Progressive Calendar 04.02.12 /2
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)

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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


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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.


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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


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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


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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


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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.


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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


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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.


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