ProgressiveAustin.org / Calendar

Thursday, August 19, 7:30 pm, Texas State Employees Union Assembly Room, 1700 South 1st St.

Were you at the U.S. Social Forum? Do you wish you had been? In June, thousands of social justice activists met in Detroit at the USSF to discuss, plan, and organize the struggle for a more just, equitable, and sustainable world. It was the second of these vibrant, cross-issue social change gatherings. In what we hope will be one of many USSF programs, members of the Texas State Employees Union, CWA Local 6186, will host a gathering to hear reports from Austinites who attended this important and inspiring event.

August 15: 8:00pm – 10:00pm, Dub Academy, 906 East 5th St

Come out for the official screening of the indie short film “EAST OF THE HIGHWAY.” Screening will be followed by live soundtrack performances.

Synopsis: In an East Austin neighborhood struggling in the eye of gentrification, neighborhood youth start a crime wave to save their homes from being lost to greedy developers. Created by Will Martin

Trailer: http://vimeo.com/5868290

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Sunday, August 15, 6 pm, 5604 Manor, 5604 Manor Road

In June we kicked off a new series of gatherings to explore the question, “What does it mean to be human?” One of the topics that emerged in that discussion was our struggles to confront the ecological crisis, honestly but without going crazy, which we discussed in July. Another theme has been the injustice and unsustainability of our economic system, the predatory corporate capitalism that dominates the global economy.

In this session, Jim Rigby will connect the best of our spiritual traditions to a critique of our economic system. Pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Rigby has become a national voice on progressive Christianity and is working on a book that will explore the radical potential of the faith. Also speaking will be Carlos Perez de Alejo of Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, an Austin-based organization committed to the development of ecologically sustainable worker cooperatives. The group’s mission is to empower low-income communities to create a thriving network of eco-friendly, worker-owned businesses throughout the greater Austin area — combating the growing crisis in our economy and the environment at the local level.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 5604 Manor, the new progressive community center launched by the Third Coast Activist Resource Center and Workers Defense Project.

Saturday, August 14, 6:30 pm, 5604 Manor, 5604 Manor Road

5604 Manor Summer Film Nights – “Walkout”. 5604 Manor is a new space on Manor Road dedicated to making a better community and a better world. Austin Voices and the Third Coast Activist Resource Center are combining this summer to offer free Saturday night screenings of great films that show what is possible when people use their creative talents to achieve a goal. The film screenings are open to the public with free snacks and beverages.

The final film of the summer is “Walkout,” the true story of a little-known but profoundly significant moment in the history of the Latino community in East Los Angeles. In 1968, Lincoln High School honor student Paula Crisostomo (Alexa Vega) was outraged at the shabby treatment afforded Chicano students in the L.A. school system — including lowered expectations, poor facilities, an absence of bilingual courses or textbooks, unfairly administered penalties, demeaning corporal punishment, and refusal to write letters of recommendation to choice colleges — and organizes a mass student walkout at five barrio high schools.

Mentored by dedicated young teacher Sal Castro (Michael Pena), Paula and her fellow student activists intend to make their protest a peaceful one, but the L.A. cops use force to quell the “radicals.” Even when it seems that the school board will capitulate to the Chicano students’ demands, the kids are betrayed and the leaders of the walkout are threatened with lengthy prison sentences on trumped-up “conspiracy” charges. The students are ultimately successful, and the events have a lasting effect on its participants. The film is directed by Edward James Olmos, who also plays one of the school board members.

Monday, Aug. 9, 12:00pm – 4:00pm, Gregory Gym, UT campus

President Obama graces Austin, TX with his presidential presence on Monday, begging us for more money to elect more warmongers to the United States Congress. Let’s take a stand for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq!

We start at noon for our friends who are employed and have a lunch break. We will stay until after the speech is over and the spectators leave.

GET OUT OF AFGHANISTAN!
GET OUT OF IRAQ!
GET OUT OF PALESTINE!
GET OUT OF PAKISTAN!
GET OUT OF YEMEN!
NO WAR IS A “GOOD WAR”!

