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Alternative News Site for West Haven Forms

Stanley Heller, activist, West Haven resident

Faced with stony-hearted politicians and police in West Haven and virtually no coverage in the local free paper of the killing of Mubarak Soulemane in January or the July 5 use of police dogs on protesters, I decided to start a West Haven news site, The West Haven Call. Right now the modest sections are Justice, Climate, Schools, UNH, Health, Photos, Feeds, Instagram, Riseup, Jigsaws, and Memes. The site is found at https://westhavencall.com. We tweet @WestHavenC.

I’m looking for volunteers to help out with the site.  Reach me at [email protected].  We’re a news site that salutes the Black Lives Matter Uprising and calls for an end to white supremacy and a world ruled by greed and climate destruction.

NO New Tridents: Announcing a Campaign Against the Columbia Ballistic Missile Submarine

by Stephen Kobasa, NO New Tridents

Seventy-five years after the horrors visited upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the first use of nuclear weapons, the United States continues to construct new threats to all creation.

Machines age, and grow useless. The Trident ballistic missile submarines are no exception. First put into service in 1981, they are approaching the end of their expected operational life. But instead of allowing them to simply pass into obsolescence and remove the threat which they pose to all creation, our government is undertaking to replace them with a new weapon to assure that the threat continues with-out intermission. The Columbia class of submarines has been described as the Navy’s top priority program, which will be funded even if that comes at the expense of other Navy programs. Each sub will carry sixteen missile tubes, eight fewer than the current Ohio-class Tridents, but will also have updated propulsion and stealth capabilities which will magnify their threat. They will initially carry the existing Trident II D-5 missile, but designs for both a new missile and warhead are now underway.

Plans are for the production of twelve boats at a projected cost that is presently estimated at $103 to $109 billion. Initial construction has already begun at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, with final assembly to take place at Electric Boat in Groton, CT, beginning this year, ahead of schedule. A new facility for that exclusive purpose is now being built in the Groton shipyard.

Why Russia and China Should Fear America's New Columbia ...At a time when the consequences of global warming and pandemic are being experienced in the lives of all humanity on a daily basis, we condemn the reckless and immoral commitment of human creativity and treasure to these weapons which threaten to erase all creation, and by their mere existence deny fundamental rights to human freedom and community. It is obviously clear that they would constitute a crime against both humanity and the environment.

The NO New Tridents campaign proposes to undertake programs of public education, lobbying and nonviolent civil disobedience calling for the immediate abandonment of the Columbia submarine, and the diversion of funds set aside for its construction to policies which will realize the rights of all the world’s people to healthcare, housing, education, income equity and racial justice.

The Norfolk Catholic Worker will be the primary organizer around the Newport News Shipyard, while the Hartford Catholic Worker will coordinate the witness at Electric Boat. For further information, contact: [email protected].

Statue Readied to Honor ‘Black Governor’

Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent, July 10, 2020

A seven-foot-tall bronze statue of William “King” Lanson will soon stand along the Farmington Canal — giving a permanent, public, and highly visible form to a Black New Havener who helped build the modern city. The Lanson statue represents the culmination of a decade’s worth of advocacy by the Amistad Committee, working in recent years with the City Plan Department to make the memorial a reality.

The public artwork will honor the early 19th-century local engineer, entrepreneur, and Black political leader who freed himself from slavery, built a section of the Farmington Canal, and constructed an extension of Long Wharf that allowed for the local port to rival New York’s.

He was also elected “Black governor” in 1825, helped found what is now Dixwell Congregational Church, owned land and ran businesses on what is now Wooster Square — and, after encountering opposition from white authorities and the business establishment, died in the poorhouse.

The plan is for the statue to be unveiled Sept. 26 at 11 a.m. on a grassy, city-owned plot near the Farmington Canal and Lock Street, in between the Yale Health Center and Yale’s Benjamin Franklin and Pauli Murray Colleges.

According to a presentation by City Plan Director Aïcha Woods during Monday’s Cultural Affairs Commission meeting, the city-commissioned statue will be one part of an “interpretative landscape” and larger memorial along the Farmington Canal that will be “dedicated to the history of William Lanson.”

