Hello all,

Just here to remind you that the Democracy for Souhegan Valley Meetup is One Week from Today: Tuesday, April 5th at 6:30. This month we'll be meeting at Nancy White's house, right next to the Amherst Public Library on Main Street.

The March meetup was incredibly productive(you can see the notes at http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/1093) and we hope to do the same this month as the meeting will focus around beginning editing on a video on voting we'll be working on with DFNH's Fair Elections Committee and perhaps a special guest to be announced.

In addition, we'll be having an talk on Social Security and Medicare from Tom Deery of the Alliance of Retired Americans, an update on what we've accomplished on our own in the past month, and much more from Democracy for America and Democracy for New Hampshire.

I hope to see you all there!

Andy Sylvia
Organizer
Democracy for New Hampshire-Souhegan Valley

March Meetup:

A quick report on our March meeting at the School for International Training. We had the extraordinary privilege of having two Democratic party leaders join around thirty of us. Ray Buckley has taken on among many other responsibilities the vice-chair of the Northeastern Region of the country, which interestingly enough includes New England, the Middle Atlantic, islands in the Caribbean, and Democrats living abroad world wide. His political roots and many of his activities are in Manchester, NH. Peter Mallary, after a varied career in Vermont state government and serving the Democratic party, is now its chair. Their discussion and insights were fascinating, and we greatly enjoyed their company. I can't cover all the topics they did here and keep this brief, but I will summarize by saying that they report that the Democratic National Committee is excited by its new chief. Gov. Dean is the first openly elected chair of the DNC in some time (President's typically designate who will be the chair of their party as Clinton did.) As we know, Dean's passion is to build the party from the grassroots up (as the Republicans have done in recent years and the DNC has not). The parties in both NH and VT are working hard to do this, getting their voter lists together, organizing volunteers and committees, etc. It is a national effort which Dean started out with the significant request that each state party submit a five year plan indicating where it wants to be in 2010 and specifically how it plans to get there. Communication within the party is to be a major focus, and both our guests are very involved in finding ways to improve it. The meetup had many questions and the discussion was wide-ranging and lively. We were all very appreciative of our guests' having come so far on a winter night.

This compelling article appeared in the Connecticut Valley Spectator's January 27th issue. It was written by the Upper Valley Meetup's own Audrey McCollum, a writer and retired psychotherapist...

In his inaugural speech, President Bush aimed to engage our nation in a moral crusade to spread freedom and democracy across the world. Together, the words "freedom," "liberty," and "free" were used 49 times (I counted), as though the president and Michael Gerson, his speechwriter, hoped to burn them into our minds. The word "peace" was used only once.

The president's mission actually replicates the aims of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) which I described on 12/4/04. Published in 1997 by men who include key players in the Bush inner circle, this scheme favors the use of pre-emptive wars -- possibly several at once -- as well as new nuclear weapons, domination of space through Star Wars systems, and control of cyberspace through the Global Information Grid.

Although new nuclear weapon development was voted down by congress, the president has activated the other ghastly schemes. Now dark hints from Vice President Cheney and observations of The New Yorker's writer Seymour Hersh indicate that the president's warlike sights are now aimed at Iran.

DFA Meet-up Keene/Brattleboro Jan 5, 05
With DFNH

It was great to be meeting with everyone again.
SYNOPSIS:
We showed George Lakoff’s DVD "How Democrats and Progressives Can Win" and started a lively conversation that explored re-framing a couple of issues, notably the right to life. One question that was raised was, How far does the right to life extend, How pro-life are you?, are you committed to life, to a good life, to a right to health care? Etc. If you support a right to life what about the rights of our soldiers, the Iraqi people? As news coverage increased a world wide positive human response to a natural tragedy such as a Tsunami increased to admirable proportions, and yet very little mention is made in the news of the destruction of the cities in Iraq, or the villages in Darfour, are we being politically manipulated? (Especially in light of Secretary Powell’s statement that our tsunami relief is proof that America is not anti-Moslem). What is an honest pro-life position?