Progressive Calendar 11.10.08
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:49:57 -0800 (PST)
             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R   11.10.08

1. PTSD therapy   11.10 9am
2. StPaul schools 11.10 5:30pm
3. Peace walk     11.10 6pm RiverFalls WI
4. Safety online  11.10 7pm

5. Bennis/empire  11.11 5pm
6. Ed/oppression  11.11 6:30pm
7. Stadium scam   11.11 7pm

8. Rich Broderick - Sympathy for Sarah Palin? You betcha!
9. John Whitbeck  - The Promised Land? Obama, Emanuel and Israel
10. J A Miller    - Apres Bush  (poem)
11. ed            - Mouthpieces (poem)

--------1 of 11-------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: PTSD therapy 11.10 9am

Monday, 11/10, 9 am to 1 pm, free seminar on Narrative Exposure Therapy to
treat PTSD in war and torture survivors, U of M St Paul Campus, 274 McNeal
Hall, 1985 Buford Ave, St Paul.  lwieling [at] umn.edu


--------2 of 11--------

From: Anne R. Carroll <carrfran [at] qwest.net>
Subject: StPaul schools 11.10 5:30pm

Feel free to participate in any of these six opportunities for community
input, with many thanks to the terrific support provided by the community
partners listed below. Hope to see you there!  -- Anne Carroll, St. Paul
Bd of Education

Saint Paul Public Schools invites community members to discussions
surrounding Large-Scale System Change

Saint Paul Public Schools is a district poised for change and is inviting
the Saint Paul community to find out why. Five community engagement
meetings are scheduled in the coming weeks to discuss the need for
Large-Scale System Change in the District.

At the meetings, community members will learn more about why business as
usual is not a sustainable option for achieving the SPPS mission: To
provide a premier education for all. All SPPS sites and programs will be
affected, whether it be through changes related to transportation,
programming or professional development. Among the topics to be discussed
at the community engagement meetings are academics, enrollment, school
choice, budget and rightsizing or consolidation.

The meetings also will give community members the opportunity to help
district staff members identify district needs as SPPS moves into the
future.

Meeting dates and locations (all locations are in Saint Paul):

[This schedule will be printed this ONCE. If you want it, SAVE it. -ed]

November 10, 2008: 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m.        .
(Presentation in Spanish and English)
Neighborhood House
179 Robie St. E.

November 13, 2008: 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Jimmy Lee Rec Center
270 Lexington Pkwy. N.

November 17, 2008: 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Como Park Senior High School
740 W. Rose Ave.

December 3, 2008: 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m.
(Presentation in Hmong and English)
Phalen Lake Elementary
1089 Cypress St.

December 4, 2008: 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Gloria Dei Church
700 Snelling Ave.

December 12, 2008: 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m.
(Somali Parent Advisory Council)
Highwood Hills Elementary
2188 Londin Lane

A light dinner and refreshments will be provided. These meetings are
taking place with the help of several SPPS partners, including CLUES,
Hmong American Partnership, Hmong Cultural Center, Neighborhood House,
Saint Paul Area Council Of Churches, Saint Paul NEAT, Saint Paul Parks and
Recreation, Saint Paul Public Schools Foundation, Saint Paul YWCA and
Support Our Schools.

For more information: http://www.spps.org/System_Changes.html


--------3 of 11-------

From: Nancy Holden <d.n.holden [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Peace walk 11.10 6pm RiverFalls WI

River Falls Peace and Justice Walkers. We meet every Monday from 6-7 pm on
the UWRF campus at Cascade Ave. and 2nd Street, immediately across from
"Journey" House. We walk through the downtown of River Falls. Contact:
d.n.holden [at] comcast.net. Douglas H Holden 1004 Morgan Road River Falls,
Wisconsin 54022


--------4 of 11--------

From: Timothy Erickson <tim [at] politalk.org>
Subject: Safety online 11.10 7pm

NEXT WORKSHOP:  Staying Safe Online
Monday, November 10th, 7:00 PM

Rondo Community Outreach Library
University & Dale
Electronic Classroom

If you spend any time online (so that's all of you), or have kids who do,
come to our Internet Safety workshop this on Monday, Nov 10. It will
feature discussions of protective software, avoiding scams, and being
"street smart" online. This workshop is essential for anyone who owns a
computer with an internet connection, uses email, or has ever wondered
about how to stay safe while using sites like MySpace or Craigslist.


