Progressive Calendar 04.07.12 /2
From: David Shove (shove001umn.edu)
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2012 03:19:03 -0700 (PDT)
*P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    04.07.12   *

1. Climate lobby      4.07 11:45am
2. ReOccupy Mpls   4.07 12noon
3. CUAPB               4.07 1:30pm
4. Northtown vigil     4.07 2pm
5. Forum/NATO/war 4.07 3pm
6. Humanism          4.07 3:30pm

7. Atheist radio        4.08 9am
8. Stillwater vigil       4.08 1pm
9. Irish Reb/pub       4.08 6pm

10. Naomi Wolf - How the US uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to
control the masses
11. ComDream - Recall-facing Wis. Gov. Walker continues 'War on Women' with
flurry of bills
12. ed              - The wet dream of the ruling class   (haiku)

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Climate lobby 4.07 11:45am

Citizen's climate lobby
2nd Congressional District MeetingSaturday April 7th at 11:45 amAt Wescott
Library
(1340 Wescott Road, Eagan 55123)

Please join us!  All are welcome!We will join a national conference call
with Shi-Ling Hsu, author of The Case for a Carbon Tax, and then discuss
ways to communicate about a carbon tax system. A core principle of Citizens
Climate Lobby is advocating for a fee on carbon emissions that will then be
distributed as a dividend to US households.Please contact Paul Hoffingerat
651-882-0671 if you'd like to know more.


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From: WAMM
ReOccupy Mpls 4.07 12noon

ReOccupy Minneapolis Event
Saturday, April 7, Noon to Midnight (and ongoing)
Peavey Plaza, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis and
Loring Park, Hennepin Avenue and Wet 15th Street, Minneapolis.

Join others as OccupyMinneapolis kicks off the reoccupation of the city.
The day’s activities include: sign-making, music, open mic, OccupyHomes
march, bbq (bring charcoal and food to grill), a game of capture the flag,
a dance party, and more. Time of specific activities is subject to change.
Organized by: OccupyMinneapolis. FFI and Schedule: Visit
www.occupyminneapolis.mn.


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From: Michelle Gross <mgresist [at] visi.com>
Subject: CUAPB 4.07 1:30pm

Meetings: Every Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Walker Church, 3104 16th Avenue
South http://www.CUAPB.org

Communities United Against Police Brutality
3100 16th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Hotline 612-874-STOP (7867)


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From: Vanka485 [at] aol.com
Subject: Northtown vigil 4.07  2pm

Peace vigil at Northtown (Old Hwy 10 & University Av), every Saturday 2-3pm


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From:WAMM
Forum/NATO/war 4.07 3pm

Forum: Wars and Interventions of the 1%: NATO We Say No!
Saturday, April 7, 3:00 p.m.
MayDay Books, 401 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis.

Activists from all over world will be converging in Chicago on May 20th to
oppose the NATO summit in Chicago. Come hear from local leaders in the
anti-war movement why they are against NATO and why you should travel to
Chicago to voice your opposition in person!

Speakers include: April Knutson, WAMM, will speak on the history of NATO
including its imperialist beginnings; Sarah Martin, WAMM, will speak on the
role of NATO in the war on Yugoslavia; Jess Sundin, Anti-War Committee,
will speak on the role of NATO in the war and occupation of Afghanistan;
Mary Beaudoin, WAMM, will speak on the new stage of NATO in its war on
Libya and its potential new targets.

Organized by: the Anti-War Committee, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, and
WAMM. FFI on the Protest in Chicago: Visit cang8.org.


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From: AWE
Humanism 4.07 3:30pm

Saturday, April 7, 3:30pm  Habits of Humanism—Critical Thinking
Hennepin County Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN, Gamble
and Skogmo Conference Room on fourth floor—N 402


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From: AWE
Atheist radio 4.08 9am

Sunday, April 8, 9:00am-10:00am  “Atheists Talk” Radio
AM 950 KTNF in the Twin Cities or stream live at http://www.am950ktnf.com.
Guest:  Caral Dix  Contact us during the show with questions or comments at
(952) 946-6205 or radio [at] mnatheists.org.


