Progressive Calendar 04.30.08 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu) | |
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:51:32 -0700 (PDT) |
P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 04.30.08 1. Burner/KFAI 4.30 11am 2. Women/health 4.30 5:30pm 3. Cuba/Che/film 4.30 6:30pm 4. Cavlan/Senate 4.30 7pm 5. Ex-neo Nazi 4.30 7pm 6. Iraq/Palestine 4.30 7pm 7. VietnamWar/film 4.30 7pm 8. IRV/StPaul 4.30 7pm 9. Env justice 4.30 7pm 10. Chris Floyd - The torture election --------1 of 10-------- From: Andy Driscoll <andy [at] driscollgroup.com> Subject: Burner/KFAI 4.30 11am TRUTH TO TELL KFAI Radio, 90.3 Minneapolis/106.7 St. Paul/Streamed@ KFAI.org WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 11:00AM: MIDTOWN MELTDOWN?: Green or Black? KFAI Radio, 90.3 Minneapolis /106.7 St. Paul / Streamed@ KFAI.org A CivicMedia/Minnesota production Just when news reports seem to pronounce the embattled Midtown/Phillips Eco-energy project dead (the project includes Minneapolis Councilmember Lisa Goodman as an investor), another 50-60 daysı leeway remains for the principals, Kandiyohi Development Partners, to come up with the necessary financing, biomass supply sources ,and buy-agreements with customers like Xcel Energy to make city-imposed deadlines for feasibility. This in the face of serious environmental justice disputes over the environmental impact of burning anything more in close-quartered low-income, minority residential neighborhoods like Phillips and other central neighborhoods where initial support for the project has melted away. Is this an innovative biomass energy generator in the making? Or yet another polluting industry in the already industrialized and polluted central city? TTTıs Andy Driscoll and Lynnell Mickelsen will query principals on all sides of the issues and the reporters who have covered them as the clock winds down to final decisions. GUESTS: STATE SEN. PATRICIA TORRES RAY, Senate District 62, adjoining the Midtown Project. BARBARA JOHNSON, Minneapolis City Council President KIM HAVEY, Partner, Midtown Eco-Energy Project/Kandiyohi Development Partners JULLONNE GLAD, Neighborhood activist opposing the project. DAVID MORRIS, Executive VP, Institute for Local Self-Reliance STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune Reporter/Analyst OTHERS invited: REP. KAREN CLARK, House District 61A, where the project lives; GREGORY PRATT, MN Pollution Control Agency. --------2 of 10-------- From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org> Subject: Women/health 4.30 5:30pm Wednesday, April 30: Minnesota Women's Consortium spring membership meeting, "Roundtable on Women & Health Care Reform," 5:30 to 8PM at the Minnesota Women's Building, St. Paul. No cost but space is limited! Please RSVP. --------3 of 10-------- From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com> Subject: Cuba/Che/film 4.30 6:30pm Wednesday, 4/30, 6:30 pm, MN Cuba Committee presents Argentinian documentary "Che: Rise and Fall," Anderson Hall, room 250, U of M West Bank, 257 - 19th Ave SE, Mpls. mncuba [at] gmail.com or http://groups.msn.com/minnesotacubacommittee --------4 of 10-------- From: Doriandter [at] aol.com Subject: Cavlan/Senate 4.30 7pm Dear Friends: Now that illnesses are cured in our group we can once again schedule a Campaign Committee meeting. It's set for next Wednesday, April 30 at 7:00 PM at Michael's home at 3115 Elliot Avenue So. We are hoping that those of you who were the backbone of our last campaign will volunteer once again this time. We need you all. We hope those others who have expressed interest since then will also come to make this a real run for the Senate. Michael has been busy with several issues during the last year -- impeachment, single payer health care, corporatization of our government and our world, honest elections, among them. He has been gaining a lot of positive attention through these and many more people know who he is and what he stands for. This will help build a good campaign. Please let me know if you can come on next Wednesday and we'll set a chair for you. Call me at 612/414-9528. Thank you. --Dori Ullman, Manager Campaign to Elect Michael Cavlan to the US Senate 2008 --------5 of 10-------- From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com> Subject: Ex-neo Nazi 4.30 7pm Wednesday, 4/30, 7 to 9 pm, TJ Leyden speaks on "Turning Away from Hate: Confessions of an Ex-Neo Nazi," Auditorium of the Bell Museum of Natural History, 10 Church St SE, Mpls. hillel [at] umn.ecu or 612-379-4026. --------6 of 10-------- From: "wamm [at] mtn.org" <wamm [at] mtn.org> Subject: Iraq/Palestine 4.30 7pm "WHEELS OF JUSTICE" THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE TOUR ROLLS INTO MINNEAPOLIS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 7:00 P.M. St. Joan of Arc Church Hospitality Room, 4537 Third Avenue South Minneapolis Bringing eyewitness accounts to occupation in Iraq and Palestine, the colorful biodiesel bus has been to hundreds of cities and thousands of venues over the past three years. Having seen and lived with war, terror and occupation in Iraq and Palestine, participants in the Wheels of Justice offer first-hand experience, irrespective of partisan politics and sound bite sloganeering. The Wheels of Justice Tour canvasses the United States with education, outreach, training, active non-violent resistance, and network/community-building. Sponsored by: the WAMM Middle East Committee. FFI: Visit <www.justicewheels.org>. --------7 of 10-------- From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com> Subject: VietnamWar/film 4.30 7pm Documentary Film Showing: Hearts and Minds... ...the Academy Award winning 1974 documentary about the Vietnam War directed by Peter Davis. Wednesday, April 30th 7:00pm Mayday Bookstore 301 Cedar Ave (West Bank), Minneapolis All are invited to join us for to watch and discuss this powerful film on April 30th, the anniversary the re-unification of Vietnam. Among the best war documentaries of all time, Hearts and Minds is particularly unique because it contains substantial interviews of Vietnamese people, providing a perspective on the war rarely available to US audiences. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_and_Minds_(film) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_and_Minds_%28film%29> Sponsored by Mayday Books and Socialist Alternative www.SocialistMinnesota.org <http://www.SocialistMinnesota.org> --------8 of 10-------- From: news [at] gpsp.org Subject: IRV/StPaul 4.30 7pm INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING: VOLUNTEER TRAINING Greens contributed significantly in the effort to put a proposal to use Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) on the ballot for St. Paul voters last year. Despite having enough signatures, the leaders of the Better Ballot Campaign (www.betterballotcampaign.org) decided to wait until 2008 to proceed. With Spring here, our opportunity to achieve a historic Green Party goal in St. Paul has arisen again. Please join us in helping to gather signatures and promote IRV in St. Paul. Want to help, but don't know how? Join Troy Trooien, GPSP/4th CD lead activist on IRV at an open training on April 30. The training will bring you up to speed on the state of the campaign and take you through some of the grassroots campaigning tactics we'll need in spades in order to win. Merriam Park Public Library (1831 Marshall Avenue) Public meeting room - basement 7pm - 8:15pm, Wednesday, April 30 All interested IRV supporters are welcome. The first opportunity to ensure IRV gets on the ballot in St. Paul will be at the Living Green Expo, May 3-4. Contact Troy with any questions here: http://www.gpsp.org/contact?category=IRV%20Committee --------9 of 10-------- From: *Maya Petrovic* <maya [at] headwatersfoundation.org Subject: Env justice 4.30 7pm Headwaters Foundation for Justice Invites You Living, Giving and Spending for Environmental Justice A Conversation with Donors April Donor Ed Space is available, please join us! Joyce Prudden and Michael Shoop Home 2318 Parkwoods Rd. St. Louis Park, MN 55416 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:00PM-9:00PM (hors d'oeuvres served) Hosted by: Linda Alter, Amy Lange, Terese Pritschet, Joyce Prudden, and Barbra Wiener. Special Guest: Shalini Gupta, Izaak Walton League RSVP to jennifer [at] headwatersfoundation.org Vogel at 612-879-0602 x. 16 As progressives we are committed to responding to the impending climate crisis, but what actions should we take? How do we move from green as trendy to true sustainability? Join others to explore how our environmental values align with the way we live, spend, give and invest. Shalini Gupta, scientist and environmental activist, will lead a discussion about environmental sustainability. As a native of India, Shalini will illustrate how environmental consequences fall disproportionately on poor and marginalized people across the globe. Her international perspective will illuminate intersections between environmental, social and economic justice. --------10 of 10-------- Deal or No Deal The Torture Election By CHRIS FLOYD CounterPunch April 29, 2008 As the presidential horse race grows more frenzied and absurd - Flag pins! Bowling! Obliteration!- it is important to keep in mind what the election is really about: torture. Specifically, the use of torture as an openly admitted, formally recognized instrument of national policy, approved at the highest level of government. The Bush Administration has now dropped all pretense that it is not engaging in interrogation techniques and incarceration practices long recognized by both international and U.S. law as blatantly criminal. What's more, the Administration boldly asserts that the president can simply ignore laws prohibiting torture if he feels that circumstances warrant the use of "interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law," the New York Times reported over the weekend. (The Washington Post had a similar story - similarly buried deep inside the paper. A brazen declaration of presidential tyranny - in the service of torture, no less - was considered worth mentioning somewhere in the "papers of record," but obviously not worth making a big fuss about.) Torture is at the very heart of the Bush presidency, the most quintessential manifestation of its governing philosophy: a "Commander-in-Chief" state, where presidential directives can override any law in the name of "national security." The use of torture demonstrates that not even the most heinous crimes - including techniques used by Nazi sadists and KGB brutes - are beyond the pale of the "unitary executive's" arbitrary will. On the basis of this authoritarian power - established through a series of presidential orders and "legal" opinions by appointed lackeys - many other crimes can be "justified": aggressive war; kidnapping and rendition; indefinite detention; secret prisons; warrantless surveillance; even the "extrajudicial killing" of people the president designates as terrorists or terrorist "suspects." The highest officials of the Bush Administration have gone to enormous lengths to twist, pervert and destroy legal precepts that have been in force in Anglo-American law for