One Thousand Progressive Activists Gather
at the Campaign for America's Future's Take Back the American Dream
Conference |
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June 18, 2012--Roger Hickey, of
the Campaign for America's Future, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL),
Molly Katchpole of Rebuild the Dream, and Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO
spoke at the afternoon plenary "Jobs First: Prevent the Fiscal Train
Wreck in December."
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June 19, 2012--Gloria Totten of
Progressive Majority moderates a plenary on "99 Elect: Building
Progressive Power in 2012" featuring Howard Dean and Congressman Keith
Ellison (MN). Ellison, who is co-chair of the Congressional
Progressive Caucus (CPC), said progressives need to be "tied together
by values, not by charismatic personalities." Among the issues he
addressed were Citizen United,
on
which he stated that there are 14 different bills to overturn the
Supreme Court's ruling. Rather than supporting a specific piece
of legislation he said the CPC has united around a declaration in
support of amending the Constitution. Ellison also spoke to the
much anticipated upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care
Act, stating that progressives need to be "prepared to pounce" if the
individual mandate gets thrown out.
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While expressing some
reservations, Howard Dean pointed out positive
aspects of the Affordable Care Act. Bernie Fetterly and Rebecca
Elgie of Ithaca strongly disagreed. They (and many of
those at this conference) favor a single payer system. Fetterly
said the Affordable Care Act is "really a bad health care plan" because
it will leave millions uninsured and underinsured. "He [Obama]
took single pay health care off the table," said Fetterly.
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June 20, 2012--Activists from a
range of groups spoke at the closing plenary "Power--It Takes A
Movement."
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