This past weekend was supposed to include a trip to Laredo, and possibly continuing on to Nuevo Laredo, for some churchmates and me. The plan was to leave Thursday morning, stay in Laredo, deliver supplies, via Catholic Charities, to a refugee center in Nuevo, provide any other needed assistance, and return Monday (today). They needed mostly clothing, toiletries, and snacks: e.g., spray deodorant rather than sticks or roll-on because the refugees would be sharing it. About a week before scheduled takeoff, we received word from the office at First UU Church's Thoreau Campus (in Richmond TX) that the folks at Catholic Charities would not be able to host us or put us to work. So the mission was officially scrubbed a few days later. However, the supplies were still needed. At least one of the folks who signed up for a spot on the bus loaded the supplies in her truck and went on her own. I was not able to provide much of the load, but I did drive downtown during lunch hour to hand over to Melissa Sanchez a few bags of sanitary supplies that a friend had procured. Presidential candidate Howie Hawkins is making a few campaign stops in Texas. Confirmed so far: Dallas on 7 September, Houston on the 9th. GPTX activists Don and Laura Palmer have graciously offered their home as a venue for the Houston stop.
Here is the Facebook event. Key Howie facts:
To make this site more useful to current and would-be activists, I'm in the process of adding an activist calendar. The free trial version of the calendar app from Tockify is up and running here. See the Activist Events link on the top navbar.
My hope is to make this calendar a resource more complete than those of the Houston Peace and Justice Center, the Progressive Forum on KPFT, and Houston Peace News—in part by scouring all three and some others. Most of the events will relate to lefty political organizing, protest demonstrations, and other actions. But not all the events posted will meet those criteria: We'll also put socio-political conscious concerts, art events, and fundraisers on this calendar. "So, it's a little complicated. We are bipartisan [sic], so we don't support specifically any party. We feel that both [sic] parties have failed to take action to the extent that they should, but we recognize that it is much more likely that it is much more likely that a climate debate would happen at a Democratic debate rather than a Republican. So that is what we've decided to focus on."
These young people get it. They understand that climate is not the same as weather (unlike two different climate-denier debate coaches they mentioned). They know who Greta Thunberg is and understand the importance of Climate Strike, a version of which they plan to conduct on Friday 20 September. They can give examples of intersectionality as it relates to the climate crisis. They also get that not everyone in their schools will have the depth and breadth of knowledge that they do, but they have the will and the patience to explain this multi-faceted issue.
It's a decent start: We had ten people in attendance last night, about as many as could comfortably fit in the conference room at SHAPE. Most of the ten have been regular attendees at the organizing sessions.
As the facilitator, I wanted to start off with an actual prepared speech instead of just winging it, which would be customary for this crowd. It's a way of setting the tone for how we'll be aim to do things differently rather than settling into comfortable routines. I thought the speech was good enough to post here (below the fold) for posterity; you may hold a different opinion as to its worthiness. I am happy to report that I did fit the speech within my five allocated minutes, we did finish the meeting in just under two hours as planned, and a few of us did repair to Axelrad Beer Garden for adult beverages and conversation (but very little political talk, for which I am thankful). Also, we collectively exercised sufficient restraint to keep our sometimes-reflexive bitching about the current state of HCGP to a bare minimum. ***** You are welcome to join us at the SHAPE Center's Harambee Building on Almeda Tuesday evening from 7 to 9. This will be the inaugural public meeting of Green Party Houston, a new organization with a different mission and different responsibilities from the Harris County Green Party.
Yes, the GPH website is still a work in progress. The meeting is free to attend, but that doesn't mean we won't ask for donations to cover room rental and other expenses.
Back in 2016, former Vice President Al Gore came to Houston to deliver the two-day Climate Reality Project speaker training, and Kayleen signed up for it. She got to spend some time with one of her heroes: She had shown excerpts from An Inconvenient Truth to her World Geography students back in her teaching days.
Gore, a Democrat to his very marrow, became less of a hero in her eyes when he came out in favor of his old friend Hillary Clinton in her quest for the presidency. The whole movement lost its luster as Kayleen discovered that the overwhelming majority of those present for the training placed their faith in the Democratic Party and its candidates to solve the impending climate crisis. Cuz we know that President Barack Obama dedicated his entire eight years in the White House to reversing climate change, starting at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009--NOT! So Kayleen, dejected, never did any Climate Reality speaking gigs. As consolation she did meet a new friend who came to the training from Zimbabwe, and who is now studying climate science in Paris. So we may have someone to visit if we ever make it to France. None of the text below, which mentions several Democrats by name, is meant to imply that I'm turning into a Democrat. Generally, I vote for Democrats in local races in which there is no Green running. I will promote candidates and elected office-holders whose views I find genuinely progressive—regardless of how the Democratic Party establishment may treat them, regardless of occasional votes that seem at odds with the progressive agenda. I will defend them from baseless smears propagated by any party or media outlet. (Your findings of progressivity may vary, and that's OK: even Greens don't agree on everything.) |
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