The Progressive Democrats of America have a new chapter, Progressive Democrats of the Central Coast, which meets on the first Wednesday of each month. National PDA, selected as the most important political group of 2008 by The Nation, began in 2004 after the Democratic National Convention. A group of convention delegates formulated the intention of working both inside and outside of the Democratic Party to further progressive policies. Their five core issues were ending the occupation of Iraq, promoting social justice, reforming health care, promoting election reform, and combating global warming.

The new PDCC chapter had their organizational meeting in January, at which time the consensus was to focus on local issues by working with local activist groups advocating environmental issues, attempting to defeat Wal-Mart’s efforts to open a mega store on Victoria, lobbying for single-payer health care, and reversing the disastrous Proposition 8 passage. While local, practical action takes priority, some members of the chapter also opted to participate in the conference calls scheduled by PDA National each month in order to profit from the experiences of activists all over the country.

At the February meeting on Wednesday the 4th, both national and local issues were discussed. Gail Hodgson reported on the PDA conference call on global warming that had contrasted the cap and trade policy with a carbon tax and concluded that energy consumers would actually pay less in the long run with a carbon tax. Kendra Gonzales, an active member of the Green Party, then gave a presentation about the activities of the Green Coalition, a newly formed environmental group focusing on alternative energy.

The Green Coalition, which meets on the 4th Thursday of each month at City Corps in Ventura, has as their first project the passage and implementation of Assembly Bill 811. This legislation would provide financing for homeowners to install solar panels, and the loans would be repaid through property taxes spread over several years. Members of the Green Coalition represent green businesses, city officials and employees, and other activist groups such as CAUSE and VCCool. Kendra emphasized the practical experience the members have in alternative energy technologies and in community organizing.

Cindy Peister, who had just finished a PDA conference call on impeachment efforts, distributed material detailing the combined efforts of NIN, the National Impeachment Network, and PDA to have a special prosecutor appointed to investigate the apparent criminal actions of the Bush Administration in matters of torture, wire tapping of U.S. citizens, falsifying intelligence reports, and other illegal strategies. After Cindy’s presentation, members of PDCC wrote letters to newly-appointed Attorney General Eric Holder requesting that he appoint a special prosecutor immediately. In addition calls, e-mails, and faxes to the Department of Justice would be undertaken daily during these crucial first weeks of the new administration..

The PDCC meetings on the first Wednesday of the month are held at 6:30 p.m. at 295 Arcade Drive in Ventura. All who wish to attend are welcome. If directions are needed, call Gail Hodgson at 794-0125 or Susan Jones at 824-5588.

Yes, Ventura, there is a Progressive Left–and it came in force today for Join the Impact. It’s a common joke here that we live in “Ventucky“, though our situation less resembles that of the deep South and more that of a clinging outpost of Red, stuck between the swaths of Blue that are Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. We have the gag-worthy Gallegly as our representative, and even unprincipled liars like Tony Strickland somehow manage to attract over half the population here to vote for them. True, the demographics have been changing with voter registrations to match, but that has translated neither into electoral gains nor significant grassroots activity in the Democratic and progressive community–though that is changing due to the tireless efforts of people like our new VCDP Communications Director Brian Leshon.

But today a sea of Blue washed up on the Ventura shores in front of the Old San Buenaventura Mission to let Ventura and all of California know that yes, we do exist. And no, we’re not taking it lying down anymore. Unfortunately, the pictures here don’t do the crowd justice; an amateur photographer is emailing me some pics that I’ll be putting up as soon as I get them.

The Join the Impact protestors began our march at noon in front of the Mission, walking through downtown, over the 101 Freeway overpass and back again, before regrouping on both sides of the street in front of the mission, with overflow into Mission Park.

On the overpass…

I’ve been involved in many protests over the years, but I have to say without question that this was the most amazing, uplifting demonstration I’ve ever been a part of, for a few very important reasons:

• Focus. The bane of the progressive protest march over the last few decades has been the lack of attention to message unity. Markos Moulitsas discusses this problem at length in his book Crashing the Gate: activists such as those with A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition end up using the occasion to fight for causes ranging from freeing Mumia to impeaching Bush to end the wars in Iraq to acceptance of LGBT rights. Here, there was but one message and one focus, reinforced by the ubiquitous chant: “What do we want? Equal Rights! When do we want it? Now!”
• Diversity and Family-Friendliness. All too often the word “diversity” has been seen especially by those on the Right as a politically correct code word for the disproportionately vocal influence of one or more specific minorities. But for the actual crowd that attended, it might have been easy to dismiss this protest simply as the gay community venting its frustrations. On the contrary: the couples that had gathered skewed more hetero than same-sex, and many had brought their families and small children along with them. The visual impact of this phenomenon on the conservative and fence-sitting mind cannot be exaggerated. Add to this the multi-racial, truly rainbow aspect of the event, and it was not only a joy to behold, but a consternation to those who would insult this movement as merely a special interest, rather than a truly broad-based fight for equal Civil Rights.
• The Support of the Community. There were no counter-protesters anywhere in sight, and most of the cars that passed us were honking, even as their passengers rolled down their windows to flash a quick thumbs up or peace sign. Sure, there were a few nuts in pickup trucks screaming some gibberish about eternal damnation and displaying a hateful middle finger here and there (one of them was so consumed with rage that he very nearly rear-ended the car in front of him), but they were themselves a distinct minority. Downtown Ventura was truly supportive of our cause, and it felt truly righteous being a part of the next step for civil rights in America. As one baby boomer activist said,
  

  “Man, this really is just like the 60s. I haven’t seen a gathering with this kind of positive energy in a long, long time. It’s amazing to see.”

I couldn’t agree more. My girlfriend KK and I spent the final 45 minutes gathering signatures for the Courage Campaign’s Proposition 8 repeal. On that form was a checkbox asking if the signatory would like to volunteer for the cause. Nearly every single box was checked, and nearly every single zip code a Ventura resident. These people were not here just to vent for a day: they were here to be a part of something bigger for the long term.

It was a beautiful sight to behold, and gives me hope for the long term not only for the future of civil rights in America, but for the future of progressive politics here in “Ventucky” as well.