Progressive Democrats Sonoma County

PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF AMERICA presents an evening with:

JOHN NICHOLS, Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine,

MICHAEL LIGHTY, Policy Director of the California Nurses Association,

and NORMAN SOLOMON, Co-chair of the national Healthcare NOT Warfare Campaign.

WHEN: Saturday, October 15, 8:00 to 9:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:30.

WHERE: Guzman Hall, Dominican University; 50 Acacia Ave., San Rafael, CA 94901.

Go here for a campus map

This is a rare opportunity to see these three dynamic leaders and speakers together in one room. Join us for an evening of community and celebration in support of Healthcare NOT Warfare!

No entry charge. Donations accepted. Wheel-chair accessible.

Cosponsored by the Expressions Program of the Humanities Department, Dominican University.

An Evening with:

JOHN NICHOLS
Washington correspondent for
The Nation Magazine

MICHAEL LIGHTY
Policy Director of the California
Nurses Association

and
NORMAN SOLOMON
Co-Chair of the national
Healthcare Not Warfare Campaign

September 15, 2011

Daniel Ellsberg, the renowned advocate for peace and the First Amendment who leaked the historic Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War, endorsed congressional candidate Norman Solomon on Thursday (Sept. 15). Ellsberg will join the independent progressive Democrat on the campaign trail.

Once referred to by President Nixon’s adviser Henry Kissinger as “the most dangerous man in America,” Ellsberg is an enthusiastic supporter of Norman Solomon for Congress. The famed whistleblower will speak at a house-party fundraiser for the Solomon campaign in Marin County on Sept. 22, an event bringing together two generations of antiwar leaders.

Read the Rest Here

Norman Soloman – Donna Smith – and Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America join Thom Hartmann. The “Healthcare not Warfare” campaign is raising awareness about our deteriorating healthcare system that’s bankrupting millions of Americans and leaving them sick with nowhere to go. And while this is going on – our nation is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on endless wars in the Middle East. So the choice is simple – do we keep funding “black hole” wars – or start making Americans healthy again? Please sign “Healthcare not Warfare” petition at http://bit.ly/jZlPGZ

with NORMAN SOLOMON

Thursday, July 14, 7:00pm
Peace & Justice center of Sonoma County
467 Sebastopol Avenue
Santa Rosa

Norman Solomon is a national columnist and award-winning author of a dozen books – including War Made Easy, which was turned into a powerful documentary film. He played a prominent role in the movement to prevent the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has led fact-finding missions to Iraq and Afghanistan and has appeared regularly on TV and radio, from CNN and MSNBC to PBS’s NewsHour and NPR’s All Things Considered. His columns have run in the New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, as well as CommonDreams, Truthout and AlterNet.

Seating is limited so come early. For more information, 707-575-8902
This event is Co-sponsored by the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County

Flyer attached

CommonDreams.org
by Norman Solomon

The facts all point to this “inconvenient truth” — the time has come to shut down California’s two nuclear power plants as part of a swift transition to an energy policy focused on clean and green renewable sources and conservation.

The Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo and the San Onofre plant on the southern California coast are vulnerable to meltdowns from earthquakes and threaten both residents and the environment.

Reactor safety is just one of the concerns. Each nuclear power plant creates radioactive waste that will remain deadly for thousands of years. This is not the kind of legacy that we should leave for future generations.

Read the Rest Here

Filmmaker Saul Landau & journalist Norman Solomon in Person. Monday, April 25, 7:15 p.m. San Rafael.

Filmmaker Saul Landau will present a special screening of his award-winning 1980 documentary Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang and participate in a discussion with author and activist Norman Solomon. Winner of a television Emmy and the George Polk Award for investigative journalism, this poignant and potent political documentary followed an investigative reporter as he exposed the health hazards that our government had suppressed after the nuclear tests of the 1950s and 60s. Camera: Haskell Wexler, Zack Krieger. Directors: Saul Landau, Jack Willis. (US 1980) Film 60 min. plus discussion.

In response to the Japanese nuclear disaster and our own community needs, this forum will feature these expert panelists: Robert Gould, MD, President SF Physicians for Social Responsibility; Barbara Rose Johnston, PhD, and Senior Fellow, Center for Political Ecology; and Norman Solomon, activist and author.

When and where:
Monday, April 18, 7-9 p.m.
Guzman Hall, Dominican University
50 Acacia Avenue, San Rafael
Campus Host: Green MBA Program

This event is free and open to the public.

More Info Here

April 13, 2011 | By Solomon for Congress

Norman Solomon—the North Bay political activist who has been a leader of the region’s Green New Deal commission and the national Healthcare Not Warfare campaign—announced on Wednesday (April 13) that he has filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for Congress. He said that his name will be on the June 2012 ballot if Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey decides not to seek re-election.

