Dear Friends of Twin Cities DSA- Please contact us!

Dear Friends of Minnesota DSA:

We have a special request to make of you- we would like to request that you contact us via our e-mail and share your name, address & e-mail with us if you would like to be on our e-mail list for news from Twin Cities DSA.

We do not have very many e-mails, and we do not have names and addresses to go with some of the ones we have.

We do not share or sell our lists, our e-mail list is for our local Twin Cities DSA community, and for our friends elsewhere in the country who desire to keep abreast of our activities.

Please e-mail to us your contact information at: tcdemsoc@gmail.com

We hope those of you who live in the Twin Cities area can join us this Sunday, November 16th 2008 for our next meeting. See the notice below.

Best Regards,


Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America Steering Committee.

Canadian Activist Marianne Cerilli to Speak in Twin Cities August 28th

The DSA International Commission and Twin Cities DSA are sponsoring a special speaker event as part of the upcoming Republican National Convention protests in St. Paul. Canadian activist Marianne Cerilli will be in the Twin Cities Thursday, August 28, 2008, to help give voice to a political agenda quite different from the RNC's.

Her topic: A Canadian perspective on U.S. politics - a review of the Bush years and a progressive wish list for the next U.S. president. Marianne Cerilli is a community activist, feminist, environmentalist, writer, and has been chair of the New Democratic Party (NDP) caucus in the Manitoba legislature. Come join us for an informal international talking circle with Marianne. The event is free and refreshments will be served.

Date: Thursday, August 28, 2008

Location:
Riverview Tower,
1920 S 1st Street in Minneapolis

Time: 6:30pm

For driving and parking instructions, contact Janette Lever at 612-341-4501

BRIAN MERCHANT TO SPEAK AT NEXT DSA MEETING ON PEAK OIL

This Sunday, March 30th, Twin Cities DSA will be proud to welcome Brian Merchant to speak on the topic of peak oil. Our meeting will be at 7:00 PM, Sunday March 30th, at Davanni's Pizza & Hoagies.

When: Sunday, March 30th, 2008, at 7:00 pm

Where: Davanni's Pizza & Hoagies, Riverside, at 2500 Riverside Ave, Minneapolis, MN, in the upstairs meeting room.

Brian's Background
Brian Merchant attended the First U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions in 2004. Since then, he has made presentations on peak oil and energy transition for Living Green Expo, the Minnesota Green Party Membership Conference, First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, the Critical Thinking Club of St. Paul, the Environmental Sustainability program of the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, and the Northland Bioneers Conference. Brian's article, "Have We Hit Peak Oil Yet?," appears in the 2008 issue of Do It Green magazine.

Brian served as a group facilitator for "Overcoming barriers to action and taking the next step," a portion of the June 6th conference, "Preparing Your Community for Climate and Energy Change: Opportunities for Local Sustainability" sponsored by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. He was a panelist for "Minnesotans respond to a growing energy crisis" at the May 2007 "Green by Design" conference sponsored by Minnesota Green Communities. And Brian is a member of the Twin Cities Energy Transition Working Group which developed the Twin Cities Peak Oil Resource Guide posted at Neighborhood Energy Connection.

Brian arranged for two public appearances in the Twin Cities by Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over and Powerdown, in June, 2005.

Brian has a B.A. degree in Psychology and an M.A. degree in Human Development.

Fighting for Health Care for all: Health Care Action

We invite Twin Cities progressives to take part in an important event in order to fight for health care for everyone! Check the link below for details.

Take Action Minnesota
Health Care Action
Tuesday, February 12 at 11:30 AM
State Capitol Rotunda

Coalition organizing protests at Republican Convention in St. Paul:
www.protestrnc2008.org

MN United Steelworkers (USW)

Twin Cities DSA supports the MN United Steelworkers (USW) campaign 'Moving the Midwest towards Energy Independence'. The campaign aims at expanding renewable energy development and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Less reliance on foreign oil will reduce the chance of going to war over limited resources. More renewable energy and alternative fuel sources in Minnesota will create quality jobs for MN workers and family farmers. Other benefits include less pollution and global warming as well as greater price stability and energy reliability for MN consumers.

Building links between the labor and environmental movement is a step towards ecological socialism. Check out these links at:

www.blugreenalliance.com and www. apolloalliance.org

Recent Events

November 2007:

Guest speaker, Kip Sullivan, author of one of the finest researched books on the American health care system entitled The Health Care Mess: How we got into it and how we'll get out of it. He works at COACT (Citizen Organizations Acting Together). He has worked closely with HCCM (Health Care Campaign of Minnesota), and more recently the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition.

September 2007:

During the week of September 17, 2007, four executive committee members of the Luxembourg local of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) visited the Twin Cities. The tour was sponsored by the Washington Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The members were Koba Krause, Renata Fackler, Nikolaus Bahn and Bianca Bethke. There were several events scheduled around town, with the main theme of discussion being health care, renewable energy, Iraq War and European unification. The first major event was at the home of former Mpls. mayor and long-time Congressman Don Fraser and his wife Arvonne. 30 people from the DFL Education Foundation and Twin Cities DSA were present. The second day, MN Rep. Steve Simon (DFL) gave the visitors a two hour tour of the state Capitol building in St Paul, much more extensive than a regular tour. For lunch, there was a discussion with at the University of Minnesota Center for German and European Studies, led by director Sabine Engel. Representatives from the political science department, history, European studies, and others were in attendance-among them Minnesota's most famous historian, Prof. Hy Berman. Sabine Engel then treated the visitors to a tour of the University of Minnesota campus. There was also a brief talk with the dean of the Humphrey Institute, Brian Atwood. Wednesday, there was a roundtable discussion with ten or so labor union leaders at the AFL-CIO headquarters in St Paul, led by the editor of Workday Minnesota, Barb Kucera. The Luxembourg delegation then had conversations with staffers of a feminist bookstore in Minneapolis and also the "Wedge", the Twin Cities largest food co-op. A political report followed up their visit in October.

April 2007

Special guest, Saul Escobar Toledo, from Mexico's PRD party visits from Mexico City. Events in Mpls-St Paul included student student activities scheduled at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, DSA dinner in Minneapolis, and events in Chicago, IL.