Progressive Calendar 04.02.12 /2 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001umn.edu) | |
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 03:36:47 -0700 (PDT) |
*P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 04.02.12* 1. Protest pics/KFAI 4.02 9am 2. Freethought 4.02 6pm 3. Class/race 4.02 7pm 4. Trayvon Martin 4.03 7:30pm 5. Work for less 4.04 6pm 6. John Nichols - Wisconsin's recall elections are set for June 5 7. Dave Bicking - Haiku Open 3 8. ed - Justice with a Bang/Lesson Less (haiku 2) --------1 of 8-------- From: andydriscoll [at] truthtotell.org Protest pics/KFAI 4.02 9am TruthToTell Monday, APRIL 2-9AM: DICK BANCROFT: Native Protest Photographer - KFAI FM 90.3/106.7/KFAI.org WELCOME To WEEK TWO of KFAI’s Spring Membership Drive. We're almost halfway to our goal halfway trhough our Membership period. CALL in and Pledge your support: 612-375-9030! Please Support TruthToTell and our production Partner, KFAI. Call in your tax-deductible pledge: 612-375-9030! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He’s an unlikely radical. But his country’s hypocrisy, its lies about war and its clandestine destabilizing of democratically elected governments while propping up despots in others, when the conduct became as transparent as it did, drove Dick Bancroft round the bend back in the 1960s…and he’s seen no end of it in South America, in the Middle East, in Asia, Africa. This, after an affluent childhood in “old” St. Paul and an “iffy” education at the city’s primary private school – St. Paul Academy where his dyslexia contributed to less than stellar scholastics. Bancroft has never wanted for the resources to support his family, but the resources that turn most affluent Americans into Republicans (he voted for Eisenhower in 1952) couldn’t prevent his radicalization after witnessing racism and exploitation in both his own and other countries. Where a few economic interests have enslaved the indigenous peoples of others, aided and abetted by the political class of the United States, controlled and manipulated by the economic aristocracy, Bancroft’s gift of chronicling and recording on film the history and historiography of the exploited classes everywhere put Bancroft front and center of international intrigue and domestic rebellion by our country’s own Natives – including the founding and fostering of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Thus did Dick Bancroft and his wife, Debbie dedicate these last 50 years to fighting the barbarism and subversion of justice here and abroad through his camera lens and financial resources, hoping to expose the lies perpetrated by our governments in pursuit of profits and power across the prairie and around the globe. Dick Bancroft continues our look into the history and work of protest and dissent in Minnesota and its export elsewhere to expose the violence and hypocrisy of a country whose founding documents say one thing about liberty, justice, peace and equality while its history and official decisions contradict all of them, year after year, decade after decade. (Listen to last week’s conversation with Historian Rhoda Gilman and African-American change agents of the 60s, Rose Mary Freeman Massey and Melvin Giles.) Bancroft has rubbed shoulders and noses with Nobel laureates, Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchú and Ireland’s Mairead Corrigan Maguire, photographed them and been their friend. He has earned blood-brotherhood with the Ojibwe and Dakota peoples of Minnesota and the Upper Midwest with his work with AIM. And he has created a pictorial history of the joys and tragedies that accompany the lives of native peoples everywhere. TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI talk with Dick Bancroft, now nearly 85 years old, and reflect with him about the events that most marked his abandonment of his family’s political underpinnings and racial prejudices to create a world of peace and justice with Debbie and their children, which include polar explorer Anne Bancroft. Dick will offer signed posters as membership premiums that feature his iconic photo of Rigoberta Menchú – symbol of Guatemala’s indigenous fight for independence and outspoken advocate for justice in the banana fields of her country. GUEST: RICHARD BANCROFT – Global Photographer; Peace Advocate --------2 of 8-------- AWE Freethought 4.02 6pm Monday April 2, 6:00pm Freethought Toastmasters Larpenteur Estates Party Room, 1276 Larpenteur Ave. W, St. Paul 55113 This group meets the 1st and 3rd Monday of every month. Contact George Kane, nup [at] Minn.net for more information. --------3 of 8-------- From: danielle [at] mainstreetproject.org Class/race 4.02 7pm On Monday, April 2, people in the Twin Cities have the opportunity to hear Joseph Torres share his in-depth knowledge of the class and racial conflicts that have influenced the American news media, from the first colonial newspaper to the Internet age. Torres is co-author of the New York Times bestseller News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media. Monday, April 2 6 p.m. – Reception/book signing 7 p.m. – Remarks from Joseph Torres Q & A moderated by Professor Nekima Levy-Pounds, University of St. Thomas School of Law and director of the Community Justice Project Launch of Black Voices for Internet Freedom Minnesota Waite House – at Phillips Community Center 2323 11th Ave. S., Minneapolis MN Currently the Senior External Affairs Director of Free Press in Washington, D.C., Torres writes and speaks