Monday, September 10, 2018

Boston RISE for Climate, Jobs, Immigrant Rights, & Justice


gmoke<gmoke@world.std.com>
Via  Act-MA <act-ma-bounces@act-ma.org>
Please note that gmoke@world… is merely passing on this information.  Contact vignesh@betterfutureproject.org for more information about this event

Boston RISE for Climate, Jobs, Immigrant Rights, & Justice
September 08, 2018•12:00 PM
East Boston Memorial Park•143 Porter St, , East Boston, MA 02128
Host Contact Info: vignesh@betterfutureproject.org

BOSTON: Nos Laventamos Por El Clima, Los Trabajos, La Inmigración y La Justicia. (Español abajo. Translación será dado en Español durante todo el evento / Spanish translation provided throughout entire event.)

We are at a crossroads. Our planet, livelihoods, and democracy are under attack. The cost of climate change is impossible to ignore. Just in the U.S. in 2017, there were 16 extreme weather catastrophes that caused over $1 billion in damages. The human toll of climate change is unbearable, and on the frontlines of this crisis are low-wage workers, immigrants, low-income people, people of color, and Indigenous peoples. But frontline communities have also always been at the forefront of change, and on Sept 8 they will RISE for justice.

Right here in East Boston--a majority Latinx immigrant community--the sea level is rising, the streets are flooding, laborers are being hospitalized from heat waves, hurricanes are displacing families from their home countries, and now Eversource plans to build a high-voltage electric substation in a densely populated, flood prone area next to 8 million gallons of jet fuel, posing a serious risk of explosion. The frontline of the climate crisis is in our backyard, and MA residents are using this global day of action to stand in solidarity with the community and GreenRoots’ grassroots resistance against this facility and promote safer, greener, and more equitable alternatives.

On Sept 8, a coalition of over 20 faith, labor, racial justice, immigrant rights, youth, climate action, and environmental justice groups are coming together in East Boston to accomplish two goals:

1. Halt the proposed Eversource electric substation that threatens the community.  This project must be reevaluated and offer a more inclusive process for community input, including adequate language translation.

2. Join forces across movements to build long-term collective power for Climate, Jobs, Immigrant Rights, and Justice in MA. We demand:
a. 100% Clean and Renewable Future
b. Economic Opportunity for Everyone
c. Prioritizing a Just Resilience, Relief and Recovery
d. Union Wages that Support a Family
e. Pollution-Free Communities and Workplaces
f. Protection of Workers
g. Dignity, Respect, & Permanent Protection for all Immigrants

To change everything it takes everyone. On Sept. 8, as governors, mayors, and corporate reps meet at the Global Climate Action Summit in CA—and as our own Governor & Legislature in MA continue to accept money from the fossil fuel industry and then fail to enact common sense climate and immigration reforms—we’ll prove that real climate leadership rises from the grassroots up and doesn’t leave anyone behind.

SCHEDULE:
11:30 - 12pm: Gather near gazebo, HONK! music
12 - 1pm: RALLY
1 - 4pm: PEOPLE’S SCHOOL (outdoor teach-ins, art activities, music, games for kids, and more!)
4 - 5pm: MARCH to proposed Eversource substation site & epic aerial photo along Chelsea Creek

East Boston Memorial Park is directly next to Airport T stop on the Blue Line (1 minute walk). There will be food trucks, Spanish & ASL translation, childcare during the People's School, and a playground for kids to play! Please contact bianca@betterfutureproject.org about any accessibility questions, an FAQ is forthcoming.
_______________________________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org

"Marginalization of Women and Violence in the Left" Saturday, Sept. 15, 10:15 - 1:15 (lunch provided) Central Square Library, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridge


"Marginalization of Women and Violence in the Left"

Saturday, Sept. 15, 10:15 - 1:15 (lunch provided)
Central Square Library, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridge
RSVP requested to bostonsocialistunity@gmail.com

o "The Learned Behaviors of a Capitalist Society, Even in the Left"
-- Boston Liberation Health Group

o "The Umbrella of Sexual Violence and How to Be an Active Bystander"
-- Boston Area Rape Crisis Center

o "Violence against Women of Color"
-- encuentro 5

Examining problems such as marginalization of women and violence is
critical to building a strong movement. This requires a collective effort
of activists and leaders; we must work together to create the vibrant
energy of full community. We must demand better of ourselves and our
groups, and we need everyone to be part of these challenging
conversations. Join us for an amazing day of learning and reflection in
solidarity with women!
_______________________________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org