AUSTIN, on Monday the people of the world will be counting on YOU to stop the insanity! This event is sponsored by students of The University of Texas and citizens of Austin.

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Sunday, August 8, 2010, 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM, Moose Lodge, 2103 E.M. Franklin Ave, Austin, Texas

My brother Arturo is having a fundraiser for the non-profit organization National Puro Conjunto Music Association (NPCMA) he founded and I am helping him. Our family comes from a long line of musicians and our uncle’s band, El Conjunto de Pete Morales is in the Buddy Holly Hall of Fame in Lubbock, Texas. My brother is really wanting to preserve the music we grew up hearing around the campfires, in the homes, and at dances.

The line-up of entertainers is impressive featuring such greats as Bene Medina, Johnny Degollado, Los Texas Wranglers, the Zamora Conjunto Family and Los Padrinos. The most amazing about this event is the price of admission – $5.00 per person. Where can you hear the greats for that amount while enjoying friends, family and making new acquaintances?

We will also be serving brisket plates for $5.00. All proceeds will go toward launching community based conjunto music appreciation programs for all ages. We have big goals in taking the music of our roots to the masses and making sure we preserve it for generations to come. For more information on Conjunto music go to our website, www.npcma.org

To launch off the event day, an old fashioned jam session with Susan Torres is planned for 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm. We encourage all to bring your favorite instrument and join us for some unplugged fun. Share your musical talent with us. Our great list of live bands begins immediately following the jam session.

We want to make this the best event and give a big launch to preserving our wonderful Conjunto music. If you would like to help in any way let us know. We can use donations of briskets, sodas, water, paper products, bread and ice. We really need your help to promote the event by telling all your friends.

For more information or questions please call 512.835.5886 or email arturo (at) npcma.org We look forward to seeing you on August 8!

Thank you so much,
Tina Balderrama Kubicek, B.S., M.Ed., Ph.D.
Author, Speaker, Consultant

Saturday, August 7, 2010, 7:00 – 9:00 PM, T. Don Hutto Detention Center, 1001 Welch Street, Taylor, TX

Please join Texans United for Families, Grassroots Leadership, and organizers from across Texas for a vigil to draw attention to the nation’s unaccountable and out-of-control detention system. The vigil will mark the one-year anniversary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) announced detention reform and the end of family detention at Hutto. ICE currently heralds Hutto as a model detention center despite the recent revelation in May that a CCA guard was accused of sexually assaulting several women detained at this 500-bed facility.

Texas holds 10,000 beds in detention centers to date, with plans for continued expansion. In light of this news, we question ICE’s characterization of its detention system as “civilized” and its definition of “reform.” Furthermore, the growing enforcement of immigration laws by local law enforcement as well as anti-immigrant legislation such as Arizona’s SB 1070 will increase the detention of all immigrants.

THE ARBITRARY NATURE IN WHICH IMMIGRANTS ARE SHUTTLED BETWEEN DETENTION CENTERS ALMOST GUARANTEES THAT ARIZONA’S DETAINEES WILL BE SENT TO TEXAS, INCLUDING THE HUTTO DETENTION CENTER, where their human rights will continue to be jeopardized.

Please join us to call for Dignity, not Detention for immigrants. For more information, please email blibal (at) grassrootsleadership.org or call (512) 971-0487.

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Friday, August 6: 7–9 pm, Pfluger pedestrian bridge over Lady Bird Lake near Lamar

On Friday evening, Aug. 6th, Friends will gather on the Pfluger pedestrian bridge (just east of Lamar over Lady Bird Lake) and spend a couple of quiet, thoughtful hours (7-9 pm) together passing out peace cranes and peace/nuclear disarmament literature to passersby, and tending to a dozen glass-container candles and photo posters about Hiroshima/Nagasaki.

The vigil is being organized by the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of the Friends Meeting of Austin(Quakers), and all are welcome.