Read more at the NHIndependent: www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/william_lanson_sculpture

Medicare for All CT News

by Stephan Ramdohr, Medicare for All CT

We believe that healthcare is a right, not a privilege, and that a single-payer type model, like Medicare, is how we achieve it. Medicare for All CT is pushing our state’s federal legislators to sign the single-payer bills in the U.S. House and Senate.

Join us for the upcoming Medicare for All CT virtual monthly meeting! Tuesday, Sept. 8, at 7 – 9 p.m. for our Zoom meeting, hosted by Medicare For All CT, Quiet Corner Democratic Socialists of America and 5 others.

Register here to receive the Zoom link to join via computer, or info how to dial in via phone: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtc-yhqz4vG93KTnLTdgqP-T1OjI2SRFRw.

Just a few months ago, New London was the first municipality in Connecticut to pass a Medicare for All resolution. Now we plan to discuss how we’ll continue to advocate for Medicare for All, even when due to current restrictions we cannot meet up in person.

Activists from all across the state are invited to join us from the comfort of their home! Bring your questions! Bring your ideas! Let’s meet on Tuesday, September 8, 7 p.m., to continue our fight for guaranteed healthcare for all!

For more information, e-mail Stephan Ramdohr at [email protected]. At this time, our meetings are online. Please contact us with your ideas and suggestions by phone at (857) 472-0694 or on Facebook at Medicare for All CT.

It’s Time to Demand Gender Parity in Our Governance! Demand Equality Now!!

by Frank Rohrig, Octogenarian/Feminist and PAR subscriber

[Frank Rohrig is in the process of forming a 501(c)(3) organization to ensure that in all levels of government, women and men will be represented equally: “complete unequivocal gender equality/parity in the decision-making process in the governance of your community-state-federal government.” He has asked PAR to print his article so that our readers can become familiar with his work and help him with his organizing.]

The time has come to recognize that the evolution of humanity, nations and nation-states require the immediate transformative transition towards Egalitarian virtues and the full and equal participation of women in the governance of all civilized societies for their very future salvation. Our Democracy has been hijacked and pillaged to satisfy the insatiable need for power and greed by a segment of our society that has maliciously disregarded the circle of virtuosity that helped create this nation’s “middle class.”

The mutually-beneficial collaborative efforts by our financial sector and Corporatocracies have ruthlessly over a period of several decades converted a once-proud, growing society into an unequivocal corrupt Plutocracy.

The denial of women by males in every sector and facet of societal involvement shall no longer be a consideration of our forbearance because it has proven to be somewhat chauvinistic and wrong-headed, along with twenty-seven other amendments to the Constitution that required change to comport to more Egalitarian virtues.

In light of the extreme ideological and theocratic movements to reverse the rights long ago fought for and won, including Civil Rights and Women’s Rights, the zealots amongst us continue with their underhanded, discriminatory and unjustified quests to deny others that Egalitarian Society promised within our Constitution at its inception.

The justified essential movement for Gender Parity has never been as important as it is today given the intentions and actions of a growing segment of the male population that won’t be content until the return of a Patriarchal Society that enables them to dictate to others because of their perceived superiority. This kind of thinking isn’t confined to just other distant cultures but remains within the Puritanical thinking of religious zealots amongst us. Nothing less than GENDER PARITY (50% male and 50% female) in the makeup of all taxpayer-funded areas of governance and oversight within the smallest of communities, state houses and U.S. Senate and Congress shall suffice. It shall be through the equally-weighted voices of our females where we can attain a society with greater shared interests beneficial to all our citizenry.

For more information, please call Frank Rohrig at (203) 877-2492. Mail can be sent to 541 Naugatuck Ave., Milford, CT 06460.

Gandhi Peace Award Ceremony, Nov. 17

by Stanley Heller, PEP Administrator

Promoting Enduring Peace has been holding back on its ceremony for this year’s honorees, Dr. Zaher Sahloul and Mayson Almisri, in hopes that we could have a big event in an auditorium, but since the pandemic shows no sign of letting up the PEP Board decided to hold the event online. It will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 17, exactly two weeks after Election Day. The time has not yet been decided.

