hushed history  2.01 6:30pm
6. Health Care/RNC 2.01 7pm
7. Sexual assault  2.01 8pm
8. Nanking/film    2.01

9. Glen Ford        - Bush bullies the cringing Dems, as usual
10. Robert Halfhill - How can anyone still think supporting Dems works?
10a. ed             - Comment on Halfhill
11. Steve Earle     - Rich man's war  (song lyrics)

--------1 of 11--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Catalyst/KFAI 2.01 11am

Tune in FRIDAY, FEB. 1,11am on KFAI Radio for CATALYST, to hear an
interview with one of the Twin Cities most brilliant actors TERRY BELLAMY,
who's playing MALCOLM X in the current HISTORY THEATRE production of THE
MEETING - which imagines a conversation between MALCOLM X and MARTIN
LUTHER KING JR. (Full details about the production below).

CATALYST:politics & culture is hosted by LYDIA HOWELL and is part of the
weekly Hour of Power (PEOPLE Power,that is!)with Catalyst at 11am followed
by NORTHERN SUN NEWS, hosted by Don Olson at 11:30am and Democracy NOW! at
noon. KFAI Radio 90.3fm Mpls 106.7fm St. Paul All shows archived for 2
weeks after broadcast at http://www.kfai.org CHECK OUT the CATALYST page
for future shows, local events & commentary by Lydia Howell at
http://www.kfai.org


--------2 of 11-------

From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Ffunch 2.01 11:30am

Meet the FFUNCH BUNCH!
11:30am-1pm
First Friday Lunch (FFUNCH) for Greens/progressives.

Informal political talk and hanging out.

Day By Day Cafe 477 W 7th Av St Paul.
Meet in the private room (holds 12+).

Day By Day has soups, salads, sandwiches, and dangerous apple pie; is
close to downtown St Paul & on major bus lines


--------3 of 11-------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Latino migrants 2.01 12noon

University of Minnesota Minneapolis Campus Rm 228 in Murphy Hall
Friday, February 1st
12-1:10pm

a talk being given at the University of Minnesota by a Chicano studies
professor Richard Martinez. This lecture is part of the Global
Media-Diasporic Cultures Series. It's a chance to gain deeper insight
into immigration and the media from a Chicano/Latino perspective


-------4 of 11-------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: YAWR metro 2.01 4:30pm

YAWR Metro-Wide Planning Meeting
Friday, February 1st
4:30pm - 6:30pm
Arise! Bookstore
2441 Lyndale Ave S
Minneapolis, MN

Our Next meeting will focus on the upcoming Minneapolis School Board
meeting on February 12th. School Board member Chris Steward will be
proposing a resolution to allow pro-peace groups to set up tables when
ever recruiters come to schools. It will also restrict military recruiters
to career centers as well as a few other small victories.  This is
potentially a REALLY big victory for us, and we want to mobilize students
and community to the Board meeting.
  We also need to start planning for a huge Youth March before and during
the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War Protest on March 15 and our other
plans for the Spring. There will be a discussion about Youth Against War &
Racism's plans for the upcoming RNC. The proposed agenda in below:

Proposed Agenda:
Current Events
RNC Conference - February 9-10
5th Anniversary of Iraq War Protest - March 15
Finances
Chapter Building
Mpls School Board - February 12


-------5 of 11--------

From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org>
Subject: Hushed history 2.01 6:30pm

Friday, February 1: Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet & Consociates
Justice Commission. The History We Were Never Taught & Why. 6:30-8:30 PM
at Carondelet Center, Randolph Ave, St. Paul.


--------6 of 11--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Health Care/RNC 2.01 7pm

-- FIRST SHOUT OUT -- NORTH STAR HEALTH COLLECTIVE !!

If you are interested in helping prepare for and shape the medical support
for the RNC protests please come:
Friday, February 1st, 7PM
the Blue Moon Cafe, 3822 E. Lake St.

The Republican National Convention will be held in St. Paul, MN, September
1-4, 2008.

We are a collective of health care workers, students, and community
members who are interested in creating a meaningful response to the
Republican National Convention (RNC).

Thousands of community members and families are expected to attend
protests against the RNC.  We are forming the North Star Health Collective
(NSHC) to be a transformative collective involved in coordinating point of
protest care.  In doing so, we actively promote locally accessible,
comprehensive, free health care for all.

