News from Portland (OR) Alliance for Democracy

Past events and upcoming actions from the Portland Alliance for Democracy include movement-building in response to economic crisis, a critical look at tar sands exploitation, and a video presentation on the "birthplace" of the atomic bomb. Portland AfD'ers are also working on legislation to support renewable energy development, and will be part of a demonstration marking the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war.

At the end of January, AfD successfully co-sponsored and co-organized an Economic Town Hall on the Economic Crisis attended by over 800 people. Delivering the keynote talks were Marty Hart-Landsberg, economic professor at Lewis and Clark College and Veronica Dujan, sociology professor at Portland State University.  Those talks were followed by about a dozen workshops including one on building democracy led by AfD Portland President David Delk.
 
The Portland chapter now has two public events coming up. 
 
The first is a talk by Andrew Nikiforuk on Tuesday, March 31st at the First Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Main Street in Portland.  Nikiforuk is the author of Tar Sands, Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.  Canada has become America's largest foreign oil supplier and what we import is largely tar sand oil. But the environmental and economic impacts of extracting tar sand oil are so extreme that our reliance on this supply is the chief indicator that peak oil is here and the age of cheap fossil fuel is over.  

If you are concerned about peak oil, water supplies, nuclear energy, petro-state "democracy" or a whole host of other issues, this presentation is for you. See the flyer here.  Co-sponsoring this event is the Economic Justice Action Group of the First Unitarian Church and KBOO, community-supported radio (additional co-sponsors listed on the flyer). 
 


The focus remains on environmental issues in the chapter's second scheduled event, a presentation of "Arid Lands," a video made by two local Oregon residents several years ago about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State. Hanford was the "birthplace" of the bombs which fell on Japan at the end of WWII and has since been the principle dumping ground of nuclear waste from both weapons production and peaceful nuclear uses.

The Department of Energy has plans to increase the worldwide production of nuclear waste and to use Hanford as a "recycling" site; recycling produces yet more nuclear waste to be stored at Hanford.  Gerry Polett, Exec Director of Heart of America NW, will be there to talk about current threats and calls to action.  Event is scheduled for Wednesday, April 1st but that might change.  Please check our Portland website for updated information.
 


The Portland chapter also continues to make progress with spreading the word on the many benefit of Renewable Energy Payments (Feed-in Tariffs), through their "Democratize the Grid" campaign. The use of Renewable Energy Payments (R.E.P.) by Germany has propelled that nation into the forefront of renewable energy production worldwide.  It accelerates the rapid development of renewable energy as well as greatly increasing good paying green jobs. Energy utilities are required to buy all the energy produced by R.E.P. projects for set prices higher than rates customer pay the utility, thereby guaranteeing a profit for the project owner.  That in turn makes it easy to get a loan to pay for it as the bank knows that the project is very low risk.  The whole process favors small producers as opposed to the multinational corporations which have dominated the wind farm development which rely heavily on complicated tax-credit mechanisms. 

The chapter has written a legislative bill for presentation to the current session of the Oregon legislature.  Please visit their website to learn more on this exciting project. 
 

The chapter is also co-sponsoring and co-organizing a rally and march on Sunday, March 15, starting at 1 PM at the steps to the State Capital Building in Salem, to observe the 6th anniversary of the beginning of the war on Iraq.  The rally demands we "Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad - Keep Oregon's Guard Home from Iraq and Afghanistan!" All are welcome to march with the chapter--download a flier here.

Lastly, our project to change the electoral system continues with efforts to enact Local Option Instant Runoff Voting in Oregon. Instant runoff voting allows voters the option of ranking candidates in order of their preference and, if no candidate has a majority of votes, then eliminates the lowest vote getting candidate, followed by a recount of the vote.  The process continues until one candidate has a majority and is declared the winner.  IRV is a great way to increase the number of candidates as the charge that third party or independent candidate are “spoilers” is eliminated. 
 
The Local Option legislation (SB29) would allow cities, counties and special service districts the option of using IRV in their elections.  Please contact your Oregon state senator or representative; ask them to support SB29.  More information is here on our website.