PDNC Annual Meeting in Chapel Hill

Progressives,

Let us count the tipping points that we face next year: political, economic, social, climate - just for starters. The questions are: Which way will they tip and who will do the tipping?

There is nothing mechanical about these critical tipping points. They are mostly contests of vision, combined with sheer energy and will, that determine who will make policy decisions, and what those decisions will be.

As the Progressives Democrats of NC (PDNC), we have tried to be the link between the issues and advocacy groups that matter to real people, and the political process that can enact real reforms.

To be effective, we need to be charged up, diverse and united, and have a smart plan.

The Orange County Chapter is the host of the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Progressive Democrats of NC and invites all to come to the concert on Friday evening and the meeting and Democratic Lt. Governor Candidates forum on Saturday. Membership is NOT required; however, non-members cannot vote.

PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF NC -- MAKE YOUR RESERVATIONS TODAY!

Register on-line at www.progressivedemocratsnc.org or download a mail-in registration form

Contact: Pete MacDowell 919-968-9184

Friday Night Concert and FUNdraiser:

MUSIC for our MOVEMENT, MUSIC for our TIMES

7:00 PM, featuring:

David Rovics http://www.davidrovics.com/

"David Rovics is the musical version of Democracy Now!” - Amy Goodman

"If the key to building a mass movement is to make it 'irresistible,' David is opening the flood gates." - Medea Benjamin

“…Listen to David Rovics” Pete Seeger

and

The Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble, the cultural arm of Black Workers for Justice, has been organizing in communities and workplaces with rousing and insightful songs of protest for more than twenty years. http://www.fruitoflabor.org/

Concert Tickets
$20 for advance tickets available through noon on Thursday, December 6th
$15 for student or low income
$25 at door

Saturday: December 8th – PDNC Annual Meeting

Many Issues, Many Voices, One Movement:
Responding to the times as an interconnected, multi-ethnic, progressive movement in NC (Or what to do when representative democracy isn't representing the people...)

8:30: Registration $20 in advance or $15 student or low income (includes lunch); $25 at the door (lunch not guaranteed)

9:30: Welcome and presentation of final agenda

9:50: Forum: Movement Leaders in Dialogue: Advancing the People's Common Agenda in the face of an Unresponsive State Legislature

Facilitator: Cynthia Brown,
Cynthia is the principal consultant of The Sojourner Group, a business she founded to help non-profit groups strengthen their leadership and address their organizational development issues. She also is a grassroots organizer and leader, former Durham City Councilwoman and a 2002 candidate for the United States Senate. As a W.K. Kellogg National Fellow, she studied cultural, racial and economic justice issues in Australia, Brazil, Guatemala, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Egypt, New Zealand and Chile. Her many organizational affiliations include Omuteko Gwamaziima African Centered Charter School, the Latino Community Credit Union, the Latino Community Development Center, the N.C. Conservation Network, Democracy NC and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

African American/HKonJ Issues - Rev. William Barber, President, NC NAACP (Also luncheon Keynote speaker)
Rev. Barber is clearly one of NC's most inspiring and progressive orators. He has excited people with his enthusiastic leadership since his election as president of the North Carolina NAACP in 2006. He was named one of Seven Who Will Matter in 2007 by the Raleigh News and Observer. He organized the Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) Peoples Coalition and march in February of this year. Rev. Barber currently pastors Greenleaf Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, in Goldsboro and has had a major leadership role in a number of organizations involved in community development, addressing education inequality, HIV-AIDs, and other issues of importance to low-income and African American communities.

Death Penalty: Stephen Dear, E.D. of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty
Steve joined People of Faith Against the Death Penalty as executive director in September 1997. Steve is a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi. For five years in the 1990s he served as executive director of the NC Rural Communities Assistance Project, an organization that works to ensure affordable access to safe drinking water and sanitary waste disposal in low-income communities. He has also worked on the staffs of the Center for the Study of Responsive Law (Ralph Nader's office in Washington, DC), the Columban Fathers Justice and Peace Office (Washington, DC), and the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (Washington, DC).

