Category Archives: antiwar

antiwar, Economy, labor, Youth and students

Pittsburgh First-Hand G20 Reports: Day Three

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front-march

Photo: PDA’s Randy Shannon with banner, center, next Michael McPhearson of Vets for Peace with Rick Kimbrough, right.

10,000 Marchers Beat Back
The Steel City’s ‘State of Siege’


By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue

Nearly 10,000 protesters marched through the streets of Pittsburgh on the last day of the G20 this Sept. 25 afternoon, delivering a powerful message for global justice that was expressed with a brilliantly colored display of unity, militancy and diversity.

Peace and justice groups demanded an end to wars and occupations and healthcare for all, trade union contingents demanded green jobs and fair trade, women and people of color raised the banners of equality and empowerment, and young people called for a sustainable and liberated future in a new world.

“Will we make any difference?” Rick Kimbrough asked me a few hours earlier as we headed down a parkway heavily secured with police cars at every exit on our way into town. Kimbrough is an old high school friend, an African American steelworker with 37 years in a huge Beaver County mill that’s now shutdown and gone, Jones and Laughlin Steel. When I asked him to join me the day before, he was fired up to go already, until he heard a nephew had taken a bullet as a bystander in a senseless street fight. When he heard his nephew would do OK, he called back, ready to ride in with me and join the United Steel Workers contingent in ‘the People’s March’ at the close of the G20 sessions. Continue reading Pittsburgh First-Hand G20 Reports: Day Three →

antiwar, health care, labor

Contending Views at the Beaver County Court House – Progressives Push Back Tea Party

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912rally‘Healthcare Not Warfare’ Vigil
Meets the 912 Tea Bagger Rally

By Carl Davidson and Tina Shannon
Beaver County Blue

Things were different than usual in front of the Beaver County Courthouse at 1:00 pm this Saturday September 12th. For one thing, a well-used car, festooned with the message “Support Health Care Reform!” was parked across the street. A Beaver County Transit bus driver and his family had arrived at 11:30 to park it there.

“We knew you’d be here,” his Dad said. “We showed up early so we’d get a good parking spot. We wanted it to be here for you.”

So when some 200 right wing ‘Teabaggers’ showed up for their anti-Health Care and anti-Obama protest at the Beaver County Court House, they found that their message wasn’t unchallenged. Directly across the street were over sixty people with a large ‘Bring the Troops Home Now!’ banner and dozens of placards declaring ‘Healthcare Not Warfare!’ and ‘Honk for Peace!’

The Teabaggers were newcomers to this venue, stirred up by a steady drumbeat from the Fox News network and its over-the-top racist commentator Glenn Beck. Their anxiety over the economic crisis had been stoked into a divisive politics of fear and resentment by the far right wing of the Republican Party.

The vigil for peace and healthcare, on the other hand, had been at this spot every Saturday for the last six years, since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan got underway. Sponsored by Beaver County Peace Links and the 4th CD Progressive Democrats of America, their ‘Honk for Peace’ signs and other placards linking ending the war to health care and supporting the troops had become a well-known and popular fixture to county residents. Continue reading Contending Views at the Beaver County Court House – Progressives Push Back Tea Party →

antiwar, elections, health care

County Grassroots Speaks to TeamObama

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centermeeting

Photo: Bernice Mason (left), Tina and Randy Shannon of PDA, and Peter Lesser of Organizing for America.

Obama’s New Project
Hears County Activists on
Tough Battles Ahead

By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue

About 25 people gathered at the Center Township Volunteer Fire Dept in Beaver County on the evening of July 16, sat down in a circle of folding chairs, and got involved in a new initiative from the Obama administration, a ‘listening tour’ to hear out local activists on current political battles.

The event was pulled together by the new nationwide project of the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for America (OFA), and local Democratic Party leaders. Peter Lesser, OFA Field Organizer for Western PA, and former Obama campaign organizer in Chester, PA, led the session. He was introduced by Rocco Giammaria from the Center Township Democratic Committee, and leader of the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania. Dr. Mike Sisk, Beaver County Democratic Chairman, and Tony Amadio, Chairman of the Beaver County Commissioners also participated in the meeting.

If the meeting’s aim was to get a cross section of the hopes and frustrations of local Obama campaign activists, the organizers got what they wanted, and then some.
Continue reading County Grassroots Speaks to TeamObama →

antiwar, Economy, elections, health care, Infrastructure, labor

“Change comes from the bottom up.” Barack Obama

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We Are Responsible for BrRandy Shannon at Peace Rallyinging Change

by Randy Shannon

PA 4th CD Chapter, Progressive Democrats of America

 

While the media speculates on President-Elect Obama’s cabinet picks, much of the electorate that put him in office is anticipating decisive action from the government to address the nation’s woes. Progressive Democrats need to focus on how to help bring about the change that the Obama campaign promised. Progressive Democrats of America should adopt a program of concrete steps needed in the first hundred days of the Obama administration to lay the basis for an economic recovery.

 

Now is the time for mass petitions for single payer healthcare, employee free choice, a peaceful foreign policy, rebuilding the infrastructure, and full funding for college education. It’s important to correlate the tactics of mass action to the stance of the ruling political coalition. It is now time, not to call for mass protest, but mass petition of our newly elected government. Not criticism, but appeals.

 

500,000 people in Washington DC this coming spring break petitioning Congress for single payer healthcare, employee free choice, full funding for college education, and rebuilding, for example, the crumbling locks and dams on the Ohio River will get the nation moving in the right direction.

 

Continue reading “Change comes from the bottom up.” Barack Obama →

antiwar, elections, health care

New York Times Views Beaver County Voters

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Photo: PDA’s Tina Shanon

A Rural Slice
of a Big State
Tests Obama

[The Tina Shannon quoted in this article is the Chair of the 4th CD Progressive Democrats of America and a stalwart of Beaver County Peace Links, our local UFPJ group. Carl Davidson, also quoted, as well as being a supporter of PDA here, is also working with ‘Progressives for Obama’. All of us gave the writer a little help finding people to talk to, but he was a great door-knocker all on his own. The article captures, quite well, why this is a close race, why we must, despite a bumpy ride, redouble our efforts, remain resolute and focused — Stop McCain, Stop the War, Vote Obama 2008!]

By MICHAEL POWELL
New York Times
August 21, 2008

RACCOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Wander up a gravel road and ask George Timko about Barack Obama and John McCain and he wrinkles his nose. Neither of those guys strikes him as a prize.

Mr. Timko is a burly fellow, with close-cropped white hair and a Fu Manchu mustache, and a gold necklace that rests on his bare chest. “Barack Obama makes me nervous,” said Mr. Timko, a 65-year-old retiree with a garden hose in hand. “Who is he? Where’d he come from? ”

As for Senator McCain? He shook his head. “He keeps talking about being a prisoner of war back in Vietnam: Great. The economy stinks; tell me his plan?”

To roam the rural reaches of western Pennsylvania, through white working-class counties, is to understand the breadth of the challenge facing the two presidential candidates. But this economically ravaged region, once so solidly Democratic, poses a particular hurdle for Senator Obama.
Continue reading New York Times Views Beaver County Voters →

antiwar

Vigil to Bring the Troops Home Now

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The weekly vigil for peace observed Independence Day at the Beaver County Courthouse on Saturday from 1:00pm to 2:00pm. The five year long witness against war happens every Saturday and all are welcome.

 

 

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antiwar

Beaver County Peace Links Vigil

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Going Strong

Every Week For

Over Five Years

Join us every Saturday from 1pm to 2pm at the Beaver County Courthouse, Beaver PA.

Bring All the Troops Home Now!