Progressive goals and proposals are continually under attack by the people in power – not only the wealthy and corporate business interests in Maryland, but also the corporate Democrats who parrot neoliberal “wisdom” about staying in the middle of the road because that keeps their campaign coffers filled.

You know them when you see them, and so do we.

Their dependence on big money and its big spenders endangers the interests of everyday working families in Maryland.

Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday September 16 2019

Progressive goals and proposals are continually under attack by the people in power – not only the wealthy and corporate business interests in Maryland, but also the corporate Democrats who parrot neoliberal “wisdom” about staying in the middle of the road because that keeps their campaign coffers filled.

You know them when you see them, and so do we.

Their dependence on big money and its big spenders endangers the interests of everyday working families in Maryland – for instance in the corporate and neoliberal pushback on the necessary steps to restore our schools to excellence, move to clean energy and end mass incarceration. To achieve those goals we have to build power with movement politics – winning elections and holding elected officials accountable to the people. Join us.

PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND DAY IN, DAY OUT

Our ideals are broadly and concretely represented by the campaigns we wage. At Progressive Maryland (and with our progressive allies) we work for environmental justice, reform of the criminal justice/policing system  and cutting the school-to-prison pipeline, fair elections that loosen the grip of big money on our politics, and reform of the systems that keep our families trapped in poverty in the midst of wealth. We are formulating our part in campaigns for Medicare for All (see below) and for education reform in the path being laid out by the Kirwan Commission; Progressive Montgomery recently kicked off its participation in the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools (AROS), a statewide initiative with county-level focus. Progressive Prince George’s has been working in parallel with PGC Educators Association on the AROS agenda and the important Kirwan focus on community schools – there are forty-plus schools in Prince George’s that will become Community Schools in the next two school years. Watch for the next public meeting of the AROS coalition and learn more about the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools at https://reclaimourschoolspg.org

Progressive activism around the Free State, both Progressive Maryland’s action and those of our allied organizations and individuals, are in the Weekly Memo early every week (usually Monday unless a holiday intervenes). It’s a clearinghouse for folks who are building power together; and you can be in that environment of collective action. You can get the Weekly Memo by email; just sign up here.

Medicare for All -- Join other progressive activists and call to request a hearing on HR 1384 Call the House Committee on Oversight and Reform (Committee chairman is Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland 7^th Dist.): 202-225-5051 and House Committee on Energy and Commerce: (chairman is Frank Pallone of New Jersey – tell him you are from Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s home state). In late July Rep. Cummings’s oversight committee held a hearing on the impact of exploitative drug prices on patients -- Read the excellent testimony of MoCo resident David Mitchell HERE. Meanwhile Gov. Larry Hogan is refusing to release appropriated funds for a project to lower drug prices in Maryland. Read about that here.

OUR CHAPTERS AROUND THE STATE

Progressive Prince George’s

PMD Montgomery  --  Progressive Montgomery Upcoming Events

A list of power-building events with Progressive Maryland in Montgomery County. Find one that works for you and join us!

Frederick County Progressives

Take Action Anne Arundel County

Progressive Howard County

Talbot Rising

Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

PMD Baltimore

EVENTS FROM OUR PROGRESSIVE ALLIES

MON Sept. 16 Reel & Meal at the New Deal Movie: Racing Extinction: A Race We Can’t Afford to Lose —  the New Deal Café, 113 Centerway, Greenbelt, MD --see this insider account of the double whammy of the undercover wildlife trade and the extraction industries, together threatening up to half of existing species with extinction. The evening begins with an optional plant-based buffet at 6:30 PM and the free screening starts at 7 PM.

MON Sept. 16 Reversing Global Warming - 6:15 -8:30 PM Severna Park Branch Library, 45 W McKinsey Rd, Severna Park, Maryland 21146 Presented by WISE (Women Indivisible) Interactive climate drawdown workshop. More info here    RSVP here

SAT Sept 21 Maryland Poor People's Campaign Carroll County Region General Meeting  2 PM – 4 PM Westminster Branch Library 50 E. Main Street

SAT Sept 21 Deep Canvass with SURJ  11 AM – 5 PM Sponsored by SURJ NoVa and SURJ – DC: at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Rockville, in Maryland. The registration form is coming soon. Follow link for more information.

