CNY PROGRESSIVE ACTION NEWSLETTER
SEPTEMBER 14, 2014
Vol. 1, No. 113
NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL NEW YORK CITIZENS IN ACTION, INC. (ESTABLISHED IN 1997)
HEADLINES
CNYCIA SEEKING VOLUNTEERS AND INTERNS
NEW CLIMATE MOVIE TO BE SCREENED AT
UTICA PUBLIC LIBRARY ON SEPTEMBER 16
CNYCIA SEEKS DONATION OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT FOR NEW OFFICE
MAYOR PALMIERI FUNDRAISER ON SEPTEMBER 18
PUPPETEER JIM MARTIN AND GARY GNU AT TRAMONTANE CAFÉ ON SEPTEMBER 20
GLOBAL PEACE MEDITATION AND PRAYER ON SEPTEMBER 21
LITERACY COALITION FUNDRAISER ON SEPTEMBER 25
UNTIL THE RULERS OBEY TALK ON OCTOBER 3
NAACP HOST FREEDOM FUND DINNER ON NOVEMBER 2
PERPETUAL WAR IS FINE WITH THE NEW YORK TIMES AFTER ALL
TO SERVE AND PROTECT OR OCCUPY AND REPRESS?
CNYCIA SEEKING VOLUNTEERS AND INTERNS
The non-partisan advocacy group Central New York Citizens in Action, Inc. is seeking interns and volunteers to fill three positions. The internships require approximately 8 hours of work per week and are unpaid.
Media Coordinator: The Media Coordinator would work on establishing up a website, formatting the newsletter, using social media to promote the organization and designing a new logo for the organization.
Community Organizer: The Community Organizer would work on community outreach, contacting the local media, holding meetings, organizing public facing events and recruiting new members.
Research Coordinator: The Research Coordinator would conduct research projects which seek to connect national issues like poverty and economic inequality to the local level. Research should include the effects of poverty, austerity and budget cuts on the Central New York region.
For more information, CONTACT:
John Furman, cnycitizenaction@gmail.com, Ph: (315) 725-0974 or Kevin Nugent knuge86@gmail.com Ph: (315) 768-4115/520-3210
NEW CLIMATE MOVIE TO BE SCREENED AT
UTICA PUBLIC LIBRARY ON SEPTEMBER 16
The Central New York Citizens in Action, Inc. will be screening the new climate change film “Disruption” at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 16 at the Utica Public Library, 303 Genesee St, Utica.
The film revolves around the growing threat of climate change and the rising popular movement pushing for action. “Disruption” documents a unique moment in our history. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future.
The screening will be free and open to public. Snacks will be provided. For more information, call 315-725-0974 or email cnycitizenaction@gmail.com. Discussion will follow the movie about short and long-term solutions to the climate crisis. Information will also be provided regarding bus from Utica for September 21 People’s Climate March in NYC. “Disruption” documents a unique moment in our history. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future.
In their description, the producers explain the film’s primary purpose is to answer a fundamental question: “When it comes to climate change, why do we do so little when we know so much?”
Like the upcoming March this month, the film will also make an attempt to inform people of the idea that the climate issue is not just an environmental concern, but a matter of social and economic justice — one that most severely and negatively impacts the poor, the marginalized, and those who strikingly have had the least to with causing it.
Information regarding the bus from Utica to New York City for the People’s Climate March can be obtained by calling 315-853-2343 Tickets can be purchased online at peoplesclimate.org/transportation.
The movie trailer can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWpK7XLqxw4
To register for the event: http://act.350.org/event/disruption_attend/8921 or
https://www.facebook.com/events/382842291866458/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
For more information, CONTACT:
John Furman, cnycitizenaction@gmail.com, Ph: (315) 725-0974 or Kevin Nugent knuge86@gmail.com Ph: (315) 768-4115/520-3210
CNYCIA SEEKS DONATION OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT FOR NEW OFFICE
The Central New York Citizens in Action, Inc. is seeking donations of computers and laptops for its new office on Oneida Square in Utica. Please contact John Furman at 725-0974 or cnycitizenaction@gmail.com.
