Remember when Newport Beach's then-Assemblyman (and then-living) Gil Ferguson called his colleague on the Democratic side of the aisle Tom Hayden of Santa Monica a traitor?
Good times …
Go ahead, ask Hayden about it when he makes an appearance behind the fabled Orange Curtain next week.
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Hayden leads a cast of lefties who'll be at the Santa Ana home of lawyer and just-retired Democratic Party of Orange County chairman Frank Barbaro, raising money for Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) from 6-8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 21.
The founding member of the PDA board will be joined by actress Mimi Kennedy, who has chaired that board since the lobby's bleeding heart started pounding in 2004, and Tim Carpenter, a former longtime Orange Countian who left to co-found the Massachusetts-based PDA and has served as its national director ever since.
If they believed in guns, they will have brought them all out for the Santa Ana event, because joining Hayden, Kennedy and Carpenter will be John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent whose head you've seen talking everywhere. And joining Nichols will be his some time writing partner Robert McChesney, the professor known to criticize media misdeeds and who must be doing something right as knuckle-dragger David Horowitz included him in his 2006 book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.
Nichols and McChesney joined the program after the original three were announced a couple weeks ago. Here were the bios PDA sent at that time:
Mimi Kennedy has been PDA's Advisory Board Chair since our founding in 2004, and hosted countless PDA events, actions, and receptions. An expert on election integrity and other issues, she is a co-coordinator of PDA's Election Issues Team. Born in Rochester, NY, Mimi has spent her life performing, writing, and working to promote peace and progress. Mimi was a key supporter of Dennis Kucinich's campaigns. and has traveled from coast to coast, organizing street heat and meeting elected officials with PDA. She studied Nonviolent Theory and Strategy with 60's civil rights leader Rev. James Lawson. A founding member of Artists United to Win Without War, Mimi is a leading voice for peace and progress.
Tom Hayden helped launch PDA at Roxbury in 2004, and is a founding member of the PDA National Board. He has participated at several PDA events including Progressive Central in Denver (2008). He writes for The Nation magazine, and is the author of 18 books and hundreds of articles at TomHayden.com. He teaches and leads workshops frequently on the history and nature of social movements. Tom was a founding member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1961 and the author of its visionary call, the Port Huron Statement. He was elected to the California State Assembly in 1982 and the State Senate ten years later, serving eighteen years in all. Today, he is a leading voice for ending wars, combating sweatshops, and reforming politics through greater citizen participation.
Tim Carpenter, Co-Founder and National Director, is a social and political activist who has worked for peace, nuclear disarmament, single payer health care, campaign finance reform and more for more than 35 years. Tim graduated from Cal State University Fullerton (CSUF) with Bachelors Degrees in History and Political Science, and earned a Masters in History, then taught U.S. History and Government at the high school and community college levels in California. Tim was a key organizer for the presidential campaigns of Rev. Jesse Jackson (1988), and Gov. Jerry Brown (1992), and he served as Deputy National Campaign Manager in the Kucinich for President campaign (2004). Tim was a national DNC delegate, and addressed the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Tim is a regular guest on TV and radio, appearing on: CNN, MSNBC, Democracy NOW!, The Big Picture, The Thom Hartmann Show, Fox News, and many other local, state, and national radio and television programs. In 2007, Tim was named “Democrat of the Year” in Northampton, MA, and Progressive Activist of the Year by The Nation magazine. Tim lives in Florence, MA with his wife Barbara Considine and their daughters, Sheila and Julia.
There are four levels of giving for the event: HOST COMMITTEE ($100); SPONSOR ($75); SUPPORTER ($50); and ACTIVIST ($35). You can make payments here.
The event flier follows on the next page …
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.