Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 7:00 – 8:30 PM
David Shutkin is a founding member of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV). He has been to Palestine on four occasions since 2015 and will be in Palestine with a fifth delegation this winter. He has been an anti-occupation activist since 1982. The CJNV engages in nonviolent direct action in opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Their work is a form of solidarity activism as we support and collaborate with many Palestinian partner organizations such as Youth Against Settlements and theGood Shepard Coalition. We also partner with numerous Palestinian village counsels including Susya, Umm Al-Khair, and Al-Tawani, in the South Hebron Hillas and Issawiya and Batan Al-Hawa in East Jerusalem. The CJNV brings together members of organizations such as JVP, If Not Now and J Street U. David will share an overview of the CJNV, some of my back story, and discuss the successes of our most recent collaborative action in the South Hebron Hills where we encountered the violence of the IDF and seventeen people were arrested. Website:
In yesterday’s Duluth News-Tribune’s editorial page, the DNT’s regular ultra-conservative Sunday editorialist and reliable Trump administration defender Marc Thiessen made an interesting comment about his hero’s impeachment threat.
Before discussing the comment, I think that it is important to point out a few things about Thiessen that the DNT hasn’t mentioned.
Thiessen grew up on New York City’s East Side, the over-privileged son of two physicians. He went to an elite private high school, attended the equally elite Vassar College and then attended the Naval War College. Interestingly, he then worked for 5 years for Paul Manafort’s lobbying firm. After serving as a staffer for the notorious racist Senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms, he worked in George W. Bush’s administration and then became a speechwriter for both Donald Rumsfeld and Bush. Thiessen is now a regular FOX News commentator anda “resident fellow” at both the conservative Hoover Institution and the American Enterprise Institute.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019, 7:00 PM
Aireen Aguilar was born in Manila, Philippines, the daughter of a awyer/municipal judge and a provincial nurse supervisor. Though she and her two brothers were raised in Philippines, Aireen chose to follow the footsteps of her aunts, uncles, and cousins by coming to the United States. As a registered nurse, Aireen worked in a variety of settings. Though she is now retired, since 1998 she has been involved in medical mission work in Philippines, Mexico, Ethiopia and Cambodia. Aireen states that, “To be a nurse is my passport to improve myself and experience other cultures and traditions and to see this beautiful world.” All are welcome. There is no charge for this program. Location: Old Worthington Library, 820 High Street. Facebook.
Last week, the Democratic leadership put an extension of the Patriot Act into a “continuing resolution” that averted a government shutdown. More than 95 percent of the Democrats in the House went along with it by voting for the resolution. Both co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan, voted yes. So did all 11 of the CPC’s vice chairs.
It didn’t have to be that way. House progressives could have thrown a monkey wrench into the Orwellian machinery. Instead, the cave-in was another bow to normalizing the U.S. government’s mass surveillance powers.
