The Progressive Action Roundtable mission is to inform the greater New Haven community about the activities of many progressive groups, so that people may learn about them and become involved in discussions and actions on issues for the common good, such as peace, health, racial equity, justice, clean energy and the environment.
Please submit copy to PAR’s e-mail address: parnewhaven@hotmail.com
No e-mail? Call Paula at (203) 562-2798 to find out how to submit your article. There is a 350-word limit.
Next Planning Meeting date is Thurs., Mar. 2 at 2 p.m….all are welcome…call (203) 562-2798 for the location.
Subscription: $13 for 10 issues, check payable to PAR, P.O. Box 995, New Haven, CT 06504.
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Call Paula at 203-562-2798
by Joan Cavanagh, Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide
Seven members of the core group of Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PAMAS) attended a press conference sponsored by Sen. Saud Anwar, Co-Chair of the Public Health Committee, and Compassion and Choices, the well-funded advocacy group for legalization of MAS, on Wednesday, Jan. 18, at the Legislative Office Building. They held signs identifying the group, passed out leaflets, spoke to news reporters, and had several conversations with legislators and family members who also support MAS. They were joined by a few members of Second Thoughts Connecticut, a non-partisan disability justice organization.
Before the press conference, PAMAS sent emails to all members of the Public Health Committee, with the following text:
Dear Members of the Public Health Committee, We extend our sincere condolences on the shocking and tragic death of Rep. Quentin Williams of Middletown. …
We also offer best wishes for a productive legislative session in which the Public Health Committee will address important healthcare needs and hopefully put forward policies that truly make universal, comprehensive, unrestricted healthcare available to all. We are members of Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide. We strongly support health care for all, disability justice, reproductive rights, and the rights of LGBTQIA people. We equally strongly oppose Medical Assisted Suicide, called by its proponents “physician aid in dying.”
From our own experiences and those of others, we know that there are no “safeguards” that can be put in place to mitigate the danger that the legalization of this practice poses to the disabled, the elderly, the poor or anyone vulnerable in our current medical system.
As citizens of Connecticut and thus as your constituents, we request that you spend this session on legislation to expand quality healthcare access for all, including healthcare support at home for those who require it.
Please do not advance any legislation that would empower the medical system to terminate patients’ lives or prescribe drugs to do so.
Sincerely yours,
Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide
There are now two MAS bills pending before the Public Health Committee. Please write your representatives and senators and tell them to vote NO.
Joan Cavanagh, member of Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide, Second Thoughts Connecticut, and the New Haven Sunday Vigil for Peace and Justice.
by Megan Fountain, Unidad Latina en Acción
As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a new immigrant workers rights policy, representatives of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Immigrant Work hosted a national press call on Jan. 13 to respond to the new DHS policy, explain how it came about, and what it means for undocumented immigrant workers in the United States.
“This policy came about because of the workers in Connecticut, Mississippi, Georgia, and beyond, who organized and fought against wage theft, sexual harassment, deadly conditions, and workplace ICE raids,” said John Jairo Lugo, Director of Unidad Latina en Acción CT, in a rally with Mayor Justin Elicker in New Haven City Hall Jan. 12. “The real work begins today. This policy will only become a reality if our local and national leaders say it loud and clear: We will stand up for you when you report exploitation, instead of detaining and deporting you.”
“The threat of deportation is like a gun in the boss’s hand, pointed at workers and their rights,” said Yale Law School professor James Bhandary-Alexander, Jan. 12 in New Haven City Hall, calling on President Biden to announce the policy publicly. “Today President Biden could grab that gun right from the boss’s hand.”
People taking part in the national press call included workers, attorneys and organizations advancing first pilot cases of immigrant whistleblower protections from Las Vegas, Nevada; Jackson, Mississippi; and Gainesville, Georgia.