MAYOR PALMIERI FUNDRAISER ON SEPTEMBER 18
Utica Mayor Robert M. Palmieri is having a fundraiser on Thursday, September 18th from 5-7 pm at the Saranac Brewery Courtyard. The Central New York Citizens in Action, Inc. and the Oneida County Working Families Party are urging you to join us at this event. Tickets are $50 and the event includes food, beer and live music.
This truly is an exciting time in our City. Nano-Utica is on our doorstep, businesses and buildings are opening up in downtown, our Harbor is entering its first phase of development and overall there is positive buzz in our community. Let’s keep Utica moving in the right direction!
PUPPETEER JIM MARTIN AND GARY GNU AT TRAMONTANE CAFÉ ON SEPTEMBER 20
Remember the children’s show The Great Space Coaster and the puppet GARY GNU from the 80s? The Guild of Thespian Puppets is pleased to welcome puppeteer Jim Martin and Gary Gnu as the puppet celebrity guest for their show on Saturday, September 20
at 7:00 p.m.
There is limited seated so purchase your tickets now either online or at the TRAMONTANE CAFE.
$7 at the Tramontane Café 1105 Lincoln Ave, Utica, New York 13502
$10 online
To buy tickets online go to:
http://ilionfilmcompany.com/sort-of-remember-the-80s/
All online ticket sales will be held at Will Call at the Tramontane Cafe!
* This show is intended for a mature audience.
GLOBAL PEACE MEDITATION AND PRAYER ON SEPTEMBER 21
On September 21, 2014 at 1pm Unitarian Universalist Church of Utica will host a Global Peace Meditation and Prayer event at 10 Higby Rd, Utica, NY 13501. This is in alignment with over 300 groups around the globe that will participate in the even at the same time.
LITERACY COALITION FUNDRAISER ON SEPTEMBER 25
Raise funds for literacy and remember Alexandra Kogut’s love of reading with a fun night out! Local celebrities will compete against 5th graders to find out who is the best speller, and a silent auction is sure to have something everyone can bid on.
Fundraiser for the Literacy Coalition of Herkimer and Oneida Counties
Thursday, September 25
at 6:00pm
Daniele’s Valley View County Club
620 Memorial Parkway
Utica
UNTIL THE RULERS OBEY TALK ON OCTOBER 3
A book talk by editors Clifton Ross and Marcy Rein of the new book Until the Rulers Obey
Where: Mohawk Valley Freedom School (500 Plant Street in Utica, NY at Cornerstone Community Church)
When: Friday. October 3 at 7:00pm
Sponsored by the Mohawk Valley Freedom School, CNY Citizen Action, and others.
Ross and Rein will give an overview of social movements in Latin America – what they are, their history and current struggles – and dialogue with the audience on the lessons these movements have to offer to people here in the U.S. engaged in working for a better world.
Here is a bit of information about the book itself:
Until the Rulers Obey: Voices From Latin American Social Movements includes interviews with more than 70 organizers, activists and scholars from 15 countries, Mexico to Argentina. The movements they’re part of helped bring new governments to power after decades of austerity and dictatorship. They’ve mobilized on a broad range of issues, fighting against mines and agribusiness and for housing and land; for rights as women, workers, LGBT and indigenous people; for the survival of their communities and our planet. Their organizing runs the gamut of nonviolent social change strategies, from land occupation to electoral participation to creating alternative communities.
Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein say, “This is the book we’ve been waiting for. Anyone interested in the explosion of social movements in Latin America—and the complex interplay between those forces and the ‘Pink Tide’ governments—should inhale this book immediately.”
NAACP HOST FREEDOM FUND DINNER ON NOVEMBER 2
The Oneida County Branch NAACP will host its annual Freedom Fund Dinner on Sunday, November 2, 2014 from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel-Utica Centre 200 Genesee Street Utica, N. Y. Adult Dinner ticket with Membership is $60.00. The theme of the dinner is “All in for Justice and Equality.” Funding for the branch is primarily obtained through memberships, donations, and fundraising efforts. The Freedom Fund Dinner is the major fundraiser for the branch. Your generosity and support is imperative in our ability to demonstrate the strength and commitment of the NAACP. For more information, contact Ed Jackson at 507-2656.
