Progressive political activists will be gathering at the University of Utah this coming Friday evening February 8 and Saturday February 9 to participate in “The Progressive Agenda for 2008″ conference which features three issues: U.S. Out of Iraq, changing environmental policies to effectively deal with global warming, and getting a national single-payer health care system. Education on each of these three issues will be organized around screening a high-quality film, guest speakers and a panel on local activism in the auditorium of Orson Spencer Hall, just south of the Union Building at the U [see ].
Ending the Iraq war and occupation is the topic for Friday evening with 7pm screening of “Meeting Resistance” and Q&A with filmmakers Molly Bingham and Steve Connors [see , ]. A brief panel on “Americans in Iraq” at 6:30 will precede the film. Panelists are Iraq war veterans Chris Conway and Jeff Key, and Will Van Wagenen who was in Iraq as a peace activist with Christian Peacemaker Teams.
The Al Gore Oscar-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth” screens bright and early at 9am on Saturday morning. Many of us who have seen this film will arrive about 10:30a.m. to hear UK environmental activist Larry Lohmann’s talk on “How to Fight Global Warming: Carbon Trading or Carbon Reduction?”
Hans Ehrbar will moderate the 12noon panel on “Environmental Activism in Utah” with Kathy van Dame of the Wasatch Clean Air Coalition, Craig Forster from the Utah Office of Sustainability, Michael Mielke of Post Carbon Salt Lake; Vanessa Pierce of HEAL Utah and Tim Wagner of the Utah Sierra Club; Larry Lohmann will be the first discussant.
Michael Moore’s enlightening film “Sicko” on the need for a public national health care system will screen at 2pm. Following “Sicko,” Colorado resident Donna Smith who is featured in the film and has been advocating and explaining “single-payer” on the national Sicko tour organized by Healthcare-NOW, California Nurses Association and Physicians for a National Health Care Program will speak.
At 5pm Utah Jobs with Justice Director Linda Parsons will introduce healthcare reform activists Kyle Wulle of the Steelworkers Union, Tammy Diaz of Jobs with Justice, and attorney Clark Newhall, M.D. for a panel presentation on “Private-profit health insurance is the problem, not the solution.”
There will be a variety of workshops and presentations in the Union Building during the day on Saturday starting with one on Immigrants and the Utah Legislature put on by Utahns for the American Dream and the Brown Berets at 10:00a.m. in Union 161. The Mormon Peace Project will present in Union 161 at 2pm followed by The Mormon Worker at 3pm.
Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land has organized a 12noon panel in the Union Theatre with Bothaina Natour, a Palestinian Israeli citizen from Nazareth who is currently a PhD student in geography at the University of Utah, Andy Johnston, a Mennonite Pastor who spent the summer of 2007 with a Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron, Occupied Palestine, and William VanWagenen, a BYU and Harvard Divinity School graduate who studied at Birzeit University in Occupied Palestine before joining a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq where he was kidnapped and later released. The award winning documentary film “Occupation 101″ will be screened at 1pm.
The Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons presents at 3pm in the Union Theatre, Vegan Outreach’s forum on “Industrial Farming, Global Warming and the Environment” is at 1pm in Union 323 and Jean Arnold will give her presentation on “Peak Oil” in Union 323 at 4pm. The Workers International League discusses “Prospects for the Venezuelan Revolution” at 3pm in Union 324 and Pakistani graduate students at the U will analyze “Pakistan in Crisis” at 5pm in Union 161.
The Utah edition of the Eyes Wide Open exhibit [see >] will be in the Union Den all day Saturday. The Campus Committee for Peace and Justice has organized a forum on “The Antiwar Movement” for 11am in Union 324 and U.S. Labor Against the War members Julie Holzer of the Steelworkers Union and Warren Brodhead of the AFT will discuss “Workers, War and the Economy” at 1pm in Union 324.
We the People for Peace and Justice, Utah Jobs with Justice and the Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice initially came together to create this ‘Winter Conference’ to invite activists to participate in deciding our next major political action, particularly in regard to a spring mobilization. We are thinking of an April demonstration calling for “U.S. Out of Iraq, No More War for Oil; Money for Healthcare, not Warfare; For Environmentally Sustainable Energy Policies.” These ideas and yours are open for discussion at the 7pm plenary session in the OSH auditorium.