Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 01.16.10

[David Shove (shove001]

               P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R   01.16.10

1. MLK event        1.16 8am
2. Peace walk       1.16 9am Cambridge MN
3. Palestine        1.16 10am
4. Shoe/paint/throw 1.16 10am
5. Foreclose war    1.16 1pm
6. Health care      1.16 1pm
7. CUAPB            1.16 1:30pm
8. Northtown vigil  1.16 2pm
9. Haiti            1.16 2pm
10. Ceili/RNC8      1.16 7pm
11. McKinney/CTV    1.16 9pm

12. Nat Hentoff - George W Obama/After one year, Obama shows his true face
13. ed          - Irresistible limerick

--------1 of 13--------

From: Lydia Howell <lydiahowell [at] visi.com>
From: Minneapolis Community and Technical College
<marni.harper [at] minneapolis.edu>
Subject: MLK event 1.16 8am

MCTC's 2nd Annual Power of GIVING Day of Service
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
MCTC is hosting its 2nd Annual Power of GIVING MLK Day of Service
on Saturday, January 16th, 2010, 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

This is a volunteer event where you will have the opportunity to unite and
serve in our community by working with a number of nonprofits who serve
people in need.

This year we want to double our efforts!

We're hoping to recruit 200 volunteers to serve. We would like this to be
a student, staff and faculty driven effort and we need your help. Please
sign-up and encourage your students to sign-up for this important
volunteer event.

Dr. King inspired people to think beyond themselves, embrace
differences and work toward equality.

This year, honor and celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. by volunteering to serve.

Register online. You can also register my calling Marni Harper at
612-659-6311 or email marni.harper [at] minneapolis.edu
Thank you for your support of this important effort!


--------2 of 13--------

From: Ken Reine <reine008 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Peace walk 1.16 9am Cambridge MN

every Saturday 9AM to 9:35AM
Peace walk in Cambridge - start at Hwy 95 and Fern Street


--------3 of 13--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Palestine 1.16 10am

DVD and Discussion: "Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for a
Just Peace"

Saturday, January 16, 9:30 a.m. (Refreshments); 10:00 a.m. (DVD and
Discussion)

Southdale Hennepin County Library, 7001 York Avenue South, Edina. View
the DVD "Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for a Just Peace," a
new educational program developed by the Israel/Palestine Mission
Network (IPMN) of the Presbyterian Church. The DVD (80 minutes) and
its accompanying 48 page booklet, completed in June 2009, are intended
to stimulate personal and group discussions of what Muslims, Jewish
and Christian groups can do to promote a just peace in Palestine.
Sponsored by: Middle East Peace Now (MEPN). The WAMM Middle East
Committee is a member of MEPN. FFI: Call Florence Steichen,
651-696-1642 or email mepn [at] mepn.org.


--------4 of 13--------

From: Rowley Clan <rowleyclan [at] EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: Shoe/paint/throw 1.16 10am

Permitted!!  Permitted!!  Permitted!!  Permitted!!  Permitted!
January 16th- PEACE SHOE DECORATING, ADDRESSING for
January 20th -THROWING  SENDING!

As Obama's inauguration anniversary approaches, the first thing we
remember is that we were promised CHANGE.  When we originally followed
Muntazer al-Zaidi's example to "ThrowYourShoesAtTheOccupation
<http://throwyourshoesattheoccupation.com/> ," we addressed our shoes to
George Bush in Crawford (*see "Why I Threw the Shoe" pasted at very bottom
of this e-mail).  Now it's apparent we need to CHANGE the address, to
remind Obama that his one year honeymoon is officially over on January 20,
2010 so he better start making good on his promise to CHANGE by ending the
ioccupations.  You can start by saving all your old shoes right now, the
older and uglier, the better and get your pitching arm warmed up!  We'll
provide the glitter paint, sparkles and peace stickers for the shoe
decorating and addressing so they'll be all ready to throw send on Obama's
one year anniversary.

We plan to make a new "ThrowYourShoesAtTheOccupation
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4PnzRzqEMg> " inspirational video in the
process to build momentum!

It's high time to end the U.S. occupation of IraqAfPakisNam, to stop
sending U.S. weapons to Israel to use against Palestinian
<http://nigelparry.com/writing/postcards-of-hangings-gaza.shtml>
civilians, and to begin to make wise choices to invest our increasingly
precious national resources in a future of peace, not of war.  Figure in
veterans' benefits, and 50% of U.S. taxes go to war.  Decorate and send
your old shoes to Obama and other elected officials to let them know that
enough is enough. (It's even PERMITTED!  The U.S. Post Office does accept
unwrapped
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycmonkey/sets/72157615646286041/show/>
shoes that are clearly addressed.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycmonkey/sets/72157615646286041/show/

Peace Shoe Painting-Addressing-Throwing Party, Saturday, January 16, 2010,
10 a.m.- 12 noon, Rowley House, 193 Beaumont Ct., Apple Valley, MN 55124
(for more info, call Ross # 952 465-2866)

PS:  We have put our dog busy chewing up all of our new shoes so we have
several more available for painting, addressing, if you don't have any old
shoes to bring yourself.

