WI6

OK, Oklahoma City: Daybreak Book Signing & Discussion With Author David Swanson

Chip — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:47:24 -0400

Start: 09/18/2009 - 12:00am

End: 09/18/2009 - 11:59pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-4

David Swanson discussing and signing his new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union."

A LEADING PROGRESSIVE VOICE AND COFOUNDER OF THE ANTIWAR AFTER DOWNING STREET COALITION, BLOGGER AND ACTIVIST DAVID SWANSON FOCUSES his tireless efforts to unveil the wrongs of the past eight years in this citizen’s guide to removing power from the hands of one person, placing it in a body of representatives, and (here’s the hard part) making that body truly representative of the American people. Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union makes clear that the imperial presidency, which advanced so dramatically during the Bush-Cheney era, will not be stopped merely by electing better presidents. Major structural changes are needed to rein in runaway executive power and make America a true leader in democratic principles.

Only through the active efforts of citizens, Swanson argues, can we restore our rights, and expand our conception of political rights to meet new challenges. Daybreak offers a shocking and inspirational breakdown of all that we have lost, and all that we have to gain.

September 18, 2009

1:30-2:30 p.m.
Oklahoma County Democrats Extended Speaker Luncheon
Boulevard Cafeteria
525 NW 11th Street
OKC, OK 73103

6:30-8:30 p.m.
Public speaking event
Full Circle Book Store
50 Penn Place, 199 NW Expressway,
OKC, OK 73118 with books being sold there by Full Circle Book Store.

Books for signings are available at Full Circle Book Store, 50 Penn Place, OKC, at the 8:00pm event, or can be held with payment for later pick-up. Contact Pam for details.

Contact the organizer:

Pam Paul
pampaul at cox dot net

VA, Charlottesville: Cookout with Cindy Sheehan

Chip — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:43:17 -0400

Start: 07/18/2009 - 12:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-4

Cookout With Cindy Sheehan
Charlottesville, VA
Saturday, July 18, 2009

Cindy Sheehan is deservedly the best known peace activist in the United States. Having lost her own son in Iraq, she has worked for the past five years to save others -- and she's not about to let up in her efforts to end our foreign wars and create justice around the world and here at home. More about Cindy here.

Please join Cindy for lunch at noon on Saturday, July, 18, 2009, rain or shine, at 707 Gillespie Ave, Charlottesville, VA, 22902. Cindy will talk about her new book, "Myth America."

There is no charge, but it is appreciated if you bring something to eat or drink. Please go to this page and post a comment that you are coming and how many are coming with you. And if you are able to bring something to eat or drink and know what it will be, please post that:

RSVP for the Cindy Sheehan event.

Please forward to friends who might want to come.

DON'T FORGET to go and post a comment that you are coming:

Cindy Sheehan, one of the best known peace and justice activists in the United States, will be joined by other speakers in support of public healthcare at a cookout open to the public and the media. Please join Cindy for lunch at noon on Saturday, July, 18, 2009, rain or shine, at 707 Gillespie Ave, Charlottesville, VA, 22902. Cindy will talk about her new book and the need for an expanded public healthcare system.

RSVP: http://afterdowningstreet.org/cindyevent

Also at noon on Saturday, elsewhere in Charlottesville, others have announced plans to hold an anti-healthcare rally that they misleadingly call a rally for "Patients First." Participants include Kay Coles James, the disgraced director of the United States Office of Personnel Management known for hiring unqualified government employees based on their attendance of a fourth-rate, right-wing university; Del. Ben Cline, whose opinions are paid for by his campaign funders, including Medical Facilities of America, US Tobacco, Va. Hospital & Healthcare Assn., Medco Health Solutions, and Va. Independent Insurance Agents; Tito Munoz, a small business owner who helped John McCain lose Virginia; former city councilman and aspiring Rush Limbaugh, Rob Schilling; and Ben Marchi, a former employee of ethically reprimanded and indicted congressman Tom Delay. Marchi says:

"Health care legislation being pushed by the liberals in Congress will threaten the sacred relationship between doctor and patient and strip away patients' rights to choose a plan that best suits them."

