Students for Progressive Action

Al Rojas and United Farm Workers of America

2008-10-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

Facebook Matter:

Date:
Thursday, October 2, 2008

Time:
2:30pm - 5:00pm

Location:
Jesse Wrench Auditorium, Mem. Union

Street:
Hitt Street

City/Town:
Columbia, MO

Please join us for a talk by Mr. Al Rojas, one of the founding members of the United Farm Workers of America and now a leader in the immigrant rights movement.

Sponsors: Labor Education Program (MU Extension), Multicultural Center, and HLAFSA.

For program information please contact:
Paul Rainsberger @ 573-882-0061
For ADA accommodations please contact Kathy Murray @ 573-882-3780 at least 1 week prior to the event.

I highly suggest everyone goes to this this afternoon... it should be quite rewarding. If you can't go, you should check out Al Rojas, the UFWA and HLAFSA. Awesome stuff...

Lets organize a Pro-Economic Justice Event!

2008-09-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

the atrocity of the disinformation campaign about the bank bailouts is
indefensible. however, this is no time to just sit around and revel
in confusion and outrage. As is being done in over 100 cities in the
country, we need to organize a pro-economic justice, anti-bailout
event in columbia to let bankers know that even towns such as ours are
willing and ready to mobilize against such usury. I will not pander
to banks and supposed leaders who will take $5223 per tax payer to
keep us in debt in an exploitative financial system. If this three
page proposal was put plainly to the american public, no one would
support it. But the incentive behind doling out money and
'nationalizing' banks financially without any public accountability,
transparency, or even a guarantee after they mismanaged their mortgage
system is beyond absent. This fact needs to be badly communicated to
the world and to columbia.

I propose a protest, similar to others being done around the country,
where we pile up some of our trash in front of Bank Of America and ask
them to buy it, because they are asking the same of us. Should the
american taxpayer purchase this financial junk? If the banks were
similarly 'wise' enough to buy our trash, then we would answer their
byout plea with a resounding yes!

further detailed information on the bailouts is available at sites
such as http://www.dollarsandsense.org/blog/, the democracy nowjavascript:void(0)
broadcast over the past few days, and sites such as commondreams.org
and truthout.org. the corporate networks have pandered to their
investors' wishes of disinformation, confusion and a cultivation of
feelings of disempowerment, fear, and resignation as far as our
economic rights are concerned. we must remain well informed through
this struggle and maintain a campaign of direct action to raise our
voices against such economic injustice.

i will be gone until monday. we will engage in rapid development of
the funny money film series. i have been put in contact with the
correct folks for film screening approval. we need to act, we need to
educate. this is a dire time, but not for the same reason they tell
you in the news... keep informed, plan, act. there is so much to do,
and it is oh so necessary...

Recent Meeting Minutes

2008-09-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

9/24/08
Hi all, here are the minutes from tonight's meeting:

SOA
The budget for SOA is done and ready to be turned in on Friday. We will find
out if we were approved by next Friday, 10/2!

Let's send out a press release about the trip, and hope to get some
coverage!
We should table and put on events the week or two before we go to educate
the campus on the issues.
Presente! is a group that we can buy 150 copies of literature about SOA for
$25. Let's do a fundraiser to get the money – maybe a party?

The College Dems are doing a big voter registration drive tomorrow,
Thursday. Their goal is to sign up 1000 new registrants. Here is the info
they emailed out:

Thursday, 9/25: Our big event this week is our Day of Action on
Thursday. From 9am to 7pm we'll be all over campus registering voters, and
we need YOUR HELP! Luckily there is a really cool and really easy way for
you to sign up! Go to this spreadsheet and fill out the information, and
you'll be added to our schedule for that day! We're working on getting 1000
new voters registered that day, and you can help us to that goal!Then, at
7pm, we're heading to the Heidelberg to celebrate our voter registrations!
We'll be announcing the final number for the day at 7:30. Make sure you're
there to celebrate! (Note: We're doing this instead of our original plan of
yardsign making, but keep an eye out for that in the future!

If you want to sign up for the event, click here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pOG34HhKNofiT8Qs0-g7heg&hl=en

There will be a public forum where Al Rojas, one of the founding members of
United Farm Workers and now a leader in the immigrant rights movement, will
be giving a talk. It's happening on Thursday, October 2, 2008, in Jesse
Wrench Auditorium in Memorial Union South.

Update on the Troy Davis case. He was the man on death row in Georgia who
was scheduled to die on Tuesday, but the U.S. Supreme Court intervened and
issued a stay on the execution. They will decide if he will be executed or
not on Monday. We might be doing an action for this on Friday, and emails
will be sent on the discussion listserve about the details.

Anna Baltzer, Jewish American Columbia graduate, Fulbright scholar, author,
granddaughter of Holocaust refugees, and volunteer with the International
Women's Peace Service, is touring the United States with a presentation and
book describing her experiences documenting human rights abuses in Palestine
and supporting nonviolent resistance to the Occupation. Providing
photographic documentation and critical information often misrepresented or
ignored in the Western media, Baltzer's presentation covers checkpoints,
settlements, Israeli activism, the 1948 war & refugees, censorship, the
Separation Wall, nonviolent resistance, and more. For further information
about Baltzer's work and tour, please visit www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com.

