Category: Activism

The 50501 Movement

The first action of the 50501 Movement was on Feb. 5, protesting Project 2025 in front of the capitols of every state. In Hartford, a number of PAR readers joined the crowd of 500 in front of the State Capitol. The second 50501 action was on Feb. 17, Presidents’ Day.

The 50501 Movement is a coalition demanding justice, transparency, accountability, and an end to executive overreach. Despite being seen as leaderless, every individual, state, city, grassroots organization, and activist is a leader in this movement.

To find out about more national days of action, visit the website https://www.fiftyfifty.one.

New ICE Age Response Team: Prepare, Don’t Panic

by Paul Bass, Feb 18, New Haven Independent

[The following are excerpts. To read the entire article, please go to http://bit.ly/41dh0aA]

If an ICE (federal Immigration & Customs Enforcement) agent is indeed at the door: “I don’t wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United Stations Constitution … I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights … unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door …”

A coalition of 60 agencies and nonprofit groups is spreading those red cards, and that calm-but-ready message, to the heart of New Haven’s immigrant community, which is bracing for ICE mass deportation raids promised by the newly installed Trump administration. …

“Exactly what the Trump administration wants is just fear, to incite fear and panic and chaos,” Yenimar Cortes, New Haven organizer for CT Students For A Dream, said during a New ICE Age conversation Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” She was joined by fellow organizers Fatima Rojas of Semilla Collective, Junta case worker Jacqueline Gonzalez, and high school youth organizer Ambar Santiago-Rojas.

An estimated 100,000 undocumented people live in Connecticut.
You can call the rapid response hotline at 220-666-4472. Rojas said people can call her at 203-747-4309 for information on attending the coalition’s Saturday community engagement meetings. Cortes invited people to contact her group at 203-787-0191 for information on Know Your Rights workshops.

48′-Wide Billboard Says ‘Stop Arming Israel’

by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee

There’s an electronic billboard over the highway just as I-91 flows into I-95 going towards New York City. Since Feb. 10, for eight seconds out of every minute of the day and night, drivers and passengers will see the urgent message “Stop the War, Stop Arming Israel.” The billboard directs people to the website StopArmingIsrael.org. It will be on display through March 9.

A coalition of groups and individuals thought of using the method of billboard to reach people not usually seen in progressive areas. It’s expensive but at the very least we hope this billboard display will normalize the idea of stopping the guns to Israel.

The Coalition is made up of the Middle East Crisis Committee, Palestine Solidarity Committee of Danbury, Health Care Workers 4 Palestine – Connecticut, CT for a World BEYOND War, Veterans for Peace Chapter 18, Connecticut Palestine Alliance (CTPA), Justin Paglino, MD–PhD, Tree of Life Education Fund, Hassan Fouda, and Promoting Enduring Peace. A score of other people made donations.

On behalf of the Palestine Solidarity Committee of Danbury, Dr. Justine McCabe said, “The imperial and immoral actions of the US—in arming Israel’s genocide as well as in its support for autocratic regimes in the region—dangerously collide with the persistent striving for democracy by ‘decolonized’ people who overwhelmingly identify with Palestinians.” She continued, “While working as an anthropologist and psychologist in Gaza and West Bank, I witnessed the intense frustration and disgust among Palestinians for US unconditional support for Israel—long before this genocidal war. In fact, US support for apartheid Israel as its geopolitical proxy to control the Middle East makes both Israelis and Americans less safe, less secure. Tragically, in their ‘special relationship’ as hyper-militarized cultures, the US and Israel dehumanize their own citizens by their brutalizing dehumanization of Palestinians.”

Besides messaging the general public, the coalition will alert each member of the CT legislature, the governor and federal elected officials about the billboard and the need for each of them to act to stop weapons from going to Israel.

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide: Film and discussion

Hamden Public Library

Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PAMAS) premieres its 35-minute film, Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide, which examines this controversial topic, considering its historical context, current practice, and impact on health care.

With poetry and song written and performed by a West Haven, CT-based poet, songwriter, and performance artist, Elaine Kolb, the film includes interviews with disability and social justice activists; a nationally known palliative care doctor, Dr. Diane Meier; and a retired Connecticut disability rights attorney, Nancy Alisberg, who discuss their personal and professional reasons for strong opposition to the practice. With captioning, narration, and ASL interpretation. Audience discussion and question and answer session to follow.

This program is free and open to the public. Seating is limited. Registration is recommended.

Tuesday, March 25, 6:30–7:30 p.m.
Thornton Wilder Hall, Miller Memorial Library
2901 Dixwell Ave., Hamden.

CT Residents Protest President-Elect Trump Ahead of Inauguration

by Shahrzad Rasekh, January 18, CT Mirror

A Connecticut contingent marched in opposition to the impending second term of President Donald J. Trump in Washington, D.C., Saturday [Jan. 18], carrying signs and expressing concern about the fate of racial minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, women, immigrants and the environment over the coming four years.

