pshannon's blog

The Afghanistan war grinds on, the Pentagon budget keeps growing, corporations and the 1%'ers are paying lower taxes than their secretaries, Social Security and other benefits are under attack, and next to nothing is being done to create jobs.  

Instead of addressing these problems, the House of Representatives showed that it is still gripped by deficit fever when it passed the draconian Ryan budget, and gave only 78 votes to the alternative presented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

A coalition of community, labor, and peace groups are organizing to put a public policy question on the November ballot across Massachusetts.  We need to collect 200 signatures of registered voters in each State Rep district by July 3.  Join us May 6 to go over the issues and learn how to collect signatures!

The wording of the Budget for All public policy question will be:

Shall the state Representative (or Senator) from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a resolution calling upon the Congress and the President to:

1. Prevent cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans benefits, or to housing, food and unemployment assistance;

2. Create and protect jobs by investing in manufacturing, schools, housing, renewable energy, transportation and other public services;

3. Provide new revenues for these purposes and to reduce the long-term federal deficit by closing corporate tax loopholes, ending offshore tax havens, and raising taxes on incomes over $250,000; and

4. Redirect military spending to these domestic needs by reducing the military budget, ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing U.S. troops home safely now.

MA Campuses to Host Wisconsin Activists Focusing on How to Sustain and Expand Protest Movement

Ben Manski

Damon Terrell

Erika Wolf

Three Wisconsin activists who pioneered the occupation of their State Capitol Building in Madison back in February are on their way to Massachusetts. 

Ben Manski, an adjunct faculty member at Madison Technical College, lawyer and UW graduate, Erika Wolf, a state-wide student government staff person and Damon Terrell, a UW-Madison student (biographies attached) will address campus groups at UMass Boston, Boston College, Boston University, Brandies University, Stonehill College, Bridgewater State University, UMass Lowell, UMass Dartmouth, and trade unions including UNITE-HERE’s New England Joint Board, and the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts (PHENOM). Finally, the tour will also include appearances at Occupy Boston during the week starting October 30 and run through Friday, November 4, 2011 (schedule attached).

According to Paul Shannon, a tour organizer, “Now is the time we need to draw on the Wisconsin activists; they have shown us how to protest, to occupy, to recall and to mobilize people in their tens of thousands over a sustained period of time. They are the marathoners who have a lot to share with our campuses and unions in Massachusetts. At a time when student debt surpasses credit card debt and when unions and labor is being forced to cutback, we need to learn from Wisconsin.”

Manski, who began planning Madison state house actions in December 2010, right after the election of Governor Walker, declares that these are dire times in need of grassroots solutions:  “For tens of millions of Americans economic conditions have become intolerable. This is especially true for communities of color, working people and young folks, among them the many veterans of the unending wars. This is why we have burgeoning mass movements.”

Talk presented Dec. 7, 2011 at Encuentro 5's 5th Anniversary Dinner

I think that at events like this it’s good for us to remember how lucky we are to have had this opportunity to work together with so many wonderful people over the years: to engage with each other both as colleagues and even as friends. I know Howard Zinn used to talk about this, and as usual, he was right. What a privilege to have been fellow travelers with people from different generations who long for worldwide human community and an end to socially created human suffering. Of course we have to deal with each others craziness. But who else would you want to hang out with? I know it’s something that has enriched my life in a way I never expected and I feel very fortunate about the whole thing.

How fast things can change!