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From: scot b <earthmannow [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Stillwater vigil 4.08 1pm

A weekly Vigil for Peace Every Sunday, at the Stillwater bridge from 1- 2
p.m.  Come after Church or after brunch ! All are invited to join in song
and witness to the human desire for peace in our world. Signs need to be
positive.  Sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Peacemakers.

If you have a United Nations flag or a United States flag please bring it.
Be sure to dress for the weather . For more information go to
<http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/>
http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/

For more information you could call 651 275 0247 or 651 999 - 9560


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>From Michael Cavlan   greenpartymike ollamhfaery [at] earthlink.net
Irish Rebellion/pub 4.08 6pm

Sunday, April 8, 2012- Easter Sunday
6:00pm until 9:00pm

The Irish Easter Rising of 1916 was the spark that led to a successful
rebellion against the British Empire. One of the leaders of that rebellion
was a working class icon - a labor organizer, socialist leader, founding
member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the leader of the
Irish Citizen Army.

Come join The Twin Cities Chapter of the IWW in our commemoration of the
Easter Rising and the life of James Connolly with a short video, live
music, and more.

Dubliner Pub 2162 University Ave St Paul, MN
This event is free and open to the public.
Please feel free to pass onto any person or group you may think appropriate.
Questions- Please call me at (612)327-6902


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How the US Uses Sexual Humiliation as a Political Tool to Control the
Masses  by Naomi Wolf
Published on Friday, April 6, 2012 by The Guardian

In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can
be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time.
This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which
lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the "trespass
bill", which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near
someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being
human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement.

Is American strip-searching benign? The man who had brought the initial
suit, Albert Florence, described having been told to "turn around. Squat
and cough. Spread your cheeks." He said he felt humiliated: "It made me
feel like less of a man."

In surreal reasoning, justice Anthony Kennedy explained that this ruling is
necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How
would strip searching him have prevented the attack? Did justice Kennedy
imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body
cavity? In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices'
decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems.
But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven't been
introduced into a prison population.

Our surveillance state shown considerable determination to intrude on
citizens sexually. There's the sexual abuse of prisoners at Bagram – der
Spiegel reports that "former inmates report incidents of … various forms of
sexual humiliation. In some cases, an interrogator would place his penis
along the face of the detainee while he was being questioned. Other inmates
were raped with sticks or threatened with anal sex". There was the
stripping of Bradley Manning is solitary confinement. And there's the
policy set up after the story of the "underwear bomber" to grope US
travelers genitally or else force them to go through a machine – made by a
company, Rapiscan, owned by terror profiteer and former DHA czar Michael
Chertoff – with images so vivid that it has been called the "pornoscanner".

Believe me: you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes
off. History shows that the use of forced nudity by a state that is
descending into fascism is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing
populations.

The political use of forced nudity by anti-democratic regimes is long
established. Forcing people to undress is the first step in breaking down
their sense of individuality and dignity and reinforcing their
powerlessness. Enslaved women were sold naked on the blocks in the American
south, and adolescent male slaves served young white ladies at table in the
south, while they themselves were naked: their invisible humiliation was a
trope for their emasculation. Jewish prisoners herded into concentration
camps were stripped of clothing and photographed naked, as iconic images of
that Holocaust reiterated.

One of the most terrifying moments for me when I visited Guantanamo prison
in 2009 was seeing the way the architecture of the building positioned
glass-fronted shower cubicles facing intentionally right into the central
atrium – where young female guards stood watch over the forced nakedness of
Muslim prisoners, who had no way to conceal themselves. Laws and rulings
such as this are clearly designed to bring the conditions of Guantanamo,
and abusive detention, home.

I have watched male police and TSA members standing by side by side
salaciously observing women as they have been "patted down" in airports. I
have experienced the weirdly phrased, sexually perverse intrusiveness of
the state during an airport "pat-down", which is always phrased in the
words of a steamy paperback ("do you have any sensitive areas? … I will use
the back of my hands under your breasts …"). One of my Facebook
commentators suggested, I think plausibly, that more women are about to be
found liable for arrest for petty reasons (scarily enough, the TSA is
advertising for more female officers).

