May 25, 2021 GREENZINE SF Green Party Weekly News and Events www.sfgreenparty.org twitter.com/sfgreenparty instagram.com/sfgreenparty mastodon.sfgreens.org/@sfgreenparty www.facebook.com/groups/SFGreenParty/ Dear Greens, At our CC meeting last week, we proposed resuming in-person meetings on June 23 (meetings are held the the 4th Wed of each month from 7-9 pm at the Redstone; see below). Since we don't know in advance who might be coming to the meetings, our suggested protocol would be to ask at the beginning if everybody present is fully vaccinated, and if so, we will not require people to wear masks (although you are welcome to do so). If anybody is not vaccinated, we would all wear masks during the meeting. Let us know if you are comfortable with this process. Are there any Greens who want to participate in in-person meetings, but will not be able to be fully vaccinated (i.e., 2 weeks past your last shot) by June 23? Email us at cc@sfgreens.org with your feedback. We also wanted to let Greens who are members of our local Pacifica radio station, KPFA, know that we've endorsed a NO vote on the proposed new Pacifica bylaws. If you are KPFA member, you should get a ballot on June 7. More info is on our website: https://sfgreenparty.org/endorsements/96-endorsement-against-new-kpfa-bylaws and here is the article on Greenbaiting that we linked to: https://sfbayview.com/2021/05/march-madness-mccarthyism-at-kpfa/ Finally, here are two free online lectures and events today and tomorrow, featuring some Green Party candidates: Tue, 5/25, 3:30 pm -- Dr. Margaret Flowers, MD, on a Green Medicare for All during the Biden Era -- Flowers will be discussing advocating for a Green Medicare for All and also lay out a Green Vision for Medicare for All and the challenges the Biden Administration poses to that fight. Flowers is the director of PopularResistance.org and the host of Clearing the FOG radio. She is also an adviser to the board of Physicians for a National Health Program, for which she served as a congressional fellow in 2009-10 -- Flowers is a past member of the GPUS steering committee and ran for US Senate as a Maryland Green in 2016. She is active with her local and state Green Party: https://www.gp.org/muskegon_greens_may_speaker_series_event Wed, 5/26, 3:30 pm -- Conversations on Culture: Race, Myth, Art = Justice -- Biden/Harris: Impact on Black and Brown communities -- Has the new Biden Harris administration's promise of change been fulfilled? Are our communities better? -- With Karl Rodney, co-founder of New York Carib News; Esmeralda Simmons, founder and former director, The Center for Law and Social Justice, Medgar Evers College; Rosa Clemente, journalist, scholar-activist, and former 2008 Green Party vice-presidential candidate; and three others: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/conversations-on-culture-race-art-myth-justice-... *===========================* What: Save the Date - SF Green Party Monthly Meeting Where: Redstone Bldg (2940 16th Street, near South Van Ness) #301, SF When: Wed, June 23, 7-9 pm We hope to see you again in person this June! Since we don't know in advance who might be coming to the meetings, our suggested protocol would be to ask at the beginning if everybody present is fully vaccinated, and if so, we will not require people to wear masks (although you are welcome to do so). If anybody is not vaccinated, we would all wear masks during the meeting. Every 4th Wednesday the SF Green Party meets to discuss issues of concern, listen to interesting speakers, endorse events, plan outreach and more! Everyone welcome. All meetings are wheelchair accessible. To make a presentation or gain the SFGP endorsement of events and issues, please contact our SFGP County Council at: cc@sfgreens.org *===========================* Below are some more online events -- as before, almost all of them are free, and they're hosted across the country, as well as in Canada, and the UK. (The listed times are the local Pacific time zone times). Tue, 5/25, 6 pm -- Cynthia Kaufman discusses her new book, "The Sea Is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook" -- By explaining the entrenched forces that are preventing rapid action, it helps you understand the nature of the political reality we are facing and arms you with the tools you need to overcome them -- Organized by by City Lights Booksellers & Publishers: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cynthia-kaufman-in-conversation-with-francesca-... Wed, 5/26, 11:30 am -- Regenerative Agriculture - Eating our way out of Climate Chaos -- What if food could be grown in a way that regenerates the land, stores carbon, promotes biodiversity and stops flooding, all while growing healthy, nutrition-rich food? -- Dan Geerah has spent the last three years working closely with food producers, encouraging them to work with nature and not against it. Formerly a Farm Conservation Adviser for a local charity, where he helped farmers move to regenerative practices, Dan now spends his time helping landowners collaborate across landscapes to join up habitats, protecting their ecological value, while continuing to produce healthy food: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-talk-regenerative-agriculture-eating-our... Wed, 5/26, 3 pm -- Human Rights Book Salon: Chiara Cordelli - “The Privatized State” -- Many governmental functions today—from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation—are outsourced to private entities. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot. Author Chiara Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking -- Cordelli is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/human-rights-book-salon-chiara-cordelli-the-pri... Wed, 5/26, 7 pm -- The Public Health Threat of Policing and Mass Incarceration -- In 2020, an average of three people were killed by the police every day of the year. The highly respected medical journal, The Lancet, and the CDC both state that racism is a serious threat to public health. Policing is supposed to protect, not threaten lives, and yet Black people are killed by police at 2.6 times the rate of white people. Mass incarceration adds to this burden by harming more than rehabilitating -- We will explore these issues and more with expert guest speakers Zach Norris, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center, and Dr. Jennifer James, bioethics researcher, professor, and Black feminist scholar at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) -- Sponsored by San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-public-health-threat-of-policing-and-mass-i... Thu, 5/27, 7:30 am -- Military Myanmar: Fearing Freedom -- A panel discussion with academics and