5/16/2009 - Lecture: "Understanding Worldview Paradigms" by Daniel Sheehan

Lecture: Understanding Worldview Paradigms-
An Analysis of the Current Leadership
As Humanity Approaches 2012

Two Special Presentations with Renowned
Social Justice Attorney Daniel Sheehan

COMPLETE 6-HOUR DVD & AUDIO CD SETS
AVAILIBLE AT RVML AND AMAZON.COM

Lecture: Saturday, May 16 - 7:00-9:00pm
Location: First Methodist Church- Wesley Hall, 175 N Main St, Ashland
Tickets: $5-20 Suggested Donation at the Door, Students Free

Question & Answer In-Depth Workshop: Sunday, May 17 - 4:00-8:00pm
Location: RVML - 258 A Street, Ashland - Suite 7 UPSTAIRS
Tickets: $25 at the Door. Workshop is Limited to 50 Participants.

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Saturday Lecture Description:

RVML presents a rare opportunity to spend two evenings with Daniel Sheehan to discuss his New Paradigm Evaluation of The First Hundred Days of the current administration. Mr. Sheehan will present his critique of the principles, policies and programs that the current political leadership is implementing, and the current "crisis" which he sees befalling us between now and the year 2012.

We are living in an extraordinary time in history with enormous challenges and unprecedented opportunities. Within this context, Daniel Sheehan offers his analysis of the present social, political, and spiritual state of consciousness, or "Worldview", of current American and World Leaders. Mr. Sheehan will explain what beliefs make an internally-consistent "Worldview" - which include a "New Paradigm Worldview", an "Old Paradigm Worldview", a "Conservative Worldview", a "Liberal Worldview", and the various other worldviews in between. The beliefs include:

· The "Cosmology" of that Worldview- beliefs about how our Physical Universe came into physical being and pursuant to what specific physical "Universal Laws" it is unfolding.

· The "Teleology" of that Worldview- the beliefs about whether and in what manner, our physical Universe is "unfolding" pursuant to any "Purpose" or specific "Objective".

· The "Ontological Belief" of that Worldview- beliefs about how consciousness, especially Human consciousness, came into being (out of the apparently NON-conscious physical elements of matter in the Universe).

· The "Epistemological" Belief of that Worldview- the belief s about what means or "senses" are at the disposal of Human Beings, by means of which we access "objective reality".

Mr. Sheehan will explain that an "internally-self-referentially-consistent" set of answers to these four "cosmic questions" will reveal a very specific set of principles. People adherent to those principles will consequently adopt a very specific "Mode of Ethical Reasoning"

From a "New Paradigm Worldview Perspective", Mr. Sheehan will analyze the current administration's ability to stave off, or to at least minimize the potentially catastrophic consequences of the coming 2012 "crisis."

Format: 90 minute lecture followed by audience Q&A.

Presenter's Biography (Condensed):

Daniel Sheehan is a Harvard-educated constitutional lawyer and social ethics scholar involved with many significant and high-profile civil rights and social justice cases during the last 20 years. Mr. Sheehan's long and impressive resume includes work on important issues such as women's rights, nuclear industry regulation, Native Peoples rights, education, and government accountability. Mr. Sheehan has a long and distinguished history as chief counsel in milestone cases such as the Nixon Pentagon Papers, The Iran-Contra Affair, Karen Silkwood and the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster. He is the 20-year President and Chief Counsel of the Washington, D.C.-based Christic Institute and served as the Director of The Strategic Initiative to Identify The New Paradigm project of the Gorbachev Institute's State Of The World Forum. He is currently the President of the New Paradigm Institute and Director of the Lakota Peoples' law project.

Daniel Sheehan has served as Chief Counsel in the following trials:

Karen Silkwood v. The Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation (winning a $10.5 million judgment for the Estate of Karen Silkwood and a Federal Court Order declaring unconstitutional the federal financial "cap" imposed upon private civil tort recoveries for contamination damages caused by private nuclear facilities - thus ending the construction of all new private nuclear facilities in the United States);

The Three-Mile Island Litigation in Pennsylvania (winning a Federal Court Order stopping the release of radioactive effluents from the damaged Three-Mile Island Nuclear Facility into the Susquehanna River which had been already authorized by the Federal Atomic Energy Commission);

The American Sanctuary Movement Case (winning a Federal Court Order declaring unconstitutional the secret Reagan/Bush Administration executive order banning the granting of Political Asylum Status to political refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala);

The Greensboro Civil Rights Case against the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party (winning a federal civil judgment against the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party and the Greensboro Police Department under the Federal Civil Rights Act after the acquittal of 12 members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party for First Degree Murder of public anti-Klan demonstrators by an all-white North Carolina state jury);

Chief Counsel on The Iran/Contra Civil Case (forcing the appointment of Iran/Contra Special Counsel Lawrence Walsh - but failing to obtain any civil judgment against the Iran/Contra conspirators.

Jeness v. The New York State Board of Elections (winning the right of Ms. Linda Jeness to have her name printed on the New York State Election Ballot as a candidate for the United States Senate for the Socialist Party of America).

Mr. Sheehan also served as Chief Defense Counsel for such Peace Activists as: Father Mr. Sheehan Berrigan; Father Phillip Berrigan; Dick Gregory; Dr. Benjamin Spock and Southern Christian Leadership Council President David Abernathy, among others.

RESUME OF ATTORNEY DANIEL P. SHEEHAN (1967-2002)

Mr. Sheehan Sheehan is a 1967 Honors Graduate of Harvard College.