Thursday, August 5, 7:00 PM, UT campus, Parlin Hall room 206

Texas may have some of the worst health, education, and poverty rates in the US, but there are a few categories in which it exceeds every other state, and even foreign nations: incarceration and execution. Since 1980, Texas has built 94 new state prisons, which now house over 171,000 inmates. In the same time period, Texas has executed 462 people. Recently, numerous scandals have begun to shine a national and international spotlight on the failures of our justice system. From the execution of innocent men, such as Cameron Todd Willingham, to the absolute failure of the integrity of the Houston Crime Lab, the problems are beginning to reach a breaking point. Come out for a public meeting to discuss the systemic failures of Texas criminal injustice and strategies to confront and change it.

On the day verdict is announced in California, gather at Austin City Hall (Cesar Chavez and Lavaca) at 5:30 PM.

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August 2, 2010, 6pm-8pm, Council Chambers, 301 W. Second Street, 1st Floor, Austin, Texas 78701

Regular Monthly Meeting Public Input Agenda

The Public meeting of the Citizen Review Panel will be held at City Hall Council Chambers at 6:00 p.m. The following is the agenda:

1. 2010-0289: Complainant alleges that officers responding to a domestic disturbance were insensitive and biased in their comments and approach.

2. 2010-0535: Officer is alleged to have used profanity and force while on duty

3. Community Policing Issues.

Complainants/Citizens may address the Citizen Review Panel about the above items.

If you wish to address the Citizen Review Panel please sign up 30 minutes in advance of the Public session. For additional information on any agenda item, please contact Office of the Police Monitor, City of Austin 512-974-9090.

The City of Austin is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you require special assistance for participation in our programs or use of our facilities, please call 974-9090.

Saturday, July 31, 7 pm, 5604 Manor Road

Mamas of Color Rising and Third Coast Workers for Cooperation Celebration. Join Third Coast Workers for Cooperation on Saturday, July 31, at 5604 Manor to congratulate the first Cooperative Business Institute graduating class! Over the course of 16 weeks, we worked with a dedicated group of women from Mamas of Color Rising who will now move on to form “Yo Mamas Catering Cooperative,” Austin’s first worker-owned catering business.

During the CBI, participants covered a lot of ground — from the history, values and principles of cooperatives, to the organizational and financial essentials needed to start and expand a worker-owned business. Now that the class is over, it’s time to celebrate! Enjoy music by DJ Mahealani, sample Yo Mamas Catering cuisine, and take home something special from our silent auction, featuring a variety of goodies from around Austin.

The doors open at 7 pm, with the graduation ceremony at 7:30 pm, and the reception at 8 pm. The dance party with DJ Mahealani will begin at 9 pm. Proceeds from the silent auction and donations made at the event will help members of Yo Mamas attend the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives conference in San Francisco this August. Help us meet our $2,000 goal to bring the entire group to this important event, and celebrate a milestone in worker cooperative development in Austin – thirdcoastworkers.coop

While community movements against oil and coal are growing the Obama Administration is quietly waging a nuclear renaissance in both weapons and power! Not only are there around 20 permits for new nuclear reactors, there are dozens of new permit requests for uranium mining and the US government wants to spend $80 Billion desperately needed tax dollars to build three new nuclear bomb making plants – in Los Alamos, Kansas City, MO and Oakridge TN.

Think Outside the Bomb, the largest US youth-led network for nuclear abolition is organizing Disarmament Summer, a permaculture training and action encampment in New Mexico from July 30th through August 9th. Disarmament Summer efforts will also include creative nonviolent actions on August 6th at Los Alamos National Labs to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and to protest the expansion of the nuclear weapons complex and it’s impact on the surrounding communities.

