The Fallon Forum

Dear Friends,

{First, a brief update: The Great March for Climate Action is off and running . . . okay, walking. Please “like” our Facebook Page, and keep abreast of new developments as they occur . . . there’s at least one newsworthy item to share each day.}

A big “CONGRATULATIONS!” to Tom Ahart for being selected as the next superintendent of the Des Moines Public Schools. A “rose” to four of seven School Board members for “shopping local” and going with a known quantity who’s already proven himself. A “thistle” to the entire board for cloaking the process in secrecy.

Not that secrecy is uncommon in government anymore. Officials at all levels are acting with greater disregard for public input and observation. This is not a good thing for those of us partial to democracy, freedom and an open society.

Monday, Des Moines attorney Alfredo Parrish discusses racial disparity in Iowa’s prisons. And yeah, it’s bad. Read Alfredo’s recent opinion piece in the Des Moines Register for a primer on just how bad – and why. Also today, we discuss several aspects of the climate crisis, including the linchpin upon which all eyes rest: the Keystone Pipeline. We also talk about Tom Ahart’s selection as Des Moines Public Schools’ new superintendent, and the issue of government secrecy.

Tuesday, I’m still hammering out the details, but we start the conversation with Guns, God, and Gays. That should bring my right-wing audience out of the woodwork.

Wednesday, Charlie Bruner, executive director of Iowa Family and Policy Center, and Anne Kinzel, former coordinator of Iowa Legislative Health Care Coverage Commission, discuss Medicaid and IowaCare. With the issue front and center at the Statehouse, and with Governor Branstad digging in his heels against expanding Medicaid, this is an important conversation. Check out Charlie’s recent opinion piece here and Anne’s here.

Thursday, State Rep Dan Kelley provides us our weekly inside look at the Iowa Statehouse. And Nakisha Phillips charts her journey through pregnancy with a doula and a midwife.

Friday, Aaron Todd discusses the tremendous progress made on revitalizing one of Des Moines most blighted corridors: Sixth Avenue. Also, Heather Ryan joins us for another weekly feature: “Ryan’s Rants.”

So, Monday-Friday, join the conversation online from 12:00-1:00 pm on the Fallon Forum website. Call-in at 244-0077 or toll free (855) 244-0077 and add your voice to the dialogue. If you miss a show, video and audio-only podcasts are available later in the day. Thanks!

{Remarks made at campaign announcement March 1, 2013 6:30 pm}

I’ve been involved with a lot of campaigns over the years. It’s time for another. This campaign will be the most difficult. It will be the most expensive. And it will be one of the two longest campaigns I’ve ever run.

But it will not be a campaign for public office.

This is a campaign to mobilize 1000 people to march coast-to-coast, demanding action on climate change – action from both the American people and from our public officials. The Great March for Climate Action will set-out from the west coast one year from today and arrive in Washington, DC the weekend before the mid-term election. It will be the largest coast-to-coast march in our nation’s history.

For a long time, I’ve recognized that climate change is not simply an issue. Climate change is a crisis, possibly the deadliest crisis humanity has ever faced. And it’s not a crisis that might happen somewhere in the future. It is a crisis that is happening now!

For the past six years, I’ve asked myself what I should do? What’s my duty, my responsibility in this crisis? What do I have to offer that can help avert the calamity barreling our way like a coal-fired freight train?

I discuss climate change on my talk show regularly, and I continue to live more and more sustainably in my personal life. But honestly, I don’t feel I’ve come close to doing enough, to doing my part. There are certainly people and organizations who have, like Bill McKibben, James Hansen, the Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Iowa’s own State Senator Rob Hogg.

But it is past time for me to step up to the plate in a focused and significant way. Again, this is a CRISIS!

Two weeks ago, the idea of this March came to me, and as I thought about it and talked about it with a few close friends, I realized it was the campaign I needed to commit myself to.

Why a March? Throughout history, marches have been powerful tools to mobilize people – physically, spiritually, and politically. In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi led the 240-mile Salt March to defy Britain’s imperial power. In 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr led the five-day march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery. And in 1986, the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament left Los Angeles on March 1st, traveling 3700 miles to finish in Washington, DC on November 15th.

I was very involved in the Great Peace March, coordinating logistics for the Iowa segment. It was an incredible experience, changing the hearts and lives of those of us who participated. It also influenced tens of thousands of people who interacted with marchers throughout the nine-month journey. One cannot, of course, say that the Great Peace March single-handedly achieved nuclear disarmament. But it was one campaign in a much bigger campaign involving thousands of committed activists who accomplished so much, including a ban on nuclear testing. The bottom line is, the Great Peace March absolutely helped make our world a safer place.

