In Amherst more than 300 people attended a rally on September 19 demanding that the University of Massachusetts do more to stop sexual assaults. In Amherst 200 or so people attended a rally on September 20 for the same issue.

Shamarr Allen will perform September 23 at 8 p.m. at the Stone Church in Brattleboro. Tickets are $15. A video of him performing is at:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDTcWbrcK3k&ab_channel=shamarrallenmusic

In Brattleboro on September 13 there will be a health care rally. It will be from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m. outside 1154 Putney Road. The organizers said, in the USA, “over 600,000 people have died from Covid during this pandemic, many of them because our country denies health care to the poor. This pandemic has revealed more clearly than ever before that the 140 million poor and low-income people in the United States are united by the fact that we, our families, and our communities are in a life-and-death fight for health care. We take action together to say that urgent action is needed now.

In Deerfield, Massachusetts, near Greenfield, activists defeated a multi-billion dollar corporation on August 12. The company wanted to pave open space. “I’m relieved that Dollar General has decided not to further attempt to build in Deerfield on the site that has been in discussion for three years. There are so many positive things in the works for Deerfield, it will be a relief not to have this issue pull time and attention to it anymore,” Julie Cavacco told the Valley Post on August 13, 2021. She attended a Deerfield rally against Dollar General in December 2020.

In Vermont, February 2015 broke records for coldest temperatures ever recorded. During that month hundreds of workers stood outside on picket lines, all day, every day. They were on strike for justice. They work for the monopoly landline phone company in the state. Eventually the workers won the four month strike, and a good union contract.

In 2021, when it was time to negotiate a new union contract, the company was more reasonable. On August 9, 2021 the company and the workers' elected union leaders reached a tentative agreement. The deal will be official if workers vote to approve it.

With 4 percent of the world's population, the USA spends as much money on war as the rest of the world combined. This year the USA will spend $1.7 trillion on war. That's 48 percent of the federal budget, meaning about half your income taxes go to war. This data is from:

www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/fy2022pie_chart-low_res.pdf

On August 6, there will be peace rallies:

--in Brattleboro at noon outside the Main street post office. The organizer is Daniel Sicken (pronounced SEE-kin) dhsicken@yahoo.com or landline 802-387-2798;

In Greenfield on July 31 there will be a rally to protest cutting down forests in Massachusetts to put up solar panels. The panels can go on roofs of big box stores, warehouses, and other buildings, and on top of parking lots. To see a big photo of seven acres of solar panels over a parking lot in Amherst, click on the small photo of "Lot 44" at:

www.umass.edu/dcm/campus-solar

The Greenfield rally organizers said, “To date, the state has lost 4,000 acres to large ground-mounted solar, much of it pristine forest.”

They have a web site at https://savethepinebarrens.org.

The Connecticut river valley town of Dublin, New Hampshire is five miles from Massachusetts. On June 16, a local land trust announced it had saved 132 acres of forestland in Dublin from development. The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day.

Dublin is six miles east of downtown Keene, population 23,000. The town of Surry, New Hampshire borders Keene. June 10 was Surry's annual town meeting. Voters there created a 115 acre town forest.

*********

On June 8 in Springfield there will be a rally in support of raising taxes on rich people and giving the money to public schools and publicly-run buses and passenger trains. On average, even electric cars are worse for the environment than buses and trains, on a per-traveler basis. The rally will be outside city hall at 6 p.m. Details are at:

https://actionnetwork.org/events/springfield-for-the-fair-share-amendment

*********

Two years ago, 17 people were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience at Wendell, Massachusetts state forest near Greenfield. The goal was to stop logging of 80 acres of 110 year old oak trees on publicly owned land. The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day. Stopping logging on publicly owned land forces logging companies to buy their own land. If the loggers want to grow new trees after logging, the land can't be paved.