An Evening with Michael Shuman
Author of The Small-Mart Revolution

Wednesday, October 18
6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Garden House, Look Park, Northampton
The event is only $5 for Shays 2 list members ($10 for the general public)

Shays 2 is co-sponsoring this event with Pioneer Valley Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (PV BALLE), Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), and CitizensMatch (a program of Highland Valley Elder Services). Shuman will speak at 7:45 p.m. after a musical presentation by Jay Mankita.

Shuman, recognized as one of the leading local living economy thinkers (and doers) is also author of Going Local: Creating Self Reliant Communities in a Global Age.

Si Kahn
Democracy Activist and Singer/Songwriter

Saturday, Sept 16, 8:00 p.m.
Unitarian Society
120 Main Street, Northampton

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A Two-Day Retreat!
Join the movement to build democracy! You are invited to a participatory retreat on shifting power from corporations to citizens in the Pioneer Valley & Berkshires

September 16 - 17, 2006, Saturday - Sunday (with an optional visit to the Si Kahn folk concert on Saturday night)

The "Building Democracy" retreat will help us explore together how we can reclaim our rights to democratic self-governance, and why democracy is impossible when corporations wield so much power. We create a culture of solidarity among our own Western Mass local citizens -- organizers, local business people, community activists, and working people-- by examining strategies to fight corporate dominance in Western Mass., and address proven ways to fight corporate dominance at home. Such connections provide fertile ground for local empowerment and region-wide efforts to challenge corporate rule.

Featured facilitator Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, an inspiring young democracy organizer who has built a national reputation as speaker and workshop facilitator. Measure T campaign coordinator (working with David Cobb), Humboldt County, California.

More information...
Download flyer
Download schedule (MS Word format)

Local Radio Program Highlight
Hear investigative reporter Greg Palast critique the role of oil companies and their profits as an engine of this Middle East war!

Tune in to Writer�s Voice with Francesca Rheannon and Daisy Mathias:

Greg Palast talks about his best-selling book Armed Madhouse. Go to http://www.writersvoice.net to hear an excerpt.

Recent Events

Building Effective Democracy in the Face of Corporate Hegemony
How a California County won local control over outside corporations at the ballot box and how we can too!

Wednesday, June 28th, 7:00 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Society of Northampton and Florence
220 Main Street, Northampton

With featured speaker, David Cobb

[Download Flyer] [Event Recap]

David Cobb is a nationally-known democratic activist, a leader in the Humboldt County, CA challenge to corporations, and the 2004 Green-Rainbow candidate for President.

Fresh from the June 6th victory in Humboldt County�s Measure T - a referendum that banned outside corporate funds from local elections - David Cobb will strategize with us on building a similar campaign in Western Mass.

The Mass. Connection to Measure T: it challenges a law based on a landmark Massachusetts case at the US Supreme Court referred to as "the Bellotti decision" that contributed to the legal definition of a corporation as a "person" with constitutional rights. Our own state had a similar ban on corporate funds in issue-oriented referendums until 1978 and we want to win it back!

Mass. connection to Cobb: Our own voting rights attorney John Bonifaz (now running for Mass. Secretary of State) worked with Cobb on Measure T. As director of the National Voting Rights Institute, Bonifaz represented David Cobb in his lawsuit to recount the votes in Ohio�s 2004 presidential election. (See the June, 2006 Rolling Stone article Was the 2004 Election Stolen? by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.)

Cobb is a volunteer member of the Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County Steering Committee (one of the groups working on Measure T). He has worked intimately with the POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Corporations), the Center for Voting and Democracy, and Reclaim Democracy. He currently serves on the Sierra Club's national Corporate Accountability Committee and as a Fellow of Liberty Tree: Foundation for the Democratic Revolution.

Join us! JOIN OUR ACTION COMMITTEES! We are part of a nation-wide movement to build real democracy in America. Explore how growing corporate "rights" undermine our Constitutional rights and democracy � and how we can resist together, advancing our diverse issues as activists and citizens.

"We, the People, Inc.?"
How Can We Overturn the Corporate Takeover of our Cities, Towns and Elections?

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 17th at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Northampton and Florence, 220 Main Street, Northampton - Hosted by Shays 2

Kickoff speaker, John Bonifaz, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute, opposing corporate-provided voting machines that lack paper trails or access to computer codes for accountability. He is a candidate for Mass Secretary of State, an office from which he can protect the integrity of our election procedures (he needs 15% of the delegates at the MA Democratic Convention early next month in order to insure a place on the primary ballot in September). He will be the first in a series of Shays 2 speakers on local control in the face of corporate instrusion.

Bonifaz will offer ways we can work to overturn undue corporate influence in our region. An open discussion will follow. He will discuss:

• How each state can oppose electronic voting machines with no paper trails or access codes that can steal our elections. Bonifaz is leading the fight in the courts for a full recount in Ohio of all of the votes cast for President in the 2004 general election where voting machines with no paper trail were involved

• An initiative to protect local control by keeping multinational corporate funds out of our elections, the "Measure T" referendum in Arcata, Humboldt County, CA where elections are slated for June 6th

• His involvement in landmark cases against Texaco Oil Co. in Ecuador and Unical Oil and Gas Co. in Burma for human rights abuses � and the Amnesty International report calling for International accountability for corporations for human rights crimes

• His constitutional challenge to President George W. Bush's authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action

• How we can fight Supreme Court decisions about corporate money equaling free speech

CORPORATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

A film and discussion about the World�s Worst Industrial Disaster in Bhopal India and its relevance for our own struggles against corporate control.

Commemorating International Human Rights Day (Dec. 10) and the 21st anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster (Dec. 3).

Wednesday December 14, 7:00 p.m.
Media Education Foundation
60 Masonic Street, Northampton

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Three Western Mass Residents Testify for Ban on Privatizing Municipal Water and Sewer Plants Before State Legislative Committee

Full story...

Ward Morehouse's Testimony

Urgent Public Meeting on Racism & Sexism in
Electoral Politics This November

With Holyoke City Councilor Lillian Santiago

Thursday, October 27, 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Florence Community Center Auditorium
140 Pine Street, Florence, MA [map]