Stand Up! Take Action! Vote!
The Cesar Chavez March for Immigration Reform Begins
Sunday, March 21
12:00 Noon
Roseland Shopping Center parking lot
665 Sebastopol Road, Santa Rosa
and continues to Courthouse Square for a rally, live music and family entertainment.
Free. 707.528.3039
See story below.
By Gabe Meline
Bohemian.com
On March 21, immigration-reform proponents all over the country, from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, will march in honor of Cesar Chavez and to support passage this year of comprehensive immigration reform. In recent years, the annual march in Santa Rosa has brought as many as 15,000 participants. This year’s march is expected to meet or top that figure.
Saturday’s March and Rally will be a perfect place to distribute PDA Healthcare Not Warfare and Brown Bag Lunch Vigil flyers.
Available Here:
http://pdamerica.org/pdacms/sites/default/files/HNW_-_1-15-10.pdf
http://pdamerica.org/pdacms/sites/default/files/BBLV-%201-15-10_1.pdf
From the Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County:
We’ve reached the 7th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the annual march in San Francisco is again being held Saturday, March 20, 11:00 a.m., Civic Center. San Francisco. (The march is a loop beginning and ending at the Civic Center.)
U.S. Out of Afghanistan and Iraq Now! Free Palestine! Money for Healthcare, Jobs and Education! U.S. Hands Off Latin America! Haiti Needs Aid, Not Occupation!
Carpooling will be available from the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County. We will leave at 10:00 a.m. (the march itself does not begin until noon) from 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa. Information – 575-8902
11am-12noon: Opening Rally, Civic Center Plaza
12noon-1pm: March through dowtown area *
1pm-4pm: Closing Rally, Civic Center Plaza
(* approximate departure and end time of the march)
The San Francisco March 20 march will begin and end in the Civic Center Plaza (City Hall/Polk & Grove Sts.) The opening rally will begin at 11 a.m. and last until a little after noon. The march will be joined by a labor contingent (which is having a pre-march event at the Plumbers Hall on Market St.), a faith-based contingent (which will be holding a pre-rally gathering at UN Plaza starting at 10:30 a.m.), and a student/teacher/parent contingent (look for banners at the corner of Larkin and MacAllister Sts.), and many others. People will be coming from all over Northern California for the march and rally.
The march will go through downtown San Francisco, passing by two hotels, the Hilton and the Four Seasons, in solidarity with the UNITE HERE Local 2 hotel workers who are fighting to win a new contract that maintains their health benefits. The march will also go by the Federal Building and return to the Civic Center by way of Market St. for a closing rally lasting until 4pm.
Ann Wright
March 20, 2010
Take Action: Eat lunch for peace—become a brown-bagger.
Published by CommonDreams.org.
Seven years ago today I resigned from the U.S. government in opposition to the Bush administration’s war on Iraq.
I had worked for the State Department for sixteen years and had been in the Army and Army Reserves for 29 years. I was one of three U.S. diplomats who resigned over the Bush administration’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq and one of tens if not hundreds of thousands of government employees that knew the war on Iraq would jeopardize our national security, not improve it.
While I was in the process of making my decision to resign, millions of Americans and tens of millions of people from around the world took to the streets to protest the pending invasion and occupation of Iraq and the inevitable deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
March 19, 2010
I hope you had a chance to read my article on the PDA home page yesterday entitled “Healthcare Torture.” It’s a short analysis of the history of the current healthcare legislation with an inside/outside perspective.
In the article, I point my finger at well-funded organizations, MoveOn and HCAN, who failed to join with the majority of Americans and organizations (like PDA) in supporting enhanced Medicare for all. They endorsed the “politically feasible” public option—over the best option—and moved the course of the debate rightward.
(For more analysis, see Norman Solomon’s “Zero Public Option + One Mandate = Disaster.”)
Political feasibility, combined with the corporate health insurance industry and a Congress unable to embrace simplicity, was the death knell for meaningful reform. Whether this bill passes or not, healthcare reform will be back in our lifetimes.
Highlights from the past week in PDA land, plus a couple future dates for our calendars.
http://blog.pdamerica.org/2010/03/pda-field-report-31210-31910/
Norman Solomon
March 18, 2010
Not long ago, the most prominent supporters of the public option were touting it as essential for healthcare reform. Now, suddenly, it’s incidental.
