Social Event
Rice for Peace and Justice along with a number of campus organizations are organizing several events to mark the 5th anniversary of the Iraq Occupation.
Wednesday, March 19:
Art Exhibit: 10:30 AM - 9:00 PM in Grand Hall, RMC
"Civilians of War" will consist of over 100 pieces of art created between 2002 and 2008 by David Miller (Berkeley, CA) and Marc Levine (Houston, TX) intended to shed light upon the plight of innocent Iraqis.
Rice Democrats, Rice Libertarians, Harris County Libertarian Party, Houston Peace and Justice Center, HACER, and Rice Amnesty.
The Harris County Women's Political Caucus will have a reception at Cafe Express at Uptown Park on February 26th at 6:30pm. The Caucus invites interested members to attend and learn more about the organization and candidates seeking election in 2008!
Harris County Women's Political Caucus
A march and rally against the war in Iraq will be held in Houston on Saturday, November 17. Participants will meet at Ervan Chew Park, 4507 Dunlavy, at 1 pm. At 1:30 pm, we will march to Bell Park, 4800 Montrose. We will have a parade permit, so we will be marching in the streets and should have quite a presence. The rally in Bell Park will include speakers, musicians, and spoken word artists.
On Saturday, November 17, we will raise our voices together to demand: Stop the war on Iraq! Bring all the troops home now! Hands off Iran! End the occupation of Afghanistan and Palestine! Stop the war on immigrants, people of color, and workers! Defend the civil liberties and civil rights of all!
This event is being organized by the International Socialist Organization, the Irish Unity Committee, the Latin American Organization for Immigrant Rights, Mexicanos en Accion, and the Progressive Workers Organizing Committee. If you would like to endorse the November 17 march and rally, or would like more information, please call (832) 692-2306, (713) 302-3865, (832) 282-6997, or (713) 528-1817. We will send a bilingual flyer for the event next week.
Please plan to join us on November 17. It is going to take all of us working together to stop this war. And prevent the next one.
Are you tired of endless wars and injustices in the world? Are you tired of seeing our friends and family members in the military coming home hurt, or worse? We share a common dream of peace and human unity. Come join us on June 3rd as we speak out and make our voices heard at 11am on the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. We want to send a positive message to Houston, and the world in an effort to end the war in Iraq. Bring signs and banners, but most importantly yourselves and a positive attitude. We are not here to offend, but to express our ideas on how to make the world we live in a better place.
Humans 4 Peace
Join us for our annual spring event and membership drive. This year we have High Times editor Steve Bloom as our MC and lots of great speakers and music. We will also have the Hempstorian on hand currating his latest aquisitions on the Hempstory of Cannabis along with the Drug War Memorial. We'll have speakers from local reform organizations and media. Music from the Two High String Band, Hightailers, Potroast, New Jack Hippies, Nectarine. Giant Drum Circle starts at 4:20pm. Drummers get in free before 5pm. Last Concert Cafe 1403 Nance houstonnorml.org
Houston NORML
Political Satire-- well worth carpooling with friends to see!
If Gandhi had played guitar, grown hair and sung at the top of his lungs, he still wouldn't have had Roy Zimmerman's wicked sense of musical satire. On the other hand, Roy Zimmerman has never liberated a nation from a tyrannical oppressor. He's working on it though, one song at a time. Roy sings a compelling combination of socially conscious comedy and original music. It's Lenny Bruce meets Stephen Sondheim meets Phil Ochs in Brian Wilson's living room. Millbend co-producer and resident songwriter Pat Hanna will open this concert with a few of his pithy and politically incorrect songs.
Millbend Coffeehouse
YOU and your friends are invited to a SIGN MAKING PARTY for PEACE
Why: Make giant signs and banners to use on Mar. 20 for the coordinated freeway blogging and candlelight vigil, on freeway overpasses for the 4th anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Make your own sign stressing the need for peace and for bringing the troops home now. And of course, you can use your sign later, or donate it to someone else who will, as the freeway blogging is a continuing activity as long as US troops are in Iraq.
Honor Black History and join us Friday, Feb. 23 for refreshments and a visit with other activists, followed by the screening of the new documentary, 3 Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation. Learn about a history effectively erased from discourse.
Help us spread the word and invite your friends and family to come along. Fliers for distribution are linked below.
6:30 PM - social, potluck refreshments -- bring something to share, or more importantly just show up
7:30 PM - movie showing
9:00 PM - discussion, more refreshments
The Havens Center is located at 1827 W. Alabama. Parking available in lot next to Divino’s, or in St. Stephen’s parking lot, just east of the Center.