frequently on media and Internet issues. Before joining Free Press, he worked as deputy director of communications and media policy at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and was a journalist for several years. The public event is sponsored by Main Street Project, Headwaters Foundation for Justice, Waite House, and national organizations: the Center for Media Justice and Free Press. While in the Twin Cities, Torres is also speaking to students and faculty at the University of Minnesota and the Metropolitan Community Technical College, and with local community organizations who are part of the national Media Action Grassroots Network or MAG-Net. Bill Moyers, Public Affairs Television offered this review of News for All the People: “Race and ethnicity, power and privilege, the visible and invisible are at the core our democratic crisis today, and it’s hard to imagine a better way to face the challenge than to be armed with the story this book tells so well.” Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, calls it “a first-of-its-kind rendering of the causes, context, and consequences of the America media system across the fault line of race . . . a must-read for all the people.” For more information, or to schedule an interview with Joseph Torres, please contact Danielle Mkali at (612) 703-7183 or danielle [at] mainstreetproject.org --------4 of 8-------- From: Lydia Howell Trayvon Martin 4.03 7:30pm TUE.APRIL 3,7:30PM: AFTER TRAYVON MARTIN: Challenging Institutional Racism in the Obama Era MAY DAY BOOKS, 301 Cedar Ave.S> (basement HUB Bicycle), West Bank, Minneapolis (612)333.4719 A PARTICIPATORY PANEL DISCUSSION to TAKE RACIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT FORWARD! Analysis article below Trayvon Martin Murder: Another Victim of Racist U.S. Capitalism Mar 23, 2012 By Christian Brooks On February 26, 17-year old Trayvon Martin was murdered in cold blood. He was unarmed. His only crime was being young, black, and wearing a hoodie. A national outcry has emerged because Martin's killer, George Zimmerman-a self-appointed "neighborhood watch volunteer"-has claimed self-defense and the police have still not arrested him! Police officials say there is "no evidence to contradict Zimmerman's self-defense claim," but the 911 tapes clearly demonstrate that Martin was chased down and shot. In fact, Zimmerman has a clear history of racial profiling as he has made 46 calls to 911 regarding "suspicious" persons in the past. We demand the immediate arrest and prosecution of Zimmerman with an independent community investigation of the incident that includes representatives of civil rights and workers organizations. The police just put Trayvon in a body bag and took him to the morgue as a "John Doe". They made no effort to contact his family even though they had his cell phone. Trayvon's family didn't find out for nearly three days! Trayvon is a victim of a modern-day lynching, which exposes, once again, the ugly underbelly of U.S. society and the institutional racism and criminalization of youth that every black community across the country faces every day. The U.S. has a higher rate of incarceration than any other nation, with over two million people in prison, the majority of which for non-violent offenses, and they are overwhelmingly people of color. Record of Repression This is not an isolated incident, but is directly in line with the Sanford Police Department's track record. The officer in charge of this case was involved in a previous case, in which he initially didn't arrest a police lieutenant's son for attacking a black homeless person on camera. Clearly, the official justice system is unreliable to keep our communities safe. Although not as severe, the Occupy movement has also faced repression and begun to get a taste of what the police force is all about: maintaining the status quo and defending a social order where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The policies of the 1%, such as budget cuts and closing schools, home foreclosures and evictions, layoffs, low-wages, and overseas wars only hurt us, the vast majority, while they give themselves massive bank bailouts and tax breaks. Furthemore, the attacks on working people and the poor disproportionately affect black and Latino communities. In the last three years, Obama has done nothing to fundamentally improve the conditions of black people. He has betrayed the hopes in him as the first black president. His words for the family of Trayvon Martin, coming only after a national outcry, ring hollow. Under Obama institutional racism hasn't been eradicated. If anything, it has gotten worse with increased black unemployment, decimated social services, and increased racial profiling by the police. For instance, New York's "stop and frisk" policy of cops stopping people on the street without a warrant has resulted in searches of 4 million New Yorkers, over 85% of them black and Latino. Racism is built into the capitalist system that both parties, Democrats and Republicans, help to defend and oversee. As Malcolm X said "You put the Democrats first and the Democrats put you last." This whole system is rotten to the core. To get justice for Trayvon Martin we need to follow the example of the civil rights movement and mobilize mass protest actions in the street and mass civil disobedience. To end racism and poverty altogether we need to fundamentally transform our society. Over a million people have signed an online petition for Zimmerman's arrest. Thousands