Progressive Calendar 04.28.08
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:26:32 -0700 (PDT)
              P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    04.28.08

1. Amy Goodman      4.28 6:30pm
2. Take back night  4.28 7:30pm

3. Pakistan         4.29 11am
4. Health care      4.29 2pm
5. Metro networking 4.29 3pm
6. GLBT             4.29 6pm Brainerd MN
7. MN8/salon        4.29 6:30pm
8. Iraq             4.29 7pm

9. William Kaufman - An open letter to Michael Moore on Obama

--------1 of 9--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Amy Goodman 4.28 6:30pm

Monday, 4/28, 6:30 pm, KFAI and others sponsor Amy and David Goodman
speaking about their new book "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes
in Extraordinary Times," St Joan of Arc Church, 4537 - 34d Ave S, Mpls.
$10 in advance, $12 at the door.  http://www.kfai.org/


--------2 of 9--------

From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org>
Subject: Take back night 4.28 7:30pm

April 28: Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities Women's Studies Programs
Take Back the Night March & Rally to address issues of sexual violence.

The march will begin at the intersection of Summit Ave & Mississippi Blvd
in St. Paul & will end at St. Thomas. Refreshments, speak out & bonfire
will follow. 7:30 PM. More info: Kim Klieta at 651/749-5060.


--------3 of 9--------

From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org>
Subject: Pakistan 4.29 11am

Tuesday, April 29: American Association of University Women, St. Paul
Branch. 10:45 AM: Meeting. 11 AM: Pakistan- Emerging Politics. 1 PM:
Living More Abundantly through Adult Education & Lifelong Learning.


--------4 of 9--------

From: joel albers <joel [at] uhcan-mn.org>
Subject: Health care 4.29 2pm

Clean Water Action Briefing, April 29,tues, 2pm to 3pm. Joel will brief
canvassers on "Health Care at the Crossroads, Single-Payer v. Market
attempts." 308 E. Hennepin, 2nd floor.Feel free to attend.


--------5 of 9--------

From: Joan Vanhala <joan [at] metrostability.org>
Subject: Metro networking 4.29 3pm

The Alliance for Metropolitan Stability invites you to join us at our
first Metro Organizer Networking Session.

Tuesday, April 29
3 to 5 pm
Rondo Community Outreach Library
461 N Dale Street
St. Paul, MN 55103

Join Us! Come meet with your organizer colleagues from the metro area to
share your successes and challenges. Learn from each other! Come prepared
to talk about a specific successful organizing campaign and the methods
you used to achieve your goals. Participants will also share their current
challenges and the types of support that would help them achieve future
our goals - skills, people, networks, resources, etc.

Light refreshments will be served. The Rondo Community Outreach Library is
located at the corner of University Ave. and Dale Street. FREE underground
parking is available - enter on from University Ave. on the south side of
the street.
Please RSVP by April 28.

Joan Vanhala Coalition Organizer Alliance for Metropolitan Stability 2525
E Franklin Ave, Suite 200 Minneapolis, MN 55406 612-332-4471


--------6 of 9--------

From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org>
Subject: GLBT 4.29 6pm Brainerd MN

April 29: OutFront Minnesota. "Even in Brainerd?: A Community Conversation
about GLBT People & Issues." Learn more about the GLBT community & the
issues facing it, & how to be engaged in the challenging, nationwide
conversation about the meaning of equality with OutFront MN Staff Attorney
Phil Duran. 6-8 PM at Brainerd Public Library.


--------7 of 9--------

From: patty <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: MN8/salon 4.29 6:30pm

Tuesday, April 29, our guest will be Frank Kroncke.  Frank is a veteran of
the Minnesota 8 from the Viet Nam era.  Here's what the Highland Villager
put in their Kiosk:  "Mr. Kroncke, a member of the Minnesota 8 who
destroyed draft records in 1970 in an effort to keep young men out of the
Vietnam War."  He will talk about his decision to resist illegitimate
authority by both being a Conscientious Objector and then going on to be a
draft board raider.

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon ) are held (unless otherwise
noted in advance): Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Mad Hatter's Tea House, 943
W 7th, St Paul, MN
Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------8 of 9--------

From: "wamm [at] mtn.org" <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Iraq 4.29 7pm

CODEPINK Co-Founder Jodie Evans: "Ending the War in Iraq"
Tuesday April 29, 7:00 p.m. Betsy's Back Porch Coffee, 5447 Nicollet
Avenue South (Corner of Nicollet Avenue and Diamond Lake Road),
Minneapolis.

