The Pinal County Greens today attended the Social Justice Forum at Central Arizona College. Here is a report by Pinal County Greens co-chair Richard Grayson:
We spent most of the day today at an innovative and informative Social Justice Forum sponsored by Central Arizona College at its Superstition Mountain Campus in Apache Junction. The Social Justice Forum drew its inspiration in part from the well-known words of Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail": "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," and it included a terrific keynote address by Dr. Sue Warner, numerous concurrent presentations and sessions on different topics related to the forum's theme, an opportunity fair, discussions about community activism, a film showing, and more (also breakfast and lunch), all for a nominal $10 fee. The concurrent sessions were held in rooms 442 and 444 on campus, and while everyone had to choose one of two or three during the four blocks of time from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, we got to attend some interesting presentations, starting with attorney Leo Valverde's "The New Face of Poverty" to start. Leticia Berry, a CAC student who works at the Desert Vista Behavioral Health Hospital and at Parc Place Chandler, an adolescent inpatient treatment facility, delivered a highly informative presentation on the etiology and behavioral symptoms of juvenile sex offenders, their treatment, and how parents can protect their own children. Another great session featured Dr. Kristen Bishop, a naturopathic medical doctor, leading a discussion on important women's health issues regarding pregnancy and birth -- as a doula, she contrasted various methods of natural childbirth with standardized U.S. hospital births -- and the factors affecting breastfeeding. We've been interested in women's medical care since being involved in an undergraduate campaign to get a gynecologist on the Brooklyn College campus and doing our political science major's seminar paper on the changes going on in reproductive health care back in the early 1970s, and we learned a lot from Dr. Bishop. At 1 p.m., after lunch and an opportunity fair in which various local organizations of activists from places like the food bank set up tables in the courtyard, we got to hear Dr. Sue Warner, Central Arizona College's chair of Social and Behavioral Sciences, deliver a wide-ranging keynote address titled "The Broken Escalator." The title came from a video she showed near the end of her presentation, a compendium of varied social justice issues facing the world today, from income and wealth inequality to demonization of "the other" to environmental justice.
As someone who's taught at colleges, law schools and high schools since 1975, we can always recognize a highly effective, inspiring teacher, and Dr. Warner did not merely lecture but skillfully engaged the audience in a thoughtful and provocative discussion. One of several sessions concerned with LGBT issues -- we missed ones on bullied youth and coming out, affirming churches, and sensitivity training for parents, but we figured that having been active in gay rights for decades, we could learn more at other sessions on less familiar topics -- was a highly interactive presentation and discussion, "Equal Rights: A Call to Action," led by Stacey Jay Cavaliere and Bea Valezquez of One in Ten, an organization we've long admired. They were master facilitators, funny and warm and intelligent and informative, and they made effective use of group activities, like our discussion using yarn, which effectively tied all the individuals in a varied group together. A lighter but fascinating change of pace was CAC student Brittni Evans' presentation, "Star Trek: Adventures through Space and Equality," focusing on the social justice issues and messages of equality and inclusion that permeated Gene Roddenberry's original 1960s Star Trek series. (We remember our Midwood High School classmate Neil giving us a petition to sign in the spring of 1967 to stop NBC from canceling it after the first, low-ratings season. It worked, and the show lived long and prospered.) Another CAC honors student, Jo Beaudry, then spoke on "The Psychology of Hate: Cognitive and Psycho-Sociological Effects of Hate Regarding the LGBTQ Community," a sophisticated presentation involving brain science and cognitive behavior therapy. It was very well-done. We should note that the technology so helpful in these presentations worked pretty flawlessly -- as a college instructor, we know how rare that can be -- thanks to, we think, Cristina Hatler, Melissa Gardner and others involved in the planning for this terrific event. We had to get to the nursing home to help feed our mom dinner and then do some other work, and so we missed the pizza dinner on campus and the courtyard 8 p.m. screening of Paul Haggis' Oscar-winning film Crash and the discussion afterward. We've seen it a couple of times, first in 2004 in a Plantation, Florida, theater and can see how the movie's L.A.-based interwoven narrative works effectively as a critical reflection instructional tool for diversity and social justice issues dealing with race, gender, and ethnicity. Speaking of L.A.: although we missed Hanukkah in Santa Monica in December, we're about to head out to spend Pesach in the San Fernando Valley. But we are grateful for everyone involved in making today's Social Justice Forum at Central Arizona College's Superstition Mountain Campus a reminder to us that we don't have to be in New York City, Los Angeles or Miami to find a community concerned with the issues we've been involved with our whole lives.