She will be in Columbia on Friday, Oct. 3 at 6pm at 1805 E. Walnut, which is
a campus of Moberly Area Community College. We are going to try to promote
this on campus - Kelsey will kind of be leading this.

The ACLU is sponsoring an activist organizing training this Saturday at the
MU Law School. It's free, and lunch is provided. Go to
https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=nat_columbia_missouri_training&JServSessionIdr012=w5bldznos5.app24ato
sign up!

Next week sometime we are going to try to do a SPA potluck dinner/social
gathering. We'll send an email out with the details when we figure them out.

-Jack Buthod

Thanks Jack!!

SPA new semester

2008-09-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

SPA is starting off another semester. Meetings will now be held at a brand new time, wednesday at 7:00. Its still Middlebush, but is now room 132. Hopefully we will see everyone there, including some new folks who signed up at The Listening Project. We have much to discuss, including Earth Dance, the Funny Money Documentary Series, Moratorium Now, and other exciting stuff. Bring on any ideas you might have as well, including traveling events. We will have a large budget if we have things to put on it.

Center for Media and Democracy: PR watch: Pentagon Propoganda

2008-04-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

The coverage available lately on The Center for Media and Democracy, specifically on prwatch.org has been rocking the world of journalism in its comprehensive exposure and summation of the extent of Pentagon Propoganda in a complicit newsmedia. This issue is of huge import to our university as it reveals an intentional breach of journalistic integrity on behalf of the U.S. military's 'Pentagon military analyst program', which directly embedded (and continues to embed) hired military analysts into network news stations without acknowledging this fact to viewers. Now, Network Media is maintaining it's compliance in delaying or refusing to report these findings, which are on the level of or grander than the famous Pentagon Papers of times past.

You can view a brief and halted debate from PBS's newshour below (you can practically see CPB execs shaking in their boots in the background) between CMD reporters and an ABC exec.:

-----a good article on PRwatch.org's website:

Pentagon, TV Networks Fear Debating Iraq Propaganda Scandal - Stauber vs. Zelnick on NewsHour

-----an on alternet (written by CMD writers)

Pentagon Propaganda: So Much Worse Than We Thought

-----also, lily posted this article from the NYtimes

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

We gotta get the word out on campus!! This would make a great topic for a discussion next fall in conjunction with a Journalism student group. We could bring folks from CMD and possibly some journalists who wish to speak out about this. A great place to do it, eh?

Russel Means

2008-04-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

There will be a lecture held on April 22, 2008 at 6:00 in Keller Auditorium (Geology Bldg.) by Russel Means, the radical Native-American activist. He is an Oglala Sioux who grew up in San Francisco and is well known as an activist, actor and musician. He is renowned as having led AIM (The American Indian Movement) to take Mount Rushmore in 1970 and in 1973 led them to occupy Wounded Knee. His messages of justice and an end to racism and disempowerment are said to be very inspiring. It is a very pertinent time to pay attention to Indigenous struggles as native peoples all over the world increasingly find their land, resources, autonomy and traditions threatened by governments and multinational corporations.
I am fairly sure it is free, if you are interested in more information there are fliers all over town.

Amy Goodman in Columbia!

2008-04-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

Good news SPAistas! The one and only Amy Goodman will be here in columbia on April 27th, touring with her new book which she cowrote with her brother David called: Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times.
The deal is that is starts with a 75 dollar (yikes!) reception at the Upper Crust?! at 6:30. Then, from 7:45 to 9:30 a talk/booksigning will occur (which will cost $15) at the Blue Note. More info can be garnered here. What can SPA do? It will be well promoted by her own team, so we are left to enjoy it! yay!

The Listening Project

2008-04-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, April 29th, SPA will be screening the documentary "The Listening Project" in Middlebush Auditorium @ 7pm. The directors will be present to answer questions after the filming! [Facebook]

The film follows four unique Americans through fourteen countries – from a Shanghai hip-hop club to a war-ravaged Kabul neighborhood to a village at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro – in each place asking “what do you think of America?” In beautifully-photographed locales, we encounter fascinating and diverse characters who reveal not only the impact of the U.S. on their lives, but also their perspectives on crumbling empires, human fellowship, and what it means to be a citizen in a globalized world.

For more info, please visit The Listening Project, or view the video above.

First Post!

2008-04-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the new Students for Progressive Action blog. We will be using this as our new website. There are many reasons for the switch from the old static website, but most importantly is that using a blog will allow for many people to add content, update the site and pretty much make the site more accessible to all involved with SPA. This is in contrast to the old site where pretty much I was the only one able to change things.

So anyways, here it is feel free to post articles and content. And if you would like to be added as a contributer, just email me.