--------5 of 11-------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Bennis/empire 11.11 5pm

Sweet St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN) viewers:
"Our World In Depth" cablecasts on SPNN Channel 15 on Tuesdays at 5pm,
midnight and Wednesday mornings at 10am, after DemocracyNow!  All
households with basic cable may watch.

Tues, 11/11, 5pm & midnight and Wed, 11/12, 10am
Phyllis Bennis.  Pt 1 of talk "Challenging Empire" given at Mac-Plymouth
Church in St. Paul in April. (repeat)


--------6 of 11--------

From: patty <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Ed vs oppression 11.11 6:30pm

The salon for next Tuesday, Nov. 11:
Larry Olds will be the guest to speak on "Popular Education."  This is not
about schools, but about education in social movements against oppression
and for sustainability , justice and peace.

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon )
are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN

Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------7 of 11--------

From: Ron Holch <rrholch [at] attg.net>
Subject: Stadium scam 11.11 7pm

TACSR Special Meeting
Taxpayers For an Anoka County Stadium Referendum
Tuesday November 11 at 7pm
Centennial High School
Red Building - Room 104
4704 North Road
Circle Pines, MN
The red building is on the east end of the high school complex, and is set
back furthest from North Road.  Enter on the East side of the building.
The largest parking lots are near this building.

Mr. Wilf has not given up on your money and neither should you!
                    [Greed never sleeps -ed]

The only question left is: when will our representatives stop entertaining
these giveaway welfare schemes to the richest men they can find at the
expense of our future?

A NEW STADIUM TAX GROUP HAS BEEN FORMED.

RECENTLY A NEW STADIUM COALITION HAS FORMED WITH ELEMENTS OF THE TWINS
STADIUM TAX RESISTANCE AND OUR TACSR GROUP.  AN IMPORTANT AGENDA ITEM FOR
THE UPCOMMING TACSR MEETING IS:

SHOULD TACSR JOIN WITH Taxpayers United for Rational Football Funding
(TURFF) TO FORM ONE ORGANIZATION IN ORDER TO STOP THE NEXT BILLIONARIE
BAILOUT PLAN FOR Zygi Wilf?

Please join us for another episode in the series: "WHO WILL PAY FOR ZYGI'S
STADIUM BAILOUT PLAN?"  This could just as well mean a metro wide sales
tax, including the 30 year mortgage at a total of 1.4 billion dollars.
Can someone calculate how many new bridges that could buy?

WE WILL HAVE LAWN SIGNS AVAILABLE AT THE MEETING.

Agenda Items Include:
* Vote: Should we join the TURFF Group?
* Website
* What is happening in the 2009 Legislative Session?

Now would be a good time to write to your representatives to tell them we do
not need to waste more money on stadium giveaways to Billionaires.  Please
continue to tell them we want a vote as required by state law for any tax
increase to pay for a stadium.  Write letters to your local paper too.  If
you have done these things already please do it again.

Any Questions, comments contact me at   rrholch [at] attg.net

[Pohlad & Wilf show why no one should be allowed to have that much money.
They don't need it to live, and they use it to corrupt government and
screw anyone poorer than they, ie, us. So let's tax the hell out of 'em.
Pohlad and Wilf are the rotting face of capitalism - an evil system we
should abolish and replace with socialism. Now. -ed]


--------8 of 11--------

Sympathy for Sarah Palin? You betcha!
by Rich Broderick
11/9/08
Daily Planet

Perhaps I am alone in this, but I find myself beginning to feel a little
sorry for Sarah Palin.

Talk about being careful about what you wish for! Not only is all her
dirty laundry getting aired in a way that would probably never have
happened if she hadn't stepped into the glare of the national limelight.
She's also learning from her erstwhile "friends" what happens to pawns
when they make the mistake of thinking of themselves as queens.

Off with her head!

