Hi folks-
I was hoping this would hold some meaning for at least some of you out there!
Let me know if you're interested in going to this event or if you'd like
some more information.
Feel free to forward to anyone.
I also included one of Bernie's most recent pieces at the end of this message.
Thanks-
Chris Allen
Campus Coordinator, Progressive Coalition Burlington.
[log in to unmask]
656-6270



Progressive Coalition to Hold Annual Meeting on Thursday

For Immediate Release                                                   December 2, 1998

Burlington, VT - The Burlington Progressive Coalition will hold its 1998
Annual Meeting on Thursday, December 3rd, 1998 at 7:00 p.m. at H.O. Wheeler
School Gymnasium on the corner of Elmwood Avenue and Archibald Street.  The
Progressive Coalition is a grassroots political action organization dedicated
to working for economic and social justice.

The event will feature addresses by Mayor Peter Clavelle and U.S.
Representative Bernie Sanders.  The Coalition will endorse candidates for the
March ballot, including candidates for mayor and city council.  In addition,
the agenda includes updates on the Living Wage Campaign and other Progressive
Coalition projects.  The Coalition will elect its 1999 Steering Committee.
The Annual Meeting is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the
Progressive Coalition and its work in Burlington.

The meeting is free and open to all members of the public.  Refreshments will
be served.  The facility is handicap accessible.  For more information or to
arrange for free on-site child care, call Ashley Moore at 864-6762.

Contact:
Ashley Moore,   864-6762
Steve Hingtgen,  864-8204




- end -

AND FROM BERNIE!!!:


>                  Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company
>                                The Boston Globe
>
>                    November  15, 1998, Sunday ,City Edition
>
>SECTION: FOCUS; Pg. D2
>
>LENGTH: 845 words
>
>HEADLINE: A  New Deal  for the globe;
>US history offers remedy to foreign capital crises;
>ECONOMY;
>Bernard  Sanders,  an Independent, represents Vermont in Congress.
>
>BYLINE: By Bernard  Sanders
>
> BODY:
>
>   As the annual Asia Pacific Economic conference convenes in Malaysia this
>weekend, the world's economy is growing at its slowest pace in 30 years.
>American farming, manufacturing, and finance are being battered by the
>economic
>storms blowing across the world. President Clinton has called the crisis the
>worst in 50 years and "the most important subject now facing the world
>community."
>
>    Clinton is correct; we need an international response. No one nation, not
>even one as big as the United States, can protect itself from today's global
>economic upheavals except by cooperating with others.
>
>    But that doesn't mean continuing assumptions and policies that have
>brought
>us to the brink of disaster, rewarding global corporations and speculators at
>the expense of ordinary people in the United States and around the world. On
>the
>contrary, we must change course.
>
>    Unfortunately, today's world leaders show little inclination to do so.
>Most
>of their economic advisers are the architects of the current system - and
>thus
>the current crisis. They are too often beholden for political and even
>financial
>support to the very corporations, banks, and financial institutions who
>benefit
>from the system.
>
>    Fixing the global economy requires changing policies supported by
>Democrats
>and Republicans, and pursued by the Bush and Clinton administrations, the
>International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization,
>and
>the Group of Seven leading industrial nations.
>
>    Today's crisis largely results from the past decade's efforts to reduce
>barriers to international capital flow. Those efforts worked; more than $1.5
>trillion now flows across borders every day. But those efforts also created
>what
>MIT economist Paul Krugman calls "a volatile, pre-depression world economy of
>financial booms and busts."
>
>    Despite glorious promises, globalization has promoted destructive
>competition among countries, forcing them to cut labor, social, and
>environmental protections to attract footloose capital. That created a
>catastrophic "race to the bottom," with declining wages, deteriorating
>environments, and growing poverty worldwide.
>
>    Instead of addressing these fundamental flaws, Clinton and other world
>leaders propose to push further the very policies that have created economic
>conditions similar to our Great Depression in Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand,
>South
>Korea, and Russia.
>
>    These policies - summed up in the IMF's notion of "structural adjustment"
>-
>include sharp interest rate hikes; devastating cuts in public programs for
>health care, education, and even food for the poor; wage cuts; forced sale of
>local enterprises to foreign investors; expanded exploitation of the
>environment
>for export production; and repression of labor in the name of market
>"flexibility." Right now, despite claims the IMF has learned its lessons, it
>is
>trying to impose the same failed policies on Brazil.
>
>    However, the tide may be turning. Europe, for example, is beginning to
>question the approach of the IMF and the US Treasury Department to problems
>posed by market globalism.
>
>    Many countries victimized by these policies are proposing remedies
>resembling our  New Deal,  including lowering interest rates to promote
>growth,
>targeting credit to small businesses and farms, raising minimum wages to
>reduce
>poverty and restore domestic demand, encouraging local use of local
>resources,
>and increasing government spending to expand employment. They are also trying
>to
>limit the destabilizing flood of international "hot money."
>
>    Some may scoff at these remedies as old-fashioned or say they reverse the
>progress made in the last decade, but given the economic ruin around us,
>reversing that "progress" would be a great accomplishment.
>
>    The Treasury Department and the IMF are hostile toward such measures. But
>if
>our goal is to make the global economy work for ordinary citizens, not just a
>wealthy few, then we should encourage such  New-Deal -style measures to begin
>to
>repair the shambles that current policies have made, and we should complement
>them with a coordinated international effort to ward off global recession and
>create opportunities for everyone.
>
>    This "global  New Deal"  might include:
>
>    - Coordinated interest rate cuts in the G-7 countries.
>
>    - Support for international labor rights to raise living standards and
>thereby expand markets.
>
>    - An international tax on "hot money" transactions, with the proceeds
>going
>to economic development and environmental protection in hard-hit countries
>and
>communities.
>
>    - Debt relief so that poor countries don't have to starve their people to
>pay interest on their debts.
>
>    - Cooperative investment by rich countries to protect and restore the
>environment, including a crash program to reverse global warming.
>
>    - International aid for real economic development, not to bail out
>speculators' dumb investments.
>
>    The Depression began in the United States in 1929, but it took four long
>years to start the  New Deal.  We cannot afford, in any sense of that term,
>to
>wait so long for a global  New Deal.
>
>
>