The Charleston County Democratic Party will present the Democratic Peacemakers Tent at Charleston Peace one Day at Brittlebank Park in Charleston, this Sunday from 1 to 6 pm. Come and enjoy a salon/living room type discussion with these three accomplished peacemakers, each from South Carolina. The tentative Schedule is set out at the bottom of this post. Also we’ll have Candidates and Elected Democratic Officials serving as greeters. Mike Ruckes, opposing Demint is Scheduled for 2 and 4 pm. Others to be added later. You’re also invited to sign a petition supporting Mayor Riley’s stand against Illegal Guns and Health Care Reform.
Here are our Peacemakers.
Neal Petersen twice circumnavigated the Earth in the BOC Challenge (Now the Around Alone Race), using a sailboat he built himself. After growing up under apartheid in South Africa, he became one of his nation’s most famous sailors, and one of it’s few black sailors. In his travels, he came to realize that all people need food, clean water, healthcare, housing and most of all freedom. Today Neal works as a world recognized corporate coach and motivational speaker. While working globally, Neal builds understanding through his No-Barriers Foundation. He recently completed a civilian observer’s trip to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and a people to people upriver trip through the Orinoco River Delta in Venezuela. Learn more at http://www.no-barriers.com/
Wescoat Sandlin is an attorney who works on political asylum cases, helping people remain here who have fled oppression to the United States when their return to their country of origin might result in their being tortured or killed. US policy towards international refugees of this type varies based on our relationship with their home country. Often, if a repressive regime is friendly to the US, it’s difficult for those seeking political asylum to remain here. Wescoat has helped people from Iraq, Columbia, Sudan, Cuba, Haiti, Ethiopia, Guatemala, El Salvador, China, and Algeria. Sandlin is also a Roman Catholic Deacon.
Julia Dawson, a native of Charleston, has worked in the peace and justice community since graduating from College. She recently spent two years in Pakistan working as a female journalist. She has worked for the Corporation for Community Development organizing improved halfway houses for former convicts, neighborhood rehabilitation in Greenville and individual empowerment.
Peacemaker Schedule (Tentative)
1:15 pm- Julia Dawson
2:00 pm- Wescoat Sandlin
2:45 pm- Julia Dawson
3:30 pm- Neal Petersen
4:15 pm- Wescoat Sandlin
5:00 pm- Neal Petersen
Candidates & Public Officials, Host/Greeters
1:00 pm TBA
2:00 pm Mike Ruckes, Candidate for US Senate
3:00 pm TBA
4:00 pm Mike Ruckes, Candidate for US Senate
5:00 pm TBA
Last week the President asked bloggers across the US to use our capacity to discuss complex issues at legnth to address the haelth care issue. I suspect Obama was thinking about the Huffington post. Howver, I fired up word and went at it too.
Unfortunately I didn't get interviewed by the Rachael Maddow show.
Here is my effort on SC's own Indigo Journal
http://www.indigojournal.com/diary/1036/a-voice-from-south-carolina-for-the-president
I'm doing most of my blogging on Indigo Journal these days. I'm on Facebook and Twitter as well. We've made huge progress towards creating an electronic communication network for progressive elecments in SC, but we need more people online.
You can follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/wjhamilton29464
I would like to thank all the hard working volunteers who came together in Phillips Community in Mt. Pleasant, SC to transform a weedy corner into an attractive bus stop location for school children and CARTA Riders and who took an overgrown field and turned it into a community activity field and picnic area Saturday. It was hard, hot work. Information about your efforts has been transmitted to Organizing for America’s growing national network as well as the East Cooper Democrats and Charleston Democratic Party. The wonderful cookout presented by the people of Phillips was a great end to the morning’s work.
A Youtube video on the project has been put together and is now online. It’s far from perfect, but you’re all there putting your sweat where most people only put talk. Please share it with friends and take a look yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFuNJqXMrDk
The Porches to Sidewalks Column in this week’s Moultrie News is also about the Phillips Project. The original version was somewhat longer, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to write about this wonderful event. http://www.moultrienews.com/porches/The-field-at-Phillips--making-community-in-the-heat-and-dirt
We have still pictures on Facebook as well
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=125397&id=538763237
Thank you for being there and working so hard Saturday. We’ve all be invited back in August to celebrate the end of summer with the people of Phillips. I look forward to seeing how the grass is doing by then. The rain which falls on the growing grass and the continuing willingness of other to work for a better world like yourselves both encourage me.