PERPETUAL WAR IS FINE WITH THE
NEW YORK TIMES AFTER ALL
By Norman Solomon
The editorial board of the New York Times has an Orwellian knack for war. Sixteen months ago, when President Obama gave oratorical lip service to ending “perpetual war,” the newspaper quickly touted that end as a democratic necessity. But now — in response to Obama’s speech Wednesday night announcing escalation of war without plausible end — the Times editorial voice is with the endless war program.
Under the headline “The End of the Perpetual War,” published on May 23, 2013, the Times was vehement, calling a new Obama speech “the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America.” The editorial added: “For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future.”
The Times editorial board was sweeping in its conclusion: “Mr. Obama told the world that the United States must return to a state in which counterterrorism is handled, as it always was before 2001, primarily by law enforcement and the intelligence agencies. That shift is essential to preserving the democratic system and rule of law for which the United States is fighting, and for repairing its badly damaged global image.”
But the “essential” shift is now dispensable and forgettable, judging from the New York Times editorial that appeared hours after Obama’s pivotal speech Wednesday night. The newspaper’s editorial board has ditched the concept that the state of perpetual war is unsustainable for democracy.Times editorial offers only equivocal misgivings without opposition “as President Obama moves the nation back onto a war footing.” Without a fine point on the matter, we are to understand that war must be perpetuated without any foreseeable end.
The concluding paragraph of the New York Times editorial in the Sept. 11, 2014 edition is already historic and tragic. It sums up a liberal style of murmuring reservations while deferring to the essence of U.S. policies for perpetual war: “The American military’s actions in the Middle East has (sic) often fueled Arab anger, even when the United States was spending billions of dollars on beneficial programs, including health and education. Mr. Obama expressed confidence that the plan against ISIS will work and, at the moment, seems aware of the risks he takes.”
Like the vast bulk of the rest of U.S. mass media, when push comes to militaristic shove, the New York Times refuses to make a break from the madness of perpetual war. In fact, with rare exceptions, the dominant media outlets end up fueling that madness. A strong challenge to it will have to come from elsewhere. From us.
______________________________________
Norman Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder ofRootsAction.org. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” Information about the documentary based on the book is at http://www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.
TO SERVE AND PROTECT OR OCCUPY AND REPRESS?
BY RICK COOLEY
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been a steady militarization of police forces in many of America’s cities. This has become increasingly obvious when the subject of dealing with public protests has arisen. Whether in dealings with Occupy protesters a few years ago, or with the unrest caused recently by the killing of Michael Brown (an unarmed teenager) by police in Ferguson, Missouri, many question the use of some of the brutal tactics and military style weapons used by police across the nation. There often seems to be a difference in opinion between police and protesters (particularly when they are dealing with mainly unarmed, peaceful demonstrators who feel they are simply exercising their civil rights to peaceably assemble and speak their minds freely as is written in the Constitution and Bill of Rights), as to what is the appropriate way in which each should act.
Granted, many demonstrations that took place at the height of the War in Vietnam involved activation of National Guards and an overabundance of tear gas, but the use of military equipment and tactics appears to have spread far wider than it ever was in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Local police forces have been allowed to acquire armored vehicles, machine guns and other military surplus equipment on a scale that belies the fact that violent crime in the nation as a whole has been dropping. Is there an actual need for local military forces to fight terrorism and violent drug cartels in the streets of Everytown, USA, or is this overkill that strips ordinary citizens of their Constitutionally protected civil rights in order to provide us all with some additional modicum of security and safety from those who wish us harm?
