Things to do, Things to follow closely

This was intended as a quick feature just noting one event and where you could go for coverage you most likely won't get elsewhere. It ended up with a bit more at the end so be sure to read all the way through.



First up, if you're in NYC Monday, RadioNation with Laura Flanders' Laura Flanders will be taking part in an important discussion exploring the themes of people power, reproductive rights and much more:


The Culture Project and Women Center Stage Present: People Power vs. the Right's Advance: The Case of South Dakota.
Monday, July 16th, 7pm at the Culture Project, 55 Mercer St. in downtown Manhattan.
Laura Flanders will lead a discussion of one of the most noteworthy victories of 2006.
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PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!
Against overwhelming odds, South Dakotans reversed a no-exceptions abortion ban. How did they do it? How did regional and national allies help? With more threats to reproductive justice looming at the local and federal level, this is a unique opportunity to talk directly with women who were there:
* Charon Asetoyer, Founder and Executive Director of the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center in South Dakota.
* Sondra Goldschein, State Strategies Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project.
* Nancy Goldstein, Director of Communications & Development for National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
* Laura Ross, founder of Women Run! South Dakota, a state-based PAC that helped 23 pro-choice Democratic women (including Asetoyer) run for office in '06.
* Cari Sietstra, founder and former executive director of Law Students for Choice.
Laura Flanders is the host of RadioNation on Air America Radio and the author of BLUE GRIT: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians. Books will be available for signing at the event.Panelists will take questions from the audience and the media. Please forward this message to your lists. And come early -- seating is limited.
GET YOUR TICKET TODAY.
For more information, or to buy tickets ($15) go to http://lauraflanders-com.c.topica.com/maag4hZabzSaAbQccDub/ Tickets can also be obtained at the Culture Project Box Office at 55 Mercer Street (@Broome). Queries: please call 212 232 0255 or write to boxoffice@cultureproject.org

Kimberly Wilder advises on several resources for news for the Green Party USA's annual meeting (and you know The Nation's not covering it):

Below are a few ways to get updated reports throughout the day on what is happening here at the meetings:

www.onthewilderside.net

some blogging, and a few video snippets posted daily.

http://www.brainshrub.com/node/735

yesterday, they did live blogging of the plenary. regular updates on the action here

www.polidoc.com

Babette Hogan is a producer/director who is doing a documentary related to the Green Party. She also said that she would put up some updates on the convention.

Today should be voting for 4 new Steering Committee members, and the GP-US Secretary. (My husband is running for Secretary. The election is sometime before 10am, I think!)

And:

We attended a press conference today about ballot access with Ralph Nader and PA candidate Carl Romanelli.

The video is at: http://wilderside.wordpress.com/2007/07/15/daily-greens-nader-on-will-he-run-for-president-in-2008-video/

On the topic of Ralph Nader, John V. Walsh (CounterPunch) has issued a call for him to enter the fray and launch his 2008 presidential campaign. Walsh writes, "In 2000 when Nader's influence was felt, Gore clearly won the popular vote, both nationwide and in Florida. Unfortunately Gore's lack of backbone and the Dems' failure to use a filibuster to prevent the packing of the Supreme Court with right wing theocrats resulted in the theft of Gore's victory. Then in 2004, when the Democrats and their lapdogs like Katrina Vanden Heuvel at The Nation managed to marginalize the antiwar Nader while endorsing the prowar Kerry, Bush actually won the popular vote!" (We would have linked to Walsh even without the humorous evaluation of Katrina vanden Heuvel -- we're surprised that C.I. quoted it at The Common Ills -- but, face it, it was worth including.)

A potential 2008 run can't be noted without noting the problems in 2004 for the Nader campaign. Last Monday, Democracy Now! broadcast an interview Amy Goodman did with Ralph Nader and that was one of the topics addressed (the interview was for the full hour and, whether you have an opinion on Nader or not, you really should check it out if you missed it):