Lowcountry residents interested in progressive and Democratic films can vote online to help select the films to be shown at a progressive Dinner and a Movie night planned for early August in N. Charleston. Voting began June 22nd. The films focus on the national issue of health care. The ballot includes King Corn, a documentary on the impact of the government subsidized corn industry; Damaged Care, a satirical musical on health care issues; Donka: X-Ray of an African Hospital and I am Somebody, a recently digitally premastered documentary about the historic Charleston Hospital Strike during the Civil Rights movement. 16 films are on the ballot. Voting is open to any interested person and will continue until July 8 at http://www.indigojournal.com/diary/915/progressive-film-goers-survey online.
END END END
We’re developing a concept for a progressive/liberal dinner and a movie program in N. Charleston in early August.
The event will include an informal 6 pm dinner at a nearby restaurant within walkable distance to the theater, followed by the film at 8. We plan to show a documentary short and a feature length film. Afterwards they’ll be a short discussion.
We’re soliciting suggestions for small independent progressive feature films and documentaries which might be of interest to a Lowcountry Audience. These will be reviewed for cost and content and reduced to an electronic ballot which will be put up as a blog post on Indigo Journal www.indigojournal.com on June 23rd. Voting on the films will continue until July 8, both online and with paper ballots at selected events during that period. We’re attempting to focus on a health care theme, but we’re open to other films which focus on progressive change, social and economic justice and liberal politics. We’re going to try to avoid films which have already had extensive local theatrical exposure since we have to cover rental. Hopefully previews for all the films will be available online so you can get an idea of what you’re voting for. If necessary, we’ll have a quickie run off between the films getting the largest number of votes on July 9 & 10 (ending at 5 pm).
We’re also taking suggestions on the introductory short.
Send your film suggestions to me at wjhamilton@wjhamilton.com. If you can include a link to a website or youtube promo video, that would be welcomed. Try to send the full title of the film, the year it was released and the name of the director if you can.
See you at the movies.
We've finished planning for our June 27th. service project here. We'll be helping build a bus stop for school children and improving the future site of a proposed civic center in the Phillip's Community.
I've put all the details in an illustrated blog entry on Indigo Journal
http://www.indigojournal.com/diary/886/operating-with-a-swing-blade
This event will end with a picnic presented by the Phillips Community
Saturday's health care kickoff effort by Organizing for America and local Democrats produced two videos, a broadcast news story on WCIV TV 4 images and blog posts.
The video by Ed Faircloth is very polished and effective..Ed Faircloth's video, Charleston Health Care Stories weaves together video of the President with local stories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LADJQInz3JY
My video features one of our local ministers with some observations of the role of the Church in helping people with healthcare and the limits of what a church can do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoSl5hVUcmk
I've pulled together information on activity across the Lowcountry in a blog post which includes some images as well. http://www.indigojournal.com/diary/860/ofa-and-healthcare-reform-on-d-day. The post also includes a link to the wonderful coverage by WCIV TV Channel 4.
Over 100 people were involved in yesterday's effort in Charleston and several Health Care service events are already announced for June 27.
We started the local Health care reform effort with a coffee shop drop in this morning. Details and images can be found on my primary blog on Indigo Journal, SC's progressive blog site.
We'll blog the effort throughout the next 10 days, putting up as much as we can about the Charleston area effort
http://www.indigojournal.com/userDiary.do?personId=150
We're getting ready for the Healthcare effort here in Charleston, South Carolina. It's also the time of our world famous Spoleto Arts Festival. Fortunately these two things are related, as any art organization executive director sweating a budget can tell you when they're not begging for a grant.
We've just posted a blog entry on Indigo Journal about reaching out to local artists regarding the Health Care issues. Many independent artists don't have access to healthcare and rising costs burden and somtimes kill, larger artistic organizations. We've got some figures to share.
It this seems a bit cute, it does make a valiid point and with Charleston awash in parties, we're trying to swim with the current a bit. We'll be handing out copies of the release as a flyer during this week.
http://www.indigojournal.com/diary/837/spoleto-artists-and-hospitality-workers-who-lack-healthcare-focus-of-local-obama-effort
You can read and reply to my blog post on Indigo Journal about yessterday's phone call with the President on Healthcare, made from Air Force One.
