Controversial
Rabbi Michael Lerner to Speak at Spiritual Progressives Conference Nov. 3rd in the Quad Cities
By James Lee
As
the Election Season closes in on the Quad Cities, people are looking at the
vast challenges facing our country and questioning how
individual citizens can make a difference. According to
national polling, over 70% of Americans feel that our nation is on the "wrong
track".Organizers of the
Spiritual Progressives Conference feel the answers to many
of our concerns and worries are rooted in our values, faith and spirituality.
Quad
Cities Progressive Action for the Common Good (PACG) in conjunction with Churches
United of the Quad Cities, Democracy for America–Quad Cities,
Davenport Unitarian Church,
Edwards Congregational-UCC, First Congregational-UCC, Network for Spiritual
Progressives, and a host of other supporters are
sponsoring a Spiritual Progressives Conference on November 3, 2007. The theme of the conference is: Living our Faith:
Integrating Values and Politics in the Heartland.
PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE
The purpose of this conference is to promote the voice of progressive
people into the national conversation on issues of values, faith and spirituality.
The conference is
designed to dig beneath the surface of controversial national issues &
public policy debates to get to the core of how we decide what makes our
society a healthy place to live.
It is our hope that the conference will help the public better
understand how to more effectively integrate progressive values with political
action that can create positive change in our nation.
Conference organizers assert that progressives have
been the social innovators who have initiated changes in our society that have
given us more freedom, liberty, and equality. Progressives believe in
continually improving our society in order to assist as many people as possible
to achieve a better life for themselves, their families and the community as a
whole.During this time of national
drift when confusion seems widespread over what America represents and truly
believes, progressive people must amplify their voices in the public conversation
on what we value as a nation.
We reject the tactic of using religion and spiritual traditions
to be a divisive force in our nation; pitting one group of Americans against
another group.We believe that ethics and morality cannot be claimed
as the property of a single religion or political group, but must be understood
in the context of furthering the well being of all humanity, present and
future.
The conference will cover three main
areas:
1) Promoting a conversation on Progressive Values, Faith & and Spirituality
2) Organizing Progressives for political action
3) Creating healthy personal & inner lives for progressive people
The key-note speaker,
Rabbi Michael Lerner, will examine the question of how our values are translated
into political action. Rabbi Lerner is an internationally
renowned social theorist, theologian, editor of Tikkun magazine, and author of The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our
Country from the Religious Right. He has a PhD from the University of California,
Berkeley and is
the founder of the Network for Spiritual Progressives.
Faith, values, and spirituality play an important role in responding to the many challenges we
face in our country today. The primary focus of
this conference will be to explore how our values, faith, and
spirituality can direct political action and transform our nation and our world. In so doing, this conference will be
addressing the most serious issues facing our
communities such as affordable, quality health care, the war, and global warming
to name a few.
Conference
workshops include topics such as "Challenging
the Misuse of God and Religion by the Religious Right", "Global Consciousness
and Ecological Sanity", "Our Common Values" and "Grounding Justice Work in
Spiritual Practice".
To learn more about other workshops which will be presented at this conference,
click here. To download the flyer to print (double-sided to conserve paper) go to our home page: www.qcprogressiveaction.org.
The Conference commences at 9:30am with a spiritual reflection on the state of
our world.Rabbi Michael Lerner will
speak at 10:15am.Workshops will continue throughout the day.
At 2:30pm Rabbi Lerner will be part of a panel discussion with local leaders on
the state of values and spirituality in our nation. Lunch will be served and
the conference will come to a close at 3:30pm.
This
event is open to the public; seating is limited.To Register, contact PACG at 563-676-7580 or go to our website for more information: www.qcprogressiveaction.org.
Event times and places
Interfaith
Service
The
conference begins with an Interfaith Service led by Rabbi Lerner on Friday evening,
November 2nd, 7pm at the Unitarian
Church, 3707 Eastern Avenue, Davenport, Iowa.