have mobilized in the streets in major cities. We need to take these actions further by mobilizing demonstrations which link up the murder of Trayvon Martin with a broader struggle against racism, making demands such as: Immediately arrest and prosecute George Zimmerman for murder. For an independent investigation and inquiry by community members, including representatives of civil rights and workers organizations. Repeal the "stand your ground" legislation, which undermines public safety by legalizing murder in cases where gun owners "feel threatened." End police brutality and the institutional racism of the criminal justice system. Abolish the death penalty. Invest in rehabilitation, job training, and living-wage jobs, not prisons or detention centers! End racial profiling by the police and other racist practices such as "stop and frisk." End the racist war on drugs. End unemployment and poverty, which is the basis of most crime, by creating living-wage jobs for all through a massive public works program. Justice [Make the 1% walk alone in dark places at night wearing hoodies. -ed] We need to break with the two parties of big business, which clearly have no interest in dealing with the problems facing African-Americans, or working people and youth in general. Both parties represent a system that has failed to provide decent living standards or the prospect of a safe future. Instead we need to promote independent left candidates as a step towards building a new party for working people and youth that fights consistently against racism and all forms of oppression. You can't have capitalism without racism. We need a society based on the needs of working people, youth, and the environment - a socialist society that establishes genuine social equality and democratic rights for all. From: "Socialist Alternative" newsletter [at] socialistalternative.org --------5 of 8-------- From: Cherrene Horazuk cherrene67 [at] gmail.com Work for less 4.04 6pm Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights & Organized Labor: The Fight Against Right to Work Laws, Then and Now Film & Panel Discussion Wednesday, April 4th 6pm-8pm Bell Museum 10 Church Street SEMinneapolis, MN Join AFSCME Local 3800 for a film screening and panel discussion to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the anniversary of his assassination. “At the River I Stand” (1993) will be shown Wednesday, April 4 at 6:00 p.m. at the Bell Museum, located at the corner of University Ave. and 17th Ave. SE in Minneapolis on the University of Minnesota campus. The film documents Dr. King’s last two months alive and his work with the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis in 1968. This powerful documentary illuminates the connections between economic and civil rights through these public employees’ fight for dignity and justice. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with: Eliot Seide, executive director, AFSCME Council 5; Peter Rachleff, professor of Labor History, Macalester College; Rose Brewer, professor of African-American and African Studies, University of Minnesota; Aaron Sojourner, labor economist, Carlson School of Management; and Joe Burns, author of Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power & Transform America. Please print and distribute the flier in your union and bring your coworkers, friends and family. FFI and to share on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/276414735767004 --------6 of 8-------- The Nation Wisconsin's Recall Elections Are Set for June 5 by John Nichols Published on Sunday, April 1, 2012 Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will be the first chief executive of an American state to face a recall election because he attacked the rights of working people to have a voice in their workplaces and in the public life of the land. The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board on Friday morning certified more than 900,000 signatures on recall petitions to remove the anti-labor governor -- far in excess of the required 540,000. They also certified more than 800,000 signatures to remove his lieutenant governor. And four of Walker's key legislative allies, including the powerful majority leader of the state Senate, will also be forced to face the voters. The accomplishment of the grassroots campaign to recall and remove Walker and his allies is dramatic. And the confirmation of that accomplishment marked "a historic day in democracy for the state of Wisconsin,” according to Wisconsin AFL-CIO president Phil Neuenfeldt. The accomplishment is, as well, unprecedented. Two American governors have been recalled and removed in American history -- in North Dakota in 1921, in California in 2003. Individual legislators have also been recalled and removed. But there has never been an instance where recall elections could on the same day remove a chief executive and flip control of a legislative chamber from one party to the other. That's the prospect that Wisconsin faces on an electoral timeline that was formally set Friday morning by the GAB. “Today’s announcement from the Government Accountability Board represents another milestone in the battle to reclaim Wisconsin values. While this news comes as little surprise, it does serve as vindication to those that worked tirelessly throughout the petition campaign—a campaign that collected over 1.7 million signatures, and stands as the largest recall in United States history," read a message from the United Wisconsin movement, which