Progressive Action Alliance
Comedy night benefiting the Houston Peace and Justice Center - Saturday, February 24
Join other progressive activists for the best pizza in town plus great stand-up comedy by Chuck Montgomery. Montgomery is a pioneer and 26-year veteran of the Houston comedy scene, having started his career at the Comedy Workshop in 1978. During the eighties and nineties, he headlined countless comedy clubs and college shows. In his pre-television years, Drew Carey opened for Chuck. He has worked with Sam Kennison, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, Pat Paulson, Brett Butler, and many others.
Houston Peace & Justice Center
Attend the regular monthly meeting of the Progressive Action Alliance, as we plan actions to promote impeachment, withdrawal from Iraq, and progressive political change. If you are reading this on the PAA home page, click on the event title for more details.
Come early (6:30-7:00 PM) if you'd like to visit with others before the meeting, swap stories, and enjoy refreshments (pot luck -- whatever people decide to bring). You can bring something to eat or drink later, too, although it isn't required.
Agenda items include: * More discussion on goals & objectives for 2007 - bring your ideas * Promoting impeachment * Ending the Iraq Occupation & promoting peace * 4th Friday Flicks movies We'll also have both styles of our Impeach T-shirts available, for donations ($10-20 suggested).
We meet the 2nd Thursday of each month to discuss recent and upcoming activities. Join us!
Park either: * on the north side of Alabama, across street from Havens Center * just east of the Havens Center in the parking lot for St. Stephen's Episcopal Church
Progressive Action Alliance
On the 4th Friday of January (the 26th), join us for refreshments and a time to visit with other activists, followed by a screening of the 1953 film classic, Salt of the Earth, and a discussion.
Help us spread the word and invite your friends and family to come along. Fliers for distribution are attached below.
6:30 PM - social, potluck refreshments -- bring something to share, or just show up
7:30 PM - movie showing
9:00 PM - discussion, more refreshments
The Havens Center is located at 1827 W. Alabama. Parking available in lot next to Divino’s, or in St. Stephen’s parking lot, just east of the Center.
For more info see below from Wikipedia or call 713.524.1944.
Progressive Action Alliance
On the 4th Friday of December, join us for refreshments and a time to visit with other activists, followed by a showing of a DVD and a discussion.
6:30 PM - social, potluck refreshments -- bring something to share, or just show up
7:00 PM - movie showing
9:00 PM - discussion, more refreshments
The discussion will also include the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign.
DVD showing:
On Oct. 30, 2006, 325 people came to a teach-in in New York City to hear why "It's Worse Than You Think: where the Bush regime is taking the world and why it must be stopped."
Our movie night this month features the DVD made from that teach-in, with presentations by five notable figures.
The teach-in features:- Les Roberts - An author of the recent study revealing that over 600,000 Iraqis have died since war began.
- Bill Goodman - Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director
- Cristina Page - Author, "How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex"
- Larry Everest - Author, "Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda"
- Chris Hedges - author of bestseller "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"
The following excerpts from speakers will give a taste of the very real danger facing the world. Watch the full teach-in online at http://www.worldcantwait.net/Stream10-30-06/part1/index.html or come to our movie showing to find out just why it is "worse than you think".
Click here to read one reaction to the teach-in titled "The Little Idealist in All of Us".
Les Roberts
An author of the recent Johns Hopkins report revealing that over 600,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the 2003 invasion and occupation-- far more than admitted by the US Government or widely reported in the press. He is a Columbia Univ. Lecturer in the Program on Forced Migration and Health. He will speak on "Incompatibility of Contrition and the Denial of Science": how systems for discrediting or confusing science have been used by political leaders in recent years to prevent accountability with regard to smoking, global warming, the failure of abstinence programs to prevent teen pregnancies, and how similar techniques have been used to downplay the death toll in Iraq.Excerpt:
Can you imagine today, the president, calling in the head of the FDA, or calling in the head of the EPA, and saying, okay, you're the scientist, so you're going to decide whether or not we're going to regulate tobacco, or whether or not we're going to, for example, have regulations of carbon emmissions, I just want to be informed in advance. That's a laughable notion.
Bill Goodman
As Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, Goodman is involved in many legal challenges to the Bush administration, including Supreme Court cases to stop illegal domestic surveillance, challenge extraordinary rendition, and defend Guantanamo prison detainees.Excerpt:
About 791 years ago, a bunch of guys that who called themselves noblemen actually did something that was noble. They forced the king of England to put in into written words a recognition of the right of habeus corpus...
791 years later, a man who would not recognize nobility if it crawled out from under the rug and bit him on the nose, signed a statute called the Military Commissions Act that was a vast assault on the right of habeus corpus.
This one moment, this signing of this legislation which he had engineered, which he had designed, which he had prepared for by planning the whole Guantanamo operation...
This moment i think recognized and emblemized what this administration is all about.
Cristina Page
Author, "How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex"; Vice President, Institute for Reproductive Health Access at NARAL Pro-Choice New York.Excerpt:
The pro-life movement has found a friend in George Bush because they share a disdain for science, information, evidence, proof, truth...