Phoning with POTUS - Indigo Journal, South Carolina Progressive Blogsite
I also referenced the Health Care Campaign with OFA in my weekly Newspaper column.
http://www.moultrienews.com/porches/Starting-South-Carolina-summer-with-a-short-list
For Immediate Release
Mt. Pleasant, SC- The East Cooper Democrats and Organizing for America (OFA) will hold a Saturday, June 6 breakfast to help begin the national campaign for healthcare from 9-11 a.m. at Gullah Cuisine 1717 US 17N, Mount Pleasant, (843) 881-9076. The cost is $7/person for scrambled eggs, grits, ham, coffee/tea and juice. To RSVP for the meeting and learn more about the Healthcare effort, register for the event online at www.barackobama.com by searching for events in the 29464 zipcode. Local efforts will be updated with code “#ofa” on Twitter and South Carolina OFA’s and the East Cooper Democrats pages on Facebook.
At the breakfast the group will collect donations of toothpaste, toothbrushes and mouthwash for use at local free dental clinics.
The lack of affordable, accessible healthcare is having drastic impacts on Mt. Pleasant families.
A Mt. Pleasant homemaker lost her health insurance coverage last year when her husband was laid off. The family purchased COBRA coverage for a year at a cost of $350 per month just to cover her while her husband relied on VA benefits, but the family was forced to stop purchasing COBRA because they could not pay their other bills. Unfortunately her husband was laid off before the Federal COBRA Stimulus subsidy program implemented by the Obama administration began.
A Father lost his job in early this year. While he was able to enroll his children in the SCHIP program expanded by the Obama administration which provided healthcare coverage to four million more children, unemployment benefits couldn’t cover the cost of COBRA coverage for the whole family, food and housing costs.
A disabled educator waited two years after qualifying for disability to obtain Medicare coverage.
Organizing for America in South Carolina and the East Cooper Democrats are committed to organizing a local effort to help achieve health care reform around President Obama’s three principles that any comprehensive health care reform must achieve: (1) reduce costs, (2) guarantee choice, and (3) ensure all Americans have quality, affordable health care. Their goal is to achieve this by the end of this year.
The June 6 East Cooper kickoff Breakfast is one of over 10 events being planned for South Carolina’s 1st. Congressional District, currently represented by Republican Congressman Henry Brown, who enjoys lifetime coverage under the congressional plan of the quality President Obama believes, should be available to all Americans. The group will work with other health care advocates in the First District to persuade Congressman Brown to help his constituents receive healthcare benefits as good as the Congressman enjoys. Healthcare advocates hope to hold their Congressman to his recent statement that, “There is clearly a health care crisis in this country, and I want you to know that I am doing everything I can to find a remedy.”
The group hopes their Congressman will work with them and President Obama to find that remedy.
Relevant Links
White House Health Care Reform Page
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Health-Reform-Urgency-and-Determination/
June 6 East Cooper Breakfast Event Registration, search for 29464 events and find other events in your area.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcareorganizingkickoff/gpcs2k
Organizing for America – Healthcare Page
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/organizingforhealthcare
East Cooper Democrats – Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=61199296690
Organizing for America – SC, Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=47873441228
Twitterfeed – OFA
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=ofa
The campaign for universal access to healthcare will kick off nationally and in South Carolina on June 6, 2009 under the leadership of President Barack Obama and an expanding Organizing for America (OFA) effort.
In a regional conference call on Thursday, May 21, Obama campaign veterans from around the state coordinated strategy with other community organizers throughout the states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina.
The time to organize and build coalitions is at hand in the Palmetto State.
I've written a detailed blogpost on Indigo Journal with the relevant links:
http://www.indigojournal.com/diary/816/campaign-for-healthcare-kickoff-june-6
“I’m Sorry” isn’t much of a response to what has happened to Jamie Sanderson, one of our states’s most active progressive bloggers. I write this to do better by him and his friends at the Steel Mill in Georgetown, informed yesterday that their mill will be shutting down in July than my facebook comment last night.
Read the full blog post on Indigo Journal
I've just posted a detailed blog entry on what our friends in Washington appear to be arranging for South Carolina. It's a serious, multi leval challenge to consevative control of the state. We're a long way from winning here, but we're by no means abandoned.
South Carolinians in the administration, plans to deploy Organizing for America within the state, a fifty million national program to promote and replicate innovative non profit initiatives for social change and our vastly improved communication infrastructure combine to make permenant conservative control of South Carolina less than certain.
If you're looking for an easy fight for the future, that is going to be somewhere else, but if you think the President and his friends from South Carolina have forgotten us, you will be delighted to discover you're wrong.
Read about it on Indigo Journal
http://www.indigojournal.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=763
I posted it there, because I wanted to include some images.
I don't feel bad about discussing this publically because our opposition isn't as dumb as they act and they know perfectly well what is going on. The national liberal/progressive movement plans to challenge political control in the red "refuge states."
