Tricounty DFA Town Meeting on Social Security Reminder and more
Hello Everyone;

In this brief update:

1. Town Meeting For Monday the 25th On Social Security
2. Hevesi Fundraiser
3. What the world is hearing that we are not
4. Tom Franks addendum on What's The Matter With Kansas

1. Town Meeting For the 25th On Social Security

This is a last minute reminder that tomorrow, Monday, April 25th at 6pm at the Saratoga Springs Public Library there will be an open Town Meeting on the subject of Saving Social Security. Rep. Sweeney has been invited If Sweeney doesn't show, there will be an open chair debate. Please bring your friends! We need a large crowd to show our support for Social Security and the growing strength of progressive activists in the North Country.

2. Hevesi Fundraiser

There will be a fundraiser for NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi sponsored by Saratoga County Democratic Chair Larry Bulman, Saratoga Springs Democratic Chair Shawn Thompson, and former Saratoga Springs Mayor Ken Klotz  on Friday, April 29, 2005 from
5:30pm-7:00pm at One America Way, Saratoga Springs. Tickets are $50, with Sponsors at $100. Wine & light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Please RSVP to Mary Carr: 518-584-7735

3. What the world is hearing that we are not

The most influential news organization in the world is the BBC and those who watch BBC World on WMHT and VPT hear of many issues that are virtually never covered by American media. This is also true of Canada's CBC. A special BBC documentary recently won the award as the best British documentary of the year. It's title is The Power of Nightmares and it is about the intersection of two radical "isms" and where they came from and how they feed on each other and need each other, but generate a false reality that there is a real international terrorist threat from "islamic fascism." The CBC has a good webpage up at Power Of Nightmares that is full of text laying this out with excerpts. When you review this you realize never has so much been invested so speciously, basically to maintain the Orwellian fiction we are in another war of civilizations like the Cold War, with all the power relationships that flow from that perception. This is wonderful stuff.

4. Tom Franks addendum on What's The Matter With Kansas

Most of us have heard of Tom Franks and his great and now famous book, What's The Matter WIth Kansas. It's a must for all Democrats and progresses who are trying to figure out what went wrong. Just out is a major article by him in the New York Review of Books. He takes the Kerry campaign to task, among many other things, as well as the clique of Corporate Democrats in Washington. This covers much of the same ground Dean has been addressing in the DNC's new polling identifying "Backlash Republicans," mostly former blue collar Americans who in Dean's words are just terrified of losing everything and are just blindly lashing out by voting for Republican manipulations of their anger. As Franks' bluntly points out, as does David Sirota ( Sirota ) in the 90s Democrats blew off tens of millions of working Americans with trade deals like NAFA that blew up in our faces. In effect, at the very least, we simply stopped talking about the economic issues that deeply matter to millions of distressed working Americans. Link

There is also a terrific post about Franks piece on DailyKos about the intersection of deindustrialization and the changing roles of both men and women in the last 30 years. There is some strong language in here but it is really a corollary to Franks article, an extra dimension. Link


Remember, we need a good crowd to show support for Social Security tomorrow.

Many thanks,

Larry
- posted by Larry Dudley @ 1:25 PM