July 2008 Local Meeting
From SP Boston
The Socialist Party of Boston met at noon on Sunday, 27 July 2008 in the Lucy Parsons Center. We focused on upcoming antiwar demonstrations on 2 August and 4 August, as well as planning for the October 11 antiwar action. Also discussed were the Bread and Roses festival in Lawrence in September, and our chair's recent trip to Venezuela. For more information, check out the full minutes below.
[edit] Agenda
- Introductions and agenda approval
- Antiwar
- Report-back from the National Assembly in Cleveland, OH, 28-29 June.
- Weekly DMZ at Mass. Ave. and Boylston St., 6-8 pm every Friday.
- August 2 anti-recruitment/anti-war with Iran demonstration -- endorse?
- August 4 anti-Pelosi demonstration
- October 11 -- August 9 planning meeting
- Boston May Day Coalition - August 14th Potluck and re-organizing meeting
- Bread and Roses Festival in Lawrence on Labor Day.
- November Ballot Questions
- Single Payer health care
- Legalize Marijuana
- ban greyhound dog racing
- repeal portions of a development law known as Chapter 40B
- repeal the state's income tax
- Electoral
- Presidential campaign updates for MA, RI.
- There will be new Moore-Alexander 2008 buttons! (And copies of the new issue of The Socialist!)
- Todd Vachon for Congress in CT.
- Jon Osbourne for State Senate in RI.
- New member
- New bulletin
- Meetup page
- Proposal for SP to adopt expanded platform points.
- Proposal for formal non-member "supporter" status.
[edit] Minutes
- Introductions and agenda approval
- In attendance was David S., Matt A., Chris P., Billie M., as well as new member Barry M.
- James R. and Melanie W. were observing non-members.
- Upcoming events
- We decided to officially endorse the 2 August "Stop War on Iran" action being planned by the IAC Boston (stopwaroniran.org) and the UMass Boston antiwar coalition.
- We also endorsed the 4 August un-welcoming actions for Nancy Pelosi at the JFK Museum being organized by the Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition.
- Bread and Roses Festival: Matt will complete the paperwork and write a check for $25 from the SP Boston Treasury to reserve a table for us at the Labor Day Bread & Roses festival in Lawrence.
- We discussed our participation in the Boston May Day Coalition. Chris volunteered to attend their 14 August pot-luck/re-organizing meeting at Encuentro 5. Matt will send him the details.
- New bulletin
- We reviewed the August-September SP Boston Bulletin, which David will mail out early in the week.
- Social get-together
- We scheduled our August mid-month social for Saturday, 9 August, at 6 pm (immediately after the next October 11th antiwar planning meeting which meets at Encuentro5), in the Corner Mall Food Court in Downtown Crossing.
- We've loosely planned to discuss Zionism and the US Antiwar movement. We will try to invite non-party members, particularly Palestinian Solidarity activists, who may be interested in this topic.
- November Ballot Questions
- We discussed some of the state-wide referendum questions coming up in this fall's election. We are asking members to learn more about one or more referendum questions and report back
- Matt volunteered to cover greyhound racing.
- David volunteered to cover single-payer health care question (which will be on the ballot in particular state senate districts, not statewide).
- Chris volunteered to cover the income tax measure, possibly the marijuana legalization as well.
- It turns out that the initiative to repeal Chapter 40B did not get enough signatures to be on the ballot.
- Misc.
- We discussed Chris's recent trip to Venezuela, and in principle decided to set up some speaking engagements for him to share his experiences with larger audiences.