Jodie Evans has been a community, social, and political organizer for the
last 30 years. She has used her skills to protect the earth, to give voice
to communities who go unheard and unseen, to advocate for human rights, to
raise the minimum wage for farm workers, and to call for an end to the
U.S. occupation of Iraq. Jodie is the current director of the CODEPINK
office in Los Angeles. Her presentation will address recent successes and
challenges within the anti-war movement, new strategies for ending the war
and opposing the war at this fall's Republican National Convention.


--------9 of 9--------

An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Obama
A Polemic Devoid of Politics
By WILLIAM KAUFMAN
CounterPunch
April 28, 2008

Last week Michael Moore published an ardent declaration of support for
Barack Obama.

I was astonished at the political vacuity of this declaration - even
knowing that Moore, since 2004, has proudly brandished the
Air-America-Nation-magazine-Progressive-Democrats-of-America-DNC seal of
approval. I sent Moore the following open letter. So far, it has elicited
no response. Perhaps its appearance on the CounterPunch Web site will
prompt him to explain his position more coherently than he did last week:

Mr. Moore:

I just read your long and impassioned plea of support for Barack Obama. I
am open to hearing convincing reasons that voting for Obama - whether in
the primaries or the general election - is the right thing to do. But I am
troubled by several aspects of your letter:

1. First and foremost, it does not mention a single political issue. Not
the war, not health care, not poverty, not the economy - nothing.  (Okay -
you make a couple of token references to the war, but only to shore up
your perverse plea that antiwar activists should cast their votes for the
Democratic enablers of the war!) So you do not seriously examine a single
political issue. My conjecture on the reason for this omission is that
once you begin to list the issues that are of greatest concern to you, you
will be forced to acknowledge that Obama does not agree with you on even
one of them. For example: you made a brilliant film about the need for a
national, single-payer health-care plan in this country, yet there's not a
word about the lack of support for such a plan from any of the major
candidates - much less about their continued support for the war in Iraq
(Obama has voted for all the funding appropriations, as you somehow fail
to note), their unwillingness to cut even one penny from the monstrous
military budget to fund social needs, their willingness to sell themselves
to all the big corporate interests at the trough of big-money donations,
etc. Your failure to mention even one such issue means that your letter is
essentially apolitical - devoid of a discussion of any of the dire
political issues that confront the country - which is passing strange in a
presidential election year for a man of your political acumen.

2. You do hint at a political point - you claim that there is a "movement"
behind Obama. I wonder if you would be so kind as to specify the shape,
form, and identity of this movement. As far as I can tell, there is an
amorphous wave of support for Obama based on his personal charisma, but no
clear sense of a mass movement based on any real political agenda. The
only clearly identifiable "movement' of this sort that I can discern in
Obama's camp is made up of the major corporate interests that have flooded
his campaign with big bucks, and whose interests he faithfully promotes in
his political program - right down to the private insurance companies who
take center stage in his awful health-care plan - the very insurance
companies you skewer so effectively in your film - but to whom you give a
free pass in your support for their captive, Barack Obama.

3. You state that you just want to see any candidate of the Democratic
Party installed in the White House. But we had eight years during Clinton
time to weigh the "benefits" of this kind of Donkey-symbol regime for the
nation, and what we got was welfare "reform," rampant deregulation,
WTO/NAFTA, 500,000 Iraqi children starved from sanctions, etc., etc. - an
essentially Republican record so repugnant that you were impelled to
disown it in your support for the Green Party and Ralph Nader in the 2000
election.

So - in your letter we have a polemic that is devoid of politics and
heedless of history - really a personal love letter to Obama rather than a
political analysis of any sort. Curiously enough, when you make a film,
you slash away brilliantly at the issues; but when you talk about whom to
vote for, you suddenly turn into an apolitical spinmeister for the sexiest
Democrat du jour. The many admirers of your work and your history of
progressive activism can and should expect better of you.

[But he has done it before, is doing it now, and probably will do the same
in the future. Like lots of other "progressives" who provide cover for the
ruling class corporate parties. The schedule - be progressive for 3 years
to lure in the sheep, then the year before the election, herd the sheep
into the DP corral. Perfect sneaky manipulation, and alas it works well
because so many people would rather be fooled than face reality. -ed]

Sincerely, Bill Kaufman
William Kaufman can be reached at: kman484 [at] earthlink.net


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