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Starts 10AM: 2nd Annual Massachusetts Socialist Conference
Confronting War and Exploitation in 2008
Hosted by Socialist Alternative
Location: UMass Boston, Snowden Auditorium in the
Wheatley Building
Free and open to the public
Schedule:
10:00am Coffee and Bagels
10:30am Forum on US Economy: Housing Crisis Hits Home
12:00pm First Round of Workshops:
1. Martin Luther King Jr's Assassination and Black
Liberation
2. The History of May Day: International Workers Day
3. Is Socialism Against Human Nature?
4. BU Biolab - Sickening our Communities
1pm Lunch - $5 suggest donation
3pm Debate: Should we vote for democrats in 2008?
4:30pm Second Round of Workshops
1. Youth, Veterans and Resistance to War
2. Women's Rights and Socialism
3. Re-building the Labor Movement
4. Immigrant Rights: Building the Struggle
5. "The Arts, Revolution and Leon Trotsky" hosted by
Dr. Abbott Ikeler, Professor of Communications at
Emerson College
5:30pm Rally: 40 Years Since May 1968 Revolt
For Child Care RSVP
For more information contact by email
or call 774-454-9060.
Sandy Eaton has labored in the field of hospital-based patient care in Mass for nearly 45 years. With the corporatization of health care picking up steam, he organized the first demonstration for patient safety on the steps of the State House in 1993, uniting RNs, LPNs & student nurses. Still fighting the transformation of health care into an assembly-line, just-in-time industry, he is a vice-chair of Mass Care and sits on the statewide board of the Mass. Nurses Association.
Sandy has helped build the Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients (www.protectmasspatients.org), now 125 organizations strong (including CCB), pressing for passage of H.2059 to set a limit to the number of patients a nurse must care for at one time. With 2000 patients dying every year in this state from hospital- acquired infections and injuries, urgent intervention is needed!
1pm: For Love of a Soldier: Interviews with Military Families Taking Action Against the Iraq War
Talk by author Jane Collins,
Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge
"Family members of soldiers in Iraq speak here—often
out of anguish and with breathtaking candor—in hopes
that others won't have to, as one puts it, "know what
it's like to have someone [they love] in harm's way
for no good reason." Their moving stories demonstrate
what it means to have a personal stake in the outcome
of the current administration's war, showing the steps
that ordinary Americans have taken to bring an end to
the fighting and to bring their loved ones
home."—Daniel Ellsberg, author of Secrets: A Memoir of
Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.
For Love of a Soldier contains the stories of 29
people whose family members—spouses, siblings,
children—are serving or have served in the American
military during the Iraq War. The families tell their
stories and explain why they believe that taking
action to end American military involvement in Iraq is
the best possible way to support the troops who are so
dear to them.
The passionate and articulate individuals whose
interviews make up the body of the book include:
spouses and parents of soldiers with post-traumatic
stress disorder, a couple with eight children and
grandchildren who have served or are currently serving
in Iraq, the parents who have formed an organization
of anti-war families, parents whose children have been
killed or maimed in the war, and parents whose
children have committed suicide after returning home
from the war.
About the Author:
Jane Collins is a writer and researcher who has
contributed to Against the Vietnam War: Writings by
Activists and Against U.S. Foreign Policy Post-9/11,
both edited by Mary Susannah Robbins.
January 2008, 226 pages
Lexington Books
A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
1-800-462-6420
5PM: Protest AIPAC, Commemorate the NAKBA
On Sunday May 4th, AIPAC will hold its 9th Annual New England Leadership Dinner to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary, and another great year of fuel and food shortages, rocket attacks, restricted access to water and medical care, random detentions, and home demolitions in Palestine.
We will meet at 5:00pm Sunday May 4th in front of the Westin Copley, 10 Huntington Ave, Boston (near Copley Square) to protest.
May 4th, Tell AIPAC: you don’t speak for me!
60 years of Occupation is nothing to celebrate!
60 years of suffering is nothing to celebrate.
Once again, they will claim to speak for the entire Jewish community, despite their plummeting public image. It’s time to let them know that we won’t be quiet while they peddle their extremist right wing agenda in our names.
Sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace Boston, Jewish Women for Justice in Israel/Palestine, Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, United for Justice with Peace's Israel/Palestine Task Force
Contact: 617-491-2313
Ed O'Reilly (PDA-endorsed candidate who advocates for single-payer health care, impeachment, stopping our current wars, and marriage equality) seeks the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by John Kerry.
In addition to making sure that Ed's name appears on the ballot, this is a great opportunity to identify new supporters and expand our network. So we really hope you can participate by gathering signatures from your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors.
To get on September's primary ballot Ed needs 10,000 signatures from registered Democrats and unenrolled (independent) voters. We need to file the signatures with city and town clerks no later than 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, on May 6, 2008.
Call the campaign (866-716-2008).
Lessons from Chiapas: A Night of Zapatista
Storytelling
Monday, May 5 @ 6 pm
Symposium Books, Kenmore Square,
526 Commonwealth Avenue (across from the Barnes and Nobles)
617-585-6559
We will be gathering as simple and humble people to tell our stories of resistance and struggle. This will not be a "Symposium" in the style of the intellectual fashion show, but a very "Other" gathering to share what we are and wish to create. The event will include the telling of The Story of Questions, a Zapatista creation tale, and discussion of building autonomy, the struggle for immigrant rights here in the US (coming off of the May Day demonstrations on May 1), as well as information about how US activists can support Zapatista autonomous education by studying Spanish or Tzotzil in the Zapatista community, Oventic, through the Mexico Solidarity Network.
Please join us, bring friends, children, and strangers. We are striving to make the event as open as possible in terms of language and age – i.e. translation and child care will be available. Participants will include former students at CELMRAZ, the Zapatista Language School in Oventic, and all of yourselves, come share your stories!
6:15-8:30PM: "Under the Moonlight" (2001, Iran)
Starr Auditorium, Belfer Building, Second Floor,
Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street (near Eliot), Cambridge
(pizza/soda at 6:00 PM)
Scheduled to attend a seminary, Sayyid's plans are derailed by a thief who steals his books. As he searches for them he meets people and is put in situations, which challenge his assumptions of life and his path in it.
Co-sponsored with the Outreach Center at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
The Middle East Initiative
Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University)
7-9pm: "Ending the War on Drugs"
Retired police officer Jack Cole of LEAP (Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition)
Weston Public Library
87 School Street, Weston
one mile south of School Street/Route 20 intersection
(refreshments at 6:30pm)
Sponsored by the Weston Democratic Town Committee.
Jack Cole is executive director of LEAP, "an international nonprofit educational organization giving voice to law enforcers who know the war on drugs is a failed and destructive policy."
He retired as a detective lieutenant after 26 years with the New Jersey State Police, including 14 years in their Narcotic Bureau, mostly undercover.
After retirement, Officer Cole and a handful of his colleagues in law enforcement formed LEAP which in a few years grew to tens of thousands of members in our country and abroad.
Jack Cole has presented papers at international conferences and spoken on drug policy reform in the European Parliament, as well as presenting hundreds of times to students, educators, professional, civic, benevolent and religious groups in Australia, Canada, Central America, Europe, New Zealand and across the United States.
Jack is passionate in his belief that the drug war is steeped in racism, that it is needlessly destroying the lives of young people, and that it is corrupting our police.
Refreshments will be served at 6:30pm. Early arrival for the 7pm talk is suggested (seating capacity is 80).
Contact: Atty. Isabella Jancourtz, 781-891-6198.
Love Lived On Death Row (2007) ***Boston premiere!***
Produced and Directed by Linda Booker.
Additional footage contributor Scott Langley will
attend.
1 hour 24 minutes
Death Penalty Film Series
Free snacks, food, beer and wine provided.
