Page 6 - Sonoma County Gazette 6-20

reconstruction’ – an era that began with the civil rights movement. Are there signs that a ‘third reconstruction’ is dawning?
TSCA EPA Fluoridation
Toxicity Trial: EXPERTS
Relying on the citizen petition provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a lawsuit in federal court challenges the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) re. community water fluoridation, a practice endorsed by the U.S. Public Health Service 70 years ago, and affecting 200 million Americans on public water systems today. Demonstrating neurotoxic risk
is central to the plaintiffs’ case under TSCA.
has been bleeding taxpayers for over 16 years, mismanaging the hospital and then its botched sale, spreading Measure W money around liberally to pet projects (a $15K skate park monitor....really???) when it should have been cutting taxpayer losses and winding its wasteful self down.
Nancy Hair
One member has suggested that
we end the Peace Press. This person’s plan is to replace it with an online only entity called The Activists Hub. The focus wold be on local, actionable events with no opinion pieces and very little on education or world events. Local activist groups would join, much like NBOP, so they could use this forum to reach people. The proposer of this idea stated that it would reach young people as they do not read books or newsletter unless they are on line. Not everyone agrees with this move. It would save us money and reduce opportunities for activism. This is the time to tell Board members; myself, Attila, Audrianna, Susan Chunco and Linda or Shekeyna what you think
In a separate ruling, the court restricted testimony to the toxic risks under TSCA. EPA’s defense cannot include the purported oral health benefits of fluoridation.
Despite the election of Barack Obama in 2008 – the US’s first black president – the 2010s were a decade of increasing racial polarisation.
CLEARED TO TESTIFY
But with white, working-class voters searching for an anti- establishment voice, could there be a glimmer of hope? alamopictures. co.uk/podcast/2020/05/08/i-am-not- your-negro/
Mannie Onc
LETTERS con’t from page 4
how government spends and wastes money. You can thank the ‘district’ board members when angry voters turn down most future tax measures.
DVD Review:
I Am Not Your Negro
Narrated by Samuel L Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro (2016) uses James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript to tell the horrific history of racism in America. Following the lives of three slain civil rights leaders, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr, Baldwin’s words still resonate today. Since the beginning, race
has defined America, and racism permeates its politics to this day.
To discuss the issue, Dr Richard Johnson, lecturer in US politics and international relations at Lancaster University, joins the podcast. Richard’s work examines the US’s increasingly racially polarised politics. Richard draws parallels between contemporary America
and the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Richard believes we are living in the twilight of the ‘second
The Board of Directors is 1) sending out the appeals letter to members, 2) contacting folks we know who care about the Center and don’t want to see it end who may or may not be members and 3) putting together an on-line poetry reading with Dennis Bernstein and Redwood Cafe.
The Peace & Justice Center is in trouble.
Plaintiffs include the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), Moms Against Fluoridation, the consumer advocacy group Food and Water Watch, and several individuals representing themselves and/or their children.
Our revenue source is hosting events at the Center and holding fund raisers. It has dried up. We have had to lay off our one paid employee, our Executive Director. The Peace Press is now on line and even if there was no social distancing, we couldn’t print it now ‘cause we don’t have the money. We need your help.
On 5/8/2020 the court denied an EPA request to exclude the testimony of 3 international experts, clearing them to testify on the neurotoxic risks of community water fluoridation in
a federal court trial in San Francisco beginning 6/8/2020. Those 3 experts on neurotoxicity are Dr. Philippe Grandjean of Harvard and the U. of Southern Denmark, Dr. Howard Hu of the U. of Washington, and Dr. Bruce Lanphear of Simon Fraser U. in British Columbia.
The notion that there exists
a $500K ‘surplus’ for these self congratulatory big spenders to blow on more ‘projects’ is a disgrace. If there is indeed any unused Measure W generated money floating
around, we all know that there will be unanticipated post-dissolution expenses because everything the District has done in 16 years has been a fiscal disaster. Any ‘surplus’ should be used to pay down the $20+MM
in debt and/or held for the ugly surprises we know will crop up as the County completes the dissolution of this rathole.
The hearing laid the final groundwork for a remote access trial beginning 6/8/2020, originally set to run for two weeks, now compressed to 12 hours for each side to help deal with a backlog from the recent COVID-19- related closing of federal courts.
Thousands of taxpayers in the County are looking to our officials to expose this last ditch scam by
the ‘district’ and demand that no further spending occur. Taxpayers are, not surprisingly, becoming completely cynical and distrustful of
has not been set, and listening access protocols have not been released.
To help go to PJCsoco.org and you’ll find a donate button. Please help if you can. From this site you can also go to the link for the Peace Press. Please help if you can. Your Peace & Justice Center needs you. yours in peace through justice
Information on public access to the trial will not be available before the Sonoma County Gazette’s June print edition pub. date. Live-streaming is not planned, and the court’s decision on audio recording is pending. There will be a limited number of cell phone access “listening stations” for members of the public, but the trial schedule
- Rebel Fagin
As information on schedule and public access becomes available, and on the homepage of www. cleanwatersonomamarin.org.
Carol Goodwin Blick, editor, CleanWaterSonomaMarin.org
6 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 6/20