The use of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), is a controversial issue. Most public discussion of drones has focused on military use. Less attention has been paid to the expanding use of domestic drones. Oregon passed HB 2710, restricting public agency use of drones, but with no guidance on private use.

To help us understand the safefy and privacy concerns associated with drones, Oregonians for Drone Control is hosting a panel discussion moderated by Steve Duin between nationally known panelists - a retired US colonel, a drone industry leader, a national robotics expert, and an Oregon legislator - on the uses and limits on drone technology, and who should decide.

Speakers:
Retired Army Colonel Ann Wright will address the use of drones - domestically and internationally, in war and in peace, by police and civilians, by the state and by private corporations. Col Wright famously resignes as a US diplomat in protest of the Iraq War in 2003. She is the author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Brian Whiteside, industry leader and Vice President of the award-winning Cascade Chapter of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
Peter Lumsdaine, researcher and frequent speaker on the use of robotics in warfare and social control; and founder of ARROWS, Alliance to Resist Robotic Warfare.
Rep. Jennifer Williamson, Oregon State Representative and member of the legislative work group that developed HB 2710, intended to provide guidance on drone uses and limits.

Sponsored by Economic Justice Action Group of 1st Unitarian Church, Oregonian for Drone Control, Alliance for Democracy, KBOO Community Radio, Oregon Progressive Party, others.

Admission: $5-20 sliding scale; no one turned away for lack of funds
Doors open at 6:30. Come early and visit the tables of our sponsors.

Single payer universal healthcare could happen in Oregon. But before it can, a study, which has already been authorized by the Oregon legislature, must be conducted. But that study is not moving forward. You can help get it moving. Read what must be done in this piece by Dr. Samuel Metz, one of the Mad As Hell Doctors and Health Care For All Oregon. The Oregon Progressive Party is a strong supporter of HCAO.

HB 3260: the study that gets Oregon one step closer to universal health care needs your help

Do you want universal health care in Oregon? www.OregonStudy.org moves our state one step further, and here’s why.

Portland Rally To
Stop The TPP

No More NAFTAS!
Twenty Years Is Enough!

What:  Rally followed by leafleting and delegation visits to Congressional offices.
When:  Friday January 31st at 12 noon.
Where:  PSU Park Blocks, in front of the Smith Center (SW Park Ave & SW Harrison St).

January 2014 marks the twenty-year anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a pact that has had devastating consequences for people and the environment in all three countries and beyond.  The pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been described as 'NAFTA on steriods' and threatens to:

NAFTA is 20.
20 years ago on January 1, 1994, President Clinton signed NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area). Agreement proponents had declared that 170,000 American jobs would be created, exports of American farm products would increase, food prices would decrease, the American balance of trade would be improved. the Mexican economy would be uplifted to be a first class level of prosperity and more.

Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch's new report, NAFTA at 20, points to quite different results. Instead of job creation, we see one million US jobs lost; the lost jobs caused a downward pressure on American wages, thereby increasing inequality within the United States; food prices went up; the US balance of trade with both Mexico and Canada moved from small surplus' to deficits; American manufacturers moved their production south of the border (and later out of Mexico to China and now the new low wage nation of Vietnam); and many environmental and health laws have been challenged in private trade tribunals. The United States has become less food sustainable. Mexican immigration into the US doubled. Read the report yourself here. Listen to or watch Democracy Now! interview with Lori Wallach of Public Citizen on January 3rd, 2014 here. Click here for a list of investor suits challenging laws and regulations under various of these so-called "Free trade Agreements."

NAFTA to become the Trans Pacific Partnership

Alliance for Democracy sponsors a screening of

A Fierce Green Fire
The Battle for a Living Planet

Date:  Sunday, November 10, 2013
Time: 6:30 PM; Doors open at 6:00 PM
Location:  First Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Salmon, Portland
Admission:  $5 -20 donation requested; No one turned away for lack of funds
Co-sponsored by:  Alliance for Democracy, Economic Justice Action Group of First Unitarian Church, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Community for Earth of First Unitarian Church, Oregonians for Renewable Energy Progress

Join us on FACEBOOK

Portland public interest attorney and Oregon Progressive Party activist, Dan Meek, was a recent guest on the Alliance for Democracy's Populist Dialogues cable access program and reviews recent US Supreme Court decisions which have further empowered corporate power at the expense of “We, the people.” Included are comments on Citizens United v FEC, Gabelli v S.E.C., Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v Bartlett, Decker v NW Environmental Defense Center, Shelby County (Alabama) v Holder and more. Part 1 of 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkCKfbZvQ9w

Oregon Progressive Party's Jason Kafoury appeared on the Alliance for Democracy Populist Dialogues to talk about the Oregon Progressive Party, looked especially at party efforts to control the use of drones within Oregon by public agendies and private individuals, including corporations.

Click here to view.

And don't forget to LIKE it and share it.

