Baltimore Activist Alert - May 19 - 20, 2014

Baltimore Activist Alert May 19 – May 25, 2014

"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours.
The initiative to stop it must be ours." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Friends, this list and other email documents which I send out are done under the auspices of the Baltimore Nonviolence Center. Go to www.baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com. If you appreciate this information and would like to make a donation, send contributions to BNC, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. Max Obuszewski can be reached at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski [at] verizon.net.

Tune into the Maryland Progressive Blog at http://mdprogblog.org.

1] Books, buttons & stickers
2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity – through Aug. 31
6] Marc Steiner on WEAA – May 19 – May 23
7] “Winning Together: Multiparty Negotiations” – May 19
8] Raise the minimum wage – May 19
9] Film VANISHING PEARLS – May 19
10] Candidate forum for legislators running in the 43rd District – May 19
11] Debut novel “All That Is Solid Melts Into Air” – May 19
12] Pledge of Resistance/Fund Our Communities meeting – May 19
13] Establishing stable institutions and a robust civil society – May 19
14] History of Money in Palestine: The Case of the Frozen Bank Accounts of 1948 – May 20
15] Protest dirty palm oil – May 20
16] Philadelphia Peace Vigil – May 20
17] "No Drone Research at JHU" – May 20
18] Mayor Susumu Inamine at Busboys and Poets – May 20
19] New book, “Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent!” – May 20
20] Hatha Yoga class at Shanti Yoga Ashram – May 20
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1] – Buttons, bumperstickers and books are available. “God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions” stickers are in stock. Donate your books to Max. Call him at 410-366-1637.

2] – To obtain information how your federal legislators voted on particular bills, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/. Congressional toll-free numbers are 888-818-6641, 888-355-3588 or 800-426-8073. The White House Comment Email is accessible at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.

3] – THE ORGANIZING LIST will be the primary decision-making mechanism of the National Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR]. It will be augmented by conference calls and possibly in-person meetings as needed. It will consist of 1 or 2 representatives from each local, regional, or national organization (not coalitions) that wishes to actively work to carry out the NCNR campaign of facilitating and organizing nonviolent resistance to the war in Iraq. To join the ORGANIZING List, please send your name, group affiliation, city and email address to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net. Different local chapters of a national organization are encouraged to subscribe.

THE NOTICES LIST will include only notices of NCNR actions and related information and is open to any interested person to subscribe. It will be moderated to maintain focus & will include periodic notices about getting involved in NCNR national organizing. To join the NOTICES List, send an email message to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.

4] – You can help safeguard human rights and fragile ecosystems through your purchase of HOCOFOLA Café Quetzal. Bags of ground coffee or whole beans can be ordered by mailing in an order form. Also note organic cocoa and sugar are for sale. For more details and to download the order form, go to http://friendsoflatinamerica.typepad.com/hocofola/2010/02/hocofola-cafe-quetzal-order-form-2010.html. The coffee comes in one-pound bags.

Fill out the form and mail it with a check made out to HOCOFOLA on or before the second week of the month. Be sure you indicate ground or beans for each type of coffee ordered. Send it to Adela Hirsch, 5358 Eliots Oak Rd., Columbia, MD 21044. Be sure you indicate ground (G) or bean (B) for each type of coffee ordered. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Adela at 410-997-5662 or via e-mail at adela4peace@verizon.net.

5] – See the exhibit Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity, which
delves into the various ways technology affects lives through the perspective of inventors, futurists and 40 plus visionary artists. The intent is to bring new thoughts on artificial intelligence, robotics, genetics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and big data, and you can see it through August 31 at the American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy. Call 410-244-1900. Go to http://avam.org. A ticket costs $20.

6] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday from 9 to 11 AM on WEAA 88.9 FM, The Voice of the Community, or online at www.weaa.org. The call-in number is 410-319-8888, and comments can also be sent by email to steinershow@gmail.com. All shows are also available as podcasts at www.steinershow.org.

7] – On Mon., May 19 at 9 AM through Tues., May 20 at 5 PM at the U.S. Institute of Peace, 2301 Constitution Ave. NW, catch “Winning Together: Multiparty Negotiations,” an intensive training course that builds your persuasive abilities so that you can obtain collaborative outcomes within and across your agency, organization, branch of government or military, as well as internationally. Visit http://www.usip.org/events/winning-together-multiparty-negotiations.