In fact, many who were lauding a public option as the key to a better healthcare future are now condemning just about anyone who insists that the absence of a public option makes the current bill unworthy of support.
Consider this statement: “If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current healthcare bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over healthcare and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real healthcare reform.”
That statement is as true today as it was when Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made it three months ago in a Washington Post op-ed. But now, a concerted political blitz is depicting anyone who takes such a position as a menace to “real healthcare reform.”
Laura Bonham
March 17, 2010
Kucinich: “Not the Bill I Wanted to Vote for”
Today, Dennis Kucinich announced in a Washington DC press conference that he will vote YES for the healthcare bill. For weeks, Democratic leadership have been pressuring Kucinich to change his vote. Kucinich had been seeking insertion of an ERISA waiver, to begin immediately, for states pursuing Medicare-for-all plans. The waiver was stripped from the bll before it passed the House in November. Several states including California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio are working to institute Medicare-for-all type healthcare plans.
No one can say the healthcare reform battle has not been an interesting one—it has definitely been a disappointing one for those of us who support the most efficient and effective option—Medicare-for-all.
Amy Goodman
March 16, 2010
Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.
Published by Democracy NOW!
Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich joins us to discuss two House debates in which he’s played a central role this week. The Ohio Democrat is threatening to vote against his party’s healthcare reform package because it does not contain a robust public option. Meanwhile, Kucinich’s bill to force the withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan was taken up on Wednesday. After a rare three-and-a-half-hour debate on the war, the majority of House Democrats joined with Republicans to defeat the measure.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 15, 2010
UPDATE: Since press release, BBLV have increaed to 89!
Labor and advocacy groups organized “brown bag” lunch vigils against war funding in 22 congressional districts in January and 67 in February. Currently 82 are planned for March 17th, with more being added. Organizations participating include: Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), AfterDowningStreet, the Backbone Campaign, Democrats.com, the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee, Healthcare Now, CodePINK, and United for Peace and Justice.
On March 10th, 65 members of Congress voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan. Yet only 14 have publicly committed to voting No on funding the same war. A $33 billion supplemental spending bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is expected to be voted on in April or May. Brownbaggers are asking members of the House to publicly commit to voting No on any bills that fund wars, and to publicly urge their colleagues and the House leadership to make the same commitment. As lesser steps in the same direction, the Brown Bag Vigils are encouraging congress members to cosponsor HR 2454, calling for an exit strategy from Afghanistan, and HR 3699, prohibiting any increase in the number of U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Congress members’ commitments are tracked at http://defundwar.org .
Vigil participants, who support a shift in resources from warfare to healthcare, are also asking their representatives to join the growing movement calling for “Medicare for All” by demanding passage of the Kucinich amendment facilitating state-level single-payer healthcare and by offering their support to single-payer efforts moving forward in state legislatures, including in California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Accountability and Justice Issue Organizing Team conference call, 3/10/10
Over 80 PDA members joined this special call with Guest David Cobb, attorney and Green Party activist and a founder of Move to Amend, which has as its goal amending the constitution so that human beings—not corporations—have rights. David laid out the problem by defining corporate personhood and gave background on the constitutional amendment granting corporations the same rights as people, and brought the group to the present time, with the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which, by confirming corporate personhood opened the door to unlimited corporate influence over elections and our government.
David answered the questions submitted in the PDA chatroom, giving generously of his time in this call that ran over its usual hour. David also participated in after-call dialog in the chatroom, which had lively activity among its participants, both developing questions for David and generating discussion within the group.
Dublin, New Hampshire, March 14, 2010
By Dennis Burke
Thousands of news services, from Peterborough to Bangkok, from personal diaries to the New York Times, have reported these last few days on the life and death of Doris Haddock. In her life, she did not cure a disease or end a war. She did not write ten symphonies or do whatever normally occasions such notice. So what did she do? It is worth thinking about in this moment.
If people no longer spoke aloud, or if they no longer looked at things with their own eyes or through their own thoughts, if they let others do those things for them, then they would take it as unusual if one among them suddenly spoke up and dared see the world independently, describing without filter or permission the vivid colors and true conditions of the world.
It is difficult to understand why a lady from New Hampshire who did little more than take morning walks—though she sometimes did so without coming back for several years—should be so lionized in death, unless we also consider what has become of the world around her that made her exceptional by comparison. She is seen as exceptional perhaps because the rest of us have become a little too reticent, a little too slow-moving, in response to these times of high challenge.