Why I Threw The Shoe
By Muntazer al-Zaidi
23 September, 2009
The Guardian

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot
of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the
hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply,
I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people,
and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under
its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets
of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million
orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many
millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and
the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread.
And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would
celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact
that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But
the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It
turned our homes into funeral tents.

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It
humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned,
my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head,
pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib.
The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul,
Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my
burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard
with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a
feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily
tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined
Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my
teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been
shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved
mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop
of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that
shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the
blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response
when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted
to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my
rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the
wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out
its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the
professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All
that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a
citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism
mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a
voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to
speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All
I wanted was to defend my country.

C 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited


--------5 of 13--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Foreclose war 1.16 1pm

Martin Luther King, Jr. Event: Foreclose the War, Not People's Homes!
Saturday, January 16, 1:00 p.m. (Protest and Bannering) 38th Street and
Park Avenue South, Minneapolis. 1:45 p.m. (Program) St. Joan of Arc
Church, 4537 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis.

Speakers include: Mel Reeves, community activist; Leslie Parks,
Minneapolis resident fighting to save her home from foreclosure. As the
U.S. government spends billions for the wars and occupations in
Afghanistan and Iraq, as working and low income people are facing the
worst economic crisis in decades, millions of people are facing
foreclosure, unemployment and budget cuts, on January 16, join the protest
and public forum that will mark the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend with a
call for funds for human needs not war and occupation.

"Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary
spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring our eternal
hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful
commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and
thereby speed the day when 'every valley shall be exalted, and every
mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made
straight and the rough places plain.'" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s
speech, "A Time to Break Silence," delivered to a meeting of Clergy and
Laity Concerned on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was
assassinated.

Sponsored by: Iraq Peace Action Coalition (IPAC) and Minnesota Coalition
for a People's Bailout (MCPB). WAMM is a member of IPAC and MCPB. FFI:
Call Anti-War Committee, 612-379-3899; Twin Cities Peace Campaign-Focus on
Iraq, 612-522-1861; or WAMM, 612-827-5364.


--------6 of 13--------

From: Amber Garlan <agarlan [at] hammclinic.org>
Subject: Health care 1.16 1pm

Courageous Conversations on Health Care: An Educational Program and
Discussion about the Minnesota Health Plan

Saturday January 16, 2010
1:00-3:00 p.m.
Holy Nativity Lutheran Church
3900 Winnetka Ave
New Hope MN
Speakers:
Rep. Lyndon Carlson HD 45B
Rep. David Bly HD 25B
Lisa Nilles MD
Ann Settgast MD

Event Sponsors: MN Universal Health Care Coalition, Senate District 45
DFL, Physicians for a National Health Program, Mature Voices Minnesota,
Betty Folliard Residents of Senate Districts 43, 44 and 45 are especially
encouraged to attend.


--------7 of 13--------

From: Michelle Gross <mgresist [at] visi.com>
Subject: CUAPB 1.16 1:30pm

Meetings: Every Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Walker Church, 3104 16th Avenue
South http://www.CUAPB.org

Communities United Against Police Brutality
3100 16th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55407

Hotline 612-874-STOP (7867)


--------8 of 13--------

From: Vanka485 [at] aol.com
Subject: Northtown vigil 1.16 2pm

Peace vigil at Northtown (Old Hwy 10 & University Av), every Saturday
2-3pm


--------9 of 13--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Haiti 1.16 2pm

Haiti Justice Coalition Meeting

Saturday, January 16, 2:00 p.m. Mayday Books, 301 Cedar Avenue South,
Minneapolis. The Haiti Justice Coalition will be having a preliminary
meeting to organize a response to the recent earthquake in Haiti. All are
welcome. Sponsored by: the Haiti Justice Coalition. WAMM is a member of
the Haiti Justice Coalition. FFI: Call April, 612-823-5989 or email
knuts001 [at] maroon.tc.umn.edu.