We are a lasting network that will improve our diverse communities' access
to health care, even after all the protesters and delegates go home.

Our Principles of Unity:
· Resist the commoditization of our health care.
· Organize on the principles of decentralization, autonomy, sustainability
and mutual aid.
· Work to end all relationships of domination and subjugation, including
but not limited to those rooted in patriarchy, race, class, xenophobia,
and homophobia;

Our Goals:
· Train new street medics to serve the sixty-thousand protesters who are
expected.
· Assist in staffing existing wellness clinics to meet increased demand.
· Bridge the gap between the streets and the medical system.
· Support long term networks to provide affordable, quality health care
for all.

If you are interested in helping prepare for and shape what medical
support will be at the RNC protests please come to our organizational
meeting, Friday, February 1st, 7PM at the Blue Moon Cafe, 3822 E. Lake St.

If you have questions or concerns please email northstarhealth [at] gmail.com
or call Rebecca at 612 817 3822


--------7 of 11--------

From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org>
Subject: Sexual assault 2.01 8pm

February 1 - 2: Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MNCASA). A
Memory, A Monologue, A Rant & a Prayer. 8 PM Friday. Feb 2, Saturday, 2
PM. V-Day St. Paul featuring monologues by Eve Ensler. Neighborhood
House, Paul & Sheila Wellstone Center, 179 Robie St E., St. Paul.
Admission $10 - more if you can.


--------8 of 11--------

From: Stephen Feinstein <feins001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Nanking/film 2.01

NEW FILM ABOUT NANJING MASSACRE TO SHOW IN MINNEAPOLIS
NANKING

  A powerful, emotional and relevant reminder of the heartbreaking toll
war takes on the innocent, Nanking tells the story of the Japanese
invasion of Nanking, China, in the early days of World War II. As part of
a campaign to conquer all of China, the Japanese subjected Nanking - which
was then China's capital - to months of aerial bombardment, and when the
city fell, the Japanese army unleashed murder and rape on a horrifying
scale. In the midst of the rampage, a small group of Westerners banded
together to establish a Safety Zone where over 200,000 Chinese found
refuge. Unarmed, these missionaries, university professors, doctors and
businessmen - including a Nazi named John Rabe - bore witness to the
events, while risking their own lives to protect civilians from slaughter.

The story is told through deeply moving interviews with Chinese survivors,
chilling archival footage and photos of the events, and testimonies of
former Japanese soldiers. At the heart of Nanking is a filmed stage
reading of the Westerners' letters and diaries, featuring Woody Harrelson,
Mariel Hemingway and Jurgen Prochnow. Through its interweave of archival
images, testimonies of survivors, and readings of first hand accounts, the
film puts the viewer on the streets of Nanking and brings the forgotten
past to startling life.

Nanking is a testament to the courage and conviction of individuals who
were determined to act in the face of evil and a powerful tribute to the
resilience of the Chinese people - a gripping account of light in the
darkest of times.

Minneapolis
Landmark Lagoon 5 Feb 1 - 7
1320 Lagoon Avenue (612) 825-6006


--------9 of 11-------

Bush Bullies the Cringing Democrats, As Usual
by Glen Ford / January 31st, 2008
Dissident voice

George Bush is very lucky to have the Democrats as the "opposition party".
In both content and delivery, his final State of the Union Address showed
Bush to be a spent force, the dirty fighter whose entire career was built
on amorality, sheer meanness and bribed referees. No blow was ever too low
for Bush, but at this late stage of the seven-year-long bout even
razor-lined gloves can't help him. All that now props Bush up are the
nervous weaklings at the other corner of the ring: the Democrats.

Although Barack Obama seems to think the Republicans once had interesting
"ideas," they really have only three simple solutions for all situations:
bigger and more aggressive militaries, low taxes and huge subsidies for
the rich, and relentless privatization of the people's property and social
space. Just add a little more coercive muscle to the National Security
State and you have all the ingredients for a true American fascism. But
Bush and his corporate masters are having a difficult time, because the
world is not cooperating.