Currently the Rove-Cheney-Vin Weber crowd who run the GOP are busy
savaging her with not-for-attribution insults and demeaning revelations
about her ignorance, overbearing temperament and greed. But what they are
really unmasking is the utter contempt in which the party leadership holds
the very "base" that she was brought in to mobilize; a base that she and
her family, in all their spotty education and unlettered speech patterns
and intolerant views and dysfunctional family dynamics and naive craving
for fancy clothes and high-powered snowmobiles, personally embody.

The most telling insult so far has been the "Wasilla hillbillies" crack,
probably made by one of the Rove proteges who began running McCain's
campaign last summer, regarding the wardrobe the RNC bought for her and
her little clan.

"Hillbillies," or some version of it, is precisely how the amoral scum
floating on the surface of the Republican Party perceives the rural, small
town white evangelicals the GOP has been stringing along for the last
40-odd years with its cynical Southern Strategy, its carefully calibrated
code-words about Jesus, The Rapture, the sanctity of life, and
law-and-order, etc.

Personally, I think It would serve the creeps at the top right if Palin
did come back and run for President in 2012. The last thing on earth they
want is for the base actually to run the party. That might mean - why it
might mean giving up single malt Scotch and canapes and membership in
exclusive country clubs in exchange for Budweiser and chips and evenings
out at high school hockey games. Unthinkable!

Maybe even more unthinkable than having a Black President!


--------9 of 11--------

The Promised Land?
Obama, Emanuel and Israel
By JOHN V. WHITBECK
CounterPunch
November 7 / 9, 2008

In the first major appointment of his administration, President-elect
Barack Obama has named as his chief of staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel, an
Israeli citizen and Israeli army veteran whose father, according to the
Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was a member of Menachem Begin's Irgun forces
during the Nakba and named his son after "a Lehi combatant who was killed"
- i.e., a member of Yitzhak Shamir's terrorist Stern Gang, responsible
for, in addition to other atrocities against Palestinians, the more famous
bombing of the King David Hotel and assassination of the UN peace envoy
Count Folke Bernadotte.

In rapid response to this news, the editorial in the next day's Arab News
(Jeddah) was entitled "Don't pin much hope on Obama - Emanuel is his
chief of staff and that sends a message". This editorial referred to the
Irgun as a "terror organization" (a judgment call) and concluded: "Far
from challenging Israel, the new team may turn out to be as pro-Israel as
the one it is replacing."

That was always likely. Obama repeatedly pledged unconditional allegiance
to Israel during his campaign, most memorably in an address to the AIPAC
national convention which Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery characterized
as "a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning", and
America's electing a black president has always been more easily imagined
than any American president's declaring his country's independence from
Israeli domination.

Still, one of the greatest advantages for the United States in electing
Barack Hussein Obama was the prospect that the world's billion-plus
Muslims, who now view the United States with almost universal loathing and
hatred, would be dazzled by the new president's eloquence, life story,
skin color and middle name, would think again with open minds and would
give America a chance to redeem itself in their eyes and hearts - not
incidently, drastically shortening the long lines of aspiring jihadis
eager to sacrifice their lives while striking a blow against the evil
empire.

The profound loathing and hatred of the Muslim world toward the United
States, which has always had its roots for America's unconditional support
for the injustices inflicted and still being inflicted on the
Palestinians, can fairly be considered the core of the primary foreign
policy and "national security" problems confronting the United States in
recent years. Why would Obama, a man of unquested brilliance, have chosen
to send such a contemptuous message to the Muslim world with his first
major appointment? Why would he wish to disabuse the Muslim world of its
hopes (however modest) and slap it across the face at the ealiest
opportunity?

A further contemptuous message is widely rumored to be forthcoming - the
naming as "Special Envoy for Middle East Peace" of Dennis Ross, the
notorious Israel-Firster who, throughout the 12 years of the Bush the
First and Clinton administrations, ensured that American policy toward the
Palestinians did not deviate one millimeter from Israeli policy and that
no progress toward peace could be made and who has since headed the AIPAC
spin-off "think tank", the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Neverthess, since it is almost always constructive to seek a silver lining
in the darkest clouds, a silver lining can be found and cited. For
decades, the Palestinian leadership has been "waiting for Godot" -
waiting for the U.S. Government to finally do the right thing (if only in
its own obvious self-interest) and to force Israel to comply with
international law and UN Resolutions and permit them to have a decent
mini-state on a tiny portion of the land that once was theirs.

