featured acts in the Ash Grove's Beyond November series.
I couldn't be more proud and delighted at their rapid climb
to recognition, state-wide, even nationally, and now here,
on a big stage in their own field. Try it, you'll love it. Kudos
to Diane Luby Lane, founder, director and den mother. We
share the same roller-coaster, without safety bars.
Ed
Get Lit Players & Tim Robbins at WTF Festival, this Thursday!
From: Sherry Banz
To: Diane Lane ; GetLit
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 6:55 PM
DON'T MISS THE GET LIT PLAYERS & TIM ROBBINS!!! SPECIAL SHOW THIS
THURSDAY!!!
Come have a blast with the award winning Get Lit Players - the ONLY classic
TEEN poetry troupe in America!
Teens from the audience will be invited on stage to perform too! So bring
your kids, your students, other educators!!!
Share in this community building experience!
Leave inspired!!!
Event is PAY WHAT YOU CAN!!!
When - This Thursday, October 29th 8 PM - 9:30 PM
Where - The Actor's Gang Theater at the Ivy Substation
9070 Venice Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232
***
http://blog.buzzflash.com/alerts/702
Showdown in Chicago: Protesters Rally Against Big Banks' Anti-Reform
Lobbying
by Meg White
Buzzflash: 10/26/09
Though the stretch of South Wacker Drive is more Wall Street than it is Wild
West, this week it is the scene of what is billed as a "Showdown in
Chicago." Monday morning, a large group of protesters crowded the block
surrounding the downtown Chicago headquarters of Goldman Sachs.
"Bust up big banks! Bailout? No thanks!" they screamed in unison. Their
target was the American Bankers Association (ABA), the largest lobby group
for financial institutions, holding their annual convention in Chicago this
week.
The protest was organized by National People's Action, a Chicago-based
network of metropolitan, regional, and statewide organizations working to
"build grassroots power." Despite their recruitment of local heavy-hitters
including the Service Employees International Union and Action Now, with
cross-promotion from national groups such as MoveOn.org to the Center for
Economic and Policy Research, there was a genuine grassroots feel to the
event.
As businessmen and women in suits skirting the crowd had to walk in front of
a cordon of Chicago cops in the street in order to get by, protesters young
and old held a combination of signs registering their disgust with financial
institutions. One grandmotherly-looking woman held a sign that said "Kidz
say Goldman sux." Another sign reached back to the language of Reaganomics,
complaining of being "pissed" after "being trickled down on" for so long.
Not that the mass-produced signs didn't have flair to them as well.
Oversized "warrants" called for the arrest of former Bank of America Chair
Ken Lewis as well as Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf and others. The "superhero"
known as Downsized Man was there with a sign that shouted "Reclaim America!"
Other protesters had personal stories to tell.
Keith Scribner, president of UE local 1174, was in Chicago representing his
fellow union members from Quad City Die Casting in Moline, IL. Back in May,
the factory owners told the workers there that they were going to have to
close down, not because they were out of money, but because Wells Fargo
wouldn't lend the 60-year-old company the money it needed to continue doing
business. When they finally closed the doors Sept. 4, all 100 employees
became unemployed, and none were compensated for their lost vacation time,
nor their health benefits, which the bank had stopped paying out way back in
May. Scribner said the total owed to the union members is $220,000.
"That's why were here. We're protesting because they owe us money," he said.
Now Scribner is fighting two banks, because as Wells Fargo denies his
benefits, Bank of America is foreclosing on his house.
"This guy got a double whammy. His business closed even though it could have
stayed open another 50 years. And he's losing his house and the bank won't
even talk to him about how to stay in it. They just don't care," said Leah
Fried, an organizer with UE. "They don't care about rising unemployment,
they don't care about people losing their homes, they don't care about
homelessness. They don't care. So unless we force the issue, it will not
change."
Organizers of today's protest picked Goldman at least partially because of
their profit margins. They called protesters to come out and stand in the
drizzle to "ask Goldman Sachs to donate its entire projected $23 billion
dollar bonus pool to prevent every foreclosure in America in 2010 and lift
one million families out of the poverty and joblessness that was caused by
Goldman Sachs' gambling with our economy."
But it's more than simple payback motivating today's protesters; the heavy
resistance being put up by banks to new regulatory reforms designed to keep
the country from getting into this mess again plays a significant role, too.
In fact, the annual ABA meeting that protesters are attempting to disrupt
specifically focuses on teaching bankers how to help derail progress in the
arena.
While the excess symbolized by the ABA conference's "Roaring '20s dance
party" has gotten a good deal of attention (AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
says, "Why wouldn't they celebrate the era of wild money and hot times
(which slid into the Great Depression)? After all, the bankers are doing
well these days"), other ABA events have earned the ire of Chicagoans.