Dan Meek is interviewed by Oregon Progressive Party member David Delk on the Alliance for Democracy's public access program, The Populist Dialogues (www.populistdialogues.org). Dan talks about changes to the initiative process to limit its use as well as how the system of political corruption by special big money interests in Oregon is misrepresented. He reviews current efforts in the Oregon legislature to further restrict the initiative process as well as changes to the law regarding nepotism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GvRXgF7E1M

HJM6-3 approved by Rules Committee unanimously
Today the Oregon House Rules Committee took a major step to end corporate domination by voting out of their committee HJM6-3.  HJM6-3 is the revised Joint Memorial calling on Oregon's congressional delegation to send us a constitutional amendment to end the court-created doctrines that money is speech and that corporations are people.  The committee voted unanimously to send the resolution to a vote of the full House.

Read the text of HJM6-3 here.

Time to take action!
Having sent it to the full House means we each need to advocate for its passage.  Call or email your state representative NOW, express your support for HJM6 and inform them of your expectation that they will approve this and move it onto the senate.  Because the legislative session will end soon, we need to take action NOW!

Obama is negotiating another "Free Trade Agreement" like NAFTA, only bigger and badder. Call your US Representative and Senators and tell them not to give Obama Fast Track Authority to pass it and tell them to demand that the agreement text be released now so we can know what is in the agreement. It is outrageous that 600 corporate lobbyists can read it and we cannot. Read the Alliance for Democracy flyer on this and find the link to contact to your rep and senators. http://www.afd-pdx.org/uploads/1/3/4/0/13403615/flyer_1_c.pdf and learn more on Fast Track Authority here: http://www.afd-pdx.org/no-fast-track-authority.html  And tell your US Representative and Senators to

* release the text so that both the public and congress can read the text prior to President signing it

* not vote for Fast Track Authority for the President.  Fast Track Authority has been used to enact almonst every "free Trade agreement.

When:  Sunday, Feb. 17, 7 PM
Where: First Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Salmon
Admission: $5-20 sliding scale.  No one will be turned away for lack of funds

A provocative evening discussing corporate personhood with Scott Silber, lead faculty at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development's Youth Organizing Institute, human rights and environmental organizer, and former Director of Colorado's Public Workers' Union.

Scott is the Executive Director of National Intervention, which treats money in politics as an addictive substance. Intervention calls for a national deadline for the ratification of any amendment that abolishes corporate personhood and requires publicly funded elections, viewing any such amendment proposal as an urgent "sobriety checkpoint" for any elected official.

In the event Congress fails to pass that amendment "sobriety test" in time, National Intervention organizes a block-by-block "12-Step National Recovery Platform" campaign, calling on all of us who may be enablers of the addiction system to draw strong boundaries in our relationship to the addicts in power for a new social contract (a New New Deal) while we still have time.

www.nationalintervention.org

Event co-sponsored by Alliance for Democracy, Economic Justice Action Group of the First Unitarian Church, Move to Amend PDX.

Join the event on Facebook and share with your friends.

On January 10, 2013, turn out as the Multnomah County Commission considers a resolution calling for Oregon's congressional delegation to support amending the US Constitution to overturn Citizens United, and eliminate the two court created doctrines of corporate personhood and money equals speech. We need you in the building showing your support for this.

Multnomah County Building 501 SE Hawthorne Portland OR Day/Date: Thursday, January 10, 2013 Time: 9:30 AM

Read the proposed resolution here.

Invite your Facebook Friends here.

More information from Alliance for Democracy, David Delk .

Alliance for Democracy sponsors screening of HEIST, Who Stole the American Dream?

Friday, Oct. 26th, 7 PM, First Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Salmon

(Sponsored by Alliance for Democracy as a fundraiser for Alliance for Democracy; co-sponsored by KBOO Community Radio and Economic Justice Action Group)

HEIST: Who Stole the American Dream? is stunning audiences across the globe as it traces the worldwide economic collapse to a 1971 secret memo entitled Attack on American Free Enterprise System. Written over 40 years ago by the future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, at the behest of the US Chamber of Commerce, the 6-page memo, a free-market utopian treatise, called for a money fueled big business makeover of government through corporate control of the media, academia, the pulpit, arts and sciences and destruction of organized labor and consumer protection groups.

But Powell’s real “end game” was business control of law and politics. HEIST’s step by step detail exposes the systemic implementation of Powell’s memo by BOTH U.S. political parties culminating in the deregulation of industry, outsourcing of jobs and regressive taxation. All of which led us to the global financial crisis of 2008 and the continued dismantling of the American middle class.

Today, politics is the playground of the rich and powerful, with no thought given to the hopes and dreams of ordinary Americans. No other film goes as deeply as HEIST in explaining the greatest heist of our time. Moving beyond the white noise of today’s polarizing media, HEIST provides viewers with a clear, concise and fact-based explanation of how we got into this mess, and what we need to do to restore our representative democracy.

More Info: David Delk 503.232.5495, davidafd@ymail.com

Vote No on Measure 84.
Keep the Oregon Estate Tax!
No new tax loopholes for the rich!

The Alliance for Democracy and Move to Amend PDX entered their troupe of US Supreme Court "Corporate" Justices in the recent Gay Pride Parade here in Portland. I just finished a short video of them. View it here.

And if you FaceBook, please "Like" it and spread it around.