I interviewed the equivalent of TSA workers in Britain and found that the
genital groping that is obligatory in the US is illegal in Britain. I
believe that the genital groping policy in America, too, is designed to
psychologically habituate US citizens to a condition in which they are
demeaned and sexually intruded upon by the state – at any moment.

The most terrifying phrase of all in the decision is justice Kennedy's
striking use of the term "detainees" for "United States citizens under
arrest". Some members of Occupy who were arrested in Los Angeles also
reported having been referred to by police as such. Justice Kennedy's new
use of what looks like a deliberate activation of that phrase is
illuminating.

Ten years of association have given "detainee" the synonymous meaning in
America as those to whom no rights apply – especially in prison. It has
been long in use in America, habituating us to link it with a condition in
which random Muslims far away may be stripped by the American state of any
rights. Now the term – with its associations of "those to whom anything may
be done" – is being deployed systematically in the direction of … any old
American citizen.

Where are we headed? Why? These recent laws criminalizing protest, and
giving local police – who, recall, are now infused with DHS money, military
hardware and personnel – powers to terrify and traumatise people who have
not gone through due process or trial, are being set up to work in concert
with a see-all-all-the-time surveillance state. A facility is being set up
in Utah by the NSA to monitor everything all the time: James Bamford wrote
in Wired magazine that the new facility in Bluffdale, Utah, is being built,
where the NSA will look at billions of emails, texts and phone calls.
Similar legislation is being pushed forward in the UK.

With that Big Brother eye in place, working alongside these strip-search
laws, – between the all-seeing data-mining technology and the terrifying
police powers to sexually abuse and humiliate you at will – no one will
need a formal coup to have a cowed and compliant citizenry. If you say
anything controversial online or on the phone, will you face arrest and
sexual humiliation?

Remember, you don't need to have done anything wrong to be arrested in
America any longer. You can be arrested for walking your dog without a
leash. The man who was forced to spread his buttocks was stopped for a
driving infraction. I was told by an NYPD sergeant that "safety" issues
allow the NYPD to make arrests at will. So nothing prevents thousands of
Occupy protesters – if there will be any left after these laws start to
bite – from being rounded up and stripped naked under intimidating
conditions.

Why is this happening? I used to think the push was just led by those who
profited from endless war and surveillance – but now I see the struggle as
larger. As one internet advocate said to me: "There is a race against time:
they realise the internet is a tool of empowerment that will work against
their interests, and they need to race to turn it into a tool of control." [So
much for any respect we may have had left for the rulling class. -ed

As Chris Hedges wrote in his riveting account of the NDAA: "There are now
1,271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies that work on programs
related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about
10,000 locations across the United States, the Washington Post reported in
a 2010 series by Dana Priest and William M Arken. There are 854,000 people
with top-secret security clearances, the reporters wrote, and in
Washington, DC, and the surrounding area 33 building complexes for
top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built
since September 2011."

This enormous new sector of the economy has a multi-billion-dollar vested
interest in setting up a system to surveil, physically intimidate and prey
upon the rest of American society.

Now they can do so by threatening to demean you sexually – a potent tool in
the hands of any bully.

© 2012 The Guardian
Author, social critic, and political activist Naomi Wolf is the author of
The New York Times bestseller "The End of America" (Chelsea Green) and,
more recently, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries.
Wolf’s landmark international bestseller, The Beauty Myth, challenged the
cosmetics industry and the marketing of unrealistic standards of beauty,
launching a new wave of feminism in the early 1990s.

[Obama was and is for this strip humiliation/fascism. And you're voting for
him as the lesser evil? Neither Obama nor Mitt. No more Dems or Reps for
president - vote third party. -ed]


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Recall-Facing Wis. Gov. Walker Continues 'War on Women' With Flurry of Bills
- Common Dreams staff
Published on Friday, April 6, 2012 by Common Dreams

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is facing a June 5 recall election,
privately signed a slew of legislation on Thursday that some Democrats see
as evidence of an ongoing "war on women."