Bush dedicated only a few minutes to the crisis in domestic and
international financial structures, lamely describing the unfolding
economic disaster as "a period of uncertainty". What an understatement!
American predatory, super-speculative lending practices have not only
guaranteed the dispossession of millions of families and deepening chaos
throughout the US economy, the domestic collapse has also revealed that,
at the heart of the global financial edifice lies anunimaginably huge
"balloon" of derivatives and other varieties of possibly worthless paper.

There is no acceptable solution to this terminal, structural crisis. So
Bush offers the usual fix: tax giveaways and attempted bailouts for the
people who created the problem, and a few crumbs for a fraction of the
rest of us. The Democrats, of course, go along with the program, with some
minor reservations.

Bush told the joint session of Congress that the Iraq war, which was lost
not long after it began, is now surging to "success". The truth is, US
casualties are lower because Sunni Muslims are busy defeating al Qaida.
But neither Sunni nor Shia militias have abandoned the goal of genuine
Iraqi independence. The Americans will be dealt with, in due time.

For the wounded people of New Orleans, all Bush offers is to hold a rich
man's international trade conference in the city, in April - while his
administration bulldozes thousands of perfectly sound public housing units
for the poor.

Just hours before Bush gave his address, Internet journalist Robert Kall
of Op-Ed News questioned House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers
on why he won't begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and/or Vice
President Cheney. Conyers replied that Republicans would charge Bush was
being "demonized" by the Democrats, and "they would take that and that
would bleed right into the election of 2008".

In other words, George Bush, the hugely unpopular and now punch-drunk
bruiser, still has the Democrats scared. That's why he's still standing.

Glen Ford is Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, where this article
first appeared. He can be contacted at: Glen.Ford [at] BlackAgendaReport.com.
Read other articles by Glen, or visit Glen's website.

This article was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 11:51 pm and is
filed under "Third" Party, Democrats, Economics, Elections, GWB, Iraq.
Send to a friend.

[National level elected Dems are shameful/shameless cowards. Yet how many
"progressives"  will line up to vote for them yet again? Better not to
vote at all than to collaborate with the enemy. -ed]


--------10 of 11--------

How can anyone still think suypporting Dems is viable?
Robert Halfhill

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Robert Halfhill wrote:
I have just published this comment on OpEdNews.  This was in response to
Rob Kall, editor of OpEdNews, who had attended a meeting that the Democrats
had invited the alternative press to.  The title refers to the refreshments
the Democrats provided.
Robert Halfhill

FRUIT, CHEESE, AND SANDWICHES WON'T JUSTIFY SUPPORTING DEMS

I'm not impressed with any of this.  Instead of fruit, cheese and
miniature sandwiches, I am more concerned about what they're going to do,
and so far that is virtually nothing.

I can't understand why the majority of progressives continue to think
supporting the democratic Party will do much good.  For example, impeachment
is the most important issue facing us, given that Bush was never elected,
having been APPOINTED by the Supreme Court in 2000 and STEALING the election
of 2004.  Bush and Cheney are behind the loss of our civil liberties de
jure, although not de facto, taking the power to declare anyone an enemy
combattant and secretly imprisoning them without the right of habaeus corpus
or a fair trial, or even any trial at all.  He has introduced torture.  He
has pushed through legislation allowing him to spy on our emails and phone
calls, been malfeasant with respect to his duties as Commander In Chief by
fabricating the intelligence, i.e. lying, to get us into the disaster of the
Iraq invasion, and, when Joseph Wilson objected, committed treason by outing
Wilson's wife as a CIA agent.  The list goes on.

Yet Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table even before she assumed
her post as Speaker of the House.  John Conyers, in spite of the massive
tome he produced on the theft of the 2004 elections, refuses to hold
hearings or do anything else about it, and has even had Cindy Shehan and
others who protested by sitting in at his office arrested.  His telling you
that impeachment is not off the table is meaningless if he refuses to do
anything about it.  Impeachment is the most crucial issue we are facing
since it is necessary to stop our country's slide into dictatorship.  The
electorate, many of whom were hoping for impeachment, put the Democrats back
in control of Congress in 2006.  On this one crucial issue alone, if the
Democrats won't call impeachment hearings, WAS THERE ANY BENEFIT FROM ALL
THE TIME, MONEY AND EFFORT SPENT ON ELECTING THEM?

