Stand Up! Take Action! Vote!
Learn the Cost of War to Sonoma County. And see what this $$$ could have been spent on instead — what are the trade-offs?
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Take Action: Attend the monthly Sonoma Co. PDA Brown Bag Lunch Vigil at Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s Santa Rosa office.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND JOIN THE BBLV
August 20, 2010
Norman Solomon was interviewed yesterday on FAIR’s national radio program “CounterSpin”.
CLICK HERE to listen.
Norman Solomon
August 16, 2010
Take Action: Eat lunch for peace—become a brown-bagger
It’s already history. In mid-August 2010, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan launched a huge media campaign to prevent any substantial withdrawal of military forces the next summer.
The morning after Gen. David Petraeus appeared in a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to promote the war effort, the New York Times front-paged news of its own interview with him—reporting that the general “suggested that he would resist any large-scale or rapid withdrawal of American forces.”
On this call we introduced the new co-chairs of this IOT – Marcy Winograd and Steve Carlson. We apologize for the poor quality of this recording.
1. We reviewed both the Cleveland and Albany conferences.
2. Discussed Accountability & Transparency for War Voting (BBLV’s)
3. Wikileaks/Bradley Manning Defense Committee
4. Iran, House Res. 1553 (46 Republican co-sponsors pledging US support to Israel for attack on Iran)
5. Why are 46 US warships being sent to Costa Rica? Venezuela connection.
7. BDS/Israel/Palestine
Robert Naiman
August 9, 2010
Join PDA’s End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here .
Published by ZNet.
Is there a man or woman in America today who is willing to stand at noon in the public square and claim that demands to bomb, invade, and occupy other people’s countries have anything to do with human liberation?
If such people can be found, let them answer a few simple questions about the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
August 8, 2010
Published by Tom Hayden.com.
The White House stepped up its campaign against WikiLeaks [Wednesday] by calling for the whistleblower organization to turn over the secret Pentagon documents still in its possession.
Meanwhile a petition supporting WikiLeaks began national and European circulation. See Defend WikiLeaks—End the Secret Wars at http://www.gopetition.com/petition/38165.html . The petition has been endorsed by Daniel Ellsberg, who was prosecuted by the Nixon administration for releasing the Pentagon Papers a generation ago. Other signers include Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Rev. George Hunsinger of Princeton Theological Seminary, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink.
Ray McGovern
July 29, 2010
See John Nichols interview Daniel Ellsberg at the PDA Grassroots Leadership Conference in Cleveland.
Published by Alternet.org.
Photo: US Army Sergeant Dostal adjusts the scope of his sniper rifle in eastern Afghanistan (AFP – Simon Lim).
The brutality and fecklessness of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan have been laid bare in an indisputable way just days before the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on whether to throw $33.5 billion more into the Afghan quagmire, when that money is badly needed at home.
Norman Solomon
July 28, 2010
Join PDA’s End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.
Washington’s spin machine is in overdrive to counter the massive leak of documents on Afghanistan. Much of the counterattack revolves around the theme that the documents aren’t particularly relevant to this year’s new-and-improved war effort.
The White House seized on the timeframe of the documents released by WikiLeaks. “The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy,” a White House email told reporters on Sunday evening. “Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy.”
David Swanson
July 28, 2010
Published by WarIsaCrime.org.
On Tuesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill already passed by the Senate that funds a $33 billion, 30,000-troop escalation in Afghanistan. The vote was 308 to 114. What could the good news possibly be?
The first good news is that, while we had no more than 35 congress members who would vote against war funding a year ago, or perhaps 55 when it was an easy vote with no pressure, we’ve now got 114. That’s serious progress. That’s a far more dramatic increase than we’ve seen in the number of congress members willing to vote for a non-binding unspecified timetable for a withdrawal. That number rose from 138 last year to 162 on July 1st (although the legislation was somewhat stronger this year). In other words, willingness to express mild interest in ending the war has reached a plateau. Willingness to take serious action to end the war is rapidly catching up. Of course, both have to top 218 before we win.
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July 26, 2010
Two important war votes this week
Last Saturday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich made the first public announcement about his privileged resolution to remove US forces from Pakistan by December 31, 2010, at PDA’s Grassroots Leadership Conference in Cleveland. After speaking to the more than 125 PDA members, Representative Kucinich spoke with Tim Carpenter in an informal interview. Watch the video of their discussion here. (Read a report on the conference.)
The House is expected to debate and vote on this privileged resolution—HCR 301—tomorrow. Call your representative and ask for a YES vote.
By David Swanson
July 9, 2010
On July 1, the House sent a bill with $33 billion in war escalation funding in it back to the Senate, but with changes the Senate will have to deal with. There is a good chance the Senate will make changes and send it back to the House.
If that happens, we will be in a good position to stop it. Already last week the House was unable to pass war funding without Republican votes, and so passed it without technically voting on it at all. The vote on the Rule to create that crazy procedure, however, nearly failed despite the built-in excuses that (1) it was just a “procedural” vote and (2) it allowed votes on good amendments. This time, we’ll be ready to confront that first excuse, and the second one won’t be there.
Our message to congress members is simple, clear, moral, and urgent: VOTE NO. If good measures are included, VOTE NO. If it’s merely a procedural vote, but the procedure facilitated by it is mass murder, VOTE NO.
We need to keep calling, lobbying, protesting, disrupting, and communicating, whether this bill comes back to the House or not. There will be another one.
Capitol Hill Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
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From David Swanson
July 5, 2010
What it means: The Peace Movement’s Progress.
How it worked: Democrats Forced to Cheat to Fund War .
What it looked like: Live Blog of the Vote .
How they voted on the Rule that allowed the war escalation funding to move forward.
John Nichols
July 3, 2010
Join PDA’s End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here .
Published by The Nation
An additional $33 billion in spending for President Obama’s occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq—and they are now his occupations as much as they once were George Bush’s—was approved by the House Thursday night as part of a broad “emergency” supplemental spending bill.
By David Swanson
July 2, 2010
The Democratic leadership in the House had to resort to an unusual and underhanded tactic to pass war funding Thursday night.
Norman Solomon
July 2, 2010
Watch — Norman Solomon: From Wall Street to the war, this isn’t what progressive democrats voted for
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For the warfare state, it doesn’t get any better than 99 to 0.
Every living senator voted Wednesday to approve Gen. David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
Call it the unanimity of lemmings—except the senators and their families aren’t the ones who’ll keep plunging into the sea.
No, the killing and suffering and dying will be left to others: American soldiers who, for the most part, had scant economic opportunities in civilian life, and Afghans trapped between terrible poverty and escalating violence.
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Jam the switchboard on July 1
While President Obama’s debt commission works to undermine Social Security and Medicare as part of the nonsensical austerity measures proposed by neocons to relieve the debt created, in large part, by two wars of choice, Congress is poised to approve another $1 million per troop for a total of more than 33 billion dollars!
The pressure we’ve been applying on Congress to vote against the supplemental funding bill for the war in Afghanistan has made a difference. Forty House members have decided to vote no, and at least 10 more are on the fence.
Our sources are telling us that Congress will vote tomorrow, July 1.
David Swanson
June 29, 2010
Published by AfterDowningStreet.org.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who will openly tell you he does whatever President Obama and Speaker Pelosi instruct, can bring the war escalation funding to the House floor despite the opposition of Appropriations Chairman David Obey. This is because the House passed the bill without the war escalation funding and sent it to the Senate, which has now sent it back to the House.
Norman Solomon is going on KPFA “Morning Show” tomorrow (Thursday) at 8:10 a.m. to talk about the swap of Petraeus for McChrystal; 94.1 FM on the radio in Northern California and streaming on the web at www.kpfa.org
Norman Solomon
June 23, 2010
Take Action: Tell Congress – No More Money for War
When the wheels are coming off, it doesn’t do much good to change the driver.
Whatever the name of the commanding general in Afghanistan, the U.S. war effort will continue its carnage and futility.
Between the lines, some news accounts are implying as much. Hours before Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s meeting with President Obama on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that “the firestorm was fueled by increasing doubts—even in the military—that Afghanistan can be won and by crumbling public support for the nine-year war as American casualties rise.”
With $2 BILLION in Sonoma County taxes going to pay for the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, participating in a monthly Brown Bag Lunch Vigil to stop the escalation and funding for wars is an act of community support.
CLICK HERE to learn more about the Cost of War and what that $$$ could be used for instead.
CLICK HERE to learn more about the Brown Bag Lunch Vigils and how WE can help to End War & Occupations by sending a consistent message to our Congressperson to stop funding wars, set firm dates for complete withdrawal, and dismantle corporate influence over our government.
CLICK HERE to Read More about the CA State Democratic Party Resolution to “End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan”.
Santa Rosa, CA
June 16, 2010
Dear Representative Woolsey,
It’s like a trick of misdirection, except that instead of a magician distracting an audience from seeing how the legerdemain is accomplished, we’re living through Congress deflecting our attention from important domestic issues over to patches on a system that is ready to burst.
Instead of enacting health insurance reforms that would have been fiscally responsible, ethical, and humane—such as Medicare for All with a single-payer system—we’re faced with the president and Congress telling us that to balance our budget we need to make cuts in two of the only programs in our country that offer protection to those who most need it: Medicare and Social Security.
— photo by Michael Aparicio
We are an affiliated chapter of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
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PDSonoma meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month except December.
New Members and Guests Always Welcome!
Refreshments can be ordered and enjoyed in our meeting room. Please arrive early if you wish to order refreshments.
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