This year we’ve chosen two people of Syrian origin to hon-or the work of Syrian doctors and Syrian rescue workers.

Syrian-American Zaher Sahloul was a longtime Senior Advisor to the Syrian American Medical Society, SAMS. He is currently the president of MedGlobal which sends teams of doctors and nurses to war and disaster zones from Ecuador to Lebanon. He works as a pulmonary specialist at a hospital in Chicago and is involved in treating COVID-19 patients. He himself fell victim of the virus and suffered from it for weeks. He’s been to Syria many times and has worked with the doctors whose medical facilities were bombed with abandon by Assadist and Russian forces.

Mayson Almisri is a member of Syrian Civil Defence, better known as the White Helmets. The group started informally as people who rushed to bombed-out buildings to try to save the injured and to recover bodies. As the years passed the group became more organized and received training and funds from foreign NGOs and governments including that of the U.S. The White Helmets try to video and photograph their rescues as a way of alerting the world to the viciousness of the regime, its allies and their militaries. For that they are demonized by the Assad regime and slandered as “terrorist supporters.” The rescue workers have rescued some 100,000 people during the last 9 years of war and have been the subject of several films.

In addition to the acceptance speeches, we hope to have art, music and song to entertain and inspire. Holding it on Zoom allows for more international participation. If you’d like to work on the project contact [email protected] or call (202) 573-7322.

Some headline news from CT Green Energy News

News and events for advocates of clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate action at the state and local levels, focusing on Connecticut. Brought to you by People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE) and Eastern CT Green Action (ECGA).

Connecticut needs to make big changes in ‘who does what’ in the electric power industry

CT Mirror. “Eversource has…failed to invest in the infrastructure we need to support demand flexibility, renewable integration and community decarbonization efforts. Recent problems with preparing for Tropical Storm Isaias show that Eversource has enough on its plate just planning for and maintaining the infrastructure that delivers electricity to us. Community power agencies should take over the procurement of electricity and the delivery of modern energy services and products…”

See more below ….

Following Isaias response, bill would put utilities on the hook for outage costs | Utility Dive

A bipartisan group of Connecticut lawmakers on Monday proposed legislation, dubbed the “Take Back Our Grid Act,” that would subject Eversource Energy and Avangrid subsidiary United Illuminating to greater scrutiny and possible penalties in the event of power outages that extend longer than two days.

Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which represents investor-owned utilities, warned the law would amount to “wholesale” change in the regulation of Connecticut power companies and could leave the utilities on the hook for damage caused by a natural disaster that would otherwise be considered an “act of God.”

Read more here: Following outrage over Hurricane Isaias response, Connecticut bill would put utilities on the hook for outage costs | Utility Dive

Regulators Issue Fines To Eversource And UI Over Shared Solar Program | WSHU

The opaque world of energy policy continues to roil the surface of state government as regulators again have chastised the state’s two biggest utilities: Eversource and United Illuminating. This time, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority fined both companies, alleging an “insufficient” rollout of a program called shared solar.

Shared solar lets customers who can’t put panels on their roof subscribe to a nearby solar array and get a credit on their bill. In 2018, the legislature passed a statewide shared solar program, which requires utilities to identify eligible customers and automatically enroll them.

Read more here: Regulators Issue Fines To Eversource And UI Over Shared Solar Program | WSHU

Hartford Commemoration of 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs

Multimedia Zoom event. Registration necessary

For more information visit them on Facebook

2020 Hiroshima / Nagasaki Remembrance

ZOOM Event – REGISTRATION REQUIRED: Click here => Registration

 

 

75th Anniversary of the start of the nuclear age

August 6, 2020
6:30 to 7:30 pm EST.

Due to personal safety concerns from the Covid-19 pandemic the 2020 Remembrance will be a multimedia Zoom event. 