Love Lived on Death Row tells the story of the four Syriani siblings whose father was sentenced to die for the murder of their mother in 1990 and Meg Eggleston, who became their father's friend and spiritual advisor through letters to him in prison. Orphaned and estranged, the Syriani children lived with hate, anger and confusion as the man they could only refer to as 'Him Him' lived on North Carolina's death row. But in 2004 they collectively decided to visit him in prison, seeking answers so they could move on with their adult lives. What transpired that day was a miracle of forgiveness followed by a journey of healing, restoring family memories and then a battle for his clemency. Love Lived on Death Row's portrait of a family torn apart by tragedy and reunited by another impending tragedy is a powerful examination of not only the healing process, but also of the role capital punishment plays in serving justice.
In attendance will be photojournalist and activist Scott Langley, Amnesty International State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for Massachusetts and North Carolina.
Sponsored by the Lucy Parsons Center, Amnesty International, Mass. Citizens Against the Death Penalty and the MCADP Fund, and Murder Victim Families for Human Rights.
Free and open to the public.
Refreshments are served.
Viewers are invited to stay for discussion or to just
listen.
"Modern warfare has tried to dehumanize people, to take out the sympathetic element. When you drop bombs from 50,000 feet, you don't see who they're landing on, you don't see the damage. It's the same thing in economics when you talk about statistics and don't think about the people that lie behind those statistics." -- Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winner, former Chief Economist at the World Bank in The Big Sellout
Winner of numerous awards, including the 2007 Chicago International Documentary Film Festival, "The Big Sellout" (95 min) offers an empathetic and sobering study of the human impact of global economics. Has the practice of privatization become similar to warfare, dehumanizing us and reducing us to mere statistics? Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and former chief economist at the World Bank, thinks so, as does Simon, a train driver who has worn the uniform of countless firms since his beloved British Rail was privatized, recounts the steady decline in service and maintenance and the sharp increase in accidents that have followed.
Traveling throughout both the developing and industrialized world, "The Big Sellout" brings us face- to-face with the architects of the reigning world economic order, as well as with the people bearing the brunt of their policies. The film shows how international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, are demanding draconian cuts in public spending, the privatization of public services and market liberalization as the only path to economic development. Then it tests these claims against actual case studies.
"The Big Sellout" dramatically demonstrates how the implementation of these policies is having disastrous consequences for millions of ordinary people around the globe.
The Documentary Film & Discussion Series meets every 2nd Thursday and 4th Tuesday of the month for an in- depth look at important topics of our day. The events are often lively and thought-provoking.
Contact: Cynthia Whitty, 508-881-6297
JOIN US ON A 10-DAY SOLIDARITY TOUR TO VENEZUELA FROM CANADA, MAY 9-19, 2008
Discover grassroots Venezuela! If you want to know what is REALLY going on in Venezuela - don't read/listen to mainstream media, and don't take somebody else's word for it! You have to see and experience it for yourself!
Join us on this 10-day intimate tour of grassroots Bolivarian communities in Venezuela in May 2008.
Learn about the advances the Bolivarian Revolution has made in the areas of healthcare, education, participatory democracy, agrarian reform and the social economy.
Meet and talk to community leaders, teachers/professors, activists, healthcare professionals, students, workers and farmers. There is limited space available on this tour - led by Canadian solidarity activists - book now!!!
For more information
or email
or call: 902-495-7067
You are invited to join the first charity ride to help find a cure for our feverish planet Earth! On Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 9 a.m., rain or shine, Power to the Pedals starts in Arlington Heights and takes a lovely tour through Lexington, Concord and Carlisle. Lots of prizes, a planet-friendly vegetarian meal, and a wonderful day for the whole family. A few free loaner bikes are available - let me know in advance. Only $10 to register, minimum pledge of $50 to make it accessible to lots of people - but larger donations are needed and most welcome!
Donations are tax-deductible, and all proceeds benefit the Northeast Climate Confluence, a youth-organized summer conference educating on global warming, sustainability and political action.
To get more information and sign up!
Contact me if you have any questions.
Looking forward to seeing you on May 10th!
Adam Sacks, Ride Coordinator
(781) 674-2339
Shirley Golub is running against Rep. Nancy Pelosi for the democratic nomination for that post.
Our so-called Democratic leadership is not only planning on lying down immediately for another $100 billion to senselessly squander in Iraq, they are talking about adding on another $70 billion of war profiteer booty, to save the White House from the trouble of throwing another foot stomping tantrum in the fall.
