SEQUIM — Author and lecturer David Korten will give the keynote address at a forum that will serve as a “call to action in a grass roots effort to preserve and protect the public’s safety net threatened by government cutbacks and privatization,” organizers say.
“The American Awakening: A Community Call to Action!” forum will be from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27 at the Sequim High School auditorium at 601 N. Sequim Ave..
Admission is free.
The forum is dedicated to discussing ways to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid “and rebuild social and economic justice in America,” said Richard Gray, program co-chairman and co-coordinator of Clallam County MoveOn.org, which is sponsoring the forum with the MoveOn Councils of Jefferson and North Kitsap counties and Whidbey Island.
“It’s time to stand up and reclaim government for we the people,” Gray said.
Korten, originally from Longview, is the chairman of Yes! Magazine and author of How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule, Agenda for a New Economy and When Corporations Rule the World.
He will discuss his latest work, How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule, in which he proposes a redesign of the nation’s economic system and urges broad-based citizen action to restore democracy, strengthen local economies and create prosperity based on real wealth, organizers said.
The Raging Grannies from Port Townsend will perform.
The forum is funded by the Clallam County MoveOn.org council, Gray said.
Speakers are speaking for free “because they all believe in what we’re doing,” he said.
Featured speakers
In addition to Korten, featured speakers at the forum will be:
■ Dr. Katherine Ottaway, a board certified family medicine physician who practices in Port Townsend, and a member of Mad as Hell Doctors and Physicians for National Healthcare.
■ Robbie Stern, president of Puget Sound Alliance of Retired Americans, vice president of the Washington Alliance for Retired Americans and member of the executive board of the Washington State Labor Council.
■ Dorothea Hover-Kramer of Port Angeles, a registered nurse, psychotherapist and author of Healing Touch and Creative Energies.
“Since the 2010 elections, calls for austerity and paying off the national debt, defunding regulatory agencies, protecting corporate welfare, breaking up and disempowering the unions and privatizing or cutting back Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, should alarm all of us,” Gray said.
Co-chairman Bill Kildall added: “We will be videotaping the public testimony during the evening and expect to have a strong message to send to Sen. Patty Murray and the ‘Super Committee’ that cuts to these vital programs will not be tolerated by our citizens.”
American Awakening is organized by many of the same organizers who hosted “Mad as Hell Doctors,” who call for nonprofit single payer health care, in Sequim two years ago.
Details about speakers
Ottaway is expected to talk about the deleterious effects of an insurance-based health care system and urge a “Medicare for All” system.
Stern served as staff counsel, lead lobbyist and special assistant to the president of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO for 15 years and is now a member of its executive board.
He will discuss threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and how people can fight back.
Hover-Kramer has been a psychotherapist in private practice for more than 30 years, has authored nine books about energy therapies and is a member of the Clallam County MoveOn Council.
She will both open and close the forum, telling about MoveOn’s newly released Contract for the American Dream.
For more information about the forum, phone 360-683-1954 or visit http://tinyurl.com/
3hkr976.
For more information about the Contract for the American Dream, visit http://contract.rebuildthe
dream.com.
For more on Hover-Kramer, visit www.dorothea
lifeartist.com.
For more about Korten, visit http://living
economiesforum.org.