The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution urging Congress to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank and attacking anti-business Republican politicians for blocking this needed action.
"Right-wing Republicans seem intent on destroying the Export-Import Bank, an important institution which has financed exports since the Depression," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair. "Unless it is reauthorized, the bank faces the possibility of shutting its doors completely by the end of May. Inaction by these commerce-hating conservatives could harm and even destroy many small businesses in the United States." Grayson specifically charged anti-business Congressman Jeff Flake with plotting to destroy the Export-Import Bank: "Jeff Flake is spitting in the face of every small businessperson in Arizona who depends on financing their exports and imports." As The New York Times reported,
Exports have been one of the bright spots of the fragile recovery, but without Export-Import Bank financing, companies could struggle to complete contracts with overseas buyers. Those buyers will most likely turn to foreign competitors whose governments have more robust versions of the bank, businesspeople say.
“There’s not a bank in the United States that’s going to loan money to that customer of mine in Argentina to buy my airplane,” said David Ickert, vice president of finance at Air Tractor, which makes crop-dusting and firefighting airplanes in Olney, Tex. “There is not a free-market system that operates like that. It does not exist. We need the Ex-Im Bank, period.” Like so much else in Congress these days, it is not that simple.
With its charter set to expire in May, the bank is the target of conservative groups. They are making the case to Republicans that the bank, created in 1934 to finance sales to the Soviet Union, has no place in a free-market system. Club for Growth is holding it up as the next Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, crowding out private lending and offering dangerous loans that ultimately could be left in the laps of the taxpayer.
“Those groups are just wrong, period,” said Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers and a generous personal contributor to Republican candidates. The bank is financed with a small percentage of each loan it makes to foreign buyers of American exports, producing $3.4 billion in profits for the federal government over the last five years. Drew Greenblatt, president and owner of Marlin Steel Wire Products, in Baltimore, said he recently got a rush order for wire baskets from a firm in Singapore, assuming he could finance the sale. He went to the Export-Import Bank and paid a one-half-percent fee on the loan. The bank guaranteed 95 percent of the loan. He kept the plant working through the weekend and completed the sale. “Think about all the winners in this transaction,” he said. “Ex-Im got half a point. Baltimore City steelworkers got extra hours. I got extra profits to meet payroll, and hopefully I got a client who will reorder from me.”
"The Pinal County Greens will ask our representatives in Congress to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank without delay," said Grayson. "Anti-capitalist Republicans like Jeff Flake shouldn't keep holding American businesses hostage."
Today's Tucson Weekly blog presented a proposal by Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson, a candidate in the February 28 Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary, to deport all Republicans:
Presidential Candidate Richard Grayson: Deport All Republicans—To the America They Really Love!
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 10:30 AM
Presidential candidate Richard Grayson, who is running as a Green in Arizona's Feb. 28 presidential primary, offers a new policy proposal: Deport all Republicans!
Here's Grayson's statement:
If by some fluke, I'm elected President, the first thing I will do is to take steps to make the United States great again by deporting all of those who've ruined our country, and the great state of Arizona, in recent years:
That's right, I plan to deport all Republicans. I know what you're saying: "Richard, you're a liberal lawyer and a college professor who's taught constitutional history, not an ignorant asshole like Russell Pearce and the others who think that the Fourteenth Amendment's right to birthright citizenship can be taken away. How can you 'deport' American citizens? What country would you deport them to? And how could you do this without violating dozens of the Republicans' constitutional rights from due process to equal protection?"
I understand these concerns, of course. And though I would move as quickly as possible to deport all Republicans — it's not wise to keep vermin around your house any longer than necessary — I would not deport them to any foreign country.
Instead, I would launch a crash program, a kind of Manhattan Project, to get our most brilliant scientists to create a viable way to send people back into the past. Time travel will allow me to deport the Republicans to what is, indeed, American soil — but they'd be deported back to the eighteenth century! And this, of course, would get around the problem of denying Republicans' constitutional rights. The GOP — soon to be G-O-N-E — would voluntarily self-deport to the 1700s.
After, all the fashion-challenged angry old white people of the Tea Party already love to gallivant around in colonial garb. They'd have a place where they could strut in their three-cornered hats and white leggings and not look ridiculously out of place. In the eighteenth century, Republicans could live in an America where minorities did not have equal rights (African Americans were slaves; Native Americans were massacred), where abortion and homosexuality were, if they ever occurred, punishable by death; where there was no ACLU, no Planned Parenthood, no labor unions, no minimum wage, no "entitlements," no food stamps, no "safety net," no ethnic studies, no Lady Gaga, no hip-hop, and few if any vegans, hippies, hipsters, atheists, environmentalists, Darwinists or alternative weeklies. Everyone would be better off. The Republicans would be much happier living in the past. In the 1700s they'd be up-to-date rather than throwbacks to a previous era, constantly trying to undo the New Deal and the science of the past two centuries. Instead of longing for a bygone America, they'd be living in a place they'd rather be: a bygone America.