Building on my experience with that, learning from all the other campaigns I’ve run, mobilizing the connections and relationships I’ve developed and nurtured over the years, this Great March for Climate Action is how I can do my part in the collective effort to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

I’m serious when I say this is the most difficult campaign I’ve ever launched. I also believe it is the most important. And I know there is no way I can pull this off on my own. I will need your support, your encouragement, your contacts and connections from across the country. This is a national campaign, appealing to an international audience, addressing a global crisis. It’s an undertaking of massive proportions.

I realize what I am asking 1000 people to do is pretty unreasonable. Put your lives on hold for nine months, maybe even quit your job or drop out of school. March over 3,000 miles across America. Suffer blisters, sore muscles, aching knees. Get drenched by cold spring rains. Feel the sweat stinging your eyes as 95° summer  heat bakes the pavement under your feet. Sleep in a tent on the hard ground, with only a thin layer of plastic between you and the howling elements.

You know, that sounds like a hard sell. But I’m willing to march, and, I believe there are 1000 more who are willing to go the extra mile, so to speak, to avert the worst outcomes of climate change for ourselves, for the rest of the world, for future generations, and for our planet.

Dear Friends,

About 370 years ago, Oliver Cromwell paid my family a visit at our castle in Roscommon County, Ireland. The visit did not go well. Cromwell destroyed the castle and killed a whole bunch of Fallons. This “guest-from-hell” behavior was replicated across Ireland until the fall of Galway in 1652. Cromwell’s Irish legacy consists of “mass evictions, killings and deportation of over 50,000 men, women and children as prisoners of war and indentured servants,” according to Wikipedia.

To many generations of impoverished Irish families suffering and dying under British tyranny, the situation appeared hopeless. Yet from time to time, pockets of Irish patriots would arise, gadflies on the bloated belly of imperial Britain. After nearly three centuries of seemingly futile resistance, their perseverance paid off and secured Ireland’s freedom.

In response to an apparently intractable crisis, the human condition often spawns two opposite reactions: (1) failing even to notice that one is hip-deep in a quagmire – and sinking, or (2) giving up hope and resigning oneself to sinking. For many Americans, our toxic politics and even more toxic environment define a pending calamity that appears hopeless. In discussing this reality with a group of friends in Ames this weekend, it was agreed by even the least optimistic among us that, regardless of how hopeless things may seem, it is still important that we continue to fight and persevere.

With that in mind, it was uplifting to see tens of thousands of Americans gather in Washington, DC this weekend to protest the Keystone pipeline. In the analysis of some experts, stopping the pipeline is key to averting an almost inconceivable climate disaster.

Monday, we talk about this weekend’s climate rally with State Sen. Rob Hogg and Des Moines attorney Channing Dutton. We also talk with LaVon Griffieon about how the recent court ruling on farm tours might negatively affect her farm and other family farmers. We talk with dairy farmer Francis Thicke, who was just appointed to the National Organics Standards Board. And we talk with Dr. John Rachow of Physicians for Social Responsibility about the release of nuclear radiation at the Hanford facility in the state of Washington.

Tuesday, Iowa State University professors Cornelia and Jan Flora discuss their new book, “Rural Communities: Legacy and Change.” Also, Frank Meeink, author of “Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead,” joins us to talk about his new documentary, soon to be made into a play. Also, Steffen Schmidt, a.k.a. Dr. Politics, joins Ed to discuss … politics!

Wednesday, Jeff Abbas with Allamakee County Protectors discusses the latest developments in the threat from frac sand mining in northeast Iowa. We also talk with Jeffrey Weiss of the Catholic Peace Ministry about the CIA’s kill list, drones, and the upcoming Bishop Dingman Peace Award Dinner. Finally, we talk with Ying Sa of Community CPA about tax and accounting issues.

Thursday, State Rep. Dan Kelley joins us for our usual look inside the Iowa Statehouse. And Nakisha Phillips updates us on her journey through pregnancy with the help of a doula and a midwife.

Friday, Corey Luedeman joins us to talk about abusive foreclosure practices. And it’s Heather Ryan with “Ryan’s Rants.

Monday-Friday, join the conversation online from 12:00-1:00 pm on the Fallon Forum website. Call-in at 244-0077 or toll free (855) 244-0077 and add your voice to the dialogue. If you miss a show, video and audio-only podcasts are available later in the day. Thanks!

Ed

Hi Folks – If you can take action today – now, in fact! – to pressure Senator Grassley to do the right thing on the Violence Against Women Act, please do. This just in from my daughter, Fionna:

We need your help again! Last year you helped us defeat a bad version of the Violence Against Women Act in the House of Representatives that placed immigrant survivors at great risk. TODAY, the Senate is debating the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill (S.47) that provides protection to all victims.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) proposes amendments that will leave many victims unprotected, potentially bring abusers into the process, and place victims at even more risk for abuse. His amendments roll back protections for immigrant victims and restrict immigration laws that are not relevant to VAWA.

