Dear FloodBoston network,

We have an exciting meeting coming up this Sunday, Feb. 1st at 3PM at Encuentro 5. It will be our very first spokes-council. While our meetings so far have focused on the structure and formation of affinity groups (AG’s), the spokes-council will focus on coordinating many AG’s around planned actions of resistance/support. We will now be a network of AG’s who can coordinate efforts (and actions) to create larger, more disruptive rifts in the status quo.

We are hoping to bring in AG’s that are focused on the environment, human justice, and all things left/progressive. FloodBoston believes that we are all fighting one fight, and so the coordination of many diverse groups is our goal.

If you are coming to be a spoke for your AG, please fill out this form If you have an action planned or brainstormed and want to be included in the agenda it is especially important to fill out the form by Friday at midnight. This meeting is a space to hear about upcoming actions and to facilitate collaboration.

If you do not have an AG to affiliate with, please come because we will have time to facilitate affinity group formations.

The meeting will be held at Encuentro 5
9 Hamilton Pl, Suite 2a, Boston, MA 02108
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/zEeft
We will start promptly @ 3:00-5:00 on Sunday, February 1st

In Solidarity and With Love,

FloodBoston Convening Committee

Hi Folks,

This email is to invite you to participate in the group that just formed to try and save Cape Wind. The next meeting will be 10AM this Sat. 1/24 at MIT Building 66 Room 148 (66-148).

Background

After defeating more than two-dozen Bill-Koch funded lawsuits, the nation’s first offshore windfarm is in grave danger of falling to the final lawsuit. Clean energy champions and allies all over Massachusetts and the Northeast need to mount a response to call for National Grid and NSTAR to honor their commitments to buy clean energy from the nation’s first offshore wind farm and help launch a new industry that will create tens of thousands of new American jobs in communities like New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Join the call to Save Cape Wind and stand up for our clean energy future. We the people cannot let a Koch brother stand in the way of progress because he is worried about the view from one his many mansions. Join with us to stand up for democracy, for clean energy jobs, and for a livable future

Save Cape Wind.
<3 Bobby http://floodboston.wordpress.com

1/17 Sat. 1-2pm Park St., Boston:

The weekly Saturday peace vigil at Park St.in Boston will be having its yearly observance of Martin Luther King Day weekend.We will be playing several of Martin Luther King’s eloquent speeches against war, racism, and poverty through our PA system, and speakingout on the issues of war, racism, and poverty that confront us today in 2015. Please bring your friends and family to listen and reflect on MLK’s important message.

contact: Committee For Peace And Human Rights
nosanctions (AT) yahoo (DOT) com

(from Noah)

It is with great pleasure that I write to annonce the next Flood Boston open organizing meeting. It will be held at MIT Building 4, First Floor, Room 149 (See map below for detailed directions) from 1:30-4pm.

Agenda: From 1:30 to 2 there will be refreshments and networking. Members of the affinity group that organized the recent Stop Spectra Action at State Street Headquarters will alos share some of their experiences and lessons. At 2, we will jump into an affinity group training before we get into action planning in break out groups for the remainder.

Be advised that the convening committee is hoping to transition to a spokescouncil model at the next meeting in early February. For this to work, it is important that people organize themselves into affinity groups. Please don’t be intimidated if this sounds unfamiliar or exclusive. We are committed to continuing to provide support for folks looking to join or form an AG of their own, as well as ways for individuals to participate in the spokescouncil.

If you are interested in helping to plan and facilitate Floodboston meetings and/or helping to develop our spokescouncil model, you are welcome to join the convening committee at our meeting immediately following the organizing meeting on January 11th. We are also meeting on Tuesday January 6th at the Lucy Parsons Center in Jamiaca Plain at 7 pm.

I am truly excited for a year of unprecedented resistance and solidarity!

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the convening committe

(click for full-sized image)

(from jslives)

Please spread the word far and wide about using this coming Saturday’s vigil and speak-out–every week, same time, same place; but different topics, against war and for social justice–to demand again that Gitmo be closed. The Saturday “regulars” have, like Witness Against Torture (which goes to DC every January), spoken out on this topic regularly.

Obama promised as a candidate and then at his first inauguration that he would close it down, even signed enabling legislation within his first two years. He continues to blame Republicans (for everything), but as Medea Benjamin said during one of his SOTU addresses–and as we’d all already said–he has the power, as commander-in-chief, to shut it down any time he chooses. Fourteen years of torture, solitary confinement, media blackouts on hunger strikes by those detained in the name of the “war on terror”? Too damn long.

Close it down! Add your voice to those of human-rights activists worldwide, next week.

(from Susan McLucas)

Next Sunday is the 14th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo. Those of us at the vigil yesterday decided that we will use our vigil next week to mark this occasion and push to close it down, once and for all! In Washington, Witness Against Torture is doing their annual demonstration in front of the White House and all around town. We will amplify their message and add our voices to the chorus of calls to close Guantanamo. We can be slightly happy that at least some people have been released recently but, of course, they all need to be let go, or else tried (though I don’t have much hope for a fair trial.)

We’ll have jumpsuits and plenty of handouts and will operate an open mic on the subject of closing Guantanamo.

We hope you can join us Sat, January 10 at 1pm (Park Street Station) . Please spread the word.