The People’s March, organized by a coalition of nonprofits including the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and Time to Act, drew an estimated 50,000 demonstrators to the nation’s capital days before Trump’s second inauguration. Under gray skies and a light drizzle, a multi-generational crowd — from babies in strollers to senior citizens — marched to the Lincoln Memorial, chanting intermittently, “This is what democracy looks like!”

[Article can be read in its entirety at https://tinyurl.com/49bedmkn]

Author Talk — Radical Connecticut: People’s History In The Constitution State

Author Andy Piascik joins us for a discussion about his and Steve Thornton’s new book: “Radical Connecticut: People’s History In The Constitution State.”

Version 1.0.0

“Radical Connecticut” tells the stories of everyday people and well-known figures whose work has often been obscured, denigrated, or dismissed. There are narratives of movements, strikes, popular organizations and people in Connecticut who changed the state and the country for the better.

Bridgeport native Andy Piascik is a long-time activist and award-winning writer whose work has appeared in many publications and on many websites. He is the author of the novel “In Motion.”
“Radical Connecticut: People’s History in the Constitution State” is his fourth book.

Thursday, Jan. 23, 6-7:30 p.m.
Phillip Marrett Room
Ives Main Library
133 Elm St.
New Haven

A response to the 2024 U.S. presidential election

by New Haven Sunday Vigil for Peace and Justice

The reason we have been out here during five presidential administrations

— and will be here for the next one, too

The genocide that our government has been funding and fueling in Gaza for more than a year underscores our decision to continue our weekly vigil for peace and justice in New Haven, begun in 1999 to speak out against global, national, and local atrocities — especially those in which our own government plays a primary role. And the horrifying results of the 2024 election make citizen resistance and action more urgent and important than ever.

The Democratic party failed miserably in its one job for 2024: to change course and to put forward a program to address the existential problems facing our country and the world. Here was an opportunity to break with the Biden administration on Gaza; to denounce the demonization and deportation of immigrants; to propose concrete plans to deal with the climate crisis; and to plan to deal with the other serious issues threatening our lives, such as the disastrous housing crisis, the exorbitant cost of living, the broken health care system, and the criminal, ever-growing concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people. Instead, the Democrats cultivated war criminals and appeased their corporate donors. This appeasement did not win them win the election, but it did help hand the victory to Trump and his Republican sycophants.

We will soon face a cohort of rulers whose only goals are to solidify the existing concentration of global wealth and power into the hands of a few by dismantling every single protection and gain won from decades of struggle; destroying or rendering inoperable every department of the federal government that does not give strict allegiance to their authoritarian demands; and underwriting the corporate donors who are embedded within both parties — the weapons manufacturers, AIPAC, the gun lobby, and the fossil fuel industry. Obviously, this will make conditions exponentially worse for all, starting but not ending with the most vulnerable among us. This is exactly what the Trump machine promised. Believe them.

WHAT “Endless War?”

Since 1999 when our Sunday vigil began, passersby have asked us what “endless war” we’re talking about, what we mean by the phrase. We mean this: the serial wars fought throughout the world are one war being waged on many fronts. Adults and children continue to be slaughtered, maimed, traumatized, and driven from their homes everywhere so that immense wealth and power can be concentrated in the hands of a very few people.

Here in the United States and globally, bigotry, discrimination, and widespread economic injustice serve the same end of enriching the few at the expense of the many. The weapons of the endless war include:

  • continued development and production of an ever more deadly nuclear arsenal
  • the funding and fueling of criminal wars and genocide
  • aerial drone strikes against human beings many thousands of miles away (targets whose bodies the bombardiers, operating their weapons by remote control, will never have to see)
  • mass incarcerations and deportations of immigrants and refugees (condemning them, in many cases, to a future of torture or death)
  • the systematic dismantling of the infrastructure and social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security that most of us not only depend upon but have funded with our hard-earned tax dollars all our lives
  • the destruction of our environment
  • the racist use of the police force to terrorize Black and brown communities
  • the never-ending attacks on women’s and LGBTQIA+ people’s rights
  • the systematic, vicious undermining of citizens’ rights to vote
  • the destruction of labor unions and the creation of a “gig economy”
  • the refusal to pass a living, national minimum wage
  • the propagation of a vicious, profit-driven healthcare system that discriminates against the poor, elderly, and disabled.

We believe that our tax dollars should instead be spent on the things we need to sustain and improve our lives and our planet: universal, unrestricted, comprehensive and not-for-profit quality health care for all; emergency, full-scale, and sustained action to address and do everything possible to ameliorate climate change; and excellent housing, education, and resources for everyone.

People throughout the world are risking their lives to open this path and to resist and overthrow the authoritarian regimes that stand in their way. As U.S. citizens, we cannot evade our responsibility. Silence is not an option.

May we all have the wisdom of discernment and the courage to act to protect and serve our communities, in this moment, and in the coming years.