When the pro-life movement asked Bush to appoint an abstinence-only ideologue to oversee the nation's contraception program to the poor, Bush said yes...
When the right-to-life movement asked him to appoint an anti-contraception fanatic to the expert panel that approves contraceptives in the FDA, he said I will. And that choice led the FDA, our nation's premiere scientific agency, to make its first ideological religious decision in its history by denying the over the counter application for emergency contraceptives...
When the right-to-life movement asked whether the president supports birth control, his spokesman dodged, only willing to say Bush supports a culture of life...
When the right-to-life movement asked Bush to defund the UN agency that provides contraception to the people living in the poorest countries on earth, the places where family planning is nothing less than a life-saving technology, Bush said where do I sign.
[Click here to read the full speech]
Larry Everest
Author, "Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda"; contributor to "Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney"; an organizer of Bush Crimes Commission.Excerpt:
The call to this teach-in begins with the words that the world is facing a grave emergency. I couldn't agree more, and I'd like to add that all the shocking things we've been seen for the past 6 yrs, including the things the other speakers have been talking about and will talk about tonight, are only the beginning of the horrors this regime has in store for us, unless it's driven from power.
I don't think this is hyperbole or hysteria, I think it's based on a sober assessment of what the Bush agenda is all about and where it's taking us and the rest of the world...
Obviously more and more people are opposing the war, are unhappy about the war, don't particularly like the war. But unfortunately most people still think that Iraq was a mistake. They don't understand the actual reasons that this war was launched. They think it's going so bad so fast because of blunders by Bush; they don't understand that developments in Iraq are rooted in the very nature of the agenda that's being carried out there. And far too many people believe that there's still some kind of legitimacy in Bush's so-called "war on terror". And flowing from this I don't think people understand the grave danger of escalation of war in the region, whether it be in Iraq or Iran or other countries.
Chris Hedges
War reporter for almost 20 years, former Middle East bureau chief for New York Times; author of bestseller "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" and "Losing Moses on the Freeway: America 's Broken Covenant With The Ten Commandments." Current article: "Bush's Nuclear Apocalypse."
Excerpt:
As I speak to you tonight, the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason, and fast-attack submarine US Newport News are arriving in the Straights of Hormuz off of Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it. The chances of a war with Iran, a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East, are not only real, but probably by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as a few weeks.
Progressive Action Alliance
Join us for a potluck & free double feature screening of two anti-war movies: Sir! No Sir! and The Peace Patriots
Progressive Action Alliance
This is a followup to the Nov. 9 PAA meeting where we discussed ideas for promoting impeachment and getting the US out of Iraq. We'll meet after the ACLU fundraiser movie "Shut Up & Sing" about the Dixie Chicks and their treatment after they spoke up about Bush (see http://www.paa-tx.org/node/2424 for info on that movie) at Mykonos Restaurant (Greek food and more) to continue the discussions we started Nov. 9. Those who are not coming to the movie are welcome to come early and have dinner (or dessert, or just something to drink) and discuss what you'd like to do to for impeachment and bringing the troops home.
The smell of impeachment and peace are in the air, and we want to do our part to get more people thinking about it. Bring those political yard signs you yanked up after the election, along with large pieces of cardboard or old sheets, and join us as we convert them into signs promoting getting out of Iraq, and impeachment. This will go on regardless of weather, in Bill & Cheryl Crosier's peace sign-painting laboratory (garage).
The ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, and the Weinstein Company are presenting a pre-premier screening of the Dixie Chicks' movie, "Shut Up & Sing". During the drum beating for invading Iraq, the Dixie Chicks were brave enough to say "We're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas". This resulted in radio stations across the US banning them from the airwaves. Now there's a movie that tells their story.
ACLU, ACLU of Texas, Weinstein Company
Visit and enjoy refreshments with other activists, as we help get out the vote for this critical election, to get the crooks out of Washington DC and Austin. We'll be using the Texas-based http://trueblueaction.com for calling -- this lets you call for the individual candidates you like the most.
David Van Os is concluding his Whistle Stop tour of all 254 Texas counties this week.
See the next Attorney General of Texas, a real People's Lawyer, and welcome him to Houston.
Houston area David Van Os supporters
You are invited to join the Katy Area New Democrats for a
CANDIDATE APPRECIATION BRUNCH
Hank Gilbert, Candidate for Texas Agricultural Commissioner
Katy Area New Democratic Organization (KANDO)
Free Screening of movie, Iraq for Sale. You probably remember a few of Robert Greenwald's other movies such as Outfoxed and WalMart: The High Cost of Low Price. In Iraq for Sale, Robert takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. The film uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq and the decision makers who let it happen.
Halliburton, Dick Cheney and Republican leaders everywhere don't want you to see this movie, especially in October, just a few weeks before Election Day.
Democracy for Houston