centuries - precisely because they know that their policies are criminal under any reasonable understanding of the law. Bush, and the likely prime mover of the torture regime, longtime authoritarian Dick Cheney, were told at the very beginning that the policies they were instigating would leave them and their minions open to criminal charges. That's why the Administration's legal hacks have devoted so much relentless attention on subverting the Geneva Conventions, which are incorporated into and have the full force of American law. Bush and his minions know that if the rule of law is ever restored - even partially and imperfectly - they will be rightly be subject to prosecution, imprisonment and possibly even execution. And this is why torture is the core issue - perhaps the only real issue - in the presidential campaign. Iraq is not really an issue; whoever wins, the war will go on, in one form or another. Even under the so-called withdrawal plans of the "progressive" candidates, Americans will be killing and dying in Iraq for years to come. As for the economy, by their own admission none of the presidential aspirants will do anything more than tinker around the edges of the present rapacious system - an unholy marriage of crony capitalism and corporate socialism that has devastated America's communities, left millions with harsher, diminished lives, corrupted civic society and degraded and homogenized American culture. For the elite factions that thrive on war profits and the brutal economic structure, none of the candidates represents a serious enough threat for any action - beyond the usual lying, sabotage, vote-rigging and media manipulation to get their favorite into power, of course. But torture is a different matter. Consider how many very powerful people - and hundreds of their minions - face very serious charges if the next president decides to apply the law. Will they really allow this to happen? Or even risk allowing this to happen? Right now, the torturers control the military and the security apparatus, including many secret forces and units that we know little or nothing about. They have already used these assets to launch a war of aggression, to instigate a system of torture, to spy without restraint on the American people, and to imprison anyone in the world they claim is a terrorist. Why should we imagine that they will draw the line at using these assets to save themselves from prison - or the poison needle? It would seem then that the Bush Administration has only two choices: cut a deal with the candidates on torture - or eliminate them from the race, one way or another. It goes without saying that John McCain will do nothing but revel in the authoritarian powers brought into the open by Bush; certainly it is inconceivable that he would ever prosecute the instigators of the Bush torture regime. Thus the focus here falls on the winner of the Democratic nomination. It is Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton who will have to come to terms with the Bush team on torture. (If they have not already done so, that is. ) In the most benign scenario for these negotiations, perhaps some small fry will be offered up as a PR sop for the victor. Just as Scooter Libby took the fall for Karl Rove (in another obvious backroom deal), we might see John Yoo or that despised putz-for-all-seasons, Doug Feith, put on trial, while Bush, Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and the other "principals" go free. But it is much more likely that any acknowledgement of criminality will be unacceptable to the torturers. It would establish a principle - or rather, re-establish a principle - that would forever leave them open to future prosecution. So again, we come down to a stark choice for the Democratic candidate: either agree to "move on" from "bitter partisan rancor" over "enhanced interrogation techniques" - or else. There are of course several ways to eliminate someone from public life; the tools have been refined somewhat since the days when "lone gunmen" stalked the land, removing inconvenient figures. But given the proven nature of the Bush team - and the dire consequences they face from any normal, rightful application of the law - we should assume that they will do whatever it takes to escape those consequences. And that's why torture is the decisive issue of this campaign. But this decision will not be in the hands of the voters; it will be made - as most of the decisions that govern our lives are made - in the inner sanctums of elite power. [More evidence that the US is not a democracy. Allegiance to government is often justifed by the claim that we have chosen it. But we have not chosen it. It has been imposed upon us by elite power. Lesser-evil voting doesn't change anything - it only delays, obfuscates, and enables more elite control. Real change will require much more than voting every 4 years for elite-approved and manipulated puppets. -ed] Chris Floyd is an American journalist and frequent contributor to CounterPunch. He is the author of the book Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium. He can be reached through his webistie: www.chris-floyd.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - David Shove shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu rhymes with clove Progressive Calendar over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02 please send all messages in plain text no attachments To GO DIRECTLY to an item, eg --------8 of x-------- do a find on --8 impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney
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