Spiritual
Progressives Conference
On
Saturday morning, November 3rd, the Spiritual Progressive Conference
will be held at the First Congregational Church-UCC, 2201 Seventh Avenue, Moline, IL 61265. Registration
starts at 9:30AM.
Book Signing with Rabbi Lerner
Saturday evening, November 3rd, 5:30pm at Borders Bookstore, 4000 E 53rd St in Davenport.
Drew Westen's The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation helps explain the neuro-cognitive mechanisms involved in rationalizing away inconvenient truths, something we all do regardless of political affiliation. From the Introduction:
The neural circuits charged with regulation of emotional states seemed to recruit beliefs that eliminated the distress and conflict partisans had experienced when they confronted unpleasant realities. And all this seemed to happen with little involvement of the neural circuits normally involved in reasoning.
The results show that when partisans face threatening information, not only are they likely to "reason" to emotionally biased conclusions, but we can trace their neural footprints when they do.
When confronted with potentially troubling political information, a network of neurons become active that produces distress. Whether this distress is conscious, or unconscious, or some combination of the two, we don't know.
The brain registers the conflict between data and desire and begins to search for ways to turn off the spigot of unpleasant emotion.
Nothing earth shattering there. But here's where it gets interesting (italics in the original):
But the political brain did something we didn't predict. Once partisans found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions shut off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on. The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating rewards circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased reasoning. These reward circuits overlap significantly with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix", giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
Gronstal to Iowa Voters – F*ck You! Gronstal Earns a Mouth Scrubbing at Capitol Wednesday! By swords&ploughshares
It's official, Iowa Democrats who turned out in record numbers this year to deliver the historic control of the Iowa House, Senate and Governorship to Democrats for the first time in over 30 years, can now rest safe that their leadership has abandoned them.
At today's VOICE Rally at the Capitol in Des Moines, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal stunned Iowa citizens advocating Clean Elections with his arrogance and use of obscenities.
A group of women and elderly men had gathered in the Rotunda after a peaceful rally calling for an end to the use of big money in Iowa's political campaigns, when Gronstal, who has been called "the most powerful man in Iowa politics," came strolling by.
Seizing upon the chance to speak with "the powerful one," members of the group caught his attention and began asking him where he stood on the issue.
When told of the citizen's concerns about how corporate money was impacting elections, Gronstal told them that's the way things work. When asked about the chance of Clean Election legislation reaching the floor he flatly said, "Not a chance."
Gronstal then went on a rant about how "naïve" these Iowans were, thinking that big money could be removed from Iowa elections, warning that "Republicans could just outspend us (Democrats) with a 527."
When someone in the crowd asked Gronstal about the half a million dollars that he raised during the last election cycle and doled out to Democratic candidates, he scoffed at the figure, saying, "I raised twice that much!"
Eventually some 20 citizens gathered around Gronstal, eager to hear the bill's fate during the final days of the 2007 session. What many of them heard was not only disheartening, but ultimately insulting.
Rather than listen to their reasonable concerns about the influence of money in politics, Gronstal arrogantly claimed that the votes for Clean Elections "weren't there." When a woman challenged this claim, Gronstal launched into her. "I make the decisions of what bills come to the floor…I'm the best vote counter in this building. I got 25 years of experience."
At some point, an older gentleman interrupted the Senate Majority Leader, saying, "You're nothing but a Republican in Democrat clothing."
Like a petty tyrant who has finally been called on his bad behavior the Senate Majority Leader lost it. Gronstal squared off with the older gentleman and said, "That's the lowest blow that anyone's ever dealt me. You can kiss my ass!"
Visibly shaken, Gronstal stormed off. He walked a short distance away from the group and then lifted his head up to the top of the Capitol and SHOUTED "F*ck You!" A large group of elementary school children were touring the Rotunda while this was happening.