Sen. Grassley’s amendments will derail VAWA and leave victims more vulnerable and without access to life-saving protections for many victims. Examples of Sen. Grassley’s proposals could include:

• Allowing abuser input into petitions by spouses and children of abusive US citizens and lawful permanent residents
• Requiring immigrant victims seeking protection to attend interviews at immigration offices that may have no training on domestic violence and located hours away from their homes.
• Imposing unreasonable burdens on crime victims by requiring that criminal activity be “actively” under investigation for a person to be eligible for protection under a U visa.
• Requiring victims to report crimes within 120 days to be eligible for a U visa.
• Using this VAWA law to restrict immigration laws not relevant to VAWA.

Senators need to hear from you NOW. The debate is happening now and a vote could come as early as this afternoon.

Ask you senator to vote NO to amendments proposed by Senator Grassley.

Call the Capitol Switchboard NOW at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your senators’ offices.

We are confident that with your help, we can soon celebrate a reauthorization of VAWA that protects all survivors. Thank you for continuing to speak out to defend immigrant victims of violence.

This alert is issued by the Immigration Committee of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, which includes members that are leading national experts on VAWA protections for immigrant survivors such as: ASISTA Immigration Assistance, Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities, National Immigrant Justice Center, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Tahirih Justice Center and the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Dear Friends,

I have a dream. Not the ML King kind of dream. Well, I have that dream too, but I’m talking here about one of those subconscious adventures that sticks in your head long after most dreams have faded from memory.

Here’s the dream: I live in a small town, a beautiful place surrounded by field and forest, and so intricately woven into the fabric of the landscape that one can’t tell where town ends and nature begins. It’s peaceful. There’s an air of justice about the place. Everyone gets along. (Ok, this is beginning to sound like ML King’s dream after all. But wait.)

We wake up one morning to find that government officials and a developer have sneakily used eminent domain to take control over a large swath of our land. In the dark of night, they came with bulldozers (don’t ask how we slept through that), tore out trees and covered the bare ground with sand.

Yes, sand. They had determined the land could be improved by making it into a beach. The only problem is there was no water nearby, rendering the “improvement” economically and environmentally ridiculous.

Officials had screwed up. So, the next night they came again and dotted the now sandy landscape with huge plastic palm trees, a boulevard and a variety of tacky tourist amenities. I knew we had to fight back to keep them from taking the rest of our land, but I had had enough for one night. So sorry, I can’t tell you how The People fared against the combined forces of Corporate and Government evil.

What I can tell you is that those forces are always more potent – and less accountable – when conspiring together.

Not to say that all corporations are bad (the Fallon Forum is one . . . ok, a teeny one). Not to say that all government is corrupt or incompetent (I would like to thank City staff for maintaining the streets I use to bike to work). Not to say that business and government shouldn’t work cooperatively. But as corporations and governments grow bigger, the average person’s influence dwindles. And when that firewall between corporate board rooms and legislative chambers is eliminated, the little guy and gal get trampled.

Monday, we talk about Senator Harkin’s unexpected retirement, and what that means for the lay of the political landscape in Iowa. Also, Ron Yarnell joins me to discuss “inverted totalitarianism.” We also try to sort out Governor Branstad’s apparent contempt for the poor, as evidenced most recently by his unwillingness to expand Medicaid.

Tuesday, we talk with Glenn Lyons of the Greater Des Moines Partnership about the importance of passenger rail to central Iowa. Also, we dig into eminent domain and what can be done to stop its abuse (see above dream for a primer, sort of, on this topic).

(Note: Tuesday’s program will be rebroadcast Wednesday at 4:00 pm on KHOI 89.1 FM.)

Wednesday, we talk about how more and more banks are merging and why. We also talk with Carlos Jayne with Iowans for Gun Safety about New York City’s controversial gun control ordinance. And we discuss the recent student sit-in at a school in Columbus Junction to protest cuts in teacher pay.

Thursday, Ralph Rosenberg with the Iowa Environmental Council joins us to discuss water quality. Also, State Rep. Dan Kelley is with us for an inside look at the Statehouse. And we talk about Marriott International’s decision to phase-out confinement pork and chicken, and the impact that might have on producers.

Friday, we discuss lake restoration, and how Governor Branstad is threatening to renege on Iowa’s long-term commitment to protect our limited supply of public lakes. We also talk with Maureen McCue with Physicians for Social Responsibility about a promising development relevant to coal and climate change. And Heather Ryan joins us to talk about Mitch McConnell’s possible primary challenge. (Note: Heather must be one of the boldest human beings on the planet, having actually run against McConnell in the general election when she lived in Kentucky.)

So, every Monday through Friday, live from Des Moines – the Cultural and Culinary Cross-roads of the Continent – join the conversation online from 12:00-1:00 pm on the Fallon Forum website. Call-in at 244-0077 or toll free (855) 244-0077 and add your voice to the dialogue. And tune-in to Bradshaw, Monday-Friday from 1:30-2:30, also on the Fallon Forum website. If you miss a show, video and audio-only podcasts are available later in the day. Thanks!

Ed