Yet, Americans consistently tell pollsters that they want public health coverage.

Other nations that have public health coverage (government spending on private or public healthcare) provide their people with better care. The U.S. system is ranked 37th by the World Health Organization. The United States is 24th in life expectancy and 29th in reducing infant mortality. Infants who do not survive the US system do not get a chance to possess patients' rights.

A single-payer system, which would go further than the compromise that has Marchi so upset, would cover everyone at all times with no exceptions, allow completely free choice of doctors, invest in preventive care, allow patients and doctors to make their own decisions free of insurance company restrictions, reduce the 30 percent waste in the current system to the 3 percent overhead in Medicare, and create a net gain of 2.6 million jobs, $317 billion in business revenue, and $100 billion in wages. Read about it here.

House Resolution 676, backed by 86 congress members, would accomplish these things and meet every one of Congressman Tom Perriello's goals for healthcare as listed on his website

Cindy Sheehan said: "Health care is a basic human right and the only way to get obscene profits out of the way of patient health is single-payer, as many nations around the world do. We challenge both Democrats and Republicans to put people before insurance companies, big-pharma, and HMO's."

Summaries of this issue:
http:/charlottesvillepeace.org/node/1939
http://charlottesvillepeace.org/node/1854

Video of recent forum in Charlottesville:
http://charlottesvillepeace.org/node/1882

Join us at noon on Saturday, July 18, 2009, at 707 Gillespie Ave, Charlottesville, Va. Kids are welcome! There is no charge, but it is appreciated if you bring something to eat or drink. Please go to this page and post a comment that you are coming and how many are coming with you. And if you are able to bring something to eat or drink and know what it will be, please post that:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/cindyevent

VA, Charlottesville: The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequality, and Justice

Chip — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:50:51 -0400

Start: 04/16/2009 - 12:00am

End: 04/17/2009 - 11:59pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequality, and Justice. Keynote speaker: Angela Davis

The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia will present a symposium, The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequality, and Justice, on Thursday, April 16 and Friday, April 17.

Due largely to several important policy changes connected to the “War on Crime” and the “War on Drugs,” the prison population has climbed steeply since the 1970s, an escalation resulting in the following developments:

The State of the Justice System

The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration and death row inmates, holding 25% of the world’s prison population but only 5% of the world’s people.
Since 1973, incarceration rates have risen by a factor of six, even as crime statistics have fallen. There are now three times as many offenders released each year as compared to the entire prison population in 1973.
The prison industry is one of the most rapidly growing industries in the United States, now employing more than Wal-Mart, General Motors, and Ford combined.
Allocations for criminal justice have quadrupled over the past four decades. State spending on corrections doubled over the past two decades. Criminal justice has become a major source of government funds, absorbing an ever increasing share of public resources. Today, government contributes more to criminal justice than to all income maintenance and unemployment expenditures combined.
The criminal justice system represents a new racial cleavage in America. In stark contrast to the watershed political gains blacks made in the decades since the zenith of the civil rights movement, prison has become a normal part of life for one in three black men in their twenties. While African Americans constitute 12.4 percent of the population, they comprise more than half of all prison inmates. A mere two decades ago they comprised one-third of the inmate population.

The trends outlined above were hastened by major policy changes affecting the ways in which the criminal justice system dealt with offenders before, during, and after sentencing. Punitive policies like mandatory minimums were passed largely without public debate. But while these statistics and the policy changes that led to their acceleration are among the most shocking developments in modern history, at best they have received uneven scholarly attention; at worst, they are routinely neglected in many fields: political science, economics, and psychology.

The Aim of the Symposium

The aim of this symposium, therefore, is to promote a serious, informed dialogue that will contribute to a growing national debate on the growth of the carceral state. We envision an intimate symposium featuring experts across the disciplines as well as policy practitioners. We will convene on the first day of the symposium with two panels focusing specifically on exploring the causes of the growth of the carceral state and growing racial disparities within it. The opening panel will consider the theoretical and historical foundations of rising imprisonment and shifting policy choices. The second will explore the politics of punishment and race. Following this session Angela Davis (author most recently of Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire and Are Prisons Obsolete?) will deliver a keynote address. On Friday, April 17, we will shift our attention to research that evaluates the consequences and implications of the rise in imprisonment. In these three panels, scholars will focus on the myriad implications of rising prison rates for forms of economic, social, and political exclusion in the United States.
April 16–17, 2009

Presented by the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia.