spearheaded the recall drive. Unlike in some other states, the Wisconsin recall provision -- as written by the progressive reformers of a century ago -- does not take the form of a referendum on whether officials should continue in office. Rather, it forces a whole new election, with partisan primaries and a general-election final. Candidates will begin circulating petitions this weekend to gain ballot positions. In instances where more than one candidate files for a party nomination, primaries will be held May 8. The winners of those primaries will face one another in the June 5 general election. The Wisconsin political field is very much in play. Walker is running for reelection, as is Lieutenant Governor Rebeccas Kleefisch. Democrat challengers have announced in both contests, with former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk gaining substantial labor backing in her run for the party's gubernatorial nod. Secretary of State Doug La Follette, Wisconsin's longest-serving statewide official is also running, as is state Senator Kathleen Vinehout, a rural populist who was one of the 14 Democratic senators who left the state Capitol in order to block action on Walker's anti-labor proposals. And, on Friday afternoon, following the certification of the petitions, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the party's 2010 gubernatorial nominee, entered the Democratic race. Walker could well face a Republican party primary challenge, although he remains a favorite of the right-wing base that has come to dominate the once-moderate party. There are likely to be primaries for the office of lieutenant governor and the state senate seats as well -- as the Republican Party of Wisconsin has indicated that it will file fraudulent candidates (so-called "placeholders") in all Democratic primaries. While much of the media focus will be on the partisan jockeying, it is important to keep track of the reality of what has happened in Wisconsin. An American governor sought to impose a radical austerity agenda that attacked labor rights, public education and public services -- while cutting taxes for multinational corporations. The people of that state filled the streets and occupied the capitol to object. The governor and his allies refused to listen to the people; they enacted the anti-labor law -- portions of which were, on Friday, found by a federal judge to be unconstitutional. In the face of Walker's extreme moves, the people dusted off an old progressive tool of accountability -- the recall power -- organized the grassroots United Wisconsin movement that attracted 30,000 volunteers. The governor pushed back with a multi-million dollar television advertising campaign that attacked the legitimacy of the recall and urged Wisconsinites to oppose it. His allies in the media portrayed the recall as inappropriate, unnecessary and costly. His political backers claimed that the recall effort was collecting fraudulent signatures and suggested, again and again, that it would not stand up to scrutiny. On January 17, that movement filed close to two million signatures on petitions seeking the recall of the governor, lieutenant governor and four powerful state senators. Now, a little over two months later, the petitions have not just been judged to be credible. They have been found to have a dramatically fewer flawed or fraudulent signatures than have historically been found on recall and referendum petitions. Specifically, the GAB found that, of 931.053 signatures filed to recall the governor, 900,939 were valid. Of 842,854 signatures originally filed against Kleefisch, 808,990 were found to be valid. In each case, the totals were dramatically above the required -- 360,000 more than was needed for the gubernatorial race, 268,000 more that was needed for the lieutenant governor race. "Despite intimidation, threats, and near obsession by our opponents to diminish and slander this movement, these results prove yet again their failure in stifling the voice of working people. This report underscores the just how clean and ethical this historic campaign was," explained United Wisconsin leaders. "Those 30,000 volunteers who sacrificed their time to restore our democracy made sure they followed the rules and acted with the utmost respect for the process, leading to only a meager four signatures marked as fake." [Up yours, Koch Brothers! - ed] John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. His most recent book is The “S” Word: A Short History of an American Tradition. A co-founder of the media reform organization Free Press, Nichols is co-author with Robert W. McChesney of The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again and Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy. Nichols' other books include: Dick: The Man Who is President and The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. --------7 of 8-------- Three by Dave Bicking [Haiku Open} Occupy Our politicos don't care what we think, but they care what we might do. Elections I care about my grandchildren. Can I vote to bomb someone else's? Equal Justice? Death row murderers wonder why the president is still a free man. --Dave Bicking --------8 of 8-------- Justice With A Bang Make the 1% walk alone outside late at night wearing hoodies. Lesson Less Or, Finally, An Achievable Dream I dream of working for less, and bumping down the ladder of suckcess. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ShoveGrove
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