AMY GOODMAN: The Independent unannounced: Ralph Nader.
RALPH NADER: Too early to say. It's too early to say. If I was going to run -- and I have not decided at all -- the biggest problem is getting on the ballot. The Democrats filed twenty-one phony suits against us. We won most of them, but it was very draining. In Pennsylvania, they got a Democratic judge, using a Republican law firm, Reed Smith, to assess me and Peter Camejo $81,000 in transcription costs and handwriting expert fees for defending our right to be on the ballot, which they got us off through all kinds of shenanigans. First people in American legal history who had to pay court costs for defending their right to be on the ballot. So ballot access obstructions is the political bigotry of American politics. It's very hard to get liberals who love civil rights and civil liberties and who are Democrats to be at all excited about the systemic obstruction of fifty state laws at one level or another that can be used by either Democrat or Republicans against third-party candidates.
And historically, Amy, that's where all the great ideas came from. In the nineteenth century it was the anti-slavery party, the women's suffrage party, the farmer party, all the things we read about briefly in our history books that pushed these social justice movements before one or both of the two parties picked up on them. So they're -- you know what I like to say? What would happen to nature if it prohibited seeds from sprouting? What would happen if big business could totally extinguish small business? That's what the big two-party elected dictatorship is doing to a whole array of local, state and national candidates who would like to give the American people more voices and choices.


On Ralph Nader, we should note before the e-mails come in, we're not endorsing him, we're not not endorsing him. He is a serious politician and if he enters the race, we will do our best to note him as much as we do any other candidate. Three e-mails last week asked who we would be endorsing? An endorsement is unlikely in any race (Cindy Sheehan, if she runs against Nancy Pelosi for the House seat, would probably be the easiest candidate in 2008 for us to endorse -- in fact, we are all on board with that endorsement should she run -- we just found that out ourselves). C.I. doesn't do endorsements. (That was our surprise while writing this. C.I. would endorse Cindy Sheehan in 2008 for any race she ran in. "She's more than earned it. And she'll get enough flack that to stay silent would be a grave injustice.") You also have Jess who is a Green. You have almost all the women participating having endorsed Dennis Kucinich in the primary already (Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Dona and Elaine). You have factions leaning towards Edwards and at least one leaning towards Gravel. So to make an endorsement would probably require a lengthy debate (and for the presidential race, it might require some taking their names off the piece).

But Nader is a serious candidate if he decides to run and we will not take part in a "Ralph Don't Run" campaign. Nor will we take part in an "____ Don't Run" on any candidate. (If Russ Feingold got into the 2008 campaign it appears we'd most likely be able to do an endorsement.)

If you're a regular reader and you're candidate is not being mentioned (presidential) when others are, you need to let us know. You also need to let us know if one of us types "Bill Richards" and not "Bill Richardson" -- that happens when we're tired.

One non-regular reader just came across our piece on where the candidates in the Democratic Party stand on Iraq, is furious and writes that "C.I. shouldn't be allowed to weigh in on Obama after having slammed him." C.I. says that's most likely in reference to a shared opinion of Barack Obama in 2006. At that time, it seemed unlikely Obama would run. (C.I., "I was wrong, I often am." But we were all wrong there thinking someone might want to at least get the experience of a full Senate term before attempting to run for president in order to prove he could accomplish something. Those running for president aren't leading in Congress currently nor could they since running for president requires a lot of time.) To be clear, no one hear likes Obama and Betty's the most vocal on that. C.I. generally doesn't contribute to those parts of the pieces. Elaine notes if C.I. should be disqualified then she should as well because they both met in 2004 (when he still had a real Republican opponent) and were underwhelmed ("to put it mildly"). As for Obama's dirty campaigning, C.I.'s actually the one who, though highly offended, prefers that doesn't get noted (due to the fact that one person has already been publicly humiliated as a result of his dirty tricks and she didn't deserve it since she wasn't even married to his opponent at the time, they had already divorced).

The same e-mail notes that the only one C.I. "attacks more than Barack is Joseph Biden." Which just goes to show you how little knowledge is necessary to compose an e-mail. C.I. knows Biden and likes him as a person but disagrees with him on Iraq and most other issues. When possible (such as noting Biden had the best one liner last week: "This progress report is like the guy's who's falling from a 100-story building and says halfway down that everything's fine."), C.I. does try to include a kind word about Biden while at the same time holding him accountable on the issue of Iraq. That's actually true of all the candidates except Obama (that meeting really disappointed Elaine and C.I. and their disappointment had to do with Iraq which Obama's much lauded position on had already begun weakening) and we could finish features a lot quicker if C.I. would stop adding "in fairness, it needs to be noted . . ." But if you want your heavy panting on Obama, check out The Nation's coverage (and not just Patricia Williams, but all of the coverage). If you want some reality, check out CounterPunch. And that tip actually applies to all the candidates. CounterPunch is interested in informing. And Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair would probably be the first to refuse pom-poms for any side.