Progressives for Pennsylvania Presents

Healthcare conference:

Single-Payer
Guaranteed Healthcare For All:

A Mainstream Solution!

Make it happen first in Pennsylvania

Thursday, September 18, 2008, 7-9 PM

Franklin & Marshall College
Roschel Performing Arts Center
628 College Ave., Lancaster  PA, 17603

 A limited number of RSVP’s for reserved seating will be accepted. Seats will be held until 30 minutes prior to the start of the event.

RSVP at progressives4pa@gmail.com. Or call Jerry Policoff at 717-295-0237 to RSVP or for further information.

View Flyer...              View Panelist Biographies...

visit Progressives4Pennsylvania.com

Aid Packages to Those Affected By the Occupations of
Iraq & Afghanistan
September 13th, Community Mennonite Church, Noon - Two

Over the past year Lancaster Students for a Democratic Society have been gathering to prepare aid packages for those affected by the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, both civilians in the countries and US servicemen and women.

With the presidential campaigns in full swing, we often hear words from the candidates of supporting the soldiers, assisting civilians in war-torn counties, and trying to bring an end to the war. However, we're never really sure that any of it's going to happen.  SDS believes that our stance against the war doesn't just mean talking about it, but acting to help those affected by it. 

On Saturday, June 13th we will be gathering at the Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster to create these packages.  Please join us anytime from noon to 2pm.

If you would just like to donate items you can call 717.519.9140 or email LancasterSDS@gmail.com or just stop by and drop them off on Saturday afternoon. 

Click here to view all the items that we are collecting.

We also take monetary donations to cover the cost of sending the packages (each care package costs $11 to send).

We have received several letters of appreciation from servicemen and women expressing their gratitude, additionally Mennonite Central Committee (the organization we send aid packages to Iraq & Afghanistan though) have told us of the appreciation the civilians show when they receive this aid.  As we stand together to end this war, we must remember the true human cost of militarism.

Local Groups Protest McCain's Visit

About 30 demonstrators, representing the Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice and Students for a Democratic Society, gathered at Penn Square Tuesday afternoon, to protest McCain's visit to Lancaster County and his foreign policy and domestic issues.

"(McCain's) trying to position himself as a green candidate, but yet (he had) a score of zero from the League of Conservation Voters last year," Millersville resident Bill Adams said. "That's the worst record for the Senate for environmental issues. From commercials, you get the feeling that he's environmentally friendly."

The protesters — holding signs reading "Honk if you want change," "McSame" and "Want More War? Vote McCain".

John Schreck, LCPJ's administrator, said he feels McCain's campaign has been misleading on important issues, focusing more on pop culture than on the Iraq War or the economy. Read more from the Intell...

LANCASTER INTERCHURCH PEACE WITNESS
Fall Peace Forum:  "A Time To Lead – the International Community and the Middle East"

OCT. 26, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

The Barshinger Center • Franklin and Marshall College • Lancaster, PA

This year's Fall Peace Forum, hosted by the Center for Liberal Arts & Society of Franklin & Marshall College, will feature Daniel Levy, a Senior Fellow at the New America and The Century Foundations in Washington, DC. Levy directs their respective Middle East Peace policy initiatives. He formerly worked as an adviser in Israeli Prime Minister Barak's office and as an official negotiator and as lead Israeli drafter of the informal Geneva Initiative peace plan. Read more...

Abu-Jamal Denied Again, New Evidence of Conspiracy
by Ben Weiss

On March 27th the US court of appeals for the Third Circuit rejected all appeals for a new trial by death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The court upheld the 2001 decision of Judge William H. Yohn Jr. who supported the conviction but negated the death sentence due to discrepancies in the original sentencing hearing. The recent ruling passed 2-1 with one judge, Marjorie Rendell recused, because her husband, governor Ed Rendell, was District Attorney of Philadelphia at the time of the original trial. The court has ordered the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to hold a new sentencing hearing within 180 days wherein a jury would decide upon life imprisonment or death by lethal injection. This decision can be appealed to the full Court of Appeals or the US Supreme Court. Read more...

Iraqi Refugees

In Feb. 2007 the U.S. Department of State announced that the U.S. would accept 7000 Iraqi refugees in the 2007 fiscal year (http://www.state.gov/g/rls/rm/80532.htm). This is in contrast to the few hundred admitted since the beginning of the war in 2003. This long-overdue action was greeted with approval by the refugee resettlement community and others concerned about the plight of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries to which they had fled sectarian violence. However, only around 1,135 Iraqi refugees were admitted in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 (Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2007). Read more...

Fair Trade Coffee in Lancaster -
An Opportunity We Shouldn't Pass Up

With the world hunger crisis worsening week by week even a routine decision like where to buy your coffee can have far-reaching effects. In 2001, when a glut of huge industrialized coffee plantations caused coffee prices to crash, the effects devastated the world's 25 million coffee farming families in 60 countries. Small-scale farmers still cannot earn an income sufficient to provide food, medical care, and education for their children. When prices don't cover the cost of production, family farms are abandoned, families are uprooted, and parents can't send their children to school. Half a million jobs were lost in Central America alone in 2001, and the outlook remains bleak unless the international community—which enjoys a pricey cult of coffee with a dizzying variety—realizes there are ways to help in this crisis, and that you can help whether you work for a relief agency or just buy coffee for your family or business. Read more...

The Price of Comfort
by Anthony T. Crocamo

Has World War III begun? President Bush refers to the "Global War on Terror" and has compared it to World War II, and Vice President Cheney has said, "An enemy that operates in the shadows and views the entire world as a battlefield is not one that can be contained...The only option for our security and survival is to go on the offensive, face the threat directly, patiently, and systematically till the enemy is destroyed."