Come join us in New Mexico to learn hands-on permaculture techniques and organizing skills, create art and street theater for the August 6th action, and much, much more! Check out our camp schedule here – thinkoutsidethebomb.org/encampment

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Friday, July 30, 4:00 – 6:00 PM, Under the Hood Café, 17 College St, Killeen, TX

ANTIWAR PROTEST IN KILLEEN: 3RD ACR DEPLOYMENT PROTEST — 3rd ACR, an Army unit at Ft. Hood, Texas, is up for deployment to Iraq again. 3rd ACR is a unit notorious for repeatedly deploying wounded soldiers. We are demanding the end to these occupations and the repeated deployment of soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain disorder, military sexual trauma, and physical trauma. We will be meeting at the Under the Hood cafe at 4 pm and marching to the East Gate of Ft. Hood.

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Thursday, July 29th – 8:30 PM, South gates of the Capitol

On July 6th, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit that challenges Arizona’s SB 1070, which essentially legalizes racial profiling and demands the increased collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement. The Justice Department has also asked for a court injunction so that SB 1070 does not go into effect on July 29th. Regardless of whether SB 1070 does indeed go into effect on the 29th, it is important to stand in solidarity with those in Arizona who are resisting that legislation.

It is equally important to draw attention to existing ICE ACCESS programs that presently allow the collaboration of ICE and local law enforcement. An ICE ACCESS program called Secure Communities is currently available in 437 jurisdictions in 24 states (including here in Travis County), with plans to expand this program nationwide by 2013.

Legislation such as SB 1070, as well as ICE ACCESS programs, will lead to not only an increase in detentions and deportations, but also an increase in racial profiling and civil rights/human rights violations. The vigil on the 29th will be not just about supporting resistance to SB 1070, but also a call to uncover the truth behind ICE and police collaboration.

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Thursday July 29, 11:45am, City Council,

RALLY FOR REFORM with Austin Police Accountability Coalition. Press conference and then 1 speaker at 12:20pm in Citizens Communication. Then later in the day…item 105…can sign up to speak on the Sanders settlement, and the need to settle with the people of Austin! (sign up at City Hall before it takes place, by 3pm–?–hard to tell)

Thursday, July 29, 9:00 AM, Austin, City Hall, Cesar Chavez and Lavaca

The Austin City Council will be making a critical decision on this day. Austin could make history by finally standing up to protect construction workers’ right to a rest break during work. Unscrupulous employers continue to risk the health and lives of construction workers by denying them regular rest breaks and drinking water. Come tell the City of Austin that the time for waiting is over: we must act! Please join us for food and music as we show our support for this necessary safety and rest break ordinance. Sponsored by Workers Defense Project

Wednesday, July 28, 6:30 PM, Carver Library, 1161 Angelina

Following a series of scandals relating the use of capital punishment in Texas, local activists from many organizations will be pressing a campaign to end the pursuit of death sentences in Travis County. The use of the death penalty is seriously being questioned right now, let’s start an aggressive campaign to hasten its end.

More info: lily (at) nodeathpenalty.org

July 23–25, 2010, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Albany, New York

In these troubled times, Washington’s wars and occupations rage, resulting in an ever increasing number of dead and wounded and the destruction of countries posing no threat to the U.S. Trillions are spent on seemingly endless conflicts in pursuit of profits and global domination, while trillions more are lost by working people in loss of jobs, homes, pensions, health care, and cuts to social programs and public services. The U.S. goes to war to plunder the world’s fossil fuel resources, the unrestrained use of which threatens the future of our planet.

¡Únete a nosotros! Asamblea General de AIRC
jueves, 22 de julio, 7-8:30 p.m.
ACC Riverside
1020 Grove Blvd.
Austin, TX 78741
Sala 8100

** Habrá Cuidado de Niños y Traducción (Español-Inglés)**
¡Ven aprender acerca de las actividades de la coalición y cómo te puedes involucrar!
* * * * * * * * * * ** * *
Join us! AIRC General Assembly
Thursday, July 22nd, 7-8:30 p.m.
ACC Riverside
Building G, Lecture Hall
Austin, TX 78741
Room 8100

**Childcare and Translation Available (English-Spanish)**
Come learn about the work of the coalition and how you can get involved!