--------10 of 13--------

From: Mike Whelan <mpw4883 [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Ceili/RNC8 1.16 7pm

Irish Cèli to benefit the RNC8 Legal Defense
Saturday, January 16, 7 to 10 PM
TC Friends Meeting House, 1725 Grand Ave in St. Paul
Suggested Donation $5-15

Live music by The Blackbirds
Dances taught and called by Mike Whalen

Support your right to dissent! Support the RNC8! And dance the winter
chill off! Easy dance instructions at 7


--------11 of 13--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: McKinney/CTV 1.16 9pm

Dear Minneapolis Television Network (MTN) viewers:
"Our World In Depth" cablecasts on MTN Channel 17 on Saturdays at 9pm and
Tuesdays at 8am, after DemocracyNow!  Households with basic cable may
watch.

Saturday, 1/16, 9pm and Tues, 1/19, 8am
"Cynthia McKinney, Part 2"

The 6 term US Congresswoman and 2008 Green Party Pres. candidate speaks
about power in Washington DC, her experiences in trying to break the siege
of Gaza... Includes Q & A as well as some music of Anne Feeney and David
Rovics.


--------12 of 13--------

George W. Obama
After his first year, Obama shows his true face
by Nat Hentoff   [not one of my favorite guys, but right on this -ed]
Published on Wednesday, January 13, 2010 by The Village Voice

Before President Obama, it was grimly accurate to write, as I often did in
the Voice, that George W. Bush came into the presidency with no
discernible background in constitutional civil liberties or any
acquaintance with the Constitution itself. Accordingly, he turned the "war
on terror" over to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld - ardent believers that
the Constitution presents grave obstacles in a time of global jihad.

But now, Bush's successor - who actually taught constitutional law at the
University of Chicago - is continuing much of the Bush-Cheney parallel
government and, in some cases, is going much further in disregarding our
laws and the international treaties we've signed.

On January 22, 2009, the apostle of "change we can believe in" proclaimed:
"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my
presidency." But four months into his first year in command, Obama
instructed his attorney general, Eric Holder, to present in a case, Jewel
v. National Security Agency, a claim of presidential "sovereign immunity"
that not even Dick Cheney had the arrant chutzpah to propose.

Five customers of AT&T had tried to go to court and charge that the
government's omnipresent spy, the NSA, had been given by AT&T private
information from their phone bills and e-mails. In a first, the Obama
administration countered - says Kevin Bankston of Electronic Frontier
Foundation, representing these citizens stripped of their privacy - that
"the U.S. can never be sued for spying that violated federal surveillance
statutes, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or the Wiretap Act."

It is one thing, as the Bush regime did, to spy on us without going to
court for a warrant, but to maintain that the executive branch can never
even be charged with wholly disregarding our rule of law is, as a number
of lawyers said, "breathtaking."

On the other hand, to his credit, Obama's very first executive orders in
January included the ending of the CIA "renditions" - kidnapping terrorism
suspects off the streets in Europe and elsewhere and sending them for
interrogation to countries known to torture prisoners. However, in August,
the administration admitted that the CIA would continue to send such
manacled suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation.

Why send them to a foreign prison if they're not going to be tortured to
extract information for the CIA? Oh, the U.S. would get "guarantees" from
these nations that the prisoners would not be tortured. That's the same
old cozening song that Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush used to sing
robotically.

President Obama also solemnly pledged to have "the most open
administration in American history." Nonetheless, his Justice Department
lawyers have already invoked "state secrets" to prevent cases brought by
victims of the CIA renditions from being heard.

In February, in a lawsuit brought by five graduates of CIA "black sites"
before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, one of the
judges, visibly surprised at hearing the new "change" president invoking
"state secrets," asked the government lawyer, Douglas Letter, "The change
in administration has no bearing on this?"

The answer: "No, your honor." This demand for closing this case before it
can be heard had, he said, been "thoroughly vetted with the appropriate
officials within the new administration, [and] these are authorized
positions."

Said the torture graduates' ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner: "Much is at stake in
this case. If the CIA's overboard secrecy claims prevail, torture victims
will be denied their say in court solely on the basis of an affidavit
submitted by their torturers."

Barack Obama a torturer? Not exactly. In this particular case, the torture
policy had been set by George W. Bush. President Obama is just agreeing
with his predecessor. Does that make Obama complicit in these acts of
torture? You decide.

What is clear, beyond a doubt - and not only in "rendition" cases, but in
other Obama validations of what Dick Cheney called the necessary "dark
side" of the previous administration - has been stated by Jameel Jaffer.
Head of the ACLU's National Security Project, he is the co-author of the
definitive evidence of the Bush-Cheney war crimes that Obama is shielding,
Administration of Torture (Columbia University Press).