---
To unsubscribe: <mailto:bmdc-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net>
List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>

Once Again On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair” On Broadway-A Few Thoughts

Once Again On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair” On Broadway-A Few Thoughts 



A link to an National Public Radio On Point program featuring the 50th anniversary of the musical and it meaning then, and now:

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/04/fifty-years-of-hair 



By Si Lannon


The first time I heard that Seth Garth was going to preempt political aficionado Frank Jackman and do the 200th anniversary of the birth of Communist Manifesto writer Karl Marx was upon publication under the former’s name. Which pisses me off since I have been squeezed out apparently of getting any assignments around the incredible number of 1968 events which are having their 50th anniversary commemorations. (The Marx 200th birthday anniversary thing intersects 1968 via a then growing interest in his theories among students and young radicals once the old tactics and strategy around Democratic Party takeover politics went asunder.) Upon privately complaining to site manager Greg Green he gave me this assignment to make a few comments of the 50th anniversary of the musical Hair, on Broadway at least although it had been off-Broadway the year before, one of the few musicals that could have possibly captured some of the pathos, bathos and essence of what was going on in all its messy splendor in that year.

Hair represented that trend away from goodie two shoes formula entertainment like song and dance musicals and thinly pitched family dramatic productions. That represented what the audiences of the 1950s were interested in and still had, have a place in the Great White Way scheme of things. But the unacknowledged (at the time not so now once the cultural critics took their long look at the subject) effect of the vanguard work that was being done in little theaters for little money for little audiences finally took root. Artaud’s Theater of the Absurd, Brecht’s didactic efforts and the like finally found a more receptive general audience. So Hair in 1967-68 did not raise as many hairs (no pun intended among the theater going public as it might have earlier in the decade when it would have been treated as an end of run “beat” saga. That is no to say the subject of intense profanity, vivid sexual reference, an interracial cast and endless paeans to drugs of all sorts didn’t raise hackles, didn’t have members of the audience walking out shaking their heads but as word got out that this was a generational sage for the agents of the Age of Aquarius the thing couldn’t be stopped. And as one voice in the above-mentioned link noted she was still playing in, albeit in Vermont one of the last real refuses of the survivors of the Generation of ’68 along with the Oregon woods and maybe Seattle now that nobody with any left-over hippie aspiration could afford to live in any part of San Francisco except maybe the streets, is still being produced someplace in this wild wicked old land.         

In a funny sort of way the saga of Hair almost accidently traced the line of the 1960s explosion but more importantly in one place stamped “youth nation” as a tribal village like it had never been before, although you could have seen around the edges of it all the way back to the wild boys of the West Coast in their souped up jalopies and hot rods with a “don’t give fuck” about the golden age of American prosperity aborning, the bad boys offspring of the Okie migration that said the more menacing “fuck you up” of the outlaw bikers with their big “hogs” and larcenous hearts, the alienated teen angst misunderstood “please don’t fuck with my head” rebel without a cause types who cooled on James Dean, and the “fuck, fuck, fuck” beat boys talking a blue streak about junkies, negro streets and jailbreaks. And you wonder why youth nation jumped right in the middle of all this when the social situation ran up against racial segregation, sexual uptightness, the fucking war in Vietnam which formed on the corners that Hair hung its hat on since every single guy, and it was all guys then, from the most gung ho Green Beret film watcher to the most ardent draft resister had to deal with the draft and the generational question-go or resist-and the weird queer drag queen fag baiting and women’s liberation.

That draft issue, that each and every guy and by extension their lovers, caught between a rock and a hard place was no joke. Was centrally why Hair spoke to a generation struggling with that very issue-to go or resist- a question that the parents’ generation had almost no conception of since they had fought, or waited anxiously at the door, in their “good war” and could not understand their kids and their idea that maybe going off to kill people, poor people, who they had no quarrel had to be thought about. Claude, a lead character had plenty to think about doped up to the gills or not. The other stuff about race, sex, dope, the signs of the Zodiac, karma, mediation, oneness with the world flow from that central concern.