This was never a realistic hope. It has not happened, and it will never
happen. So it may well be salutary not to waste eight more days (let alone
eight more years) playing along and playing the fool while more
Palestinian lands are confiscated and more Jewish colonies and Jews-only
bypass roads are built on them, clinging to the delusion that the charming
Mr. Obama, admirable though he may be in so many other respects, will
eventually (if only in a second term, when he no longer has to worry about
reelection) see the light and do the right thing. It is long overdue for
the Palestinians themselves to seize the initiative, to reset the agenda
and to declare a new "only game in town".

Furthermore, in February, Israel will elect a new Knesset. Bibi Netanyahu,
who, most polls and coalition-building calculations suggest, is most
likely to emerge as the next prime minister, has one (if only one) great
virtue. He is absolutely honest in not professing any desire (however
insincere) to see the creation of any Palestinian "state" (whether decent
or less-than-a-Bantustan in nature) or to engage in any talks (even
never-ending and fraudulent ones) ostensibly about that possibility. His
return to power would definitively slam the door on the illusion of a
"two-state solution" somewhere over an ever-receding horizon.

This would constitute a blessing and a liberation for Palestinian minds
and Palestinian aspirations. Their leadership(s) could then return, after
a long, costly and painful diversion, to fundamental principles, to
pursuing the goal of a democratic, nonracist and nonsectarian state in all
of Israel/Palestine with equal rights for all who live there.

This just goal could and should be pursued by strictly nonviolent means.
If the goal is to convince a determined and powerful settler-colonial
movement which wishes to seize your land, settle it and keep it
(eventually cleansing it of you and your fellow natives) that it should
cease, desist and leave, nonviolent forms of resistance are suicidal. If,
however, the goal were to be to obtain the full rights of citizenship in a
democratic, nonracist state (as was the case in the American civil rights
movement and the South African anti-apartheid movement), then nonviolence
would be the only viable approach. Violence would be totally inappropriate
and counterproductive. The morally impeccable approach would also be the
tactically effective approach. The high road would be the only road.

No American president - least of all Barack Obama - could easily support
racism and apartheid and oppose democracy and equal rights, particularly
if democracy and equal rights were being pursued by nonviolent means. No
one anywhere could easily do so. The writing would be on the wall, and the
clock would be running out on the tired game of using a perpetual "peace
process" as an excuse to delay decisions (while building more "facts on
the ground") forever.

Democracy and equal rights would not come quickly or easily. Forty years
passed between when, on the night before his assassination, Dr. Martin
Luther King cried out that he had been to the mountain top and had seen
the promised land and when Barack Obama was elected as president of the
United States. (The Bible suggests a similar waiting period in the
wilderness for Moses.) Forty-six years passed between the installation of
a formal apartheid regime in South Africa and the election of Nelson
Mandela as president of a fully democratic and nonracist "rainbow nation".

While it may be be hoped that the transformation would be significantly
quicker in Israel/Palestine, it is clear that many who already qualify as
"senior citizens" will not live to see the promised land. However, if the
promised land of a democratic state with equal rights for all is correctly
and clearly perceived and persistently and peacefully pursued, there is
ample reason for confidence that Israel/Palestine will one day experience
the tearful exaltation of a "Mandela Moment" or an "Obama Moment",
restoring hope in the moral potential both of a nation and of mankind, and
that the Jews, Muslims and Christians who live there will finally reach
their promised land.

John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian
negotiating team in negotiations with Israel, is author of "The World
According to Whitbeck".


--------10 of 11--------

Apres Bush
by J.A. Miller
November 8th, 2008
Dissident Voice

The most delicate organ in the [American] body is the pocketbook.
 - Mark Twain

 Fists of a million plus undead
 Corpses pale completely bled
 Ghostly fingers at our door
 Rapping, tapping... evermore

 Iraqi bodies heaped so high
 Palestinian dead in good supply
 Shot or tortured, bombed or hung
 Droned to death, sniped while young

 Afghans J-DAM'd at a wedding
 Somalis blasted as if shredding
 The Lebanese? They're cluster-bombed
 White Man's death comes with aplomb

 His high tech tools efficiently
 Murder extra-judicially
 No need for trial by your peers
 The Magna Carta disappear'd

 Black and brown, the starved and poor
 Consigned to death, the Western cure
 For non Judeo-Christians all
 Dare they resist, dare they not crawl

 But hark!