This is looking like the mother of all gutless
surrenders. And there is only one dynamic that can
possibly stop it. Nancy Pelosi MUST be
defeated in San Francisco in the June 3 primary, and
see it coming fast. And ONLY Shirley Golub can do it,
with contributions on the page above to run her
"Rubber Chicken" ad now.
Shirley's Rubber Chicken TV Ad
For those who many not be quite clear on this one point yet, Cindy Sheehan in running the November election in this district as an independent, but what we are talking about here is the June 3 Democratic party congressional primary.
Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace
April 16, 2008
Dr. Al-Arian Faces Shocking Abuse in New Facility
Yesterday morning, Dr. Sami Al-Arian was transported
by immigration agents to the Hampton Roads Regional
Jail in Portsmouth, Virginia. Since arriving at the
facility, he has been subjected to numerous, shocking
abuses, even worse than those he experienced at a
detention center in Maryland.
Take Action: call 757-488-7500
And if you haven't already, sign the petition.
See also:"USA vs AL-ARIAN"
To everyone in the Boston area progressive community, After months of development and testing by a few dozen folks, Open Media Boston, the new progressive news, views and arts web portal, has just launched and is now ready for your participation. (Site is still labeled "beta.")
We have quietly been working away at TecsChange in Roxbury to refurbish computers. We recently sent one of our bigger shipments of 15 computers to a series of radio stations in Oaxaca, Mexico.
We work most Thurday evenings and Saturday afternoons
(1pm to at least 4 PM, usually longer)
We have one day a week where daytime volunteers come in. Presently it's Mondays but it might change soon.
Please call if you are interested.
TecsChange Office
617-442-4456
Bush's FY2009 budget request for $2.55 billion in military aid for Israel, a proposed increase of 9% over actual spending in 2007, now rests with the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs.
This proposed increase in military aid to Israel is the first installment of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the United States and Israel in August 2007 to increase military aid to Israel by 25%, totaling $30 billion over the next decade.
Can you think of a better way to spend $30 billion instead of funding Israel's human rights abuses and illegal military occupation in violation of U.S. laws?
TAKE ACTION
Send a Personal Letter to Members of Congress on the
Appropriations Sub-Committee Challenging Military Aid
to Israel.
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
Mass. House Bill #4477, if passed, would finally make it illegal for drivers of motor vehicles in Massachusetts to use hand-held phones while driving (as in NY and elsewhere). This bill recently passed the House and now is languishing in the Senate and may not come to the floor for a vote unless you phone or send a message to your friends in various towns and cities to have them urge their state senators (617-722- 5551) to vote for this bill.
According to Senate Assistant Majority Leader Marian Walsh, what needs to happen is for senators to get many phone calls from their constituents in favor of this bill. Passing House #4477 is a matter of public safety. Please call your senator and what would make a significant difference is for you to contact your friends throughout Massachusetts so House Bill #4477 becomes law.
Ed O'Reilly (PDA-endorsed candidate who advocates for single-payer health care, impeachment, stopping our current wars, and marriage equality) seeks the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by John Kerry.
In addition to making sure that Ed's name appears on the ballot, this is a great opportunity to identify new supporters and expand our network. So we really hope you can participate by gathering signatures from your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors.
To get on September's primary ballot Ed needs 10,000 signatures from registered Democrats and unenrolled (independent) voters. We need to file the signatures with city and town clerks no later than 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, on May 6, 2008.
Call the campaign (866-716-2008) and we will mail nomination signature forms for you to use.
U.S. war provocation against Iran: Another Tonkin
Gulf? Take Action NOW to Stop War on Iran!
The Bush Administration has initiated an extremely dangerous war provocation just off Iran's coast, in the Strait of Hormuz. With Bush on his way to the Middle East to mobilize a collection of oil-rich U.S. client states against Iran, the U.S. government is working overtime to create a phony public-relations incident to heighten tensions in the region and threaten a new war.
An aide to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) says the Lieberman/Warner climate change bill (S. 2191) “would be the most historic incentive for nuclear in the history of the United States.” (E&E Daily, February 8, 2008)...