Gov. Walker signed dozens of bills that "turn back the clock on women’s
health, safety, wellness and economic security

“Instead of a jobs and economic priority from the state legislature, we’ve
had a series of bills introduced, passed and now signed into law, that
really turn back the clock on women’s health, safety, wellness and economic
security,” said Sara Finger with the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health.

Among the dozens of bills signed by Walker is a repeal of the state's Equal
Pay law, a bill barring abortion coverage through health insurance
exchanges, and a repeal of the Healthy Youth Act so that now sex education
teachers do not have to teach contraception.

"The reason that Governor Walker signed these anti-women bills in the dark
of the night, without public notice, before a holiday weekend, is that he
is banking on the fact that women are NOT watching and women will not vote
on June 5. In fact, he is betting his job on it," said Tanya Atkinson,
Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.

The Obama campaign team said today that the legislation was evidence
Republicans are willing to "undermine not only women's health care, but
also their economic security."

Among [the dozens of bills Gov. Walker signed yesterday] were four highly
controversial measures focused on women's health care and sexual education:

A repeal of the state's Equal Pay law, which allowed victim's of wage
discrimination to collect damages of between $50,000 and $300,000, and a
repeal of the Healthy Youth Act, which had provided requirements to schools
that comprehensive and scientifically accurate information about everything
from abstinence to contraception be taught at an age-appropriate level.

* * *

The Hill: Obama campaign pushes Romney on Wisconsin overturn of equal-pay
law

After a week in which Democrats and the Obama campaign have argued that
Republicans are waging a "war on women" in an effort to solidify their base
of female voters in the coming election, the president's campaign team is
seizing Friday on news that controversial Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R)
quietly overturned his state's equal-pay law.

Obama's campaign team said Friday that Walker's move was evidence
Republicans are willing to "undermine not only women's health care, but
also their economic security," and demanded that presumptive GOP nominee
Mitt Romney comment on Walker's move.

"Mitt Romney has repeatedly dismissed the effect of Republican efforts to
rollback access to contraception and other health care services on the
women’s vote, saying that he would appeal to women by talking about their
economic concerns. If this is the case does Romney think women should have
ability to take their bosses to court to get the same pay as their male
coworkers? Or does he stand with Governor Walker against this?” said Obama
campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith in a statement.

* * *

WTAQ News: Gov. Walker's private bill signing slammed by Dems as "war on
women"

MADISON, WI  - Governor Scott Walker said early Friday afternoon that he
privately signed just over four dozen bills into law Thursday – including
some controversial bills that Democrats called a “war on women.”

They include the requirement that school sex education classes go back to
teaching abstinence as the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and
sexually transmitted diseases.

* * *

Huffington Post: Scott Walker Quietly Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay Law

WASHINGTON -- A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage
discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.

The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from
discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via
which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to
plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court
system, rather than just in federal court. [...]

SB 202 was sent to Walker on March 29. He had, according to the state
constitution, six days to act on the bill. The deadline was 5:00 p.m. on
Thursday. The governor quietly signed the bill into law on Thursday,
according to the Legislative Reference Bureau, and it is now called Act
219. [...]

State Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) and Rep. Christine Sinicki
(D-Milwaukee), the authors of the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, criticized
Walker on Thursday for not informing the public of his actions on SB 202.

“We are finally starting to see progress here in Wisconsin, yet like their
counterparts across the country, Legislative Republicans want to turn back
the clock on women’s rights in the workplace,” said Hansen. [...]

Sara Finger, executive director of WAWH, said that the repeal was a
"demoralizing attack on women’s rights, health, and wellbeing."

"Economic security is a women’s health issue," she said. "The salary women
are paid directly affects the type and frequency of health care services
they are able to access. At a time when women’s health services are
becoming more expensive and harder to obtain, financial stability is
essential to maintain steady access."


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The Wet Dream of the Ruling Class

 Hey! You masses! Strip!
Bend over! Spread'em! Squat! Piss!
Crap! Eat it! Wear it!

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       Shove Grove
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