The Iraq war is the next most crucial issue.  And I am not impressed by
the Democrats plea that they must have 60 votes before they can override
Bush's veto in order to end the Iraq War.  Each time a bill to appropriate
further money for the war is introduced, it requires 50% plus one of the
votes to pass.  The Democrats could end the invasion of Iraq by simply
voting against further money for the war, leaving Bush and Cheney with no
alternative but to pull the troops out.

Single payer is the ONLY way of containing our rising and exhorbitant
health care costs but Hiliary Clinton tells us the majority won't accept
it.  If single payer is the only way of containing health care costs, then
the only rational alternative is to keep campaigning for it until the
majority is convinced to support it.

So I ask all those who campaigned for the Democratic Party.  Was it worth
all your time, effort and money if the Democrats won't do anything about
impeachment, the Iraq war, and single payer health care?

Rob Kall has argued that a third party can never win enough seats to pass
their legislation under our present electoral system.  But even under our
present electoral system, there have been cases where a third party has
displaced one of the two major parties.  The Whig Party went into the
dustbin of history when a new third party, the Republican Party, was
founded in 1856 and went on to displace the Whig Party. I know you will
argue that building a third party will take so much time as to be useless
as a near term solution.  But the evidence is in that your chances of
success are zero by supporting the Democratic Party.

So though it may take several electoral cycles, a strategy that has a
chance of working in the long term is preferable to a strategy that has
zero chances of success.  You may argue that our present problems are so
acute that we don't have time to build a third party.  But you won't
accomplish anything on these acute issues anyway with a strategy that has
zero chances of working.

I am sure you can find some legslation, out of all the legislation
Congress has passed since the 2006 elections, where the Democrats have
been preferable to the Republicans. But if, even after electing them, the
Democrats refuse to do anything about impeachment, ending the Iraq war,
and single payer, your efforts have been wasted and the results don't
justify the time, effort and money you have put into them.

So your only alternative to a strategy whose chances of succeeding are
zero, it to buckle down to the effort of building a third party.

- Robert Halfhill   rhalfhill [at] juno.com

--10a--

ed comments:
I agree totally. Good arguments.

Progressives who vote to their right for Dems justify it by claiming it is
PRACTICAL. That only the Dems can GET SOMETHING DONE.

Practical. Fine. Ask them what the Dems have DONE in the last 5 years. 10.
20. 30. Name a major progressive accomplishment of the DP since Reagan
began in 1981. Don't tell them none has happened. Ask THEM to name one.
And if and when they can't, ask them how PRACTICAL it is to support a DP
that has DONE NOTHING for 30 years. Then ask them if the DP has least
FOUGHT for large progressive issues - name the issue, the leaders, the
time. Zero. Now: is no result, and no fight, PRACTICAL?

If not practicality, perhaps it is a matter of FAITH. Faith doesn't need
results, or even actions. In fact, the test of faith is when there are for
years no results. "Practical" DP-voting progressives are really
faith-based believers. There ain't no practical to it at all.

They pretend to a stance much higher and more mature than ours. When it is
the opposite.

-David Shove


--------11 of 11--------

 Rich Man's War  (song)
 by Steve Earle

 Jimmy joined the army 'cause he had no place to go
 There ain't nobody hirin'
 'round here since all the jobs went
 down to Mexico
 Reckoned that he'd learn himself a trade maybe see the world
 Move to the city someday and marry a black haired girl
 Somebody somewhere had another plan
 Now he's got a rifle in his hand
 Rollin' into Baghdad wonderin' how he got this far
 Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man's war

 Bobby had an eagle and a flag tattooed on his arm
 Red white and blue to the bone when he landed in Kandahar
 Left behind a pretty young wife and a baby girl
 A stack of overdue bills and went off to save the world
 Been a year now and he's still there
 Chasin' ghosts in the thin dry air
 Meanwhile back at home the finance company took his car
 Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man's war

 When will we ever learn
 When will we ever see
 We stand up and take our turn
 And keep tellin' ourselves we're free

 Ali was the second son of a second son
 Grew up in Gaza throwing bottles and rocks when the tanks would come
 Ain't nothin' else to do around here just a game children play
 Somethin' 'bout livin' in fear all your life makes you hard that way
 He answered when he got the call
 Wrapped himself in death and praised Allah
 A fat man in a new Mercedes drove him to the door
 Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man's war


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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