8] – Organizing For Action volunteers across the country are gathering signatures on a nationwide petition for raising the minimum wage. Folks are getting together on Mon., May 19 at 5 PM at 320 West Lexington St., Baltimore 21201. When members of Congress stand in the way of increasing the minimum wage, they're standing in the way of economic security for working families.

A family of four supported by a full-time worker earning minimum wage makes $14,500 a year. This is below the poverty line. Nearly two-thirds of workers earning the minimum wage or less are women. Not only that, more than 40 percent of women are the primary breadwinners in their families. Go to http://my.barackobama.com/Minimum-Wage-Day-of-Action.

9] – On Mon., May 19 from 7 to 9:30 PM at Anacostia Arts Center, 1231 Good Hope Rd. SE, WDC, the Institute for Policy Studies' Climate Policy Program partners with Parallel Film Collective, and co-sponsored with Environmental Justice and Chemical Policy Reform, in presenting the Washington, D.C. premiere of ARRAY's “Vanishing Pearls.”The screening will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Nailah Jefferson and Michele Roberts of Environmental Justice and Chemical Policy Reform. See http://www.ips-dc.org/events/film_vanishing_pearls. Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Nailah Jefferson's film chronicles the untold story of personal and professional devastation in Pointe a la Hache, a close-knit fishing village on the Gulf coast. The filmmaker delves into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history just as news cameras leave the scene of the crime. While 49 Million barrels of oil settle in the once vibrant coastal waters, a generations-old community of African-American fisher people pledge to fight for justice, accountability and their way of life.

Commemorate Malcolm X's birthday by being a part of this powerful documentary movement focused on issues of environmental justice and social change! Call 202-234-9382 or email info@ips-dc.org or see www.ips-dc.org.

10] – Attend a candidate forum for legislators running in the 43rd District on Mon., May 19 from 7 to 9 PM at the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 5701 Loch Raven Blvd. The forum is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Baltimore City, in partnership with Northeast Community Organization (NECO) and WYPR. Contact the League at 410-377-7738 or at lwvbaltimore@comcast.net.

11] – On Mon., May 19 from 7 to 9 PM at Busboys and Poets, 14th and V Sts., 2021 14th St NW, Irish author, Darragh McKeon, discusses and reads from his debut novel, “All That Is Solid Melts Into Air,” a brilliantly imagined and searing account of life during and after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster as the Soviet Union crumbles. See http://busboysandpoets.com/events/event/author-event-chernobyl-the-reality-imagined.

12] – The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore usually meets on Mondays at 7:30 PM, and the meetings take place at Max’s residence. The next meeting will be on Mon., May 19. The proposed agenda will include a report on the appeal of conviction of the CIA Five, anti-drone activities, including the Spring Actions, the May 3 demo at the NSA, the Frontline report on the NSA, the Catonsville Nine, the May 21 visit to Rep. Sarbanes’ office and handing out peace diplomas at the JHU commencement. Call 410-366-1637 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net for directions.

13] – Learn how to develop effective strategies for establishing stable institutions and a robust civil society, including how to address the interplay among issues of corruption, accountability, rule of law, elections, political party development, public administration, and economic reconstruction in divided societies at the U.S. Institute of Peace, 2301 Constitution Ave. NW, on Mon., May 19 at 9 PM through Fri., May 23 at 5 PM. Go to http://www.usip.org/events/governance-and-democratic-practices-in-war-peace-transitions.

14] – On Tues., May 20 from 12:30 to 2 PM, hear about the History of Money in Palestine: The Case of the Frozen Bank Accounts of 1948 with Sreemati Mitter at the Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center, 2425 Virginia Ave. NW, Washington, District of Columbia 20037. Free tickets are available at http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/RegisterForEvent/i/44144.