S. 2191 is expected to be debated on the Senate floor this Spring. Your help is needed.
For more information visit the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
Congressman Robert Wexler's campaign office says that (unlike most of our Democratic Reps) he is pushing hard to force a committee hearing on Rep. Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment, recently introduced into the House of Representatives and referred to the Judiciary Committee.
This fight is not over. We must continue the pressure on our representatives or else Congress and its fellow lackey media will take no notice. That would be a historic mistake – one we must prevent Congress from making.
We stand at a critical juncture in our efforts. Forget all of those arguments that it is too late or that we have run out of time. You can’t run the clock out on our Constitution. Those of us dedicated to this fight – Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the online community, and millions of patriotic Americans – must keep the pressure on. Please continue to spread the word and help deliver accountability to the corrupt Bush-Cheney administration.Congressman Conyers needs a huge kick in the tail.
Please sign on to Congressman Robert Wexler's petition to help push the issue.
TOLL-FREE PHONE NUMBERS FOR THE U.S. CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD
US House of Representatives Web Sites
Another Day, Another FISA Veto Threat By The Bully In The White House
Yesterday, Bush again put the self interest of himself and his giant telecom criminal co-conspirators above our national security, by threatening to veto the FISA update bill unless we gave them all get out of jail free cards. And if Congress were to bend over yet again, he would still probably veto it to demand even more changes and/or defy other major provisions with a signing statement, as he so outrageously did with the recent defense bill.
We must be just as relentless as the criminals who are working overtime to gut our constitution. We have had two successful filibusters so far, and it looks like we're going to need a third. And we need strong opposition in the House too, for that is our last bulwark.
Tell your Congressional Representative to vote against this awful legislation, which has passed the Senate and returned to the House. The House has stood up to pressure to provide telecom immunity to date, so don't let them buckle to pressure from the White House and Senate.
S 1959 "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" must be stopped at all costs. (It's already been approved by the House of Representatives by a HUGE majority.)
Pick up your phone and contact our US Senators' offices to instruct them to vote "NO" on S.1959, titled "To establish the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes".
If this bill is passed, and becomes law, your words and actions could be considered terrorism. S 1959 EVISCERATES FREE SPEECH, and empowers the govt. to declare ANYTHING they deem an "extremist belief system", instantly make you a terrorist, resulting in stripping of US citizenship, torture, and/or execution, with no habeas corpus rights, no ability to challenge even in the US Supreme Court.
What part of exercising power doesn't Harry Reid get? The Washington Post reports him "pleading" with the White House. And yet, it is his decision which version of the FISA bill to have the Senate consider, and by choosing to bring forward the bad one, he is knowingly forcing opponents of yet another "get out of jail free card" for Cheney cronies to get 60 votes to strip it out of the bill. Or filibuster yet again.
And what greater hero do we have than Dennis Kucinich, still standing strong as ever on every issue that matters. Here is his own leadership statement opposing telecom immunity.
And yet, even now, powerful corporations are pouring money into Dennis's district, to try to buy his seat out from under him by threatening him in his own primary. They are running malicious attack ads in heavy rotation. Please consider making a donation to Dennis now, to help him fight back.
At the end of January, thousands of people all over the world will march, speak, celebrate, and dialogue in villages, rural zones, and urban centers, in the context of hundreds of decentralized self-organized actions. They will mobilize over a one-week period in January, culminating in a Global Day of Mobilisation and Action on the 26th to show that another world is possible.
At the same period, the "old" world will meet in Davos for the World Economic Forum, bringing together its economists, experts, ideologies and techniques that produce violence, exploitation, exclusion, poverty, hunger and ecological disaster, depriving people of human rights and our Earth of its resources.
The World Social Forum is an open space where social movements, networks, NGOs and other civil society organisations come together to raise issues, debate ideas, formulate proposals, share experiences, and build networks for effective action. These movements are opposed to a world ruled by capitalism and all forms of imperialism and domination.
Since the first worldwide encounter in 2001, the World Social Forum has become a permanent global process seeking and building alternatives to neo-liberal policies.
