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Dear
Pax Christi friend, This workshop offers valuable training from experts. It comes highly recommended by those who have
attended previous conferences. FREE T O ALL LIPC LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2008 ACADEMY OF SAINT JOSEPH · 1725 BRENTWOOD
RD · BRENTWOOD, NY SAT. SEPTEMBER
13th · 9:30AM - 5PM Register 516 541 1006 ext 16; maurice@lipc.org
Bringing people together throughout Long Island to work for collective
change. Building bridges across racial lines, generational gaps, and within communities. Promoting
a quality education for all students regardless of race & class, the right to affordable housing, clean elections free
of corporate money, anend to global warming, and quality health care for all. Hands-on training in practical,
winning, organizing skills. Inspiring workshops, good food, and amazing people! ************************************************************************** In these heightened political times it is more important than ever to build a local
progressive movement that connects issues in our backyards to the major issues of our state and nation. Weplan to train local
community members in order to set off a chain reaction of social change. Educated people can organize a
community.Community change can bring local change. What happens on Long Island could have effects all over the state. A great
movement in New York State can set the nation and the world in motion. If you want to make history by making a positive difference
on Long Island, now is the time. PLANNED
WORKSHOPS PLANNED WORKSHOPS GRASSROOTS LOBBYINGORGANIZING 101 CHARTING A WINNING STRATEGY WORKING THE POLITCS OF ALBANY GETTING HIGH MEETING ATTENDANCE HOW TO RECRUIT & RETAIN VOLUNTEERS MEETING FACILITATION Directions On LIE ; From the east, take Exit 55. From the west, take Exit 53
Stay on the service road to Washington Avenue.Head South on Washington Avenue which will become Brentwood Road after Suffolk
Avenue. Campus is 3 traffic lightsafter railroad crossing. On Southern State Parkway: The Academy is easily accessible from Sunrise
Highway, Exit 44 North on Brentwood Road. The campus is approximately 2 miles north of the South Shore Mall, Bay Shore. ORGANIZING 101 CHARTING A WINNING STRATEGY WORKING
THE POLITCS OF ALBANY GETTING HIGH MEETING ATTENDANCE HOW
TO RECRUIT & RETAIN VOLUNTEERS MEETING FACILITATION Directions On LIE ; From
the east, take Exit 55. From the west, take Exit 53 Stay on the service road to Washington Avenue.Head South on
Washington Avenue which will become Brentwood Road after Suffolk Avenue. Campus is 3 traffic lightsafter railroad crossing. On Southern State Parkway:
The Academy is easily accessible from Sunrise Highway, Exit 44 North on Brentwood Road. The campus is approximately 2 miles
north of the South Shore Mall, Bay Shore. Change Long Island, Change New York, Change America! ******
Activists want right to protest in Long Island mallsBY MATTHEW CHAYES | matthew.chayes@newsday.com - July 27,
2008
Enraged by the shopping-mall arrest of an 80-year-old activist in March for refusing
to take off his anti-war T-shirt or leave, a handful of sympathizers on Long Island are spending their summer protesting for what they insist is, well, their
right to protest.
The activists argue that malls in suburbia have replaced the public squares in downtowns of yore.
Barnstorming through Sunrise Mall in May, Walt Whitman Mall in June and Roosevelt Field mall yesterday, they say their free-speech
freedoms should permit them to picket, protest and pamphleteer at the mall.
But that's not how the malls see
the crusade. And that's not how New York State's highest court has ruled, deciding more than 20 years ago
that malls can prohibit protests as they wish.
Now the anti-war activists are vowing a new effort to lobby lawmakers
and mall owners to permit their activism, said Margaret Melkonian of Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives.
While mall management at their self-described summer tour appear to now be permitting the activists to stroll the
mall in their T-shirts, the management has stopped them from picketing with signs. At Roosevelt Field, a mall official all
but begged the anti-war protesters who walked in their T-shirts not to display their signs. And after management left, they
were civilly disobedient.
The picketers say they're inspired by California, where private malls must allow free-speech activities. The Long Island
activists want malls here to give them a reserved table for people of all stripes to come to express their political points
of view to shoppers. "Community tables" are how many California malls comply with the law there.
Simon Property Group, which owns the Smith Haven Mall where the 80-year-old was arrested,
as well as Roosevelt Field and Walt Whitman, says opening its private property to activists would irritate patrons who come
to their shopping center for commerce, not politics.
Mark Payne, Simon's associate general counsel, noted that
free-speech rights apply when government, not private groups, are acting. He said malls are not town squares and said citizens
have lots of other places to express themselves. "Anyone can go out, put a Web page up," Payne said. "People
can blog."
And that 80-year-old arrested earlier this year? A Suffolk criminal court recently dismissed charges
against him and another activist arrested at Smith Haven, the district attorney's office said, "in the interest of
justice." *********************************************************
letter to the editor -newsday
THE DEMONSTRATORS: We were drinking coffee
I was one of the four Pax Christi Long Island members in the Smith Haven Mall food court Saturday when Deacon Don Zirkel was dragged away by officers.
The T-shirt he was wearing had no obscenities, issued no threats, railed against no elected official, endorsed no
candidate. It simply stated a tragic fact on the front: "4,000 U.S. Troops. One Million Iraqis. Dead." And on the
back, it said, "Enough!" and had three blood-colored splotches.
The four of us, senior citizens all,
wore these T-shirts as part of a demonstration we had been in on Route 25. We'd gotten cold; we went inside to get some
coffee. A hot dog and french fries were afterthoughts.
Eight mall security officers surrounded our table and ordered
us to take off our T-shirts or leave. Why? Because they can. By law, the mall owner has all the rights. You have none, only
those the mall owner wishes to grant you.
It used to be that every town had a town square where people would gather,
stroll, meet friends, discuss important issues of the day. Now people gather, stroll, meet friends - and discuss shopping.
Is it any wonder Americans' attention is so focused on shopping and so out of touch with the war?Nancy Dwyer,
Valley Stream
***********************************************************************************************************
Coulter paid, protester arrested
So
lets see, an 80-year-old man, Don Zirkel, protesting the war by wearing a T-shirt with some anti-war message, gets arrested.
Ann Coulter spews venom at Stony Brook against everything and anything she doesn't
agree with, and
gets $20,000 ["Coulter cuts loose at Stony Brook" News, April 1].
Something
is very wrong here in America. This is America, isn't it?
Jeff Grann
Oceanside
Letters
become the property of Newsday. They will be edited and may be republished in all media.
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