That's the origin of all the agressive conservative politcal activity here in SC, the fear of a challenge in their home base of deep red states.
I've just posted the full remarks, as prepared, of Dr. Carol Temple on the School Voucher Tax Credit and Choice issue from the May 4, 2008 NAACP forum in Charleston, SC. There are a lot of facts and research here which may be of interest and use to others.
It's posted, with a precious image of Senator Ford's empty chair on the Indigo Journal South Carolina Progressive blog site.
http://www.indigojournal.com/diary/759/carol-a-tempels-thoughts-on-school-vouchers-and-choice
I've posted a short video on the Obama Art Exhibit "Our Artful Moment" now on display at the Plum Elements Gallery in Downtown Charleston. Video is a new medium for me, so don't expect George Lucas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlcpdz0GGiw&feature=channel_page
Last night an exhibit opened in Charleston at the Plum Elements gallery on lower King Street featuring art inspired by the first 100 days of the Obama Presidency. The dozen works displayed in the intimate, bright white space address the hope and change of the first 100 days in a variety of ways, from photo realistic paintings of the swearing in to ceramic pitchers symbolizing the old and new administrations. Last night’s opening was attended by about 75 people and the exhibit remains open until mid May at the gallery just north of Queen Street, opposite the Charleston Library Society.
At the opening I met a group of Obama supporters distinctly different from those who work on state political issues. Many had a purely national focus on politics. I also learned that a party celebrating 100 days of Obama drew over 200 guests on Logan Street Wednesday evening.
I’ll have a video report on the opening posted over the weekend on Youtube and linked to my blog on Indigo Journal and my facebook and twitter feeds http://twitter.com/wjhamilton29464 , but you can go see the art now. See their website for full details on the gallery http://www.plumelements.com/ In addition to large art works, the gallery has a wonderful collection of decorative items and gifts. Consider supporting a local gallery not devoted to shrimp boats and beach scenes with a visit and a purchase if you can.
Wednesday, April 29 two events were held in Charleston to celebrate the 100th. day of Obama’s Presidency. Parties were held at the homes of Charleston County Democratic Party Chairman Goerge Temple and activists William, Julia & Jackson Hamilton. A lifesized cardboard cutout of the president greeted guests at the Temple’s. 40 attended the party at the Temples, 13 at the Hamiltons. Both gatherings watched the President’s press conference and discussed future plans to organize for positive change in the area and state.
Guests at both events were excited about the upcoming listening tour and the plans to open staffed offices in South Carolina announced by Organizing for America at last weekend’s Democratic Convention.
A television news crew showed up for the larger gathering at the Temple’s, putting Charleston Democrats on several evening news broadcasts. The Hamilton hosted gathering focused on internet media, tweeting and facebooking, with images and video of a toast to the President being transmitted that evening. Both gatherings had a cake to mark the occasion. The two events were connected by a speakerphone call shortly after the President’s press conference.
100th. day observances continue in Charleston with an Art Gallery Exhibit Opening tonight on King Street, a Progressive happy hour at Crave in Mt. Pleasant on Friday evening and a party on Folly Beach Friday night. Details and registration for the Art Opening and Folly Beach Party events can be found on the Organizing for America (Formerly Barack Obama website) at
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_results?orderby=day&zip_radius[0]=29464&zip_radius[1]=15&radius_unit=miles&country=US
Supporters of the President be marking 100 days of Obama with four events in Charleston. I'll be tweeting from these events, Wed to Friday. I had proposed a tweet code earlier, but I've since learned another has been globally adopted To search for tweets relevant to the 100 day observances everywhere use "#100days" without the quotation marks or just use this link
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=100days I'm monitoring the global tweets which include that code now. You can too using a website like monitter http://www.monitter.com/ or an application like Tweetdeck You can follow my tweets on all subjects at http://twitter.com/wjhamilton29464
Most of the Charleston events are listed on the Organizing for America Website
Another, interesting event is not listed, an art gallery event on Thursday downtown featuring art from the Inauguration
Thursday, April 30 from 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Host: John Zinsser, Location:
Plum Elements (Charleston, SC)
161 1/2 King Street
Charleston, SC 29401
My Porches to Sidewalk’s Column this week is on being an Obama Supporter in a Red State amid an economic crisis
http://www.moultrienews.com/porches/Liberals-of-E--Cooper-to-celebrate-Obama-s-100th-day
I hope to see, tweet and hear from some of you in all of this, online or in person. As difficult as it is in SC, we should enjoy the hope and change we’ve seen.