Democracy: Chase Foster, Coordinator, NC Voters for Clean Elections
Chase has been with NCVCE since May 2006. He has experience working with Democracy North Carolina, the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy, the Carolina Environmental Program, and the Direct Action Center for Peace and Memory in Cape Town, South Africa.

Economy/Jobs: John Parker, E.D. of Good Work
John is a resource on issues related to community economic development, entrepreneurship, and cross-cultural leadership. Currently, he is director of Good Work, a community-based organization with a focus on economic empowerment and enterprise development. John serves on the boards of the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro and stone circles. Other areas of experience include community development finance, community organizing, applied cultural anthropology, and ethnographic research.

Environment: Steve Owen, Director, Appalachian Coalition for Just and Sustainable Communities
Steve works in the sustainable development field, teaching and doing movement building in the non-profit sector. He has researched the political ecology of water in the Southern Appalachians using global ethnography. He is presently developing a foundation supported initiative to link the issues of mountain top removal (MTR) coal mining with policies in surrounding states where Appalachian coal is consumed to produce electricity. This initiative, seeks to bring the coalfield communities narratives to the grassroots in Western North Carolina to jointly promote democratic and community owned wind energy projects. Global warming, peak oil, and the devastation of MTR, coupled with Western North Carolina¹s rapacious land development and farm loss drive this work.

Energy and Water: Hope Taylor, E.D., Clean Water for North Carolina
Hope joined Clean Water in 1999, after six years of teaching chemistry and biology in community colleges and universities in the Durham area, as well as providing technical assistance to communities at Superfund sites. During her 20 years of work as a basic biomedical researcher at the National Institutes of Health and Duke University, she remained active on environmental and social justice issues. Hope is also a dairy goat farmer and works to deepen CWFNC ties with rural communities across the state to protect our surface and ground water.

GLBT and Justice System Issues: Mark Kleinschmidt, Chapel Hill Town Council
Mark has served on the Chapel Hill Town Council since December 2001. He is one of five openly-gay North Carolinians to be elected in state history. After six years as a staff attorney at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, in October 2006 Kleinschmidt became the executive director of the Fair Trial Initiative (FTI). His practice combines his representation of several North Carolina capital defendants in post-conviction litigation with recruitment and mentorship of young attorneys and their development towards becoming capital trial attorneys. He has served on numerous boards and organizations, including the North Carolina American Civil Liberties Union, the International Network of Lesbian and Gay Officials, the North Carolina Democratic Party and Equality NC. He also belongs to the Triangle Business and Professional Guild.

Health Care: Rep. Verla Insko
Verla was sworn in for her first term in the NC House in 1997 representing Orange County. Since then, she has established herself as a leader in education, environment and health and human service. She was primary sponsor of the bill that created the high-risk health insurance pool and was primary co-sponsor of the mental health parity bill. As Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, she has increased funding for health care for children birth to age 19 and services for mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services. She supports keeping Medicaid provider rates high enough to attract good providers while demanding accountability for the expenditure of public dollars. She has repeatedly introduced the Health Care for All bill which would allow voters to vote on an amendment to the NC Constitution which would establish health care as a fundamental right in North Carolina.

Housing - foreclosures - Chris Estes, E.D., North Carolina Housing Coalition
As Executive Director of the NC Housing Coalition, Chris works on broad range of issues from housing and services needed to end homelessness, workforce housing, housing for persons with disabilities and fixed income seniors, manufactured housing, foreclosure prevention and entry-level homeownership. He has eight years experience as a development officer for several different Triangle area nonprofit organizations and has worked on statewide issues like economic development, dislocated workers, welfare reform, growth management and asset-building. In 2007 he co-authored The Economic Cost of Substandard Housing Conditions Among North Carolina Children with Dr. David Chenoweth.