After the obedient Holder rang the "state secrets" closing bell in the San
Francisco case, Jaffer described the link between the Bush and Obama
presidencies: "The Bush administration constructed a legal framework for
torture, but the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework
for impunity."

It's become an Obama trademark: reversing a vigorous position he had
previously taken, as when he signed into law the FISA (Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act) Amendments Act that, as a senator, he had
vowed to filibuster as a protest against their destruction of the Fourth
Amendment. And now he's done it again. His government is free to spy on us
at will.

For another example of the many Obamas, the shifting president had
supported the release of photographs of Bush-era soldier abuses of
prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in
New York had approved the publication of these "intensive
interrogations.") But Obama changed his mind, and Defense Secretary Robert
Gates flat-out censored the photos. Not surprisingly, the Roberts Supreme
Court agreed with Gates and Obama and overruled the Second Circuit.

In a December 5 editorial, The New York Times helped explain why Obama -
who doesn't want to "look backward" at Bush cruelties - changed his mind:
"The photos are of direct relevance to the ongoing national debate about
accountability for the Bush-era abuses. No doubt their release would help
drive home the cruelty of stress positions, mock executions, hooding, and
other 'enhanced interrogation techniques' used against detainees and make
it harder for officials to assert that improper conduct was aberrational
than the predictable result of policies set at high levels."

Barack Obama may well go down in history as the President of Impunity for
Bush, Cheney, and, in time, himself, for continuing the CIA "renditions."

But he will also be long remembered as the President of Permanent
Detention. At the Supreme Court in 1987, in U.S. v. Salerno, Justice
Thurgood Marshall, strenuously dissenting, warned: "Throughout the world
today there are men, women, and children interned indefinitely, awaiting
trials which may never come or which may be a mockery of the word, because
their governments believe them to be 'dangerous.' Our Constitution . . .
can shelter us forever against the dangers of such unchecked power."

Not forever. The Obama government is working to assure that its purchase
of the supermax prison, the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois, will
be the permanent forced residence of certain Guantnamo terrorism suspects
who can't be tried in our regular courtrooms because - gasp - they have
been tortured, preventing the admission of "incriminating" statements they
have made or - "state secrets" again! - a due process trial "would
compromise sensitive sources and methods."

Like torture.

I increasingly wonder whose Constitution Barack Obama was teaching at the
University of Chicago. China's? North Korea's? Robert Mugabe's? Glenn
Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer, whose byline I never miss on
the Internet, asks: "What kind of a country passes a law that has no
purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the
torture it inflicted on people?"

You may not be surprised to learn that my next book - to be published by
Cato Institute, where I'm now a senior fellow - will be titled, Is This
America?

I often disagree with ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero - though I'm
almost always in synch with his lawyers in the field - but Romero is right
about Obama creating "Gitmo North": "While the Obama administration
inherited the Guantnamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative
adoption of those policies. It is unimaginable that the Obama
administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration
used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of
innocent until proved guilty and the right to confront one's accusers. . .
. The Obama administration's announcement contradicts everything the
president has said about the need for America to return to leading with
its values. American values do not contemplate disregarding our
Constitution and skirting the criminal justice system."

If Dick Cheney were a gentleman, instead of continuing to criticize this
president, he would congratulate him on his faithful allegiance to many
signature policies of the Bush-Cheney transformation of America.

But never let it be said that President Obama is neglecting the patriotic
education of America's young. On December 13, Clint Boulton reported on
eweek.com, "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Berkeley's Samuelson
Clinic have sued the Department of Justice and five other government
organizations (including the CIA and the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence) for cloaking their policies for using Facebook,
Twitter, and other social networks to investigate citizens in criminal and
other matters. [The plaintiffs] want to know exactly how, and what kinds
of information, the feds are accessing from users' social networking
profiles."

Maybe Dick Cheney can ask Barack to confirm him as a friend on Facebook.

Charlie Savage, the Times ace reporter of constitutional violations,
chillingly shows how Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin got to the core
of the consequences of our "yes, we can" president by predicting that "Mr.
Obama's ratifications of the basic outlines of the surveillance and
detention policies he inherited would reverberate for generations. By
bestowing bipartisan acceptance on them," Mr. Balkin said, "Mr. Obama is
consolidating them as entrenched features of government."

Do Congressional Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi give a
damn about this historic legacy of the Obama administration that they
cluelessly help to nurture by providing lockstep Democratic majorities
for?

Do you give a damn?


--------13 of 13--------

 There once was an irresistible force
 That got in the saddle on its high horse
 Till an immovable object
 Put a doubt to that project
 And you know what happened of course.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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