End Fracking Now - Demonstration

The Sacramento Chapter of System Change Not Climate Change is calling for a peaceful picket line to END FRACKING NOW!! to be held on K Street between 8th and 9th Streets in front of the California Department of Conservation on August 1, 2015 between 11pm and 1pm.  

We are calling for this particular demonstration in furtherance of one or more emails received from Move.on.org by and for the organization called "Clean Not Extreme".  We are following the demonstration instructions of "Clean Not Extreme," and while System Change Not Climate Change - Sacramento is not affiliated with "Clean Not Extreme" it is sympathetic with the anti-fracking cause. 

We hope this demonstration is but the first of many such anti-fracking demonstrations to be held by System Change Not Climate Change (and any other sympathetic persons, and organizations) and we hope it or similar demonstrations will be held on a regular monthly basis until fracking is an outlawed practice in the State of California.

BRING YOUR OWN SIGN, PLACARD OR BANNER!! END FRACKNG NOW!!

For further information call Chris Hodge, 660-563-0537, or Ellen Schwartz, 916-835-4330.

Happy Birthday - Medicare

Sanders on Racism- at the SCLC

antiracismdsa: Sanders on Racism- at the SCLC: Remarks by Senator Sanders at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference JULY 25, 2015 https://berniesanders.com/remarks-senator-sanders-...

Sanders Campaign and Racial Justice

Sanders Forum;
Great event last night at the Sol Collective.

Report on Crisis in the Eurozone well received.
Eleven Theses on Bernie Sanders’ Campaign and Racial Justice

Joseph M. Schwartz

Whatever their opinion of the #BlackLivesMatter intervention at Netroots Nation, the incident should spur the Sanders campaign and its supporters to focus on the campaign’s major challenge:  broadening its appeal beyond the white progressive community. Given that thirty-five percent of Democratic primary voters are Black and Latino, even the most fervent of Sanders supporters cannot be complacent about this question.

Sanders has done a great public service by framing his presidential campaign as a crusade of the 99 percent against the one percent. But to broaden his coalition, he and his campaign staff must work to gain the trust of progressive activists of color and bring them into the heart of the campaign. Bernie will not get a hearing in communities of color if he does not develop partnerships with Black and Latino activists who can introduce him -- and vouch for him -- in communities to which the long-time resident of Vermont (a 95 percent white state) has few organic ties.

Forum: The Sanders Campaign

Forum.  July 24, 2015.    7 PM. The Sanders Campaign.
The Sol Collective. Sacramento 2574 21st. Street. Sacramento
Sponsored by Sacramento DSA, the Sacramento Progressive Alliance  and more.

Demand Justice for Sandra Bland

"You just slammed my head to the ground. Do you not even care about that?"

These were some of the last words of 28-year-old Sandra Bland.¹ On Friday, Texas State troopers pulled Sandra over as she was driving to her new job for allegedly not using the turn signals during a lane change. What happened next was all too familiar and terrifying.

An eyewitness says police ripped Sandra out of the car, violently slammed her on the ground, and arrested her as she screamed for help. Just 72 two hours later, she was dead. Police are claiming Sandra took her own life, but her family and friends don't believe it.² 

Local District Attorney Elton Mathis has handed over the investigation to the same police agency that arrested Sandra.³ That's why I started a petition to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, which says:

Police cannot police themselves. Thoroughly investigate Sandra Bland's death and hold all those responsible fully accountable.

The local police department and prosecutor's office each have a long history of racism and corruption. Last year, District Attorney Mathis threatened a local reverend who spoke out about racist prosecutions, saying he would release his "hounds" on the Reverend. Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith was fired from the police department in Hempstead, Texas for documented cases of racism.^{4, 5} 

Bernie Sanders and the Campaign for Hope

Forum.  July 24, 2015.    7 PM.
The Sol Collective. Sacramento 2574 21st. Street. Sacramento
Sponsored by Sacramento DSA, the Sacramento Progressive Alliance  and more.

We Are All Greeks Now - NationofChange

We Are All Greeks Now - NationofChange

Leisa's Children's Hope 2015 Journal #1 -- "Little Boy Blue"

"Little Boy Blue"   

July 2, 2015

Dear Friends and Family,
                                            

It’s July so, of course, Luke and Emma made their annual trek under our kind neighbors’ house to retrieve all the donations stored up for this year’s Children’s Hope Trip to Haiti in a couple weeks.

It is a huge task, not just the lugging of boxes, but inventorying and packing 1,100 pounds of medical, sports and school supplies. I planned a fresh start this morning.

But, morning never seemed to come, maybe because I didn’t sleep for worry. I worried about our own Little Boy Blue.

Little Boy Blue… Not the way we want to see our babies come into the world, but come blue he did. Early this morning our son Grant and his wife, Britt (both Children’s Hope Team Haiti 2010 alum) gave us a new grandson, yet unnamed…so to Nana (yours truly), he’s Little Boy Blue.

He came not kicking and screaming, but too quietly, too gently, not breathing, not moving. Yet everyone around him jumped into precision motion. Someone started breathing for him, someone doing percussion; they sent pipes down his throat and attached wires to his head; IVs and temperature gauges were inserted and adhered.

Finally, he rests tonight above a cooling blanket designed to drop his core temperature five degrees for three days, then a slow ascent to warm. A miracle of modern science, he now shows every sign of a full recovery.

Such a contrast to the babies we will soon be tending in Mother Teresa’s Baby Hospital in Port au Prince, or The Lamp Clinic in the notorious Cite Soleil Slum or at the free mobile clinic we will run in the tent city left over from the 2010 earthquake. How do I accept that our Little Boy Blue would not have a chance of surviving if he were born in Haiti? Those mothers and grandmothers love their babies, too. Reality is not fair. Its up to us to keep fighting for justice globally, keep working locally, to keep volunteering where we can.

Please help us keep this life saving work going. Children’s Hope teams go every year to serve the poorest of the poor. Any amount helps us to buy food, bring fresh water and propane, get new mattresses for the kids, and soccer and basketballs for the SAKALA sports program. Monetary donations are most helpful, but we are thrilled to accept children’s or prenatal (non-gummy) vitamins, and any of a long list of other wishes.

Please write me back at this address, let me know how you’d like to help. I can send you our wish list, or answer any questions you may have. Donations may be mailed or dropped off at our house, this week. The kids and I will gladly pack them. We hand carry all donations, work only with Haitian-led organizations we have known and trusted, and support only services that are given free of cost. We go where big NGOs often won’t go. And, really, any amount makes a difference. (One dollar buys a tube of anti-biotic cream.) Please, do it for those other Little Boys Blue. All donations are tax deductible.

Peace, all ways and always,

Leisa, Paul, Luke and Emma                                    

Children's Hope
3025 Cambridge Road #A
Cameron Park, CA 95682 USA
916.801.4184

email: lfaulkner@pacific,edu; childrenshope@live.com
blog: http://coalitionfordemocracyinhaiti.blogspot.com/ 

Germany Got Bailed Out- Why Not Greece ?

Sixty years ago today, an agreement was reached in London to cancel half of postwar Germany's debt. That cancellation, and the way it was done, was vital to the reconstruction of Europe from war. It stands in marked contrast to the suffering being inflicted on European people today in the name of debt.

Germany emerged from the second world war still owing debt that originated with the first world war: the reparations imposed on the country following the Versailles peace conference in 1919. Many, including John Maynard Keynes, argued that these unpayable debts and the economic policies they entailed led to the rise of the Nazis and the second world war.

Greek debt crisis: Tsipras gets ultimatum to reach deal or face Grexit - as it happened

On Sunday, European leaders will meet for a summit that will decide whether Greece gets another bailout or leaves the eurozone 

Read more

By 1953, Germany also had debts based on reconstruction loans made immediately after the end of the second world war. Germany's creditors included Greece and Spain, Pakistan and Egypt, as well as the US, UK and France.

German debts were well below the levels seen in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain today, making up around a quarter of national income. But even at this level, there was serious concern that debt payments would use up precious foreign currency earnings and endanger reconstruction.

Defying Troika, Greece Chooses 'Democracy Over Fear' With 'No' Vote on Austerity

Defying Troika, Greece Chooses 'Democracy Over Fear' With 'No' Vote on Austerity

Bankers lose. Greek People Win

Greeks Reject Bailout Terms in Rebuff to European Leaders

Santa Cruz to Punish Bank Felons

What exactly does it mean for a big Wall Street bank to plead guilty to a serious crime? Right now, practically nothing.

But it will if California’s Santa Cruz County has any say.   

First, some background. 

Five giant banks – including Wall Street behemoths JPMorgan Chase and Citicorp – recently pleaded guilty to criminal felony charges that they rigged the world’s foreign-currency market for their own profit. 

This wasn’t a small heist. We’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transactions every day. 

The banks altered currency prices long enough for the banks to make winning bets before the prices snapped back to what they should have been.  

What do we celebrate on July 4 ?

Bernie Sandes and Progressive Democrats

Bernie Sanders and Progressive Democrats

Credit: Jim Morin @MorinToon

The entrance of Bernie Sanders into the Presidential primary race has created an interesting moment for the progressive movement. We have a triangle with Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders all in contention for political leadership. In the middle, trying to decide what to do, are the leaders and activists of social movements, netroots organizations such as MoveOn, and of course the labor movement.

In 2013 I co-founded a political group devoted to making sure that progressives had someone to vote for in the Democratic primary. We called it Ready for Warren, a play on Clinton’s semi-official pre-launch campaign organization. On the one hand, we genuinely wanted Warren to run for President. But even if she didn’t run, support for her might become a rallying point for progressives unsatisfied with the likely coronation of another Clinton.