[SFGP] Greenzine - Return to in-person meetings in June, Oppose new KPFA bylaws

Tue May 25 09:17:49 PDT 2021

May 25, 2021
GREENZINE
SF Green Party Weekly News and Events

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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 at 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-registration-120439659263?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

*===========================*

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 at 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-caparas-tickets-142199577765?aff=erellivmlt

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-way-out-of-climate-chaos-tickets-154240073211?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

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-privatized-state-tickets-151999367199?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

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-incarceration-tickets-149979802627?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

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-152829570359?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch&keep_tld=1

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=ebdssbonlinesearch

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-on-zoom-tickets-149065489893?aff=ebdssbeac

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-homeless-tickets-154607219355?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

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

*===========================*

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