In June 12, 1948, not yet a month after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, the government of the new state of Israel ordered all the commercial banks operating within its territory to freeze the accounts of all their Arab Palestinian customers and to stop all transactions on Arab accounts. The Israeli government gave the banks one month to comply with this order and threatened to revoke the banking licenses of all banks found to be in non-compliance. By December 1948 every bank operating in Israel had complied with the order, and thus, just six months after the termination of the Mandate for Palestine, all Arab Palestinians, many of whom were already refugees and scattered in camps throughout the world, had lost access to the money and financial assets which they had deposited for safekeeping in their bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes.

Sreemati Mitter will discuss this episode in Palestinian history, which has never before been written about, and use it as a prism through which to explore how the fact of statelessness, which is generally thought of as political condition, directly affects the economic and monetary lives of ordinary people. Mitter is an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center and the College Fellow in Middle Eastern History at Harvard's History Department. She is working on a book based on her doctoral dissertation, titled "A History of Money in Palestine: From the 1900s to Present." Her work examines the economic and monetary dimensions of statelessness.
Go to the Elliot School, Voesar Conference Room, Suite 412, 1957 E St. NW on Tues., May 20 from 4 to 6 PM to find out about the emergence of the Internet and the growing participation of people, especially youth, in social media which has constituted positive change for Central Asia. Uzbekistan as well as the other four countries in the region - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan - has become more connected to the world than ever before. Despite wide-ranging political restrictions and bans, the flow of information through social media is unstoppable. What drives the audience is the quality of the content and the way it is communicated. Visit
http://www.elliottschool.org/events/calendar.cfm?fuseaction=ViewMonthDetail&yr=2014&mon=5#2478.

15] – Earlier this year, International Labor Rights Forum uncovered serious labor rights abuses in the palm oil industry. Now, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an ILRF ally in the fight against dirty palm oil, is organizing a global day of action to spread the word about the social and environmental harms of the rapidly expanding palm oil industry. ILRF will join RAN activists in handing out fliers about the hazards of palm oil from 3:30 to 5 PM on Tues., May 20 at the Gallery Place Metro (7th & H Sts. NW). Afterward head over to Busboys and Poets, 5th & K Sts., for Happy Hours for a Cause to continue spreading the word and network with fellow activists. Visit http://events.ran.org/day-of-action/events/show/18270.

16] – Each Tuesday from 4:30 - 5:30 PM, the Catholic Peace Fellowship-Philadelphia for peace in Afghanistan and Iraq gathers at the Suburban Station, 16th Street & JFK Blvd., at the entrance to Tracks 3 and 4 on the mezzanine. The next vigil is May 20. Call 215-426-0364.

17] – Vigil to say "No Drone Research at JHU" each Tuesday at 33rd & North Charles Sts. Join this ongoing vigil on May 20 from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Call Max at 410-366-1637.

18] – On Tues., May 20 from 6 to 8 PM, Mayor Susumu Inamine will speak along with a member of the Japanese House of Representatives (Okinawa) Denny Tamaki and other experts, facilitated by journalist and RootsAction campaign coordinator David Swanson. Get over to Busboys and Poets, (14th & V Sts.) 2021 14th St. NW, WDC 20009. Mayor Inamine of Nago City in Okinawa, Japan was elected to block the creation of a new U.S. Marine Corps base. That was his campaign platform. That was the overwhelming view of voters in exit polls. He is coming to Washington to make his case because the U.S. and Japanese governments are ignoring the will of the people of Nago City and of Okinawa as a whole, by proceeding with plans for construction of the base. The event is sponsored by Busboys and Poets and the New Diplomacy Initiative. Call 202-387-7638, or contact the New Diplomacy Initiative at info@nd-initiative.org. Sign up at https://www.facebook.com/ events/1440683952839158.

19] – On Tues., May 20 from 6:30 to 8 PM at Busboys and Poets, 5th and K Sts. NW, renowned author and former State Department official Peter Van Buren will be speaking about his new book, “Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent!”

20] – You are invited to join a Hatha Yoga class at Shanti Yoga Ashram, continuing each Tuesday until June 10. The class will meet from 7 to 8:15 PM each Tuesday. Drop-ins are welcome, but registration is encouraged at shantiyoga2@earthlink.net. The pre-registered fee is $66. The class meets at 4217 East West Hwy., Bethesda 20814.

To be continued.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs