Action Alert November 24, 2008

Santa Barbara County Action Network

Greetings SB CAN members and friends! Please take a few moments to review the upcoming events and news. And please forward to your friends and others who are interested in creating sustainable communities through sound planning that integrates housing, open space and transportation-our HOT principles.

News in brief:

1. SBCANNES- "Movies with a Message" series presents "Milk".

2. Sustainable University Now (SUN)- Coalition forms to respond to UCSB development plan

3. Election results bring hope and renewal

 Now the details

1. SBCANNES- a special screening of "MILK"

Join us for a preview of a highly topical and relevant film, an early favorite for Oscar consideration! SB CAN, the SantaBarbara County Action Network, presents a special screening of the new feature film "MILK" with panel discussion afterwards. This will be the third installment in our "SB Cannes Movies With a Message" series. Directed by Gus Van Sant, "MILK" tells the story of Harvey Milk, elected in 1977 to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the first openly gay man to be voted into major public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum, from senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of what it means to be a fighter for human rights and became a hero for all Americans. He was brutally assassinated in 1978, 

Save the date now! The screening will be held in downtown Santa Barbara on the evening of Tuesday, December 9th at an MTC theater, followed by a panel discussion on the subject "When law becomes discrimination, " exact time and venue still to be determined. To reserve seats call SB CAN Associate Director Olivia Uribe at (805) 563-0463. Tickets will also be available at the box office on a first-come/first-served basis.

Previously, SB CAN showcased Mia Goldman's "Open Window," focusing on the trauma and recovery process associated with a rape, and "Resurrecting the Champ," starring Samuel L. Jackson as a homeless ex-boxer. Santa Barbara's Rape Crisis Center co-sponsored the first screening, Transition House the second, both contributing to panel discussions which included local activists and elected officials. We are planning a similar collaboration for the showing of "MILK".

2. Sustainable University Now (SUN) - Coalition forms to respond to UCSB development plan.

Santa Barbara County Action Network (SB CAN) convened a series of meetings leading to the formation of Sustainable University Now(SUN) a coalition of community and environmental organizations to address challenges raised by UCSB's Draft Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). SUN is committed to encouraging wide community participation in reviewing and responding to the LRDP and its draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

SUN members emphasize that they do not seek to oppose the University's future development, but rather to improve it. The coalition seeks a collaborative, positive relationship with UCSB. SUN's statement of principles echoes this approach, stressing the importance of careful planning since decisions made by and about the University will have far-reaching and long-lasting consequences for residents of the campus, Isla Vista, the Cities of Santa Barbara and Goleta and throughout Santa Barbara County.

The members of SUN want to make sure that UCSB's plans for growth are based on principles of sustainability, provides broad social benefits and that the project's impacts on the area's housing supply, water resources, traffic and commuting help improve rather than threaten our quality of life.

SUN is requesting that local governmental bodies review and comment on the university's draft EIR, soon to be recirculated, analyzing the potential impact of UCSB's plans for growth..

The current list of Coalition members includes these organizations:

Coalition for Sustainable Transportation (COAST)

Community Environmental Council

League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Audubon Society

Santa Barbara County Action Network (SB CAN)

Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter - Santa Barbara Group

PUEBLO Education Fund

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

 3. Election results bring hope and renewal

by Deborah Brasket

Santa Maria Times

November 14, 2008

Public celebrations all across the world and tears of joy marked the culmination of a truly amazing presidential campaign on Nov. 4.

In significant measure, the historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States was an unprecedented grassroots effort, the kind we at SB CAN believe in and celebrate.

This grassroots effort has been at least four years in the making. In reflecting upon this momentous occasion, it's worth remembering that four years ago after the re-election of President George Bush, many of the same people who are now dancing in the streets were "mourning a sense of lost hope," as I wrote then in a column for this newspaper.

In trying to make sense of that loss, I lamented that "maybe things have to get really, really bad" before people would realize we were heading in the wrong direction and be ready to turn things around:

"Maybe the budget deficit needs to quadruple and the trade deficit lead us toward bankruptcy," I wrote, more prophetically than I realized. "Maybe more jobs need to be lost, more homeless fill our streets, more uninsured swamp our hospitals. ... Maybe the middle class needs to be squeezed into non-existence. Maybe we need to lose the America we love in order to really appreciate what we had, and fight to get her back."

I struggled to find where we had gone wrong and how to get it right:

"Clearly, if people voted for Bush on moral issues, as the press then was concluding, progressives need to do a lot more work to articulate clearly and strongly our own moral platform. And clearly, people of faith need to do more soul-searching when prioritizing moral concerns. Since when do abortion, gay marriage and school prayer trump war, poverty, corporate greed, lost jobs and a failing health-care system as moral issues?"

As I wrote at the time, I found the inspiration I needed to stay engaged at an SB CAN monthly meet-up, where people like me "had struggled through their own grieving process and moved beyond despair and acceptance to hope and renewal."

Clearly, the re-election of President Bush was "reinspiring progressives" to rediscover "what we really stand for, and how this vision of peace and prosperity can unite Americans in a way that Bush" was unable to achieve.

Maybe, I speculated, we needed four more years "to sift through the rubble of defeat and forge a newer, cleaner, higher platform of political ideals ... founded on clear moral values that all Americans can embrace."

I ended the column with this hope:

"Maybe the stage is being set for the election in 2008, when a presidential candidate who embodies these ideals can reunite the nation, and restore our original greatness. The struggle for social and economic justice, for a clean and healthy environment, for a peaceful and prosperous world has never been easy. But the worthiness of our cause strengthens and nourishes us along the way. As Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote: 'The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.'"

Truly, Barack Obama seems to embody the ideals we need today to reunite our nation. Four years of grassroots effort to redefine ourselves and articulate a vision of hope has led to this moment because, as he always insisted, the campaign was really about us.

But to ensure our success, we will need to remain fully engaged in the political process to support those we elected to lead us, and to hold them and ourselves accountable as we strive to fulfill our highest ideals as Americans.

Deborah Brasket is executive director of the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SB CAN). She can be reached at 722-5094, orDeborah@sbcan.org. Looking Forward runs every Friday, providing a progressive viewpoint on local issues.