Inappropriate behavior at the Capitol is not unusual, but somebody with the title of Senate Majority Leader should not be allowed to speak to Iowa voters in such a vulgar manner especially while young children are nearby. The office and the Senate of Iowa deserve better.
If you're appalled at Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal's behavior, contact the Iowa Senate and demand that Gronstal issue a public apology.
E-mail: michael.gronstal@legis.state.ia.us Home Telephone: 712-328-2808
SENATE SWITCHBOARD: (515) 281-3371 HOUSE SWITCHBOARD: (515) 281-3221
Find Your Legislator and their email address by visiting www.legis.state.ia.us/FindLeg
Demand a public apology. Iowans expect more from their leaders.
As many of you may know, PACG has put out many calls to action on VOICE - Voter Owned Iowa Clean Elections. The passage of VOICE - SF 553 , in the state of Iowa would have a HUGE impact
on every issue across the spectrum - the passage of this bill
would give the people of Iowa an unprecedented opportunity to take back
control of our legislature from the special interest groups that have
too often dominated the outcome of policy. There are MANY reasons to
pass VOICE - passage of this bill would free-up our legislators
from the all consuming cycle of fundraising so they can spend more
time working on the actual issues that affect their
constituents, and citizens would have more faith in the system and
the legislators that represent them. Legislators would no longer be
beholden to the special interests that help get them elected. In other
states where similar bills were passed, they are seeing a big increase
in people running for office than ever before and in Arizona
voter turnout has increased by as much as 20%. The passage of
VOICE is a win-win for everyone involved... that's why WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW.
The VOICE
bill, SF 553, is in an Appropriations sub-committee comprised of
Rep. Dave Jacoby (D-chair), Rep. Jo Oldson (D) and Rep. Dwayne Alons
(R). It will come up for a vote in that committee
either Tuesday (3/27) or Wednesday (3/28). If passed, it
then goes to the full committee and becomes "funnel-proof." That
means the likelihood for debate on the floor of the House
increases. However, we learned on Friday that the Appropriations
sub-committee plans to "kill" the bill, at the request of
leadership.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
PLEASE make a push to call the committee members and the leadership on MONDAY,
urging them to support SF 553. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is a firm
supporter of the bill so please call him, thank him for his
support and urge him to continue pushing for passage of the bill.
MOST IMPORTANTLY - contact Senator Mike Gronstal in the Senate and Speaker Pat Murphy in the House - urging them to support passage of the bill. We need to make a VERY BIG PUSH in order to make a difference.
VOICE has overwhelming support from citizens and community leaders - we need to remind leadership that people matter more, money matters less.
PLEASE call the Appropriations Sub-Committee members and House & Senate Leaders on MONDAY! - These
are only 6 telephone calls that will take up very little of your time
-- the small effort required on our part can make a BIG difference for
the future of our state! Please refer to the Word document (see
attachment) that outlines the general information and primary
benefits of the bill, SF 553.
Rod Roberts (R)
Rod.Roberts@legis.state.ia.us
House Switchboard: (515) 281-3221.
Speaker of the HouseRep. Pat Murphy (D) House District 28 – Dubuque County Pat.Murphy@legis.state.ia.us Home Telephone: (563) 582-5922 House Telephone: (515) 281-5566
House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D) House District 67 – Polk County Kevin.McCarthy@legis.state.ia.us Home Telephone: (515) 953-5221 House Telephone: (515) 281-7497 (PLEASE THANK HIM FOR HIS SUPPORT!)
Senate Majority Leader Senator Mike Gronstal (D) Senate District 50 -- Pottawattamie michael.gronstal@legis.state.ia.us Home Telephone: (712) 328-2808 Business Telephone: (515) 281-3901
Take action! Call,
your local legislator today! Find out where they stand on the
bill, urge them to support it and ask them to urge leadership and
committee members to do the same! It's not
enough to simply ask them if they support the bill --- if they do,
ask them what they are doing to ensure passage of this bill.