 Cold legions with insistent knock
 The payment's due, our fear they mock
 What do they want? What have we wrought?
 Dead hands outstretched, they can't be stopped

 They've risen from the Stygian deep
 Icy from uneasy sleep
 To meet, confer and set their price
 They'll now assign our cost precise

 "Take now their souls!" Up goes the cry
 "We'll suck them out and leave them dry
 The dearest jewel of humankind
 Empty husks with death entwined"

 But comes a young girl's voice like thunder
 Bloodied brow, limbs torn asunder
 Rising from Jenin's high rubble
 "Forget their souls, let's cause real trouble!

 "Long has the White Man left behind
 Care for his soul, it's been consigned
 To ninth or tenth place of concern
 Their love of money is what burns

 "Into their hearts, into their brains
 Money masks their psychic pain
 In comfort, excess, life of ease
 Their goal's to do just as they please

 "'Freedom of choice!' Their battle cry
 Toothpaste, cars or weaponry
 (But when they did send Death to call
 No choice had we, so we did fall)"

 Thus sayeth our Jenin miss
 "Let's skip the dread dementor kiss
 Instead we'll take what they love most
 T'is property of which they boast

 "Not kindness, love or character
 To gold, to things they do defer
 Their bloody sacred 'way of life'
 We'll strip it down, loose on them strife

 "Their mortgages and IRAs
 Pensions, shares, do not delay
 Demolish all of them forthwith
 De-capitalize and make it swift

 "As recompense for all we've born
 It seemeth paltry, a mere thorn
 Stuck in their bloated, moneyed flesh
 They'll writhe a bit, flail and thrash

 "But financial chaos is much more
 It heralds what can't be ignored
 Their empire's dying by degrees
 The time has come, we won't appease!"

 The bill's now due to those who've gone
 On before us, they've been blown
 Away by us, they had no choice
 In our distress they now find voice

 Exposed are we, fault lines laid bare
 Our house of cards? Beyond repair
 Humbled, cheated we must bow
 Recompense forced duty now

 It is but little, it is but late
 Greed supreme has cast our fate
 Drugged by siren song of wealth
 We all wreaked mayhem, blood and death

 Moreover...

 To those amongst us those who assumed
 Progressive mantles, we presumed
 'Cause we protested, whispered "no"
 We did our part, our quid pro quo

 A special place in this new hell
 Reserved for those who did "rebel"
 In sheep-like demos with non-violence
 Producing only deep dark silence

 Our silence was so deafening
 We could not change a single thing
 Childish marches tightly muffled
 In cowardice we bowed, we shuffled

 In the end our principles
 Were worthless really, utter bull
 Wealth purchased our true loyalty
 And here we are still on our knees

 And finally...

 The blowback is a-blowing back
 It's creeping inward on a track
 To devour its own with rank abandon
 No mercy - none - and it's begun

 For those who sent forth Death abounding
 Made Death - like interest - compounding
 Have turned their gaze to a fresh view
 And now they're coming after you

J.A. Miller is a grandmother activist from the Middle West who spent many
years traveling and studying in the Middle East. She has published essays
on Counterpunch, DissidentVoice and StateofNature as well as poems in the
manner of the Burma Shave highway signs of her youth at
PoeticInjustice.net some of which will be included in their upcoming
anthology Poets for Palestine. Miller is currently writing a book on the
Protestant origin of the Zionist project. She can be reached at:
jsec_miller [at] hotmail.com. Read other articles by J.A..

This article was posted on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 at 7:01am and is
filed under Colonialism, Imperialism, Middle East, Poetry, War Crimes.


--------11 of 11--------

 "There's a sucker born every minute" - PT Barnum

 Eyes aglow, kiss-up
 pols drop to their knees, lick their
 lips, preped for suckcess.


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