The ABA schedule includes "special strategic sessions" concentrating on a
variety of accredited classes, including one on acquiring other failing
banks, another on dealing with changes in executive pay and a third targeted
at "unwinding government intervention." Regarding the proposed regulations
working through Congress, the ABA says it is the "elimination of the thrift
charter and creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, that ABA
found extremely troublesome."
Another focus of the event is halfway across the country in Washington.
Organizers say that the six largest banks have spent more than $35 million
fighting congressional action on financial reform this year alone. And if
the constant weakening of regulatory reform legislation on the Hill is any
indication, it was money well spent.
"We're pushing the banks to do what's right... And more importantly, we're
going to force elected officials to act more swiftly to rein in these
practices that are so abusive," Fried said. "The American people have to
force our government to act. We know that they act in the interests of
whoever is paying them the most money in their campaign funds. And so what
we need to do is just flex our muscle. And that's the bottom line, we have
to force the government to do the right thing just like we have to force
banks to do the right thing."
Today's protest and accompanying march are part of a three-day event that
ends in a rally tomorrow. While the healthcare debate winds down, the
attempt to switch popular anger from insurance lobbyists to financial ones
may prove difficult. But Fried isn't worried about keeping people engaged,
insisting that this is only the beginning of what is becoming for more and
more people a very personal fight.
"If you're losing your home, or your business closed because a bank wouldn't
give it credit, it's not esoteric at all. It's your life," Fried said.
"There's nothing more concrete that eating and having a place to live. And
that's what this is about."
***
From: Karen Pomer
MEDIA ADVISORY: Sit-in at CIGNA insurance, 10am Wednesday, 10/28
Contact: Laura Flanagan, (305) 542-3570, leflanagan@hotmail.com
Lacy MacAuley, (202) 445-4692, lacy@massey-media.com
Follow us on Twitter@mob4healthcare
Citizens and health care providers
participate in Sit-in, risk arrest at the CIGNA health insurance office in
Glendale
Sit-in is part of a national mobilization to end insurance abuse and win
health care for all; Matt Hendrickson, MD MPH, will risk arrest for health
care for all
What: Los Angeles joins in national day of sit-ins at health insurance
companies to demand single-payer health care.
When: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 10am
Where: CIGNA insurance, 400 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA 91203
Who: Citizens and health care providers who are fed up with insurance
company greed and are calling for real reform, Medicare for All, a single
payer plan
Glendale, CA - On Wednesday, October 28, a variety of groups with the
message "patients not profits," and "insurance companies are the real death
panels" will hold a sit-in with civil disobedience, street theater, music,
and a rally at an insurance company in Glendale. The events will express the
American people's outrage at the crimes of the health insurance industry,
including:
. Murder: A new Harvard study found that 45,000 Americans a year die because
they don't have health insurance. For the insured, denial of care and
delays in approving care cause an uncounted number of deaths.
. Causing sickness and suffering for millions of people with treatable
health conditions who can't get the care they need.
. Breach of contract: Insurance companies routinely cancel the policies of
many thousands of people after they became sick.
. Theft and waste of 30% of the U.S. health care dollar-money that could
provide comprehensive care to all. While they were charging unaffordable
premiums, denying treatment, and canceling policies, the profits of the top
10 health insurance companies went up 428% from 2000 to 2007.
"The insurance industry is the main cause of the collapse of the American
health care system. It should not be part of the solution," said Matt
Hendrickson, MD MPH, a doctor who will be risking arrest on Wednesday at the
CIGNA health insurance office in Glendale, CA. "I'm putting myself on the
line because I can no longer stand to see my patients struggle to afford the
care they need while one out of every three health care dollars in our
country goes to pay for administration and insurance company profits."
The sit-in is part of the Patients Not Profit campaign of the Mobilization
for Health Care for All. The mobilization was launched by the organizations
Prosperity Agenda, Healthcare-NOW!, and the Center for the Working Poor. The
upcoming LA action has been organized by the Center for the Working Poor.
Participants in Wednesday's act of civil disobedience think that the health
care bill fails to address the real cause of our health care crisis, the
insurance companies. They will point out that health insurance companies
that deny people the care they need are the real death panels.
The organizers have the following statements:
We support SB 810 (California Sen. Mark Leno's legislation for a single
payer system in California) and HR 676 (U.S. Rep. John Conyers' bill to
improve Medicare and expand it to cover everyone in the U.S.)
We demand that any federal health reform include a provision to allow states
to adopt single payer systems (the Kucinich amendment in the House).
We need one system of publicly funded, privately delivered health care that
includes everyone.
For more information:
Mobilization for Health Care www.MobilizeForHealthCare.org
Healthcare-NOW!, www.healthcare-now.org
Prosperity Agenda, www.prosperityagenda.us
Center for Working Poor, http://centerfortheworkingpoor.org
###
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