RESIST THIS ENDLESS WAR
https://newhavensundayvigil.wordpress.com
Sunday, November 24, 2024

 

A Short History of the Progressive Action Roundtable

by Paula Panzarella, PAR Planning Committee

On Nov. 10, I gave a presentation to the First Unitarian Universalist Society on the history of the Progressive Action Roundtable. It is available to view at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kZJZSFBUwAQ1sVfafMfd0OiCBO9CbW3A/view?usp=drive_link.

Below is a link to a few early PAR documents and an example of my current activism calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u4iKSzRVefMEDHF9BjD4BKPPyO98ltyn/view?usp=sharing.

Breaking Chains, Building Bridges, 9 am – 6 pm Sat. Nov. 16, Hartford.

Register here — https://www.eventbrite.com/e/breaking-chains-building-bridges-ct-for-palestine-tickets-1002651446467

 

Wesleyan University, Middletown CT: Breaking Chains, Building Bridges will bring together activists, organizers, students, workers, artists and all those ready to stand in solidarity with Palestine and grow the movement for collective liberation. We invite people of conscience from across Connecticut and the greater region to join us in political education, skill-building and strengthening relationships for the struggle ahead. Free Palestine! Mask up and see you there – Unitarian Society of Hartford, 50 Bloomfield Ave. Hartford, CT 06105.

Activists gathered Oct. 7 Action on Gaza at Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s Office

On Oct. 7, peace and justice activists gathered in front of Rep. DeLauro’s New Haven office at 59 Elm St. for a community reading of the open letter to Pres. Biden and Vice Pres. Harris from American medical professionals who served in Gaza. The letter was then given to her aide Lou Mangini to read to her. The reading was organized by the Greater New Haven Peace Council.

Below are excerpts. The entire letter is online at www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024.

I’ve never seen such horrific injuries, on such a massive scale, with so few resources. Our bombs are cutting down women and children by the thousands. Their mutilated bodies are a monument to cruelty. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, trauma and critical care surgeon, Veterans Affairs general surgeon

I saw so many stillbirths and maternal deaths that could have been easily prevented if the hospitals had been functioning normally. Dr. Thalia Pachiyannakis, obstetrician and gynecologist

Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, orthopedic and hand surgeon

No Excuses! Absentee Voting Is on the Ballot this Year

by League of Women Voters of Connecticut

“Shall the Constitution of the State be amended to permit the General Assembly to allow each voter to vote by absentee ballot?”

Connecticut voters will see the above question on their November 5 ballot. A “yes” vote supports authorizing our State Legislators to make absentee voting available to ALL eligible Connecticut voters for any reason. A “no” vote opposes any changes, keeping current language in the State Constitution that requires a voter to have a specific reason… to request an absentee ballot.

Currently, Connecticut voters can request an absentee ballot only if they cannot make it to the polls on election day for… active military service, absence from town of residence during voting hours, sickness, physical disability, religious beliefs precluding secular activity on election day, or performance of duties as an election official at a different polling place during voting hours.

Under the amendment, an absentee ballot would still be returned either in person or by mail to the voter’s city or town clerk’s office by the close of business the day before the election, or dropped in an official ballot drop-box before the polls close at 8 p.m. on election day…

Connecticut is behind… other states when it comes to access to absentee voting. It’s time to catch up! Connecticut’s restrictions on voting access are outdated – 28 states do not require a specific reason to vote absentee, including New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Eight states and the District of Columbia conduct their elections entirely by mail. Learn more at https://tinyurl.com/yc5frjvw.

Visioning Continues for Six Lakes

July 31 Update from the Six Lakes Coalition

…. People from all over Hamden and Greater New Haven gathered… for three public visioning sessions… to dream a future for Six Lakes. The idea was… to share a vision for the 102-acre forested wetlands tucked away in southern Hamden ….

Justin Farmer, a member of the Six Lakes Park Coalition steering committee, attended all three public sessions and a fourth for the residents of Whitney Center… Altogether about 100 people attended… All had a chance to view a stunning six-minute video of the property created by the Mill River Watershed Association and to share their desires for a future park through conversations ….

“There is a consensus that people want to see green space and accessible trails,” says Justin, adding that opinions were mixed on development. “Even people who might not live to see the completion of the project were very strong in wanting the space to be preserved….”

Not everyone was in agreement about what a future park might look like. Some people wanted access for bicycles, while others wanted just pedestrians using the trails. Some wanted picnic tables and playground equipment, while others wanted a less developed space for wildlife and quiet contemplation. Few people have actually been on the property, which has been fenced off by its owner, Olin Corporation, for decades. “Without having seen it, it’s hard to imagine what it could be like,” Justin adds….

About 175 people have filled out surveys on what they’d like to see in a park at Six Lakes… steering committee members will be focusing for the next month on getting a lot more people to fill them out by going door-to-door and by promoting the survey at public events and online… The Coalition will issue a final Vision Report based on its findings from the visioning sessions and surveys sometime this fall. That report will help inform future decisions by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and Olin as testing and, eventually, cleanup of the property moves forward.

Check out the Six Lakes video at: vimeo.com/956769518/8314bc38d2.

For more information and to fill out the survey, email [email protected].

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