Please refer to the symposium announcement for a complete list of speakers, times, and locations.

This symposium is free and open to the public.

“Democratic rights and liberties are defined in relation to what is denied to people in prison. So we might ask, what kind of democracy do we currently inhabit?” — Angela Y. Davis, Political Activist and Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Angela Davis is a historian and philosopher who has conducted extensive research on race, gender and imprisonment. Her books include Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire (Seven Stories Press, 2005) and Are Prisons Obsolete? (Open Media, 2003). In the 1960s, Davis was active with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee before joining the Black Panthers. She ran for U.S. Vice President on the Communist Party ticket in 1980 and 1984, but has since left the party. Davis has been an activist and writer, promoting women's rights and racial justice, while serving as Professor Emeritus of History of Consciousness and of Feminist Studies at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Her participation in the conference is part of a week-long residency at the Woodson Institute, beginning April 13, during which time she will visit several classes.

Contact Name: The Carter G. Woodson Institute

Contact Email: woodson@virginia.edu

Contact Phone: (434) 924-3109

CA, LA: John Yoo Debate Debriefing and Book Signing Party

Chip — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:19:08 -0400

Start: 04/18/2009 - 7:30pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Jan Goodman and Ralph Fertig are inviting you to a book signing party with Ann Fagan Ginger and her report back on Chapman College of Law forum with/re John Yoo earlier that day.

The party will be on Saturday, April 18 @ 7:30 p.m. at the home of Ralph Fertig
927 Thayer Ave., Los Angeles (Westwood)
Call for directions: (310) 474-3815

Ann Fagan Ginger will talk about her two new books:

Undoing the Bush-Cheney Legacy: A Tool Kit for Congress and Activists

that Cong. Barbara Lee announced to all her colleagues.

Ralph Nader says one of 12 best books of 2008
Howard Zinn says: “There is a general understanding among Americans who follow national politics, and certainly among students of constitutional law, that the Bush administration has committed outrageous violations of both constitutional and statutory law. But no one has documented these violations as meticulously, as dramatically, as Ann Fagan Ginger has done in this concise and very important volume. It will give both scholars and citizens the information they need to contest what has been going on, in order to restore the liberties taken away by this administration.”

and

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Is the Law

California State Assembly Member, William Monning writes: “As I enter the California State Assembly, I will carry in my pocket The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Is The Law. It will serve as a critical guide to help me identify the language of treaties ratified by the U.S. that contain specific rights declared in the UDHR.”

Ann will sign copies at the party which you can also pre-order at www.mcli.org

PA, Philadelphia: Bay of Pigs Peace Event

Chip — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:44:11 -0400

Start: 04/19/2009 - 2:00pm

End: 04/19/2009 - 4:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Title: Bay of Pigs Peace Event

Date: Sunday, April 19, 2009

Time: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Location: Near the home of Senator Arlen Specter

Street: West Schoolhouse Lane (at Vaux Street) in East Falls

City State Zip: Philadelphia, PA 19129

Phone: 215-843-4256 and nwgreens@yahoo.com

Twenty-three peace groups (including Northwest Greens) will hold a Bay of Pigs Peace Event from 2:00 until 4:00 p.m. near Senator Arlen Specter's home on West Schoolhouse Lane (at Vaux Street) in East Falls. They want Specter to cut off funding for the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and to bring the troops home now.

On this date in 1961, the Cuban people defeated 1,400 private U.S. security contractors who had invaded Cuba's southern coast four days earlier at the Bay of Pigs.