SAT Sept. 28 Poor People’s Campaign Prince George’s Co 12-2 PM Oxon Hill Library 6200 Oxon Hill Rd, Oxon Hill, MD 20745

SUN Sept. 29 – The path to single payer health care in Maryland, 1:30 - 4:30 PM at Elkridge Library - 6450 Washington Boulevard, Elkridge, MD 21075 -- Join Senator Paul Pinsky, Chair of the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee in the Senate, and Delegate Terri Hill, of the Health and Government Operations Committee in the House, for a discussion of the road map to Single Payer in Maryland.  https://www.facebook.com/events/361641874764169/

Sunday, OCT 6-- Eastern Shore Environmental Legislative Summit, 1- 4 PM (Doors open at noon) hosted at Washington College - 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620
The Eastern Shore is ground zero for climate change in Maryland. It is here where we need to make a stand for ourselves and our children. Explore the issues that face the Shore (and the state), what steps have been taken, and what obstacles we must overcome to defeat the existential crisis of Climate Change and other pressing environmental issues. https://www.facebook.com/events/361641874764169/

THUR October 10 AROS Forum On New Funding Formula For Prince George’s Public Schools at LAUREL HIGH SCHOOL, 8000 Cherry Lane Laurel 20707 at 6:30 PM Parents, students  and engaged community members are invited to hear about the Kirwan commission proposals and possibilities of well-funded schools — and make their voices heard. Sponsored by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools. ALSO WED October 23 at Bowie Performing Arts Center, 15200 Annapolis Rd. Bowie 20715, 6:30 PM: WED November 12 at Prince George’s Community College, 301 Largo Rd. Largo 20774, 6:30 PM and MON November 18 at OXON HILL HIGH SCHOOL 6701 Leyte Drive Oxon Hill 20745 6:30 PM. Follow link for details.

Baltimore progressives, Check in on Max Obuszewski’s highly useful activist calendar and tip sheet at http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

Reading the Progressive Maryland BlogSpace: our blogs for the previous week are shown below, but if you want a handy way to keep track – and never miss a blog post – you can sign up to get this Weekly Memo by email. Remember this is your blogspace and your participation is heartily invited. See something going on that you don’t like – or that you do like and hope to see more of? Send us your thoughts; submit to the moderator at [email protected]

We recently published these blog posts:

September 13, 2019 Letter to the Future: A Before and After Story

Next Friday, Sept. 20, students around the world will strike to take control of the future that today's adults are denying them.

Here's a missive of hope that it's a teachable moment in which the students, who know better, do the teaching.

Because they are not asking. They are telling the unlistening, unwilling holders of power how it is going to be.

September 12, 2019 Community-owned groceries like co-ops are better at revitalizing 'food deserts'

A national study showed that food deserts – Maryland has its share – are more often solved by co-op grocery outlets than by major chain grocery relocations, because community support is immediate and bottom-up. Food deserts – simply, communities where full-service groceries are too far away to be accessible – are leading indicators of many other community woes that can affect health, school success and neighborhood prosperity and mobility. As you can guess, the bottom line is inequality – of income and wealth.

This article is a little wonky but has a wealth of links to further information. Some boldface emphasis has been added by the PM BlogSpace editors.

September 11, 2019 Teacher Pay Dominates Discussion of Proposed Kirwan Education Formula

It’s not out of character for a top member of the Hogan cartel (Budget Secretary David R. Brinkley) to snipe that the goal of school reform should “make wanting to be in the classroom something that people really want to do and don’t have to be bribed to do it.”

But it signals that the neolib establishment, including the tell-both-sides media, are already taking aim at the Kirwan Commission’s serious attempt to compensate teachers according to their value and provide a working classroom environment that helps kids succeed and keeps good teachers in the game longer than the three-year average. Progressives will have to fight from day one to reclaim our schools from the budget hawks.

September 10, 2019 Ben Jealous headlines criminal justice reform event; hints at another run for governor

A packed main room in the ATU union hall in District Heights saw many testify from personal experience Saturday about the need to reduce incarceration, end cash bail, stop enabling ICE, get a grip on police misconduct and many other reforms.

As this Maryland Matters report indicates, headliner Ben Jealous became the news simply because he came back in public view – even though he was fighting for the same social-justice principles he has espoused whether a candidate or not.

September 09, 2019 Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, September 9, 2019

We told you. All those local governments, city and county councils, that were taking a leisurely summer off have started their new sessions. Big money doesn’t sleep during the summer, though, and there are early alarms out about what local governments may be doing with big money on the sidelines urging them on. As you see below, it’s never too early to push back – and sometimes it’s getting late

>>REMEMBER – these blog posts are frequently expressions of political opinion from our wide-ranging membership and circle of allies. They are not expressions of opinion by Progressive Maryland. Don’t be surprised if they sometimes vary in their political content. You might even disagree with them – a good reason to contribute a blog of your own. Send it to the moderator, Woody Woodruff, at [email protected].

>>Keeping up with the blogs is easier with the index. The blogs published in the PM BlogSpace from June 2015 through December 2016 are all available with descriptions and links here. You can follow blogs for 2017-18 starting from here