activists on the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021 & the future of democracy -- With David Brenner, a Lecturer in Global Insecurities at the University of Sussex, and author of Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar's Borderlands; Htike Htike, a Refugee Advocate from Rakhine State and a Rohingya Research Scholar at Queen Mary University of London; Wai Hnin Pwint Thon, a Burmese human rights activist with The Burma Campaign UK; and Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, a Burmese artist, and the grandson of Sao Shwe Thaik, the first President of the Union of Burma who was overthrown & imprisoned in the military coup in 1962: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/military-myanmar-fearing-freedom-tickets-152829... Thu, 5/27, 9 am -- Global Living Room: ONENESS VS. THE 1% with VANDANA SHIVA, physicist, peace prize winner, scholar, and author -- Organized by HATCH, a non-profit ecosystem that is a "chemistry set of diverse individuals, industries, and expertise — collaborators, who cross-pollinate to accelerate solutions for positive impact and HATCH A Better World": https://www.eventbrite.com/e/global-living-room-tickets-141346718841?aff=ebd... Thu, 5/27, 5:30 pm -- We are the Land: A History of Native California -- We Are the Land recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood—paying particularly close attention to the persistence and activism of California Indians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries -- With William J. Bauer, Jr., an enrolled citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes and Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; and Damon B. Akins, Associate Professor of History at Guilford College, in Greensboro, North Carolina: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/we-are-the-land-a-history-of-native-california-... Fri, 5/28, 12 Noon -- A Test of Empathy: Engagement with the Unhoused (Homeless) -- Engagement with the unhoused population can be difficult or awkward for most average people. However, ignoring them is not a long-term solution. As a nation there is so much more we can do to support and enable people to escape the cycle of homelessness. There are viable long-term solutions that can take millions of people off the streets and into suitable homes. It's possible and can happen within our lifetimes - but it won't happen overnight: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-test-of-empathy-engagement-with-the-unhoused-... Thu, 6/10, 3 pm -- Noam Chomsky: Confluence of Challenges: The Fate of the Human Experiment -- We live at a moment of extraordinary challenges, unique in human history: environmental catastrophe, nuclear war, new pandemics, all too many others. Crucially, for each imminent crisis we know of feasible solutions, which can lead to a better world. What we do not know is whether humans, who have the fate of the world in their hands, have the moral and intellectual capacity to rise to the challenge and do what must be done. And soon. There can be no delay -- Considered the founder of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in modern history. Chomsky is also one of the most influential public intellectuals in the world. He has written more than 100 books, his most recent being “Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power.”: https://event.newschool.edu/ICSINoamChomsky *===========================* What: Stop HR 1 When: Now Where: Online Dear Greens, HR 1 is sold as a way to get money out of politics and to protect voters, but it contains a poison pill fordemocracy and opposition parties like the Green Party. HR1 quintuples the amount of money Green presidential campaigns will be required to raise to qualify for federal matching funds: from $5,000 in each of 20 states to $25,000 per state. The Green Party stands opposed to this bait-and-switch legislation that claims to improve access to voting while actually dismantling everyone's right to organize electorally against the parties of War and Wall Street. In a recent Gallup poll, a record 62% of US voters said we need a new major party. HR 1 is just the latest example of how the parties of War and Wall Street have no shame about strangling democracy to preserve their duopoly, even while pretending they're doing exactly the opposite. Please donate to the Green Party today so we can fight back. No doubt you've heard from "progressive" groups about how HR 1 contains much-needed voter protections. And it's true, HR1 contains some badly needed reforms. That makes it all the more shameful for the Democrats to use those reforms as cover to eliminate competition from alternative parties. Goto our Action Page (https://www.gp.org/hr_1) and Tell Congress: Stop HR 1, the "Voting Rights Bill" That Restricts Voter Choice! And make sure you tell your family and communities how HR 1 will: - Eliminate the limits on donations and expenditures candidates can receive and make — what kind of campaign finance reform is that? - Inflate the amount of money national party committees can give to candidates from $5000 to $100 million, an astonishing increase of 1999900% that would give party bosses virtually unlimited power to flood elections with big money. - Abolish the general election campaign block grants that parties can access by winning at least 5% of the vote in the previous presidential election. HR1 will eliminate this provision that was created to give a fair shot to alternative parties that demonstrate significant public support. - Replace the general election block grants (where each qualified candidate receives a set, lump sum of public funding for campaign expenses) with matching funds through Election Day — a huge step backwards for public campaign finance reform — using the above-mentioned criteria designed to squeeze out alternative parties and independent candidates. Instead of trying to fool American voters and eliminating minor party voices, the Green Party calls for real reforms to democratize elections: - The Fair Representation Act, introduced in 2018 and 2019, would enact Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) and multi-member districts for Congressional elections, giving voters more power and more choice. - Individual state governments should enact RCV for their elections, including the presidential election. - Fully-public campaign finance for every federal, state and local office through the Clean Money/Clean Elections model now used in Arizona and Maine. For more info about how you can help, see: https://www.gp.org/hr_1 *===========================* To submit events for our newsletter, please email a short blurb to news@sfgreens.org. Messages to a mailing list will be rejected.