PAA General Meeting 7 p.m. Thursday, June 12, Havens Center, 1827 W. Alabama

Event Description:

Come to the regular monthly meeting of the Progressive Action Alliance Thursday, May 8. Come early (about 6:45PM) to visit; meeting is from 7-9 p.m. Bring something non-messy to eat or drink and share if you wish. If you are reading this on the PAA home page, click on the event title for more info.

We meet at the Havens Center -- see address below. You may park across the street in the gravel lot on the north side of Alabama (not in front of the restaurant). NOTE: Several cars were vandalized a few months ago in the St. Stephen's Church parking lot, just east of the Havens Center. The church has added some new lights to that parking lot, but we still suggest that you not park there. Do not leave visible items of value in your car.
Agenda items include:
* Dennis Kucinich's new push for impeachment

* Should we join a newly forming statewide web site hub (part of a national initiative), to enhance the coordination and communication of the actions of many Texas environmental, peace and justice organizations? (See e-mail below**)

* New co-chair for PAA (Kathleen is stepping down)

* Time to plan a party/social gathering for peace and justice folks?

* EYES WIDE OPEN DISPLAY OF BOOT & FLAGS ON 14 JUNE AT DISCOVERY GREEN (across the street from the Houston convention center, where the state Republican convention will be held Friday and Saturday) (details below***)

* Green Party State Convention (this weekend, in Houston) http://www.harriscountygreenparty.org/calendar/calendar.htm#GPTX08

** Email referenced above:
Delivered-To: escramble('paa','crosierbiomed.com');
Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 16:31:11 -0500
To: Bill Crosier escramble('paa','crosierbiomed.com');
From: Andrew Lehman escramble('andrew','andrewlehman.com');
Subject: Progressive Action Alliance in a TX statewide
communications/cooperation website network hub

Hi Bill,

Our question to you is, would Progressive Action Alliance be interested in participating in a statewide web site hub, at no charge (this is part of a national initiative), to enhance the coordination and communication of the actions of many Texas environmental, peace and justice organizations?

Organizations confirming participation in the temporary listserve considering the project:

American Veterans for Equal Rights AVER South Texas
Austin Free Set
Border Network for Human Rights BNHR
Citizen's Environmental Coalition
Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras CJM
Environmental Defense
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
Fix 290
La Union del Pueblo Enteros LUPE Texas
Military Families Speak Out
Robert Muller Center for Living Ethics
San Antonio peaceCENTER
StandDown Texas Project
Texans for Peace
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Texas Criminal Justice Coalition
Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (TEJAS)
Travis County Green Party
Whitehouse High School SDS

We're looking for Texas organizations interested in participation in the statewide network website (and a temporary listserve to discuss the details). Over 700 local peace, justice and environmental organizations in 17 statewide peace, justice & environmental networks serving 20 states use this programming now in IL, FL, MI, MN, OH, IN, MO, ME, PA, KY, TN, GA, CT, RI, VT, NH, MA, VA, WA and CA with new networks scheduled to go up within the month for MD, DE, AL, MS, AZ and IA. CodePINK is using this programming for their national website. http://www.ilcpj.org was the first to go up 4/1/06.

Some state networks participating in this project:

http://www.flaction.org (Florida)
http://www.ilcpj.org (Illinois)
http://michiganpeacenetwork.org (Michigan)
http://www.ohiopeacenetwork.org (Ohio)
http://paactionnetwork.org (Pennsylvania)
http://www.network4peace.org (Indiana)
http://www.mpjen.org (Maine)
http://www.calaction.org (California)
http://www.wanet.org (Washington State)
http://www.vpan.org (Virginia)

The website offers an online petition center, actions center, forums, calendars, resource center and more. A sophisticated communications center offers all members email access to every organization within the system with automatic notification occurring when organizations toggle support or participation for each other's actions. Eletter, fundraising and social networking features are just now being added on.

Several actions have emerged in these websites and then received local, statewide and even national media coverage as a direct result of the websites' use. In December 2006, Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan groups worked closely together through their respective versions gathering over 1800 signatures and the endorsement of over 40 organizations combating the U.S. Coast Guard practicing in the Great Lakes with live lead ammunition dumping 7000 lbs of lead into the lake annually. The three websites provided the opportunity for member organizations to notify, educate, organize and direct their members to the targeted events where online petitions were delivered. The Coast Guard withdrew their proposal as a direct result of the web driven application and the efforts of participating activists. This is where the power of this programming comes into play. In addition to spreading actions and information across a state, actions emerging in one state frequently jump to other states creating the spontaneous proliferation of political action from the bottom up.

Admins for individual groups commit less than 15 minutes a week to post actions and answer communications from other participating groups. This involves from five to twenty minutes to get started.

Last May we made the web/email application behind these networks open source. Activists across the planet now use the Actions Options Tool. It can be downloaded at actionsoptions.org. Visit http://snap.actionsoptions.org/uploads/demo/introduction.mov to view powerful new features coming soon to these statewide networks.

Who are we? There are 12 volunteers working on this project at this time, helping local organization use the programming as each site goes up. Most of us are from the Illinois Coalition for Peace and Justice where this networking movement began. Several of us came on board over the last year as websites went up in those states. There are several programmers among the 12 making possible the state-of-the-art web/email applications at the heart of the project.

We do not charge for this. This is what we can do for peace and the future of this planet. Please call or email if interested.

Visit http://www.pjep.org for a complete list of websites and more information.

If you'd like to discuss your organization participating in this project in conjunction with other Texas organizations, please email me. The first step is setting up a temporary dedicated listserve for interested groups to begin discussing details and ask us questions. Can I have your permission to place you on that listserve?

Thank you,

Andrew Lehman
Craig Heinke
800 878 1801
Peace Justice & Environment Project

PS This email is going out to over 500 groups in Texas. Email us if you would like a list of those organizations.

*** Eyes Wide Open and Republican Convention Saturday morning at 0600 VFP-12 and local members of AFSC-Texas (Americans Friends Service Committee) will be setting out boots and flags for each of the Texas casualties in the Iraq War on Jones Lawn across the street from the George R. Brown Convention Center , in anticipation of the arrival of the delegates to the Texas Republican Party Convention. The boots are part of the Americans Friends Service Committee's Eyes Wide Open Display.

If you are interested in helping laying out or picking up or want to stick around the display during the day, please contact Jim Rine escramble('jmrine','hotmail.com'); or 281 414 1386.

Event Sponsor:
Progressive Action Alliance

Event Contact Name:
C. Lee Taylor

Event Phone Contact Information:
713.524.1944

Event Email Address:
escramble('taylor','gmail.com');">c.lee.

Event Fee:
Free