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  • Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition

    Bernie Sanders and Harry Reid screen new film, “The Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014” – Watch it free “We’re dealing with campaign finance reform. And if you’re interested in education, climate change, health care, any other major issue facing this country, you have got to be concerned about campaign finance reform” (Bernie Sanders). http://www.bravenewfilms.org/koch2014#sthash.AsEkjkPo.dpuf

    Guantanamo protest Friday, May 23 at NOON

    (source)

    On the Boston Common at NOON on Friday, May 23rd, concerned citizens will protest the indefinite detention of men at Guantanamo and elsewhere in the phony war on terror. This day is the anniversary of Obama’s last pronouncement that he would close Guantanamo. If you plan to come and would like to speak and sign, contact Susan McLucas, (617) 776-6524 or SusanBMcL@gmail.com. We’re looking for people who want to wear orange jumpsuits and hoods and some to explain the stories of different detainees. We’re also preparing a song that we’d like people to practice a bit. Please come!

    Flyer: Guantanamo protest May 23 2014 flier

    Your Disaster, Their Profit Margin

    Zombie

    Invitation to Single-Payer Birddogging—5/22/14

    & Zombie March–TODAY

     

    Help stop the blood sucking vampires –aka for profit healthcare companies–that have made the United States healthcare system the laughing stock of the civilized world.

    You  can make single-payer healthcare the top issue of the current Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign season!

     

    “How?” you might ask — We plan to attend campaign events between now and the primary election in September and the general election in November to ask each candidate – Republican and Democrats – to commit to implementing a single payer system in Massachusetts if they are elected. We call this birddogging. Several candidates already support single-payer.

     

    Why this strategy? Showing up at these events lets the candidates know that people in MA support single-payer. Plus, while they are seeking votes and trying to get elected, they are more likely to make policy commitments than when they are comfortably settled into their State House office. Students used this strategy during the 2008 presidential campaign to secure $50 billion in federal funding for global health and AIDS funding. It’s as simple as showing up, asking your question, and taking a picture with the candidate– as long as we repeat until our goal is reached!

    Is there more to it? There is a little more to it — so we are inviting you to get trained and to meet other students and single-payer advocates on Thursday, May 22nd, at Harvard Medical School. We will also provide an introduction to what a single-payer system could do for MA, as well as background on the gubernatorial candidates. If you cannot attend the training, but are interested in future birddogging opportunities, please fill out the form below and we will keep you updated about the campaign.

    What: Birddogging training and more on single-payer and the current candidates for Governor

    Where: Harvard Medical School, TMEC 109, 260 Longwood Ave

    When: 6:30pm on Thursday, May 22nd

    Questions? Email Katrina (kciraldo@bu.edu) or Danielle (danielle_back@hms.harvard.edu)

     Capitalist healthcare is an oxymoron. It’s not about health and they don’t care.

    NO COMPASSION FOR PROFIT. 

    Zombie March: Today

    4:00 PM, South Station

    Volunteers Meet: 3:30pm

     

    The Rules:

    1. you may come as a zombie, a survivor, or a protestor, or anything else that ties in with the theme.

    2. no physical contact with regular people, if they tell you to go away do it, try not to scare children as well.

    3. weapon rules, nerf guns or water guns or cap guns only, melee weapons are allowed long as they are either foam or other kind of material which can not injure or you are not swinging it. if people ask you not to shoot them don’t, also DO NOT shoot anyone wearing makeup on places where they have applied said makeup, you can inadvertently undo hours of their hard work in seconds. I don’t care if your airsoft gun isn’t loaded do NOT bring it.

    4. always stay on the sidewalk unless crossing, and break character when crossing, we don’t want the group to be split due to people shambling across the street.

    5. Don’t get blood on storefronts/windows, or on the ground of South Station, they let us do this and all they ask is to not make a mess.

    6. come introduce yourself and say thank you to myself and the volunteers, it takes about 6 months of solid work to make this happen every year and varying financial cost not to mention my sanity. it is a free event so all we ask is your appreciation, come say hi and give some feedback.

    Two special events this weekend on (1) inequality; and (2) whistleblowers

    (contributed by jslives)

    This weekend whistleblower and author Peter Van Buren will be in Boston for two very special events at Community Church of Boston (565 Boylston), as well as at least one book reading elsewhere. Peter has a lot to say on many topics we all care about, and I hope you’ll be able to see him while he’s here.

    FRIDAY, MAY 16, 7:30-10:00PM
    An Evening with Peter Van Buren:
    Ghosts of Tom Joad in Today’s Great Recession
    With Music and Refreshments (wine, cheese, etc.)
    Suggested donation, $10–flexible; sliding fee

    Peter Van Buren, who spent more than two decades working as a foreign-service officer in the U.S. State Department, is a prolific author, as well as co-producer of the new documentary “Silenced.” He will lead a lively discussion of his most recent book, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent, an exploration of the causes and effects of ever-deepening economic inequality in America and how average people are getting by in today’s downsized, outsourced, and minimum-wage economy.

    Tom Joad was the central character of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the Depression-era classic, published 75 years ago this month. Many of the economic hardships faced by the fictional Joad family then–increased mechanization of work, home foreclosures, soup kitchens, joblessness– are similar to those faced by “the 99 percent” in today’s parallel Great Recession.

    Ghosts tells the story of radical changes in the American way of life through the experiences of a single family, living in a Rust-Belt town whose factory has closed. It is based in fact, told through fiction. (Similarly, Grapes told the story of the itinerant Dust-Bowl Joad family, forced to move from what had been a thriving farming area and to seek jobs, dignity, and hope elsewhere.)

    SUNDAY, MAY 18, 11AM ff.
    Sacco-and-Vanzetti Award Ceremony
    (Open to the public)

    Mr. Van Buren will also be accepting CCB’s 2014 Sacco-and-Venzetti Award at CCB next weekend, as a whistleblower himself and on behalf of all whistleblowers. His last book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, is an honest examination of often-misguided U.S. “reconstruction” priorities and efforts in post-war Iraq. That book brought him a Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction award; but it also drew the attention and ire of the State Department, and of an administration with an unprecedented record of prosecuting whistleblowers, instead of rewarding them for telling the truth. Falsely charged with revealing classified information without government authorization via We Meant Well, Peter became entrapped in a long legal battle that ultimately cost him his government career, but fortunately, not his freedom.

    Copies of Ghosts of Tom Joad will be available for sale and for signing during both of these events. (And feel free to bring along your copy of We Meant Well, or of Why Peace–a book to which Peter contributed a section–to CCB for author autographs, too.)

    More information available on request, including book reviews, Peter’s recent articles on living from one McJob to another (a fate common to those who’ve lost their government careers in recent years), and much more. And please tell friends with #StrikeDebt and other Occupy offshoots about the Friday event; those concerned about the fate of truthtellers, about the Sunday event–or tell everyone about both!

    Urgent action alert

    ACTION NEEDED: No KXL!  Call your Senators today and tell them to VOTE #NoKXL!

    Big Oil is at it again, trying to ram Keystone XL through the Senate.

    The Capitol switchboard will patch you through: (202) 224-3121

    Email:  https://secure.sierraclub.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=13551
    (Rita Sebastian).

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