Global War, the entire world as a battlefield, only option for survival is to stay on the offensive until the enemy is destroyed... They certainly talk like it's World War III.

But they don't act like it. Read more...

Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Us?
by Ray McGovern, Anti-War.com

Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox – in the form of air and missile attacks – begin.

This time it will be largely the Air Force's show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.

Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind:

"We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House."

Does that sound like a man concerned that Bush is just bluff and bluster? Read more...

SPP, NAFTA, and Economic Violence
by John Mateyko

At the 4th Leaders Summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) held in April at a still ravaged New Orleans, the National Guard and private, military-style security forces were required, not because of terrorist threats but because of democratic threats: outraged citizens objecting to yet another NAFTA-style trade deal. Anticipating a backlash against the SPP, the "three Amigos"—President Bush and the conservative presidents of Canada and Mexico--met behind police barricades and razor wire with corporate CEOs. Read more...

Responding To Crime In A Restorative Way
By Charito Calvachi-Mateyko

The way our communities react to crime and wrongdoing may illustrate the kind of society we are. Restorative justice may be a new idea here, but it is also an old idea –a nonviolent approach to crime– that may broaden our centuries-old assumptions about crime and punishment, which precede the creation of the state, so we can start our collective journey from the present adversarial criminal justice system towards a restorative one. Read more...

State Senate Tables Gay-marriage Ban Amendment

A bill intended to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage and strip away rights for domestic partnerships for both straight and same-sex couples failed in the Senate caucuses last evening, May 6, 2008.

The Senate was advised the bill would not see any action once it reached the state House, so its sponsor, Sen. Mike Brubaker, agreed to table it.

Senate sources said head counts done in closed-door caucus meetings made it apparent the measure as proposed would likely not have the votes to pass. The proposal sought to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman and that no "functional equivalent of marriage" would be recognized in the Commonwealth. Read more...

Barry Russell, spokesman for Rainbow Rose Community, a Lancaster based civil-rights coalition, said during a telephone interview that he was pleased by the Senate's refusal to bring the constitutional amendment to the full Senate. Russell had led the Lancaster County bus trip yesterday to lobby both Senators and Representatives to defeat the so called, "Marriage Amendment".

Several Lancaster County churches and faith-based groups, civil rights groups, and service organizations strenuously opposed the discriminatory legislation and had organized and participated in local rallies to defeat the measure.

Rotunda Rally for the Defeat of SB 1250

As the rally to defeat the "Marriage Amendment" was in progress yesterday at noon, Senator Mike Brubaker's constitutional amendment was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee by a vote of 18 - 8. A full Senate vote can occur as soon as today. 

Yesterday, there were approximately 400 people who opposed the proposed Marriage Amendment in the Capitol rotunda.  Senators Connie Williams, Jim Ferlo and Vince Fumo spoke against the bill, as well as Representatives Babette Josephs, Dan Frankel and Mike O'Brien.  Senator Wayne Fontana and Representatives Steve Nickol, David Steil, Kathy Manderino and Mike Gerber were also in attendance.

Legislators, staffers and citizens heard and saw the rally.  In fact, legislators said that they could hear the chants of "STOP THIS BILL" on the House floor.

Read more...     View pictures of this event...

American Bar Association report indicates major flaws in PA's death penalty

Execution as a form of punishment in Pennsylvania dates back to the time the first colonists arrived in the late 1600s. At that time, public hanging was capital punishment for a variety of crimes, ranging from burglary and robbery, to piracy, and rape.

A blue-ribbon assessment panel appointed by the American Bar Association (ABA) announced in October of 2007 that Pennsylvania's capital punishment policies fail to meet basic standards established by the ABA.

"This comprehensive review by some of the Commonwealth's best legal minds confirms that Pennsylvania's death penalty system is plagued with errors," said Andy Hoover, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Moratorium Coalition and Community Organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. "Inadequate representation, the disturbing prospect of executing an innocent person, racism, and geographic disparities are undeniably present in our state's justice system.

"This is a wake-up call for Pennsylvania. It is time to take a step back from the death penalty while these biases and inaccuracies are addressed."

Read more...

Lancaster Peace Rally and March

The anti-war rally and peace march held yesterday, March 15th, 2008, was the fifth organized by the Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice since the war's beginning in March 2003.

A crowd of almost 700 met in Binn's Park in downtown Lancaster to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the War in Iraq. Several speakers, including two Iraqi War vets, spoke to the crowd about the trauma of the war on both nations and the individual tragedies that beset both our soldiers and the Iraqi people.

The first speaker to address the crowd was Pam Adams. Bill and Pam Adams have been at the center of local rallies against the Iraq War. During President Bush's visit to Lancaster in October, Bill Adams protested the war and gave a letter to Bush asking for answers about the circumstances of Brent's death. A week later, the family was told that President Bush ordered an official investigation, but the Adamses were never satisfied by the response. Read more below...

The crowd joined the speakers and marched to Southern Market at South Queen and East Vine streets, where a live video broadcast showed protesters footage of the "Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan -- Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations."

The protesters Saturday were in agreement: The only way to affect change in the country's foreign policy was at the smallest level of political action.

"The war must end on a local level," said coalition administrator John Schreck. "It is up to the people in cities, towns and villages."

View pictures of this event here, here, and here.

Read the pre-coverage in Thursday's Intell...

Read more from the Sunday News...