ZOOM Event – REGISTRATION REQUIRED: Click here => Registration

“Zoom-in” and join the annual Hartford area Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance A Shared Call for Nuclear Weapon Abolition

Thousands of nuclear weapons kept on hair trigger alert are targeting civilian populations. Rather than moving to eliminate this threat, a new nuclear arms race has begun and the number of nuclear armed nations threatens to rise.

Seventy-five years later – do you feel more secure?

The horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot be allowed to happen again. Together let’s call for a nuclear-free world.

Sponsored by:
CT Peace and Solidarity Coalition
Hope Out Loud
No Nukes/No W.
United Nations Association of Connecticut 
Veterans for Peace CT Chapter 42

For more information, click => here

For a flyer for Hartford, click => here  

Visit us on => Facebook

Film Archive

17-minute 1945 Hiroshima Nagasaki film footage. From Japanese photographers, hidden at the beginning of the Cold War to avoid criticism of US w crimes. Forewarning: Disturbing.

Progressive Action Roundtable statement on the latest happenings of 2020

Dear PAR Subscribers:

The world has changed quite a bit since our June newsletter. The brutal murder of George Floyd exposed the ugliness of power in the hands of the police and the entrenched racism against people of color. As Black Lives Matter rallies against police brutality were joined with demands for removal of racist and oppressive historic symbols, the Columbus statue in Wooster Square was removed, and the City formed a committee to rename Columbus Academy. Black Lives Matter marches of over a thousand people blocked highways and rallied at police stations. A thousand people marched in West Haven to demand justice for Mubarak Soulemane, who was killed by a state trooper. Many hundreds demanded Yale pay millions of dollars more to New Haven to make up for so much property being tax-exempt because of Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital. Two “elder rallies” in support of Black Lives Matter were held on the Green for people wanting to make their voices heard while wearing masks and maintaining appropriate distance from others because of coronavirus. Mayor Elicker reiterated that New Haven is a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. City and town councils of New Haven, Hamden, Hartford, Windsor, West Hartford and Bloomfield declared racism a public health crisis. In addition, our work for peace and justice around the world has not stopped. Plus we are still in the midst of the pandemic! Quite a busy time!

The Progressive Action Roundtable welcomes articles from organizations around these and other issues of concern to our readers, who not only want to know what’s going on, but read about “report backs” and analyses of their various actions.

Please send in articles and calendar events for our next newsletter before Wednesday, Aug. 19 to [email protected].

The struggle continues!

Tell us, tell New Haven, about the progressive work your organization is doing

Dear PAR Contributors,

The world has changed quite a bit since our June newsletter. The brutal murder of George Floyd exposed the ugliness of power in the hands of the police and the entrenched racism against people of color. As Black Lives Matter rallies against police brutality were joined with demands for removal of racist and oppressive historic symbols, the Columbus statue in Wooster Square was removed, and the City formed a committee to rename Columbus Academy. Black Lives Matter marches of over a thousand people blocked highways and rallied at police stations. A thousand people marched in West Haven to demand justice for Mubarak Soulemane, who was killed by a state trooper. Many hundreds demanded Yale pay millions of dollars more to New Haven to make up for so much property being tax-exempt because of Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital. Two “elder rallies” in support of Black Lives Matter were held on the Green for people wanting to make their voices heard while wearing masks and maintaining appropriate distance from others because of coronavirus. Mayor Elicker reiterated that New Haven is a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. City and town councils of New Haven, Hamden, Hartford, Windsor, West Hartford and Bloomfield declared racism a public health crisis. In addition, our work for peace and justice around the world has not stopped. Plus we are still in the midst of the pandemic! Quite a busy time!

Readers want to know: What is the purpose of your organization? How are you building your group? What campaigns are you organizing? What events are you planning?

We want to publicize the work groups have done and what they’re planning to do. We want to spread the word to others who will be inspired to join you, support your activism and build the struggles. Send us articles (even a paragraph or two) about what your group wants to do and any ideas for organizing! 350 word limit, please!

Please send articles about your group’s recent and current activities and upcoming actions and events to [email protected].

