Reclaim Our Democracy Annual Report and July 4 invitation
FirstParishinConcord
The 2016-2017 annual report from the Reclaim Our Democracy group was accidentally left out of the reports printed for Annual Meeting on June 11, 2017. The report is below. The group plans to march in the July 4 parade in Edgartown, MA. If you plan to be
on Martha's Vineyard that day and are interested in participating, please email Fred Van Deusen at
fredv...@gmail.com.
The Denominational Affairs Committee at First Parish in Concord, Massachusetts embraced the 2014 UUA Congregational Study Action Issue of Escalating Inequality and sponsored activities in 2014 and 2015 that led to the formation of our Americans for Economic Fairness group in May of 2015. We created a mission statement for ourselves and encouraged others to join our efforts.
Our goals were to find ways to increase economic fairness in elections, taxes, wages, education and healthcare.
As we have learned, the issues surrounding escalating inequality are complex, intertwined, systemic and deeply rooted in our culture. The most compelling issue that the group identified was the impact of escalating inequality on our democracy.
In June of 2016 the UUA adopted a new Congregational Study Action Issue
The Corruption of Our Democracy which is focused on the negative influence that huge amounts of money from corporations, billionaires, and special interest groups has on our national elections and on the effectiveness of congress.
This issue fit in well with our previous work and we began focusing on it in September of 2016.
We adopted a new name and created a new mission statement.
Reclaim Our Democracy is an inclusive, collaborative, multi-partisan movement to limit and control the corrupting influence of money on elections and politicians. Our goal is to reclaim our democratic rights as citizens of the United States of America to have a government that truly represents and supports the needs and desires of all people.
Since September, 2016 we have
· established a Democracy Working Group with members of more than 20 New England Region UU churches
· organized four separate educational events at First Parish in Concord that attracted between 25 and 120 people each
· marched in the April 17 Patriot’s Day Parade in Concord
· distributed our materials at the April UUA New England Regional Meeting
· developed an educational website called ReclaimOurDemocracy.org that we hope others will use and make available to their groups
We are currently working directly with several non-profit organizations that are also working to reclaim our democracy including American Promise, Our Revolution, Represent.Us, UU Mass Action and UU’s for a Just Economic Community.
For more information, email Fred Van Deusen at fredv...@gmail.com or visit our website: http://reclaimourdemocracy.org/. All are welcome to join our mailing list and attend our events.