Stay Tuned for Program Details!
PDSonoma meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month except December.
New Members and Guests Always Welcome!
PDA
Join Us on FaceBook!
We’d love to have you join us on our new Facebook Page, created for PDA supporters and Friends in Marin Co. and Sonoma County, CA. Invite Friends to join!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Progressive-Democrats-North-Bay/289138693740?ref=mf
Cost of War to Sonoma County
Learn the Cost of War to Sonoma County. And see what this $$$ could have been spent on instead — what are the trade-offs?
CLICK HERE
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
War Is Over (If They Mean It)
David Swanson
March 11, 2010
Take Action: Eat lunch for peace—become a “brown-bagger”; learn more here .
Published by AfterDowningStreet.org.
Sixty-five congress members, including 60 Democrats and 5 Republicans, voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan on Wednesday. But 356 congress members, including 189 Democrats and 167 Republicans voted to keep the war going. The vote followed three hours of debate created by Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s introduction of a privileged resolution.
The Agitator: Voices of PDA Episode 3
In the third installment of the Agitator Voices of PDA, Tim Carpenter interviews two PDA Advisory board members. Get the lowdown from the always witty and cheeky Jim Hightower. Following Jim, hear Rep. Donna Edwards inside-the-beltway perspective on Healthcare NOT Warfare.
Join a PDA Issue Organizing Team!
March 9, 2010
We highly encourage signing up for a PDA Issue Organizing Team (IOT) if you wish to actively engage in the work of PDA and PDSonoma County. If you have not already done so, you can get started by clicking on ‘Committees’ on the menu at the top of this website page and there you can:
*sign up for a PDA Issue Organizing Team via the PDA website and
*find the name and contact information for the local PDSonoma chapter team leader for that IOT. If you have not already done so, let that person know that you have signed up for the PDA IOT and they can add you to their local chapter list of activists on that particular issue.
IOT: End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding March Call
This IOT conference call had its usual stellar lineup of guests, including last-minute guest Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
PDA Conference Call Guests: David Swanson, Cole Harrison of UFPJ, PDA Field Director Conor Boylan,
Brown Bag Lunch Vigils (BBLV) partner David Swanson started the call off with comments on and advice for the BBLVs, to move the vigils to a higher degree of action, and he spoke about the legislation to halt Afghanistan funding.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN & to read more
Join PDA’s End War & Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.
IOT: Stop Global Warming: Feb Call
On this month’s Stop Global Warming/Environmental Issues Organizing Team call, the following topics were covered: assembling a new leadership team for the IOT, and our campaign to achieve national climate legislation based on direct carbon pricing with revenue recycling. We discussed the Price Carbon Campaign’s strategy workshop and legislative lay of the land, and meeting with Congressional staff in Washington, DC, and around the country.
Join PDA’s Stop Global Warming/Environmental Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here
IOT: Healthcare for All/Single Payer Feb Call
On this call we had -Donna Smith, Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, updated us from the Hill on where we stand and also the Brown Bag Lunch Vigil campaign from DC.
Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Healthcare 4 All PA, updated us on single-payer progress in PA.
Ben Day, Executive Director of Mass-Care, updated us on MA.
The BBLV Team updated the group on where the campaign currently stands on the eve of the February BBLVs.
Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here
Breaking America's Addiction to War & Debt: Out with the Enablers!
By Marcy Winograd
For OpEd News
February 22, 2010
Imagine if in 2010 we did not spend one more borrowed penny to manufacture new weapons, occupy new lands, or recruit new mercenaries. Going cold turkey on military spending would wipe out nearly $1 trillion of our 1.6 trillion dollar deficit. A year and a half of war & weapons abstinence could erase our debt entirely.
The Agitator: Voices of PDA Episode 2
February 22nd 2010. Donna Smith and Norman Solomon discuss Healthcare NOT Warfare and Brown Bag Lunch Vigils
Listen to “Healthcare NOT Warfare” national co-chairs Donna Smith and Norman Solomon in the next installment of Agitator Voices of PDA, a new series of podcasts from Progressive Democrats of America’s. It was a busy week for PDA activists and our allies as we gathered in front of 65 congressional offices for the second Brown Bag Lunch Vigil.
Letter to Rep. Lynn Woolsey -- delivered at Feb. Brown Bag Lunch Vigil
February 17, 2010
Dear Representative Woolsey,
We thank you for signing on to support HR 2454, calling for an exit strategy from Afghanistan & HR 3699, prohibiting any increase in the number of U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan.
Further, we call on you to publicly commit to voting “No” on any bills that fund wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen, and to publicly urge your colleagues and the House leadership to make the same commitment.
Norman Solomon Interviews PDA Field Director Conor Boylan, -- Radio Podcast
Conor Boylan, National Field Director, Progressive Democrats of America speaks with host Norman Solomon about current activism on behalf of progressive political agendas in the United States.
A Mother's Personal Mission: Healthcare Not Warfare
Donna Smith
February 17, 2010
Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here
This week, the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign I help co-chair for Progressive Democrats of America becomes even more deeply personal for me. My son leaves for his volunteer tour of duty in Afghanistan. And I won’t be there to say goodbye. Because I advocate a position of peace, my son believes my priorities are off kilter, and for some time now he has believed that he goes to war so whiners at home can keep griping about less critical concerns—like healthcare or economic justice.