People Party vs. Money Party: Who's Who Among the Democrats
By David Sirota, AlterNet The fact that our nation's politics is divided not between Democrats
and Republicans but between the People Party and the Money Party is
obvious to anyone who looks at the political system honestly (which is
to say, not most journalists or Washington political hacks). Calls for
"bipartisanship" and faux "centrism" that has nothing to do with the
actual center of American public opinion are most often moves to prevent the political debate from analyzing the People vs. Money divide
that actually fuels our politics. We already have plenty of
"bipartisanship" -- Republicans and a faction of Democrats who
regularly join hands to screw over the vast majority of Americans.
Many
people ask me who? Who are the leading members of both sides of the
actual divide? The answer is that there is no official list because no
one is forced to formally declare their allegiance to the People Party
or the Money Party. But it is fairly obvious which lawmakers in the new
majority have specifically defined themselves on economic justice
issues.
Though this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are the ones to watch in the coming Congress:
People Party Leaders
Freshman Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA):
This is the core group of economic populists who defined the larger
populist trend in the 2006 election. Brown has a long record in the
House as an economic justice champion, as has Sanders (who I worked for
years ago). Tester (pictured above from an event he did here in Helena
last night) made his campaign about cleaning up K Street corruption,
and Webb has declared that his top issue is going to be addressing the
taboo issue of economic inequality.
Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL): Dorgan has been one of the strongest voices against profiteering by the energy and pharmaceutical companies, and has recently written a book called "Take This Job and Ship It,"
which is one of the strongest declarations against lobbyist-written
trade deals from any sitting Senator in recent memory. Similarly, Feingold has voted against every major lobbyist-written trade deal
that has come through the Senate, even airing campaign ads on the issue
well before that kind of message became more popular. Kennedy, as the
incoming chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
(HELP) Committee is expected to continue his rabid support for the
People Party on nearly every economic issue. And Durbin, now the number
two Democrat in the Senate, has also had a solid record on trade, and
is additionally talking about pushing public financing of elections --
the most effective way to cut off K Street's ability to manipulate
Congress.
House Chairpeople George Miller (D-CA), David Obey (D-WI), John Conyers (D-MI), Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Henry Waxman (D-CA):
Miller will now head the Education and Workforce Committee where he is
expected to turn his longtime leadership on pension security, wage
protection and union organizing rights into legislative action. Obey,
who will head the Appropriations Committee (and who I worked for a few
years back), will make sure that any budget submitted by the White
House that slashes health care, education and labor law enforcement
will be dead on arrival, and replaced with a real spending plan that
protects people (Obey was the guy who famously authored amendments to
slash tax cuts for millionaires in order to better fund these
priorities). Conyers will head the Judiciary Committee, which oversees
all sorts of regulatory affairs where his pro-consumer record will
finally have a chance to shine. Slaughter will chair the powerful Rules
Committee -- the panel that governs how the entire chamber operates.
She has been an outspoken leader against media consolidation -- one of
the toughest issues to champion because the broadcasting industry is so
powerful. And finally Waxman will head the Government Reform Committee,
where we will now have a chairman who is serious about rooting out the
waste, fraud and corruption that has plagued the no-bid Iraq contracts
given to President Bush's cronies.
Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Nancy Boyda (D-KS), and Bruce Braley (D-IA):
Ohio's trio of Kaptur, Ryan and Kucinich have been among the staunchest
critics of lobbyist-written trade pacts and advocates for the
middle-class agenda in the House. Freshmen Boyda and Braley both ran
their campaigns almost exclusively on the trade issue. In Braley's
case, the Wall Street Journal noted
that he made opposition to the Bush administration's free-trade agenda
a centerpiece of his campaign" urging "more focus on labor rights in
national trade policy and talked of using economic sanctions to keep
America competitive."
I got this in en ameil from Dave Leshtz. Anyone out there interested in working in DM?
