Hey Everyone!

Lots to share as we head into our June SpokesCouncil, and the #StopSpectra Week of Action, which starts THIS SATURDAY.

Back in April, in coordination with our allies at FANG, we warned Spectra Energy that they had 40 days to stop the AIM Expansion. 40 days have passed.

Here’s an overview of the actions currently planned, or in the works for the coming week:

Saturday, June 6th, 9am, Swampscott, MA

Workshop, March & Rally to Keep Fracked Gas Out of Massachusetts

This event is an amazing demonstration of coordinated action, and will start the week off right. For more information, take a look at the Facebook event, and get in touch with 350MA or FloodBoston and we’ll get you plugged in. https://www.facebook.com/events/837581519689905

Sunday June 7th, FloodBoston SpokesCouncil, 3-6pm Encuentro 5, 9A Hamilton Place, Boston, MA (next to Park Street Station, Suffolk Law, and The Orpheum theatre)

If you are interested in plugging into the #StopSpectra Week of Action and haven’t found a way to engage yet, this is a great opportunity to meet folks who are planning and coordinating actions and get involved.

Monday, June 8th: 350MA Boston Node has organized a day for calling our Senators regarding the West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline and the AIM Expansion more broadly. Look out for more details to come on this.

Saturday, June 13th: FRRACS has planned actions at Bank of America locations in Weymouth, Hingham, Quincy, and invites you to join them or organize your own action at your local Bank of America branch. For information, check out nocompressor.wordpress.com

In addition, on the evening of the 13th, I (James), am planning a fundraiser, hopefully at East Meets West Bookstore, to benefit Madii ‘Lii Camp, an Indigenous camp resisting LNG Export in “Northern British Columbia.” I am looking for support on this, so please, if you can help, e-mail me at jameswbillman(AT)gmail.com

In addition, there will be both a FANG Open Mtg during the week, in Providence, and a 350CT Open Mtg, as well as other actions across the Northeast, and in Atlanta and Florida.

For more information and details, stay tuned to www.stopspectra.org and follow @FANG_Together and @FloodBoston on Twitter.”

Onwards in struggle,

James for the FloodBoston Convening Committee

Contact(AT)stopspectra.org

http://floodboston.wordpress.com

Monday, June 8th @ 6pm
Madison Park High School
75 Malcolm X Boulevard
Roxbury Crossing Station

Hear from victims of police brutality and meet activists who are fighting against racism in this city.

Monica James is a Black trans woman from Chicago who survived years of police abuse, including one brutal beating by a police officer in 2007. Through a community campaign, she successfully fought the 20-80 year sentence that followed, and has since been an inspiring activist in the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Carla Sheffield is the mother of Burrell Ramsey White who was murdered by the BPD in 2012. She has been an activist for justice for her son since he was killed.

Khury Petersen-Smith is a longtime anti-racist activist in Boston and member of the
International Socialist Organization. He has written on the Black Lives Matter movement and spoken from Boston to Australia about the movement’s significance.

Current Sponsors: International Socialist Organization, Families for Justice as Healing, Communist Party of Boston, People of Brookline Against Racism

For more info contact: eladirb(AT)yahoo.com

Today at 7:00pm – 8:30pm
First Church in Jamaica Plain Unitarian Universalist
6 Eliot St, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts 02130

See more at: https://www.facebook.com/events/799158853526466/

The Jamaica Plain Forum welcomes back Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges, as he discusses what it takes to be a rebel in modern times.

Popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.

From South African activists who dedicated their lives to ending apartheid, to contemporary anti-fracking protests in Alberta, Canada, to whistleblowers in pursuit of transparency, Wages of Rebellion shows the cost of a life committed to speaking the truth and demanding justice. Hedges has penned an indispensable guide to rebellion.

Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges—who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class—investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion.

Chris Hedges is a columnist for Truthdig. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans, with fifteen years at the New York Times. He is the author of numerous bestselling books, including Empire of Illusion; Death of the Liberal Class; War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning; and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.

Break the Chains is a semi-monthly all ages, all gender, all genre dance party that features nationally touring queer and trans performers.

RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/794035580716547

Saturday, June 6th will be a very special Break the Chains, and you are all invited! We’ll be raising funds for the Break the Chains TOUR, which will take Taina Asili and I across Europe with our kids to spread radical queer music to the world.

Featuring live performances from:
LIZZY PITCH
MYRIAM ORTIZ
KELLY DOGTOOTH
EVAN GREER

Then your favorite DJ’s spin dance music while we get down!

Saturday, June 6th
6:00pm – 10:00pm
Make Shift Boston
549 Columbus Ave, Boston
Near Mass Ave & Symphony MBTA stops

This space is wheelchair accessible and has a wheelchair accessible bathroom.

$10 – 20 sliding scale suggested donation. $5 youth / low income. No one turned away!

Learn more about Break the Chains in Dig Boston

PLEASE: Come to this party and have fun but respect the space! We are trying to stay friends with our neighbors so please DO NOT hang out outside AT ALL during the night. Thanks!!!

Thursday, June 4, 6-8pm
First Parish, 1446 Mass Ave, corner of Church St.
Harvard Square

Join SpeakOUT Boston and BAGLY for a reception and book signing with photographer Rachelle Lee Smith for her inspiring book Speaking OUT: Queer Youth in Focus. Smith’s book is a photographic essay that explores a wide spectrum of experiences of youth aged 14-24 who identify as queer. She’ll discuss her process and books will be available for sale. This is a multi-generational event so please bring your kids, your spouses, your friends, and elders! We’ll have a youth photo booth open to create personal statements in your own photo. Light food and refreshments.

For more info, contact Ellyn(AT)speakoutboston.org.