For more about the campaign, go to
To interview CT workers: Megan Fountain, 203-479-2959, megan@ulanewhaven.org
For national: Erik Villalobos, 202-643-7348, evillalobos@ndlon.org
by Kimberly Stoner, CT Climate Crisis Mobilization
Under the Connecticut and U.S. constitutions, you do not have a legal right to a safe and healthy environment. Our legal system protects some rights, but not the right to clean air, water, and soil; a stable climate; and healthy environments. Because environmental rights are not recognized, government decision-makers can disregard them in favor of other political or economic priorities.
All communities suffer when there is pollution, environmental degradation, and an unstable climate. Communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities carry a disproportionate burden.
Representative Mary Mushinsky introduced the CT Environmental Rights Amendment in the state legislature this year. The CT Environmental Rights Amendment will require government officials to put environmental protection FIRST at the start of planning, decision-making, legislating, regulating industry, and the transition to renewable energy. The CT Environmental Rights Amendment will require them to avoid/prevent environmental harm, not simply manage it after the fact.
Green Amendments in Pennsylvania and Montana similar to the CT Environmental Rights Amendment have been used to overturn state laws expanding fracking and to stop a destructive gold mine at the headwaters of a major river. A new Environmental Rights Amendment in New York passed in a referendum with 70% of the vote!
The bill is now on the CT General Assembly website. The bill number is PHJ 13. Now it is easier to contact state legislators and ask them to co-sponsor and actively support PHJ 13. You can view the bill at www.cga.ct.gov/2023/TOB/H/PDF/2023HJ-00013-R00-HB.PDF.
The Connecticut Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M), the Green Party of CT, and CT NOFA (The Northeast Organic Farming Association of CT) lead the effort to pass the CT Environmental Rights Amendment. We are contacting other organizations to sign on — it will take a deep and broad coalition to get this passed. Our CT Environmental Rights Amendment Organizing Group meets every Friday from 5-6 p.m. during the legislative session by Zoom.
For more information and join us, contact Kim Stoner at 203-584-5936 or kastoner@att.net.
Residents, advocacy groups, environmental organizations, and even some politicians are outraged over the massive increase of the prices of electricity, gas and oil.
Here are links for programs that can help lower the bills for a large number of greater New Haven-area residents:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ok4oU80L6KyhUKyq1v-u2hFgsabrSN5h/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eKfhdNH9LJjw3m70akTri7yZP6L8ZIG7/view (Spanish)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EUkiJ6YNtytnXZW8tEG9AKZImP75kCpZ/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PB8vrmbnGEqy0cQhCmvCbip-g8jyjn8L/view
The Volume 2 Crew here at Neverending Books is proud to announce: We are now officially a 501(c)(3) nonprofit! It has taken a village to keep this place running smoothly and everyone’s combined skills and support have made this happen. Now we can raise tax-free donations and apply for grants. This shift will allow us to remain FREE FREE FREE for all. It will also make donations to us tax-deductible all the way back to Dec. 2021! We are so happy and we have you to thank. Thank you for sticking with us, coming out to gigs, and inviting your friends to the kookiest bookstore around. Check website for schedule of events: neverendingbooks.net. Info: nebcollective@gmail.com. 810 State Street.
Are you interested in helping rebuild the board of a New Haven-based 501(c)(3) that has an activist history of working with and helping a variety of local progressive groups? Five or more people are needed who are willing to commit to monthly meetings, take on organizational and administrative tasks (i.e., prepare agendas, chair meetings, plan activities, etc.), review bylaws and prepare for membership meetings to elect board members. Individuals and organizational representatives welcome – one representative per organization. Interested? Reply by Wednesday, March 1. For more information, call Paula at 203-562-2798.
by Stanley Heller, Administrator, Promoting Enduring Peace
Every year hundreds of millions of dollars are spent by U.S. companies to buy raw and enriched uranium from Russia. Profits from these sales are helping fund Russia’s war against Ukraine. It’s hypocritical for the U.S. government to demand European countries stop importing Russian natural gas while we import uranium from the very same country.
The U.S. has allowed itself to depend on major uranium imports from Russia and Russian-allied Kazakhstan, but we are not simply calling for increases in domestic uranium production. Uranium mining usually comes at a steep price in pollution of Native American land. There’s also the fact that the uranium is being used chiefly by the nuclear power industry.
