End Wars and Occupations IOT Monthly Conference Call - Progressive Democrats of America

June 2012
	Link to Sound File	Link to Chat Room Archive

Rob Hanson was asked about Wisconsin and gave us a quick summary of a pizza worker labor dispute up there. We continued with introductions and Mike Fox gave us a summary of PDA fundraising and other organizational issues. Rich Gardner explained how to get to the chat room and Mike went into the procedure for making donations.

David Swanson began at the 13:55 mark and spoke about war-related issues, he started by summarized the lessons taught by the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The peace movement accomplished a lot, but there are lots of lessons we need to learn. He then sketched what America needed to do to make up for that invasion and summarized a number of upcoming events on his website. He posted a written version of his talk at http://warisacrime.org/content/state-anti-war-movement.

Three-quarters of the country agrees with PDA on getting US troops out of Afghanistan, so there's no need for any sort of compromise/softening of terms. State of democracy in countries that the US has ”helped” over the past decade is not at all clear to the American public.

The peace movement needs to take to the streets again, but it's also important to put pressure on Democrats before the election as before the election is when they're paying attention.

Alice of Southeastern Arizona asked about getting progressive speakers to rural areas. David assured her that there are many progressive speakers that are happy to travel and speak.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth Warren, who is a hero to many progressives, takes radically pro-war positions on Iran, so despite her many good qualities, she does fall into the warmonger camp. Not at all clear how we handle that problem. There followed lots and lots of strategy talk.