Read the Rest Here

After gaining a majority in the House of Representatives last November, the Republican party within months launched a full-on assault on workers’ rights and labor unions in state after state around the nation.

Read the Rest and LISTEN TO AUDIO here

UPDATE: Mix and mingle with NORMAN SOLOMON and Special Guests including national radio commentator, author and progressive populist JIM HIGHTOWER & KAREN BERNAL, Chair of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party.

Event Details & RSVP Here

by Norman Solomon
March 17, 2011

Hello Friend,

The other night, as news from Japan took a turn for the worse, I stayed up late and wrote about Nuclear Power Madness. I hope you’ll read the article and pass it on.

My opposition to nuclear power is longstanding. In the late 1970s, while advocating for solar and wind energy as well as conservation, I devoted two years to public education and nonviolent civil disobedience that aimed to shut down a large nuclear power plant operating just forty miles from Portland, Oregon.

Read the Rest Here. Includes links to recent articles

North Bay Bohemian
March 16, 2011

Crisis in Fukushima underscores need for truth about nuclear power’s danger

By Norman Solomon

On the edge of Capitol Hill, day after day, we heard wrenching testimony from people whose lives had been ravaged by the split atom.

That was three decades ago.

I was coordinating the National Citizens Hearings for Radiation Victims in 1980, one year after Three Mile Island. The voices came from uranium miners, atomic workers, veterans, downwinders exposed to atmospheric nuclear bomb tests . . . and many others. The people who testified were from a wide array of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. But in addition to radiation exposure and suffering, they had one huge experience in common.

They’d been lied to—not once or twice, but repeatedly. Year after year.

Read the Rest Here

by Norman Solomon
February 19, 2011

A standard zigzag of political rhetoric went for a jaunt along Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday (Feb. 15) with a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at George Washington University. “Iran is awful because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people,” she declared. During the last few weeks, much has changed in the politics of the Middle East — but not much has changed in the politics of Washington, where policymakers turn phrases on a dime.

The currency is doublespeak, antithetical to a single standard of human rights.

Read the Rest Here

*****************************

Wednesday, January 19 – - at 6:30 p.m.

South Sonoma County Democratic Club

Senior Nutrition Site Club House, 211 Novak, Petaluma

Norman Solomon speaking on “Progressive Possibilities for 2011 and Beyond”

More info

*******************************

Wednesday, January 26 — 7:30 p.m.

Santa Rosa Democratic Club

Veterans Memorial Building, 1351 Maple Ave., Santa Rosa (95404)

Norman Solomon speaking on the future for progressives, the Democratic Party and our country

Program will be preceded by hors d’oeuvre hour starting at 6 p.m. and optional dinner at 7 p.m.

For details or to make a dinner reservation, click here: More info

by Norman Solomon

Last week, soon after President Obama made his stunning tax deal with Republican leaders, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey told the Marin Independent Journal: “I think when you hold unemployment and the needs of the poorest and most desperate people hostage, that it is blackmail, and I don’t think we should give in to blackmail, ever.”

In the same article, I made a comment that’s often heard among progressives: “This is not what we worked for.”

Read the Rest Here

Naomi Wolf
December 13, 2010

Published by The Huffington Post.

This week, Senators Joe Lieberman and Dianne Feinstein engaged in acts of serious aggression against their own constituents, and the American people in general. They both invoked the 1917 Espionage Act and urged its use in going after Julian Assange. For good measure, Lieberman extended his invocation of the Espionage Act to include a call to use it to investigate the New York Times, which published WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables. Reports yesterday suggest that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder may seek to invoke the Espionage Act against Assange.

Read the Rest Here

Jeremy Scahill
December 11, 2010

Join PDA’s End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Published by The Nation.

Editor’s Note: Nation national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill today testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the US’s shadow wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. His complete testimony is below.

Read the Full Story Here

Take Action:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wrapped up an 8 ½ hour speech, or what his office called a “tax cut filibuster” on the Senate floor opposing the White House and Republican compromise on tax cuts and unemployment benefits. He began his speech at 10:25am saying, “I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people the fact that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides.”

And here is the whole 8 1/2 hours on C-SPAN, divided into 3 videos.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Norman Solomon
December 7, 2010

Join PDA’s End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Last Friday, in a column about economic policy, Paul Krugman focused on “moral collapse” at the White House—“a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.” Meanwhile, President Obama flew to Afghanistan, where he put on a leather bomber jacket and told U.S. troops: “You’re achieving your objectives. You will succeed in your mission.”

For the Obama presidency, moral collapse has taken on the appearance of craven clockwork, establishing a concentric pattern—doing immense damage to economic security at home while ratcheting up warfare overseas.

Read the Rest Here