Tactics used against Occupy demonstrators, as well as in the pursuit of the Boston Marathon bombers last year and the tactics initially employed in Missouri more recently, indicate a need to rebalance the security vs civil liberty scale a bit and re-evaluate how exactly the police should be protecting and serving the members of their communities, as opposed to repressing innocent civilians and suppressing valid expressions of dissent. It may be difficult to judge what an appropriate response would be to any given situation, or what the personal safety of officers trying to maintain order in a tense confrontational situation requires, but overdoing the military hardware and physical brutality can be displayed very graphically for all the world to see in this technological age.
Our government just last year threatened outright war with Syria over the use of chemical weapons, yet our police routinely use pepper spray and tear gas to put down demonstrations. Those weapons are not intended to be lethal when used, but they are far from harmless, as anyone who has suffered from their effects can attest. The police know that – which is why they are equipped with gas masks when using them. The point here is that the use of such weapons should have a higher threshold than was exhibited in many of the Occupy protests and the incidents in Ferguson.
Incidents involving excessive force by police officers on unarmed civilians have seemed to become more frequent of late, as well, due in no small part to the proliferation of cameras of all sorts – including security and surveillance cameras in many places of business and on city streets, as well as ordinary cellphones. Anyone, on either side of the law, who thinks they can get away with questionable behavior for very long with all the eyes and ears surrounding us is in for a rude awakening sooner or later. Trying to keep it secret by confiscating a phone or arresting someone for using it, journalist or not, is a surefire way to lose public confidence. It will come out.
The Ferguson case illustrates some other problems with the way law enforcement has become unresponsive to the needs of the people it should be striving to serve. Not only is the government of that city not representative of the population as a whole, the police department is as well. Not only that, but it seems to me that the police should immersed in the life of the community they are serving. Studies that have shown racial bias in the enforcement of the law have gone unheeded for over a decade. Police in that town don’t even need to live there. No wonder many of the residents might view them as members of an occupying force than one of their own. The fact that they were not very forthcoming with information about the case and came across as trying to demonize the unarmed victim didn’t help matters, either.
Being a police officer is not easy. It’s highly dangerous work. Dealing with demonstrations also is not easy. Looting in the midst of demonstrations complicates matters enormously, but it is usually not all that difficult to separate the destructive people from the non-violent ones and treat them accordingly. Accusations of excessive force are often easier to document now than they used to be. Perceptions that police may be abusing the authority and trust placed in them are not easy to quickly correct. Ordinary citizens should not fear their police. Nor should extraordinary people fear that the police and other authority figures will punish them for expressing their grievances in a non-violent manner.
Brutality on the part of police, ignoring or thwarting the expressed wishes of the people by those who are elected to office, should all be grounds for dismissal, either outright or at the ballot box, as may be appropriate. If a situation exists where there are so many people so pissed off that they are willing to risk publicly demonstrating, the solution is not to make them cower by using armed assault vehicles, massive firepower and gas on them. When they do that sort of thing in Cairo or Beijing or just about anywhere else in the world, Americans tend to call that tyranny.
Too often of late, we see instances where our government has responded to acts of vandalism, or terror, or attempts to redress perfectly valid grievances with unnecessary, and in my mind, unconstitutionally brutal suppression and/or curtailment of what have come to be called our inalienable rights. The more we shut down major cities the way we did in the wake of the Boston Marathon, lock up hundreds of peaceful protesters and brutalize others as occurred with the various break-ups of occupy, or send in military vehicles with people who look more like soldiers than police, the closer we get to the tyranny we are taught to abhor. We should not need to be reminded by pictures of Tiananmen Square or the Arab Spring to know that is not the way people deserve to be treated in a civilized society.
NEWSLETTER ARTICLES ARE NEEDED
Please submit your articles, news item, and calendar listings to cnycitizenaction@gmail.com.
CNY PROGRESSIVE ACTION is published by Central New York Citizens in Action, Inc., P.O. Box 411, Utica, NY 13503-0411/315-725-0974 cnycitizenaction@gmail.com https://cnycitizenaction.wordpress.com
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Opinions expressed in this newsletter represent those of the authors and may not necessarily reflect the positions of the Central New York Citizens in Action, Inc.
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