World Social Forums have taken place at the end of January at different sites throughout the world every year for the past seven years, and this spirit of diversity will continue to be reflected in the activities planned for the Global Day of Mobilisation and Action in 2008.
Our website is the main connection tool for all participants in the decentralized WSF 2008. Invite your friends to join and contribute through action spaces, present your action, upload your videos, publish news and connect your actions with those of others.
Comcast has given us a glimpse of a world without Net
Neutrality, and it's a chilling sight.
An investigation by the Associated Press caught the
cable giant secretly inspecting online communications
and crippling users' ability to share information with
one another.
On 11-1-07, Free Press filed a legal complaint
demanding that the FCC take action to protect the free
flow of information on the Internet. By joining our
complaint, you can help stop Comcast and other
gatekeepers.
The MBTA on October 10th started broadcasting
continuous [corporate] radio ads and "music" at South
Station, North Station and Airport Station with a plan
to expand the continuous radio broadcast system-wide
after Thanksgiving. This will adversely monopolize
this historic First Amendment public space:
1. Curtail and Interfere with Conversations of all
MBTA patrons
2. Curtail and Interfere with Reading of all MBTA
patrons
3. Target ads to all School Children who use the MBTA
4. Eliminate Subway Musician Performances
We, the undersigned, support the diversity of
expression of patrons and artists in the subway. We
petition Governor Deval Patrick and Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority Board of Directors to stop
the T-Radio broadcast.
Congress will be debating war appropriations again, and the Senate - as the Republicans have routinely demonstrated - has the power to filibuster any appropriations it doesn't like. A filibuster in the Senate would effectively force an end to the war. So if each of us does our part in exposing the filibuster option, then we can apply tremendous pressure on our senators, the likes of which they haven't felt in decades!
Doris Tennant and Ellen Lubell (of Newton) are representing a Guantanamo prisoner pro bono, so they are providing their time at no charge. However, their costs, including their own travel and that of a translator, translator fees, and Freedom of Information Act requests, are running at least $20,000 for this year, and will likely continue at that same pace or more. Most of the other attorneys who are representing Guantanamo detainees are members of large law firms that can cover these types of expenses, but in their case the two of them are the firm.
If you would like to make a contribution to help them defray costs, it would be much appreciated. Please make your check payable to "Tennant Lubell Detainee Fund." Your contribution will NOT be tax-deductible, but they promise to put it to good use to help provide fundamental legal rights to a man who remains in indefinite detention.
Doris Tennant, Esq.
Tennant Lubell, LLC
288 Walnut Street, Suite 500
Newton, MA 02460
617-969-9610, X 101
Fax: 617-969-9611
Action Alert: The Alliance for Democracy warns us to oppose Holt bill (HR 811). We call for a ban on the use of Direct Recording Electronic voting equipment (DREs) and to require the use of paper ballots.
AFD urgently calls upon all citizens to call their Representatives to demand amendments to rectify the defects in HR 811, specifically to ban the use of DRE voting machines and require the use of paper ballots in all elections in the United States.
1. DRE systems must be banned.
2. All voting must be by voter marks on a paper ballot.
3. All recounts must be by hand counting of paper ballots.
4. All elections must have a statistically significant verification.
5. All recounts at every level of government must be by hand counting.
6. All software must be subject to public disclosure.
7. No connections to the Internet should be allowed.
8. All election records should be available to the public.
Go to for on-line information and a link to a printable flier.
A call for all people of conscience
to donate to its Lebanon Palestine Emergency Relief Fund.
All donations will be used to help Palestinian and
Lebanese victims of the latest Israeli aggression.
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail link
We are happy to report that a new shipment of olive oil has arrived. The most recent harvest was excellent and per case prices are less than they were last year.
As with our previous shipments, this oil comes directly from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees, PARC, a non-profit, non- governmental organization in the West Bank. PARC works with 15 different small cooperatives. This shipment comes from the Mazare' Al Nubani/ Ramallah and the Kufr Thulth, Jayous and Azzoun cooperatives. The labels are printed in the West Bank and the oil is bottled at the PARC bottling facility in Aram. PARC is a member of the International Fair Trade Association, and is the only Palestinian organization that has received the Palestine Standards Institution certification for its olive oil.
