There will be a rally at the Chicopee, Massachusetts Rite Aid store at 5 Saint James Avenue at 3 p.m. on December 15. Chicopee is near Springfield. The public is welcome to attend. At the rally, Rite Aid customers will learn from volunteers about:

-- Rite Aid's decision to hike its CEO's compensation to $4.5 million per year;

-- The company's effort to impose major cost increases on workers for health insurance;

-- Rite Aid's pattern of delays in reaching fair agreements with its union workers, and;

On November 30 at 2:30 p.m. there will be a rally in Springfield to call on congressman Richard Neal to take action to extend benefits for unemployed workers. Congress recently decided to cut off benefits for some jobless workers – including some 60,000 Massachusetts residents -- on November 30. The rally will be at 300 State Street.

About 2 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits on November 30 unless Congress reverses its earlier decision.

An appointee of Governor Deval Patrick announced recently that the state will not require a company that wants to build a wood incinerator and power plant in Springfield to submit an environmental impact report. The decision was made by Ian Bowles, secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

“During the campaign for governor, Patrick said he was against the big biomass incinerators. (Weeks after the election) he rolls out the red carpet for a big biomass incinerator,” said Chris Matera of Massachusetts Forest Watch on November 22.

Members of a local environmental group are urging the public to attend a public hearing on November 16 near Springfield about whether Massachusetts state-owned forest land should be logged or kept as wilderness. Forest Watch members say people should speak out in favor of wilderness at the 6:30 p.m. meeting with representatives of Governor Deval Patrick at 380 Southampton Road in Westfield.

On October 22 at noon there will be a march to the Springfield police department to protest police brutality in Springfield. That day there will also be a conference on how to fix a variety of problems with police. The conference will be from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the Basilica of the Holy Apostle at 339 State Street in Springfield. The march and conference are being organized by the Community Coalition for Justice.

There will be a march in Springfield at 4 p.m. on September 15 calling on Congress to raise taxes on the rich to create jobs for unemployed people. The jobs would include work building better trains and train tracks, making homes and other building more energy efficient, and installing solar panels and windmills.

Organizers are asking the public to meet at 1550 Main Street at 3:45 p.m. Putting the millions of jobless Americans to work would raise wages for workers who already have jobs because employers would be forced to compete for skilled workers.

A group of Valley residents is planning to rally for peace at a display of military might by the U.S. Air Force in Westfield, Massachusetts on August 21 and 22. The public is welcome to join the peace action. Westfield is near Springfield.

"We will be reminding people at the air show that these planes are weapons of mass destruction," said peace activist Daniel Sicken of Dummerston, Vermont, near Brattleboro. He plans to take part in the peace protest.

Out of an annual federal government budget of about $2,900,000,000,000 about half goes to war. Details are at:

On August 10 at noon, there will be a rally in Springfield to support a law that would help reduce the control that corporations have over politicians. The Fair Elections Now Act was introduced in the U.S. senate by senators Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter, and in the House by congressmen John Larson and Walter Jones, Jr. The bill would allow federal candidates to run for office without relying on big "donations" (also known as "bribes") from corporate lobbyists. The bill is supported by www.greenpeace.org and some of the nation's biggest labor unions, including www.afscme.org

Recent budget decisions by the governors and state legislators in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont have caused a crisis here in the Valley for people with mental illness who don’t have good health insurance. That’s according to Paul Gorman. He’s president of the New Hampshire chapter of a national group, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Gorman is also director of the Dartmouth College Psychiatric Research Center www.dartmouth.edu He spoke with the Valley Post on July 13.

Joe Gonzales has worked for the U.S. Postal Service in Springfield, Massachusetts for more than nine years. (This is not his real name; the Postal Service has tried to fire workers who criticized it.) Now he’s afraid he will lose his job. “As it is, I live with my sister,” he said. “If I lost my job, I’m not sure I’d be able to feed and clothe myself.”