It wasn’t all beautiful by any means and the threads that hung “youth nation” together came asunder readily enough once the counter-offensive by the night-takers began in earnest (and as Seth Garth and Frank Jackman have said we have been fighting a forty plus year cultural rearguard action against the bastards ever since with no letup in sight). Even in the halcyon days of the Summer of Love in 1967 which is the framework a lot of us had from my town under the guidance of the one and only Scribe, the late Peter Paul Markin who in the end fell under the bus himself, there was plenty of bad stuff going with people ripping people off for drugs, food, anything that was not nailed down. But that was a side issue like many things when something new is trying to breakout and not everybody is as pure as the driven snow and who knows who will show up.

The Captain Crunch-led converted yellow brick road bus we ran up and down the Pacific Coast Highway on picking up vagrant travelers and the wanderers of the youth nation world mostly were seekers, ranters, good people to have on your side when you are trying create a newer world out of what late capitalism and its social norms had left us to pick up the pieces with.

Like I said not everybody, not the Scribe in the end, could go the distance and once that critical mass which sustained the youth nation lost it love of plainsong, of seeking for the mysteries of the universe in a million different ways from tarot cards to LSD and everything in between, and the sense that we could win the drift went against us as people headed back to the confines of late capitalist bourgeois society. Headed back from that youthful detour, except of course those small enclaves mentioned earlier still existing in places like Vermont and Oregon if you ever get up that way. Everybody has some timeline for when the whole thing ebbed, after the hellish 1968 year of events being the prime candidate but that was/is for academics to ferret out. As Frank Jackman has said repeating what the Scribe said before he fell off the world-Wasn’t that a time, yeah, wasn’t that a time.


Sunday, September 09, 2018

Leaked New York Times memos stop-brett-kavanaugh@moveon.org

To  
Dear MoveOn member,
As a candidate, Donald Trump promised that Roe v. Wade would be "automatically" overturned because "I am putting pro-life justices on the Court."1 Leaked memos released yesterday by The New York Times prove that Trump is following through on that promise.
In a 2003 email, Kavanaugh said, "I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since [the] Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so."2 
This email from Kavanaugh's time in the Bush White House directly and unequivocally contradicts Kavanaugh's statements that Roe is "settled law"—which he made in an attempt to sway the crucial votes of pro-choice Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.
Senator Collins has said she will oppose any nominee who shows "hostility" toward Roe v. Wade. These leaked memos show that Kavanaugh is clearly hostile and believes the Supreme Court can overturn it. According to our best intelligence from Capitol Hill, if Sen. Collins opposes Kavanaugh, it will open the floodgates for other senators to come out in opposition—and stop Kavanaugh from being confirmed.
We're hearing that Sen. Collins could make up her mind as early as this weekend—which is why we're pulling out all the stops now—and why we need your help today. Can you rush an emergency donation of $3 right now?
This is a generational fight, which is why we have mounted a massive, rapid-response campaign:
  • In the past 72 hours alone, MoveOn members have made tens of thousands calls to Senate offices demanding that their senators vote no on Kavanaugh. As the hearings continue in the days and weeks to come, we will push even more calls to offices of critical senators whose votes are key to stopping Kavanaugh.
  • On Wednesday night, MoveOn and allies hosted a fiery rally outside of the Capitol to show our opposition to Kavanaugh—one of an ongoing string of nightly protests to show senators, the Trump administration, and the media the energy and power of the #StopKavanaugh movement.
  • MoveOn's Video Lab team is working overtime to create powerful videos showing the consequences of Kavanaugh's confirmation, which have already racked up millions of views.
  • Mobilizations in Maine and Alaska are planned for this weekend, to share critical stories of constituents in Susan Collins' and Lisa Murkowski's states, before they make what will be crucial deciding votes on Kavanaugh.
  • And with the yesterday's news, we're quickly trying to buy space in Maine's largest newspaper to run ads exposing Kavanaugh's hostility to Roe v. Wade this weekend!
This is an uphill battle, but yesterday's news is a game changer, and we are confident that these tactics will have a real impact on the outcome of this confirmation process. But we need MoveOn members like you, Alfred, to make it happen.
These new documents show that Kavanaugh lied about his views on Roe v. Wade in order to force through his confirmation. The documents also indicate that he misled the Senate in 2006 about his prior knowledge of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. This should be more than enough to doom the nomination of a justice to the Supreme Court. But that is only the tip of the iceberg with Kavanaugh.
We know that he will side with corporations over workers. We know that he will support the NRA while disregarding victims of gun violence. We know that he believes a president is above the law. We know that he was involved with the Bush-era torture programs and now refuses to give answers on his support for torture. And we now know—for sure, more than ever before—that he will rule to gut or repeal Roe v. Wade.
We absolutely cannot let Kavanaugh be confirmed to the Court.
Thanks for all you do.
–MoveOn's Stop Brett Kavanaugh Team
Sources: 
1. "Trump makes clear Roe v. Wade is on the chopping block," The Washington Post, July 2, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/49537?t=5&akid=215774%2E38417624%2EQjiJpp
2. "Leaked Kavanaugh Documents Discuss Abortion and Affirmative Action," The New York Times, September 6, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/49538?t=7&akid=215774%2E38417624%2EQjiJpp
Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
This email was sent to Alfred Johnson on September 7th, 2018. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