OLIVE BRANCH OLIVE OIL DONATIONS
As with past shipments, a percentage of the proceeds of olive oil sales is donated back to organizations working directly with Palestinians. Past recipients include:
Palestinian Medical Relief Society Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions Birthright Unplugged American Friends Service Committee-Middle East Crisis Fund American Near East Refugee Aid Olive Harvest Coalition Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees Ibdaa Cultural Center International Solidarity Movement US OMEN Ta’ayush
THE IMPORTANCE OF OLIVE OIL TO THE PALESTINIAN ECONOMY
Olive oil is the backbone of the Palestinian agricultural economy. Eighty percent of cultivated land in Palestine is planted with olive trees, and the olive harvest provides between 25 to 50 percent of a farming family’s annual income. Olive trees, many of which are hundreds of years old, hold a deep significance in the culture and economy of the Holy Land. As the political and economic situation in Palestine continues to deteriorate, with increased restrictions on the mobility of people, goods and services, olive oil has become a matter of basic survival for many Palestinian families. Buying this oil is a constructive and tangible way to help alleviate poverty and build peace.
PARC assists at every stage of the olive oil production process, from helping farmers to reclaim rocky land, conserve water and implement sensible environmental practices (like re-cropping, dry-land farming and recycling of waste materials) to setting up regional labs for farmers to test their olive oil. PARC strictly monitors the quality of the oil, testing and re-testing it at its main laboratory to ensure that it meets all specifications. Extra-virgin olive oil comes from the first pressing of the olives, contains no more than 0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior taste. There can be no refined oil in extra-virgin olive oil.
Palestinian farmers traditionally care for their trees without the use of pesticides or sprays. PARC is currently working with international agricultural organizations to obtain organic certification for its olive oil, which should be finalized in the next few months. Because both light and heat are known enemies of olive oil, Olive Branch Olive Oil comes in a dark green glass bottle that is optimal for storage.
Available in 750ml bottles, by the case (12 bottles, $145), or more.
For ordering and other info, please email us at palestinebostonoliveoil@yahoo.com or call Susie at 781-648-6307.
Harvard's Palestine Solidarity Committee will be holding a vigil for Gaza from 11:45 am to 12:15 pm on the steps of Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. All who care for Palestine are invited to attend. Please wear black and spread the word widely.
These are the meetings where we decide on events and discuss strategies to end the war. Anyone is welcome -- from seasoned activists to beginners and we look forward to building a dialogue with anyone opposed to the war. Our main tenent is that we are independent of both the Democratic and the Republican Party, such that we can build an anti-war movement that survives elections and continues to oppose the war, regardless of which candidate is in office.
Meet briefly at the statue to exchange thoughts,
then walk silently around the Yard and nearby streets,
returning to the statue by 12:30pm.
Southeast corner of Rt 27 and 30 (nearest to Brooks Pharmacy).
Come for all or part. Bring a candle, lantern, or flashlight.
Organizer: Sandy Coy.
Join the Boston Tea Party Conference call,
Participant call in: 402-756-9100; Access code: 680903#
Socialist Alternative Radio, 91.5 FM Boston
listen anytime on the Web at WMFO.org. A democratic socialist, working-class view of politics and culture, including solidarity announcements, interviews, music, and more.
Write to us at BostonSAradio@aol.com.
Join a Friday fast and/or protest in solidarity with illegal detentions. The fast began in 2005 when Nobel Peace Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Adolpho Esquivel, (Argentina), along with others around the world, chose this method to seek the release of our unjustly detained and tortured brothers and sisters.
In Boston, local activists Susan McLucas and Phoebe Knopf have joined the Friday fast and will protest every Friday in front of the JFK Building from noon to one. The action, which is rooted in nonviolence, includes speakers, music, hand-outs and petitions to create public pressure to stop all illegal detentions and to try those responsible for the illegal treatment of thousands of detainees, most of whom are Arab and Muslim men. Susan and Phoebe will be wearing orange jumpsuits.