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The next time you go to the polls, you will be able to vote for a Peace and Freedom Party candidate. After five years off the ballot, we got back on by raising our registration to over 79,000 voters.
This is the first time in California history that a political party has regained its ballot status after losing it. Compounding the difficulties were frequent "purges" of the voter lists. Voters who are considered "inactive" (not having voted in enough previous elections) or whose mail has been returned are not counted toward the registration requirement, although if they show up at the polls they will be able to vote.
The hard work of registering voters and keeping the Peace and Freedom Party visible was shared by too many of our activists to name them all. First of all, we would like to thank CT Weber for spearheading the voter registration campaign, and the Sacramento committee, especially John Reiger, for fund-raising and mailings. Dave Campbell, Adele Cannon and Norma Harrison verified thousands of voter registration forms. Tom Condit put together many mailings, and Messi Francis tirelessly registered people and urged us all to do more.
In addition to our many volunteers, we found it necessary to hire paid registrars and spent thousands of dollars on the drive. We are grateful to David Burkhart for providing seed money for the campaign, and to Michael Parenti for speaking at a major fund-raising event.
Incidentally, we are still over $20,000 in debt from this effort. Any contributions you can spare would help us get back in the black, and continue our efforts for peace, freedom and equality.
Last November there was a drive for the San Fernando Valley to secede from the rest of Los Angeles and become an independent city, creating fourteen new city council districts and one new mayoral position. The San Fernando Valley Peace and Freedom Club campaigned against secession. They also ran Peace and Freedom activist Linnea Eades for the new city council in case secession won.
Peace and Freedom Party members campaigned door-to-door, leafetted at supermarkets, and held public events to publicize the need to continue rent control, maintain and expand the living wage, and establish good health and transportation services in the Valley whether or not secession occurred.
They also campaigned to raise awareness of election reform issues like Instant Runoff Voting and clean money.
Orange County Peace and Freedom Party is one of the co-sponsors of the weekly Friday Night Peace demonstration at the corner of Bristol and Anton in Costa Mesa and has organized busloads of activists to go to peace demonstrations in Los Angeles and other southern California areas.
[paragraph not in print edition:] They also worked with Saddleback College's Class Action Club to put together a voter-registration/campus organizing project.
A Peace and Freedom Party delegation visited Cuba in May. We were present at the May Day celebration which drew more than one million people to Revolution Square in Havana.
We also met with government officials, leaders of mass organizations such as the Federation of Cuban Women and the Cuban Peace Movement, and with lots of average Cubans in and around Havana.
Nearly everyone we met with expressed concern about the possibility of a military invasion from the U.S. The Cuban revolution has been a thorn in the side of U.S. imperialism for 44 years. Yet, most Cubans feel that the threat of invasion is greater now than at any time since they defeated the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
In an echo of the "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" campaign, U.S. officials have recently asserted, without any evidence, that Cuba has a bioweapons program. On one occasion, Secretary of State Colin Powell made a veiled threat that the U.S. had no plans to invade Cuba ... "at this time."
In addition, the U.S. expelled 14 Cuban diplomats at the U.N. and at the Cuban Interest Section in Washington in apparent retaliation for the arrest, trial and conviction of Cuban "dissidents" who Cuba says were on the payroll of the U.S. government. Criticism of Cuba has also been made for its execution of three hijackers of a ferry.
In spite of the threat of invasion, Cubans are still going about their normal activities -- seeing a doctor for free, sending theirr children to topnotch schools, paying less than 10 percent of their income for rent, and participating in various levels of democratic government bodies. The text of Fidel Castro's May Day speech is available at several internet sites, including www.la-peaceandfreedom.org.
Throughout our visit, we saw signs and banners -- many of them hand made -- protesting the imprisonment of the Cuban Five. These are five Cubans who were in the U.S. to monitor terrorist activity against Cuba. The Cuban government made use of their reports to inform the U.S. of terrorist activity in the Miami area. Instead of the terrorists being arrested, those who reported on their activities -- the Cuban Five -- were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. One, Geraldo Hernandez, is serving a life term at the Lompoc, California prison. The others are imprisoned in other parts of the U.S. Hernandez is able to receive message of support and solidarity by writing to: Gerardo Hernandez, #58739-004, U.S. Penitentiary-Lompoc, 3901 Klein Blvd., Lompoc, CA 93436.
Since returning, several of the members of the delegation have given reports at mass meetings and house meetings. P&F has also been a sponsor of rallies opposing a U.S. invasion of Cuba and for the lifting of the U.S. blockade that has prevented the island from realizing its full potential as socialist society struggling to free itself from decades of neo-colonialism and underdevelopment.
For the second year in a row, Alameda County P&F coordinated rides from public transportation to the annual Hiroshima Day demonstration at the Livermore National Laboratory. County chair Dave Kadlecek initiated a vigil outside the Coast Guard base in the Oakland estuary to urge service personnel to refuse illegal orders and we helped build more anti-war demonstrations than we can count.
P&F members are also active in tenants rights groups, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, and civil liberties defense. Bob Evans is an elected member of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board.
This section includes a photo by Joseph Woodard, http://jwoodard.best.vwh.net, showing a protestor holding a "Shut Down The War Machine" sign with a P&F logo that was taken during one of the vigils at Coast Guard Island.
San Francisco P&F's main activities are in the Movilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and Bay Area United Against War. We have campaigned vigorously for a city-owned electrical system and Instant Runoff Voting in local elections. A recent court decision once again delayed the implementation of this voter-approved initiative.
Three P&F candidates won in July's election to the Venice (Los Angeles) Neighborhood Council. They were part of a progressive slate pledged to more affordable housing and community control of development.
Elena Popp, Jim Smith, and Peggy Lee Kennedy join P&F incumbent Alice Stek. Progressives now control 12 out of 21 seats on the Venice council and 4 of 7 officer positions.
The P&F-initiated Venice Peace Movement, has been holding weekly marches on the Venice Boardwalk since October 2001.
P. O. Box 741270, Los Angeles 90004
P. O. Box 24764, Oakland 94623
www.peaceandfreedom.org, www.la-peaceandfreedom.org
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