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Make Your Vote the Tie-Breaker | Progressive Activist Calendar, October 26 – November 5

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Let’s take a stroll down memory lane.

Remember how you felt on the morning of November 9, 2016? Shocked? Depressed? Angry? Do you ever want to feel that way again?

Despite all the hype, the role of ‘the resistance’ against the Trump regime hasn’t been anything like it’s imagined in fictional portrayals of people bravely fighting back against evil and oppression.

The last two years have been a long slog. The banality, the naked greed, and near-complete lack of empathy coming out of Washington was worse than (almost) anyone could have expected. 

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Asylum Seekers Aren’t Scary – Full Frontal with Samantha Bee | Video Worth Watching

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In this week’s Full Frontal Samantha Bee considers the issue of what’s scary, suggests some likely candidates, and identifies some non-contenders.   [Read more…]

Veterans For Peace Oppose Proposed Limitations for D.C. Demonstrations

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By Veterans for Peace

Veterans For Peace (VFP) strongly opposes the National Park Service’s proposed limitations on the right to demonstrate near the White House and on the National Mall. This is a thinly veiled assault on our democracy by attempting to erect barriers to criticism of an administration that is systematically violating the rights of people to freedom, liberty, and justice.

With chapters in every state and veteran members from WWII to the current era, VFP is dedicated to building a culture of peace, exposing the true costs of war, and healing the wounds of war.   [Read more…]

No More Kicking Climate Change Down the Road

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Mankind has only 12 years left to make unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if we want to stave off unimaginably catastrophic effects of runaway global warming. This is the warning detailed in October’s report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the recognized global climate authority which represents the investigations of hundreds of climate scientists and 195 participating nations.   [Read more…]

Black and Brown Families of Victims Unite on National Day Against Police Brutality

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By R. Zamora

In San Diego 897 people have been killed by law-enforcement since the 1950s. My cousin, Jonathon Coronel, is among these statistics. My cousin was unarmed and surrendered on the ground, yet still shot 22 times by San Diego Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Villanueva.

As if riddling one body with 22 hollow-point bullets wasn’t terrorizing to our community enough, Christopher Villanueva tortured another human being to death, Sergio Weick, just eleven months prior to murdering Jonathon Coronel. Villanueva fired 26 gunshots onto Sergio Weick. Someone who is firing excessive shots, so excessive that he had to reload his gun, onto one human being clearly does not fear for his life but rather enjoys asserting his deadly power.

Officers like him have been empowered to continue their terrorizing behavior thanks to the District Attorney’s refusal to charge any officers that have overstepped their boundaries for murder. Between 2005 – 2015 there have been 155 police killings and all have been deemed “justified” by the District Attorney’s office. Summer Stephan is continuing this legacy by refusing to hold police officers accountable for illegal behavior, ultimately condoning the stripping of due process. She is expanding police officer’s role into one of judge, jury, and executioner.   [Read more…]

Tell the Whole World You Care Enough to Vote | Progressive Activist Calendar October 19 – 29, 2018

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Having nothing positive to campaign on, reactionaries are relying upon the time-honored techniques of fear, loathing, and falsehoods. There is no wall. There is no Obamacare replacement. (Although Republicans who voted to dismember it are now claiming to want to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.)  There is no infrastructure program. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Republicans once believed would be the centerpiece of their re-election campaign, has given Wall Street a sugar rush and the average four grand bumps promised Americans is nowhere to be seen.

That’s why Ammar Campa-Najjar– a really decent human being–is being portrayed as a terrorist. That’s why Trump’s on the stump ginning up his base about hordes of brown people headed to the border.

There is only one defense against this kind of campaigning. YOU must take personal responsibility to make sure everybody around you votes. Make sure the world knows you voted. Tell everybody. Brag a little.   [Read more…]

Two City Works Press Books Explore San Diego’s Impact on the Psyche | Release Reading at Tiger! Tiger!

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San Diego City Works Press is a project of the San Diego Writers Collective, which is a group of San Diego writers, poets, artists, and patrons dedicated to the publication and promotion of the work of San Diego area artists of all sorts.  Our specific interests include local, ethnic, and border writing as well as formal innovation and progressive politics.

The Collective’s main focus is local, but we have engaged in occasional collaborations with writers from around the world. City Works Press is an all-volunteer non-profit, funded by local writers and friends of the arts, committed to the publication of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and art by members of the San Diego City College community and beyond.  

Sunday, October 21, at 4:30 at Tiger!Tiger! City Works Press, in concert with Verbatim Books, is proud to present the release reading for local novelist Josh Turner and San Diego poet, Joe Medina.  Fall 2018 marks 13 years of publication by SD City Works Press, and Baxt and Medina’s works continue our tradition of birthing first books by homegrown authors.   [Read more…]

German ‘Indivisible’ Movement Draws 240,000 to Berlin Rally | Video Worth Watching

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German far-right groups have been growing in numbers, but Germans opposed to racism and hyper-nationlism are in vastly greater numbers and continue to push back with counter-demonstrations. Organizers in Germany that are promoting inclusivity and diversity use the hashtag: #unteilbar (#indivisible in German) in recognition of the enshrinement of this principle in the German constitution. The organizers of this recent event in Berlin were expecting a turnout of around 40,000, but were amazed when participation swelled to around 240,000. Additional coverage at NPR here.   [Read more…]

A Sampling of 2018 Voter Guides for San Diegans | Progressive Activist Calendar, October 12-22, 2018

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I don’t know if there’s Blue Wave building, but I can tell you I haven’t seen such engagement and interest in an election in recent memory. This week’s activist calendar includes 36 events related to canvassing or voter education, and I know I just scratched the surface.

Another indication of voter interest is the proliferation of voter guides. Not that long ago, the term ‘voter guide’ either meant a handout from a political party or a slate mailer from a pay to play outfit.

Given that I worked on two such efforts this year, I thought I’d take a few minutes to catalog and comment upon some of what I’m seeing in the way of election-related compendiums and endorsement lists.    [Read more…]

Valve Turners on Trial: Judge Acquits Three Climate Activists Who Shut Down Tar Sands Pipelines | Video Worth Watching

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From the Democracy Now! YouTube page:

A month before the 2016 election, anti-pipeline activists staged an unprecedented coordinated action to shut down the flow of oil from the United States to Canada. On October 11, 2016, activists in North Dakota, Washington, Montana and Minnesota turned the manual safety valves on four pipelines, temporarily halting the flow of nearly 70 percent of the crude oil imported to the United States from Canada. They came to be known as the “Valve Turners.” What followed was a lengthy legal battle that ended with some of the activists in jail. But on Tuesday, three valve turners who broke into an oil pipeline facility in Minnesota on that day in 2016 were acquitted. We speak with the valve turners themselves, Annette Klapstein and Emily Johnston, about their acquittal. Johnston is a poet and co-founder of 350Seattle.org and Klapstein is a retired attorney for the Puyallup tribe and member of the Raging Grannies. We also speak with their attorney Kelsey Skaggs and Dr. James Hansen, the former top climate scientist at NASA.

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Garbage In, Garbage Out: Supes Ready to Vote Based on a Failed Staff McClellan-Palomar Airport Analysis

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The San Diego County Board of Supervisors  (BOS) cannot decide wisely when it relies on poor staff information.

Need an example?  Look at the BOS October 10, 2018, McClellan-Palomar Airport, Agenda Item.   Palomar is in the city of Carlsbad.

County staff recommends that the Board approve a 20-Year Palomar Master Plan (PMP) to spend up to $112,000,000 to extend the 4900-foot runway up to 900 feet and to relocate the runway about 100 feet to the north before 2036.     [Read more…]

UN Climate Report Warns of Grim Consequences, Shrinking Time Frame for Action

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By Meteor Blades / Daily Kos

A decade, maybe a little more, is all the time we have left for acting to keep global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial era, U.N. scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced Monday. That’s 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Since the dawn of the industrial age, global warming has boosted temperatures 1.0-1.2 degrees Celsius.

The good news from the scientists is that the 1.5-degree goal may still be attainable. That’s unlike what most scientists thought when the 2015 Paris climate agreement included 1.5 degrees as an “aspirational” goal. Their view was that it was only realistic to shoot for 2 degrees (3.6 degrees F).

The bad news is we’re nowhere near either of those goals and the consequences of not acting soon are grim. As we have heard from scientists more than once previously, those consequences are happening more immediately than previously thought, according to the draft IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C.    [Read more…]

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