Stop Brett Kavanaugh (Time is running out!) Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris<moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
To  
Dear MoveOn member,
Leaked emails show that Brett Kavanaugh misled the American people about his views on Roe v. Wade and his opinion of it as "settled law."
And that’s just the beginning of Kavanaugh’s misleading testimony. Brett Kavanaugh is not telling us the whole truth.
I'm fighting with everything I've got to make sure that Brett Kavanaugh never gets to sit on the Supreme Court. So are MoveOn and the protesters inside and outside the Senate chamber.
This is a lifetime appointment. After the Senate votes on his nomination, there's no going back.
But I'll be blunt: Time is running out, and we need your help.
I am so grateful for all of the work that MoveOn members have been doing to build the energy and urgency of this fight—and I can honestly tell you that it is having a big impact inside the halls of Congress.
Over the past week, MoveOn members have made tens of thousands of calls to Senate offices. I've heard from thousands of MoveOn members myself, with messages of support and encouragement to fight! These calls are critical to senators’ decision-making. They are how we gauge how our constituents are feeling, and as we saw last year in the fight to protect health care, they can be a deciding factor in how Congress votes.
MoveOn and allies have hosted rallies outside of the Capitol to show their opposition to Kavanaugh—even as hundreds of Americans have bravely shown up to protest inside the halls of Congress.
MoveOn's Video Lab team has been working overtime to create powerful videos showing the consequences of Kavanaugh's confirmation, which have already racked up millions of views and have helped spread the word about this dangerous nominee. I was honored to be featured in one of these videos!
And mobilizations in key states are taking place as we speak, while constituents share their personal stories—often deeply personal ones—that will be crucial as on-the-fence senators make up their minds about Kavanaugh.
It is critical that these efforts continue full steam and that energy remain high in these final days before the vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination. That's why I am now asking for your help:
Republicans insisted on rushing these hearings—two months before the National Archives could finish reviewing Kavanaugh's paper trail from his time as "the nerve center" of George W. Bush's White House. This kind of rushed, secretive process is unprecedented.
Republicans dumped 42,000 pages of documents regarding Kavanaugh’s judicial record on us, the hearing committee, the night before the hearing began, with no time to read them. My colleagues and I urged the Republicans to postpone the hearing, but they refused.
The Trump White House is hiding another 100,000 pages of documents, invoking an unspecified constitutional privilege.
And this week, Republicans openly encouraged Kavanaugh to refuse to answer even the most basic questions—and he happily obliged, because when I asked him about last year's deadly neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, about his support for the Voting Rights Act, about protecting marriage equality, about women's access to abortion … he wouldn’t give an answer.
What’s being hidden about Brett Kavanaugh and his record? We know what it is: He is a dangerous partisan, and under no circumstances does he belong on the highest court in the land, a position from which he could negatively impact the lives of tens of millions of Americans for decades to come.
We are in the final rounds of this fight, and what happens in the next few days will impact us soon and for generations to come. But there is hope. I see it from my colleagues in the Senate. I see it in the faces of the women and men who are protesting and rallying and sharing their stories. I see it in you, Alfred.
Thanks for all you do.
–Senator Kamala Harris
P.S. On Thursday, during his confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh referred to birth control as "abortion-inducing drugs." He knows full well that there are laws that impact women and their bodies, but when I asked him during his confirmation hearings,: "Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?" he couldn’t think of any.
Want to support our MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?
Federal candidates or officeholders mentioned above are not asking for more than $5,000 per calendar year from individuals or other federally permissible sources, nor are they asking for any funds from corporations, labor unions, or any other federally prohibited sources.

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
This email was sent to Alfred Johnson on September 9th, 2018. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.