(Of course, if they wanted to stay in Arizona, they'd be living under the Spanish empire, but hey, they probably would really love the Inquisition!) And with all Republicans deported, the rest of us here in the United States could actually achieve some progress. Twenty-first century America: Love it or leave it.
Today the Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, passed a resolution wishing everyone in Pinal County, the state of Arizona, the United States of America and other nations of the earth a happy new year.
"We hope 2012 will bring a greener, safer, more sustainable and prosperous planet," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair.
Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair, was interviewed this afternoon by Eric English of TV's ABC15 of Phoenix about his candidacy for the Green Party presidential nomination. Grayson is running in the February 28 Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary.
The Pinal County Greens today passed an emergency resolution wishing all Arizonans, Green Party members and normal people a very merry Christmas.
"We hope everyone will have a good holiday," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair. The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County.
Today the Pinal County Greens passed a resolution hailing the end of the Iraq War, "a useless, catastrophic mistake that never should have happened and which wasted American and Iraqi lives and resources." "With the end of U.S. military actions in Iraq," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair, "we end a miserable chapter in the saga of the United States as a failed empire. This was an entirely unnecessary tragedy foisted on the public by Republicans and Democrats alike, with the Green Party, always against the war, offering a lonely voice of sanity amid the 2002-03 rush to war based on lies."
Grayson said he spent the day when the war began at an antiwar service at St. Maurice Roman Catholic Church in Dania Beach, Florida, with the parish's priest and fellow members of the group Peace South Florida and others aligned with the Catholic organization Pax Christi. Grayson ran as a write-in candidate for Congress in Florida in 2004 on a platform calling for an immediate end to the Iraq war.
"We never thought the war in Iraq would last this long," Grayson said, "but the war in Afghanistan, broadened by President Obama, has gone even longer. The Pinal County Greens call for an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the failed war in Afghanistan, too." The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, which, according to 2010 U.S. Census figures, is America's second-fastest-growing county.
Today the Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, passed a resolution declaring November 30 "'Think Green' Is The New 'Think Pink' Day," calling on Arizona voters to re-register as Greens.
"'Think pink' had its day back in the 1950s when I was a kid," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair. "But now voters need to 'think Green' and register as members of the Arizona Green Party if they want real change."
"Green is the new pink," Grayson said. "Our goal for 2012 is to have more than 10,000 registered Arizona Green Party members, all of them fabulously fashionable." He also called upon Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a big fan of Funny Face, to switch from pink underwear to green. "Being Green is never awkward," Grayson said.
Pinal County Greens today joined 2009 Green Party candidate for New York City mayor Reverend Billy Talen and community groups for the takeover of a Bank of America ATM branch in Manhattan to protest the bank's foreclosure policies. Here is a report and photos by Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair.
Early this afternoon -- Black Friday to some, Buy Nothing Day to others -- we joined with the New York City community groups Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir and Picture the Homeless for a protest action at the Bank of America branch at the corner of Houston and Lafayette Streets. On this day when so many around us were shopping, we occupied the bank in the heart of chic, fashionable SoHo (okay, technically just over the border of NoHo) to sing and pray and have a dinner, courtesy of the kitchen of Occupy Wall Street, in honor of Kendall Jackman, who just two years ago was living an ordinary life renting a brownstone in Brooklyn but who today is homeless, the victim of one of millions of home foreclosures across the country. We walked over from our organizing point at the corner of Crosby and Jersey Street, across from the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, around 1 p.m. with chairs, a table, dishware, silverware, the delicious dinners, and two nice paintings donated by the late Kurt Vonnegut and Reverend Billy Talen to make Kendall feel at home in the bank which foreclosed on her landlord and forced her to leave the still-unoccupied building that BofA foreclosed upon. For us, the most moving part of the creative protest was when Reverend Billy & The Choir sang their beautiful song "We are the 99%" (as we gather together)." Afterwards the group returned to Zuccotti Park, where a group from Occupy Wall Street remain to fight the good fight. We learned a lot about organizing public demonstrations during the preparations for today's action and were impressed with the dedication and shrewdness of Billy Talen and his New York City community group. We hope to take what we've learned in New York during #OWS actions back to Arizona with us for action in the coming year.
The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County.