Please find the electronic version of the Board and Commission application. Feel free to distribute this widely to friends and associates. We will need to appoint 178 individuals to Boards and Commissions by March 15. If persons are interested in completing job applications, please direct them to our website: www.govelect.iowa.gov . We are asking that applicants place their resumes onto the website. Thank you for your assistance!
Factory Farms are NOT above the Law! - Take Action Now! By Caroline Vernon
Friends,
As many of you know, Scott county in Iowa and Rock Island county in Illinois are both within the top ten of the most polluted counties in the entire nation! In Rock Island county, as an example, the worst polluter was IDP, a slaughterhouse (according to the most recent reporting of emissions data; EPA 2003 - www.scorecard.org).
To think that our city and state leaders want to put ANOTHER slaughterhouse in Rock Island county is alarming! How can anyone ignore the current state of our environment? Why is it OK that we are so polluted?At the very least, we owe our children a clean and healthy environment. At this point, we are failing them miserably!
Instead, we see our hospital systems growing exponentially along with our rate of diseases. Are we just to accept that we are to become a community of "managed illnesses?" Why are we not focusing on what is causing the steady increase in cancer rates, growing incidents of auto-immune disorders and record cases of asthma in our children? Personally, I can't even imagine what it is like to be unable to breathe - we cannot continue to allow this to happen to our children!
Granted, there are many factors that contribute to what ails us but we are all creatures of our environment and cannot escape the inherent cause and effect associated with our relationship to the earth. As occums razor states, all things considered equal, the simplest explanation tends to be correct. I know a simple truth: "You only get out of it what you put into it" -- If we are dumping our waste (of all kinds, including industry emissions) and spewing it out into the countryside (land, air and water), what do we really expect to get out of that? If we truly reap what we sow, what do we really expect to reap from this?
It's a terrible thing what we are doing to oursleves in the name of the almighty dollar-- in the name of "jobs" for our communities. There are some who say, hey, we should be lucky these companies come to our town to offer us jobs. I say, how ridiculous it is that we have to sell out our physical, mental, and emotional well-being (not to mention our soul) on behalf of our financial livelihood - or so we say... the irony is, workers and others, particularly our children, will continue to get sick and pretty soon won't even be able to work which will result in no livelihood at all! So much for reaping the fruits of our labor!
I am asking all of you to continue to raise this dialogue. Write letters to the editors, contact our elected leaders (county, city, state) and ask them, "why is it OK to continue doing "business as usual" regardless of the harm it causes our environment and ourselves?" If enough pressure is brought to bear, we can simply decide to do things differently-- indeed, far better. We are truly capable of inventing our way out of this mess if we have the collective will to do so! Where there is a will, there is a way. It's our choice. In the mean time, I call on our elected leaders to reconsider how we are now choosing to invest, in order to establish a sorely needed balance between good stewardship of our environment and good economic development for our communities.Our children's future depends on it!
Fields of manure that burn for months. Contaminated drinking wells and rivers. Manure “lagoons” that overflow and kill millions of fish .
These are just some of the problems caused by the huge amounts of manure found on factory farms. Environmental and health problems are the inevitable results at these operations, which create enormous amounts of waste that cannot be absorbed by available land. And yet, some members of Congress are trying to pass a terrible bill that would exempt factory farms from prosecution under the Superfund law (CERCLA). Superfund is designed to protect the public from hazardous waste, and to hold companies accountable for pollution violations.
Act now to write to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is considering exempting manure from Superfund in a bill called HR 4341, and tell them to vote no on sweetheart deal for polluting factory farms.
*IBLTV is a group of citizens from the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area who are concerned about the decline in the quality of local television. Fight local media consolidation, as it leads to an unaccountable medium that enriches itself while disregarding the need to serve the public good.
*The rational counter to 'The Point,' 'The Counterpoint' critiques and corrects the daily editorial by Sinclair Broadcasting's corporate vice president, Mark Hyman, that is broadcast on all Sinclair-owned television stations across the country
Factory Farms are NOT above the Law! - Take Action Now!