Besides the usual worries about the safety of nuclear power plants and lack of a long-term plan for disposal of nuclear waste, this year we’ve learned of a grave new concern, that parties at war will not automatically give a wide berth to nuclear power plants. Russia shelled and took over the Zaporizhya nuclear power complex and its attacks on Ukraine’s electric power grid in November have cut normal and vital electric power to all four Ukraine’s nuclear power complexes.
The U.S. should stop importing Russian uranium and start a crash program to transition away from costly and environmentally damaging uranium and fossil fuel dependence.
The above is the text of a petition we are sponsoring along with the Ukrainian Socialist Solidarity Campaign. It’s a one-two punch, one punch against Russian aggression and another against the costly and dangerous nuclear power industry. We hope you’ll consider signing. We link it at our site: PEPeace.org.
Another and even bigger nuclear issue is the possibility that the war over Ukraine could become a nuclear war. Putin has made several scarcely veiled threats to that effect. As Daniel Ellsberg has said, Putin is acting like the U.S. has done on many occasions. What can be done? While we want nuclear weapons to be abolished entirely, we see that we have to do things in the short run to dampen down the possibility that wars go nuclear. The Defuse Nuclear War campaign has many good ideas: 1) Abolish the ICBMs, the land-based nuclear-armed missiles; 2) make a no-first-use pledge and structure nuclear weapons policy around it; 3) Take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; 4) rejoin nuclear treaties that Trump renounced.
Read more about this at our site: PEPeace.org.
Coming up in late February:
Promoting Enduring Peace and Workers Voice US will support a fund-raiser for the independent miners union in Ukraine, NGPU (Independent Mineworkers Union of Ukraine). The union faces enormous challenges, first from an invader who frequently cuts electricity even while miners are below the earth and second from a government that pushes anti-labor measures in its Rada (parliament). For an interview with a miner leader see the Ukraine/Russia links in the Resources section of PEPeace.org.
by Frank Panzarella, PAR Planning Committee
The PAR Newsletter sees its mission as the bringing together of activists by sharing reports of the events and ongoing work of groups to build a progressive community.
We recognize that within activist circles and the broader population, there are many complex issues that can sometimes divide us and that require ongoing dialogue.
In this spirit, we would like to present a new feature in the PAR newsletter that will act as a place to express differing views on controversial issues. We would like this to be a page where groups and individuals focus specifically on their own positions on these issues, points of possible unity with others, and not as a place to criticize other groups or individuals with whom they disagree.
Some examples of differences within the progressive community include the nature of the Ukraine war, defunding the police, medical assisted suicide, and political violence in Syria. How are our readers analyzing these issues and various current events? Articles should be between 200 and 350 words and sent to parnewhaven@hotmail.com. Discussion of such issues may help people find common ground and programmatic unity to further the causes dear to our hearts or at least clarify differences.
We hope our readers will take us up this offer and present their analyses in our newsletter. The PAR Planning Committee looks forward to providing a forum for all to sort out controversial issues and build a stronger progressive family.
CT People’s World Committee
The 49th annual People’s World African American History Month event will be held this year on Saturday, Feb. 25, at 4 p.m. at the New Haven Peoples Center, 37 Howe Street, and also live streamed. The theme is The Power of Youth – The Power of Collective Action: Equity Requires Revenue. The program will include prizes and recognitions for the high school arts and writing competition, as well as a panel discussion and performances.
When we reflect on the activism of youth over the past 50 years, we see the efforts, the impact, and the legacy of young people and the power of collective action. From the Children’s Crusade and the East LA Walkouts in the 1960s to the Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives Movements of our current moment, young leaders inspire us to be bold, to demand radical change, and to remember that another world is possible.
In 1963 thousands of African American children in Birmingham organized to walk out of their classrooms to protest segregation and demand civil rights. In 1968 thousands of Mexican American students in East Los Angeles organized walkouts to protest discrimination and demand improved learning conditions in their schools.
The Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives Movements continue to engage young people in the organizing and activism we need to demand a better world.