***Help inspire others through your commitment! ***

The deadline for the September Progressive Action Roundtable Newsletter is Wednesday, August 19.

 

Please keep in mind that as layout space permits, we will include photos.

IMPORTANT: Don’t neglect to add your organization’s contact information such as phone number, e-mail address or website, so our readers can get more information about what your group is doing.

ABOUT CALENDAR ITEMS

If you mention an event in an article, please also send a SEPARATE calendar announcement.

Please give street addresses for any events or meetings, even for “well-known” public buildings.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please indicate whether your event location is wheelchair accessible.

You can also send us SAVE THE DATE items about future events, even if you do not yet have all the details in place.

The PAR newsletter will come out approximately Saturday, August 29. Please consider this when submitting calendar items.

Progressive Action Roundtable is on Facebook

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If your group has a website, please add our link to your webpage.

 

To renew your own subscription or to buy a subscription for a friend, the rate is $13 for 10 issues. Please make the check out to PAR and mail it to

PAR, P.O. Box 995, New Haven, CT  06504

Absentee Voting in Connecticut

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont has signed an executive order allowing all registered voters in Connecticut to vote absentee in the Aug. 11 primary elections. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has announced that she intends to mail every registered voter in the state an application that they will need to fill out and return in order to obtain an absentee ballot. That application, which will be sent via U.S. Postal Service, will include a postage-paid return envelope.

Dear PAR Subscribers,

After two months of being available only on-line, we’re glad to provide you with the printed PAR newsletter. We still encourage all our subscribers to sign on to get PAR notices on-line so you can be kept informed of events that weren’t known in time to be included in the printed version. You can subscribe at par-newhaven.org.

PAR does not print in July or August. The next newsletter will be the September issue. Because there are still so many restrictions on gatherings, we are unsure of when, or which, of our regularly-scheduled events will take place. Many meetings, conferences and rallies are taking place via the internet. We urge you to contact the organizations you are interested in to find out how you can participate in their work.

Enclosed in this issue is the War Resisters League’s famous “pie chart” flyer, Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes. It analyzes the Federal Fiscal Year 2021 Budget, published in February 2020. FY2021 is 1 Oct. 2020 – 30 Sept. 2021. We recently contacted the War Resisters League to see if these figures are still accurate, due to the emergency spending necessary for the pandemic, massive unemployment and economic crisis. We were told the current Pie Charts are based on figures for the FY2021 Federal Budget, not the current budget, so those figures are not affected by expenditures connected to the pandemic.

Wishing you a healthy, safe and peaceful summer.

PAR Planning Committee

C3M Calls for Car Caravan Rally Against Planned Fracked Gas Plant June 5

Stanley Heller, Promoting Enduring Peace

Friday, June 5, will see sign-covered autos traveling to Hartford to circle the block upon which the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) building sits. It has been approving the permits needed by the NTE company to build another fracked “natural gas” plant in Killingly, in eastern CT. The CT Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M) is sponsoring the car caravan.

Now when there is a glut of fossil fuels, when oil wells are being capped because there’s nowhere to store the unneeded petroleum pumped by oil producers, the idea that another natural gas (methane) burning plant will be built is ludicrous. Even before the pandemic Gov. Ned Lamont admit-ted CT didn’t need the energy from another gas burner. Supposedly it was needed by the New England region. So the project appears to be rolling on.

Of course, need is a flexible term. What the region desperately needs to do is to cut back on carbon emissions. Global warming gases can destroy civilization. Civilization will survive if there’s less electricity to power gadgets and air conditioners.

One permit that needs to be won by NTs to be won by NTE would allow it to discharge 90,000 gallons of toxic wastewater daily. The goop would include lead, ammonia, petroleum, phosphorous, copper and other metals. The town of Killingly would have to treat the polluted water to make it usable. A very fine article about this by UCONN law student Tennyson Benedict was published in the Courant. Search online for the article headlined: “Killingly gas plant wastewater discharges are another reason for worry.”

The time of the car caravan on June 5 is 3-4 p.m. To find out more information see @ctclimate on Twitter and the C3M website www.ctclimatecrisismobilization.org.

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