As is sadly the case with many parents and grown children, my son and I do not see eye-to-eye and that causes a distance of the heart that hurts everyone involved. Though separated, we are both on a mission.
The Agitator: Voices of PDA
PDA is proud to introduce “The Agitator: Voices of PDA” a series of kitchen table conversations with members of the PDA community led by Tim Carpenter, PDA National Director. We hope you enjoy the conversation!
Guests in the inaugural broadcast include Thom Hartmann, author, radio host and PDA Advisory Board member; California Nurses Association/National Nurses Union Policy Director and PDA Board Member Michael Lighty; and PDA’s own Deputy Director and Communications Coordinator. Laura Bonham.
Why We Can't Afford to Let Obama Give Bush's War Criminals a Free Pass
Charlotte Dennett
February 7, 2010
Join PDA’s Accountability and Justice Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.
Published by AlterNet.
Punishing the guilty for deeds they committed in the past is the only way to show the world that we are truly on a new path.
In a week when one-year report cards on the Obama administration were piling up and not all the grades were good, Americans searching for the real change we heard so much about on Obama’s campaign trail were hit with some news that would send his grades plummeting. Late last Friday, we learned that Obama’s Department of Justice plans to go easy on John Yoo and Jay Bybee—the two assistant attorney generals under Bush who penned the infamous torture memos. For those who have been working long and hard in the accountability movement to make sure no one—not even presidents or their top advisors—is above the law, this was a serious setback.
What I Have Learned "Doing Civil Disobedience for Single Payer"
Carol Paris, MD
February 4, 2010
Take Action: Eat lunch for Healthcare NOT Warfare—become a brown-bagger
Published by Physicians for a National Health Program.
“People should go where they are not supposed to go, say what they are not supposed to say, and stay when they are told to leave.”—Howard Zinn
Well, that quote pretty well sums up “what to do”. But my biggest challenge is “how”. Specifically, how do I neutralize some pretty powerful fear?
If Terror Is the Measure, It's Healthcare War
Donna Smith
February 3, 2010
Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.
Since I was a little child huddled in the elementary school hallway for the bomb drills to the present day when I listen to the reasons my nation must spend more on foreign military actions, the means of securing public support for war in this nation seems to have centered on one word. Terror.
We used to be terrified that the Communists from the Soviet Union were coming with their bombs, so we built shelters and indoctrinated our kids to understand our Red fear. Bombs could be launched without warning or even immediate provocation, so making us all fearful wasn’t too hard. Cold War terror lasted a good, long time and helped a lot of people get very rich. We entered many “conflicts” using the fear of a Communist spread. No Commie bomb ever fell, and many still argue that’s because we built more bombs and were much more terrifying as we won that face off with all those evil folks across the globe.
A Long War Demands a Long Peace Movement
Tom Hayden, PDA Advisory Board member
February 3, 2010
Take Action: Sign the Afghanistan Peace Petition .
I want to thank PDA for continuing to pressure against the pillars of power supporting the Long War in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. You are making military escalation more difficult and building a political obstacle to the Pentagon and White House plans through 2012. A long war demands of us a long peace movement.
Thirty one Americans lost their lives in Afghanistan last month, which is more than twice the number killed in January 2008 and January 2009. The fighting in Afghanistan is intensifying even in the winter.
Congressman Payne: I Won't Oppose War Money Because Obama's President
David Swanson
January 31, 2010, New Brunswick, NJ
Take Action: Tell Congress Stop funding war
My encounter with Congressman Payne at the PDA-NJ Statewide Conference
Congressman Donald Payne (D., N.J.) has voted against war funding bills for years. Last summer he was one of 32 heroes to vote No under intense pressure from the White House to vote Yes. When I asked him a couple of years ago to sign onto impeaching Bush he immediately said “Sure!” and he did it.
Today I asked him if he would commit to voting No on the next $33 billion for war. I asked him privately, just after he’d given a long speech to a Progressive Democrats of America conference in New Jersey, a speech about how much he opposes the wars.
Letters needed to refute the Oakland Tribune editorial against SB 810
From: Dr Bill Honigman
Tue, Jan 26, 2010
From bay area activist Susan Harman, and my response below:
Subject: Write Back! Letters needed to refute the Oakland Tribune editorial against SB 810
Dear East Bay Single Payer Activists,
Below is an editorial in today’s Oakland Tribune.
It is part of a newly emerging and growing opposition to single payer, which exists both at the elite level (like the Trib’s publishers) as well as at the grassroots (like Tea Partiers). Such a movement will embolden Republican legislators to fight against SB 810, instead of being resigned to its passage and delivery to the governor. And it will embolden the GOP to wage electoral campaigns for assembly and senate seats on a platform of opposing single payer.
Benefit for the Healthcare NOT Warfare Media Project
We can add to the momentum from the resolution that the California Democratic Party approved last November — calling for an end to the air war in Afghanistan, withdrawal of U.S. forces and an increase in humanitarian/development aid to that long-suffering country.
This gathering in Sonoma County will give a boost to a new effort, in the Bay Area and elsewhere, combining grassroots organizing with media outreach to reframe the politics of U.S. policies toward Afghanistan. Please bring a checkbook.
Speakers will include Karen Bernal and Norman Solomon. The two of them, along with Marcy Winograd (who is now running against incumbent war hawk Rep. Jane Harman), co-authored the military-out-of-Afghanistan resolution that is now the official position of the California Democratic Party.