A thousand people have told me that, when they reach her age, they want to be like Granny D. I have always agreed with them, but we have had it a little wrong. We must not wait until we are 90 or 100; we have to be, even today, a little more like Granny D. Our challenges will not wait for us to age.
John Nichols
March 11, 2010
Join PDA’s Clean, Fair, Transparent Elections Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here .
Local Focus: Join the IOT above & then Help get the CA Fair Elections Act passed in June election!; learn more here
Published by The Nation.
Doris “Granny D” Haddock, whose 3,200-mile walk across the United States at the age of 90 drew thousands of activists into the movement for political reform, has died Tuesday evening at the age of 100.
The Dublin, New Hampshire, grandmother’s death came ten years and ten days after she finished the remarkable two-year walk, which she undertook to promote the passage of campaign finance reform legislation (in particular the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law).
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.
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.
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.
Multiple television showings beginning Wednesday, Mar. 17
The film representation of Norman Solomon’s book War Made Easy will be shown on Public Access Television, Channel 26 (Comcast TV).
Schedule:
Wed. 3/17 & 3/ 24 – 10:00-11:15 p.m.
Thurs. 3/18 & 3/25 – 6:00-7:15 a.m.
Sat. 3/20 & 3/27 – 3:30-4:45 a.m.
Sun. 3/21 & 3/28 – 7:30-8:45 p.m.
Sponsored by Women’s Spaces, Elaine B. Holtz, host
Information – 579-5319
Robert Naiman
March 8, 2010
Take Action: Tell Congress – Support debate of the Afghan War
Published by Common Dreams.
On Thursday, Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced H. Con Res. 248, a privileged resolution with 16 original cosponsors that will require the House of Representatives to debate whether to continue the war in Afghanistan. Debate on the resolution is expected early next week.
David Swanson
March 4, 2010
Take Action: Tell Congress – Debate the Afghan War
Published by AfterDowning Street.
[Today], Thursday, March 4, Congressman Dennis Kucinich plans to introduce a privileged resolution to end the Afghan War. The resolution requires that the House debate, within the next week, the continuing war in Afghanistan, now the second longest war in American history.
While we may not win a majority vote in the House on this first go-round, and would still have to get past the Senate and the President (a good time if ever there was one to throw Scylla and Charybdis into a blog), we will completely change the conversation and put many congress members on record claiming to oppose the war. While the president can send congressional Democrats out to fall on their swords for unpopular wars and healthcare mandates, they may be less willing to do so if the end of their careers is held up to their noses. To keep their careers alive, congress members in progressive districts will have to claim to oppose the war in/on Afghanistan.
SPREAD THE WORD ...
by George Lakoff
Dear Friends,
The California budget crisis is a democracy crisis.
The 2/3 vote rules have destroyed democracy. A small minority of extreme conservatives – 37 percent – has been controlling the state legislature
by saying no to all proposals until it gets what it wants. They want to destroy the ability of the state to serve public needs. They like the budget cuts. They don’t care about the pain they have caused.
We – the majority of voters – can change all that. We can pass the California Democracy Act, an initiative on the November 2010 ballot. It is one sentence long – only 14 words. It is simple democracy.
Elliott Gould warns us not to believe the myths about single payer health care. “Single payer is no more socialized medicine than the police department is socialized crime fighting,” he says. California OneCare is publicly financed, privately delivered health care, and poll after poll has shown
March 3, 2010, Washington, DC
Take Action: Tell Congress Support the Kucinich privileged resolution to debate the Afghan War
Millions of Americans have no healthcare, and the economy continues to bleed jobs and generate foreclosures—yet there’s still money for war. The Afghan War is now the second longest war in US history—it’s time for an open debate on ending US involvement. On the eve of introduction, by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, of a privileged resolution to debate the Afghan War, Congressman Kucinich recorded this message (select the second recording) to PDA members. Please contact your member of Congress to co-sponsor the Kucinich privileged resolution.
We are an affiliated chapter of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
MOVIE NIGHT!
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
NOTE: Early start time for Wednesday’s meeting, in order that we may enjoy Movie Night and still have time for an endorsement meeting to follow.
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.
Healthcare advocates from fourteen states met in Wayne, Penn., April 10, 2010. The following Declaration is a result of the meeting. Add your name to the Declaration! PDA is planning actions around the country when our goal of 25,000 signatures is met.
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