The 23 peace organizations marking this first defeat of Yanqui imperialism, will be:

Brandywine Peace Community
Bucks for Progress
Catholic Peace Fellowship
Chester County Peace Movement
Code Pink Philadelphia
Communist Party of Eastern PA and DE
Delaware Valley Veterans for America
Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia
Green Party of Montgomery County
Green Party of Philadelphia
Military Families Speak Out
Northeast Philly for Peace and Justice
Northwest Greens
Peace Action of Philadelphia
Philadelphia Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network (PRAWN)
Philadelphia War Resisters League
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Saint Vincent's Peace and Justice Ministry
Suburban Philadelphia Greens
Turn Around America
Veterans for Peace, Chapter 31,
Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (Philadelphia Branch)

.

For more information, please contact nwgreens@yahoo.com and 215-843-4256.

MA, Rosindale: Antiwar League Meeting

Chip — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:00:34 -0400

Start: 04/09/2009 - 7:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

The Boston area chapter of Antiwar League will meet on Thursday, April 9 at 7:00 pm.

Anyone interested in working on this prosecution campaign is welcome at the meeting. We will also hopefully be setting up additional committees to focus on Stopping the Spy Cameras and Bringing Home the National Guard.

Contact.

IL, Chicago: Weekend of Celebration of Immigrant Rights!

Chip — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:38:44 -0400

Start: 04/10/2009 - 12:00am

End: 04/12/2009 - 11:59pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Weekend of Celebration of Immigrant Rights!

Friday April 10: Immigrant Rights Community Action!
Join with Good Friday Walk, Organized by: 8th Day Center for Justice
12:00 PM - 3:00 PM at downtown Chicago - Map
We'll Assemble at Financial Plaza (Clark & Jackson) around 12:30 PM for the Immigration part of the Walk
Friday – Saturday April 10 – 11: National Immigrant Rights Film Festival
Over dozen highly acclaimed immigrant rights films!
Friday April 10 6:00 - 10:30 PM Film Festival Opening and Meet with Producers!
Made in L.A.
Children in No Man's Land
A Forgotten Injustice
Saturday April 11 10:30 AM - 5:30 PM Film Festival Schedule
Friday - Sunday April 10 - 12: National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference
Saturday April 11 7:00 PM - 10:30 PM: Immigrant Community Town Hall and Cultural Festival and Immigrant Conference Benefit After Party
Key Note Speaker: Kim Bobo - Executive Director Interfaith Worker Justice
After Party Performer: ReadNex Poetry Squad

DC: The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service

Chip — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:44:03 -0400

Start: 04/02/2009 - 5:00pm

End: 04/02/2009 - 7:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Invite you to join Linda Bilmes and Scott Gould for a discussion and book signing to celebrate the release of their book

THE PEOPLE FACTOR
Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service

Thursday, April 2
5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Please RSVP here.

Facing the greatest challenges in more than 50 years, America is waking up to the realization that government is important. In their new book, "The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service," Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes and IBM Vice President W. Scott Gould argue that the country cannot prosper without a strong, highly-functioning federal workforce to run the government. The authors call for a commitment to invest $10 billion in better recruiting, training and management of the federal workforce, which they predict will yield $300-$600 billion in productivity gains. Packed with cost and performance data as well as new research on what motivates applicants for government jobs, these prior government executives provide a compelling business case for investing in the civil service to achieve significant benefits for the nation. A must read for policy makers, civil servants and citizens who demand more from government.

Partnership for Public Service
1100 New York Avenue, NW | Suite 1090 East
Washington, DC 20005

DC:“Celebrating Resistance” - An evening of Poetry, Music & Art

Chip — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:35:30 -0400

Start: 04/06/2009 - 7:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Monday April 6 – “Celebrating Resistance”

An evening of Poetry, Music & Art with Emma's Revolution, Fuad Foty, Poets Against the War, & others.

Hosted by The Peace & Social Concerns Committee of the Washington Friends Meeting

VA, Fairfax: An Evening with Anne Wright: “Gaza, Guantanamo, and My Journey”

Chip — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:26:25 -0400

Start: 03/30/2009 - 7:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Monday March 30 – “Gaza, Guantanamo, and My Journey”
An evening with Anne Wright, retired US Army Colonel and Retired US State Department official

co-sponsored by the GMU Chapter of Amnesty International