Immigration – Marisol Jimenez-McGee, Advocacy Director and Lobbyist, El Pueblo (Also Luncheon Keynote speaker)
Marisol, who is originally from Chicago, began working in immigrant advocacy after traveling to the U.S.-Mexican border and witnessing the injustices that exist in U.S. immigration and economic policies. She worked in Latino centers in Colorado and North Carolina for several years before deciding to challenge the system and focus her work at the policy-level. Marisol came to North Carolina in 2000 where she earned a Masters in Social Work at UNC focusing on immigration issues, globalization, and public policy.

Labor: Saladin Mohammed of UE 150 and Black Workers for Justice
Saladin is a veteran leader of the labor and African American liberation movements in North Carolina. He is responsible for coordinating organizing in North Carolina and Virginia for the North Carolina and Virginia Public Service Workers Unions UE Locals 150 and 160. He is building the fight against a North Carolina law, NC 95-98, which limits workers' rights to collectively bargain. He has long been a leader with Black Workers for Justice.

Peace: Walt Caison of Stop Torture Now
Walt is a member of NC Stop Torture Now, a coalition of peace and human rights activists working to end CIA “extraordinary renditions” to kidnap, detain, interrogate and torture people suspected of being enemies. Many such flights originate at Walt's home county airport (Johnston) where Aero Contractors, Ltd., flies these secret and illegal missions. Walt has a doctoral degree in community and organizational psychology, and is a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. For the past 20 years he has been active in community mental health and other civic work. In 1986, as a member of the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris, the predecessor of NC WARN, Walt fought against the start up of the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant near Apex, NC.

Youth: Ryan Eller - former Chair, Governor's Student Leadership Council
Ryan Eller served as chair of the Board of Directors for the Governor's Student Leadership Council, as President of the College Democrats at A.S.U., and as a founding member of the University's Diversity Task force. He also has extensive experience in the campaign arena, aiding in multiple local, congressional, and presidential races. He is the current Campaign Manager for Roy Carter, the candidate running against Virginia Foxx in North Carolina's 5th District. Ryan has also worked for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington D.C., as a Bill Moyers Fellow, and for the Kentucky Governor's Office. He presently serves the Democratic Party as the 3rd Vice-Chair in Forsyth County and as a member of the State Executive Committee.

12:30: Lunch provided

1:00: Keynote Speakers

Marisol Jimenez-McGee, Advocacy Director, El Pueblo

Marisol Jiménez McGee, originally from Chicago, IL, began working in immigrant advocacy after traveling to the U.S.-Mexican border and witnessing the injustices that exist in U.S. immigration and economic policies. She worked in centros in Colorado and North Carolina for several years before deciding to challenge the system and focus her work at the policy-level. Marisol came to North Carolina in 2000 and earned a Masters in Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work where she focused her studies on immigration issues, globalization, and public policy. Marisol is currently the Advocacy Director and a registered lobbyist for El Pueblo, http://www.elpueblo.org/. She lives in Chatham County.

Dr. Rev. William J. Barber II, President, North Carolina NAACP: "We need a movement and not just a moment!"

Arguably one of NC's most inspiring orators, Rev. William Barber has excited people with his enthusiastic leadership since his election as president of the North Carolina NAACP in 2006. He was named one of Seven Who Will Matter in 2007 by the Raleigh News and Observer: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/527554-p2.html. “Watch out folks! When someone with Rev. Barber's leadership ability gets interested in an issue and can inspire thousands and thousands to get out of the pews and into the streets to take and to demand action, there will be some changing going on!” Mark Kleinschmidt

2:15: Democratic Lt. Governor Candidates Forum - Dan Besse, Hampton Dellinger, and Pat Smathers

(The PDNC membership will decide whether to endorse in this race, and, if so, who to endorse at this time.)

3:15: Membership Business Meeting: PDNC's priorities for 2008

4:30: Pending: Representative and Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich http://www.dennis4president.com/home/

“When the Founders of our country spoke of ‘forming a more perfect union,' it wasn't just about politics. It was also about being able to be more than we are - about consciously evolving. It's not too late to seek a new world!” -- Dennis Kucinich