Mr. Sheehan took his Bachelor's Degree at Harvard College in the fields of American Government Studies and United States Foreign Policy.

Mr. Sheehan wrote his Harvard Undergraduate Honors Thesis in the field of American Constitutional Law, predicting, in light of the history of the origins of Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the 1970 United States Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. State of Arizona (mandating "warnings" as to one's constitutional rights upon one's criminal arrest). Mr. Sheehan's Undergraduate Thesis Advisors were Professors Paul Freund and Arthur Sutherland of The Harvard Law School.

Mr. Sheehan was Harvard College's Nominee for the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University from New York State in 1967.

Mr. Sheehan was the Co-Founder, with Father Arthur Brown, of Roxbury Summer, a Project of Catholic Cardinal Cushing of The Boston Archdiocese in 1965;

Mr. Sheehan is a 1970 graduate of Harvard School of Law.

Mr. Sheehan took his Juris Doctor Degree at Harvard Law School in the field of American Constitutional Law and International Law studying Constitutional Law under Lawrence Tribe; International Law under Louis Sohn; Jurisprudence under Lon Fuller; Property Law under W. Barton Leach; Anti-Trust Law under David Turner; Criminal Law under Charles Nessen; Public Policy under Adam Yarmolinski (Robert Kennedy's prospective Secretary of Defense) and International Policy under Abe Chayes (Robert Kennedy's prospective Secretary of State.)

At Harvard Law School, Mr. Sheehan served as Editor of
The Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review and wrote notes and articles on such cases as Shuttlesworth v. The City of Birmingham and other cases exploring "The Sources of Constitutional Authority" under the American system of law.

At Harvard Law School, Mr. Sheehan served as the Chief Research Assistant to Professor Jerome Cohen, the Chairman of the Department of International Law, in the preparation of Professor Cohen's book on The Illegality of The American War in Viet Nam.

Mr. Sheehan served under Prof. Milton Katz (then the President of the Association of International Jurists) as the Director of The Nigerian-Biafran Relief Commission which airlifted emergency food supplies into Nigeria in 1968.

Mr. Sheehan was selected by Professor Abe Chayes to serve as one of Professor's five Point Briefers to the United States Senate on The Cooper-Church Amendment which was authored by Professor Chayes to terminate all U.S. Congressional funding for the War in Vietnam.

While still a law student at Harvard, Mr. Sheehan initiated, filed and personally litigated the cases of Eisenstadt v. Baird (winning the declaration of unconstitutionality against the Massachusetts State Anti-Birth Control Law for the Massachusetts Planned Parenthood League before the 1^st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston - this decision being cited in the United States Supreme Court Case of Roe v. Wade as the source of the reasoning used in that case recognizing the constitutional limitations on the power of secular government to criminalize the choice of a woman and her doctor to terminate that woman's pregnancy) and
In re: Pappas (asserting, for the first time in American jurisprudence, the First Amendment Right of Professional News Journalists to Protect The Identity of Confidential News Sources Against Compelled Government Disclosure before the Massachusetts State Supreme Court - winning the issuance of a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Supreme Court on this issue.)

Upon graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Sheehan was retained as Associate First Amendment Counsel at the Wall Street law firm of First Amendment Attorney Floyd Abrams (Cahill, Gordon, Sonnett, Reindle & Ohl, Chief Litigation Counsel to NBC News and the #1 litigation law firm in America).

As Associate First Amendment Counsel at Cahill-Gordon under Floyd Abrams, Mr. Sheehan briefed the case, before the United States Supreme Court, of In re: Pappas (which Mr. Sheehan had originated) and participated as a major member of the drafting team of the Amicus Curiae briefs to the United States Supreme Court for The New York Times in the companion cases of Caldwell v. United States and In re: The Kentucky Currier-Journal (asserting, before the United States Supreme Court, the First Amendment Right of Professional Journalists to Protect The Identity of Confidential News Sources Against Compelled Government Disclosure.) In that case, Mr. Sheehan served as Associate Counsel before the United States Supreme Court with Floyd Abrams and Yale Law School Constitutional Law Professor Alexander Bickel.

At the Cahill-Gordon firm, Mr. Sheehan served as Co-Counsel,
before the United States Supreme Court, with New York Times General Counsel James Goodall, Floyd Abrams and Professor Bickle, to The New York Times in "The Pentagon Papers Case" (United States v. The New York Times) against the Richard Nixon Administration (winning the right of The New York Times to publish the 47 volumes of the classified Pentagon Study revealing the secret history of the Viet Nam War.)

Attorney Sheehan served as Counsel for The New York Times in The Jewish Defense League v. The New York Times against Attorney Roy Cohen (successfully defending the First Amendment Right of The Times to refuse to publish a paid political advertisement submitted to The Times by the Jewish Defense League Director Rabbi Meir Kahani condemning New York Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor Leonard Bernstein for contributing to The Black Panther Legal Defense Fund.)

Mr. Sheehan then served as pro bono Associate Trial Counsel to The Black Panther Defendants in State v. Bird ("The Panther 21 Bombing Conspiracy Trial" in New York City) assisting Attorneys Gerald Leftcourt, Robert Bloom and Fred Cohen in obtaining a 15-minute jury acquittal, on all 115 state criminal charges filed against the top 21 leaders of the New York State Black Panther Party after an 18-week criminal trial.

Attorney Sheehan served as Trial Counsel in the case of Cortrite v.Resor (successfully defending the First Amendment Right of enlisted United States Army personnel to publish a political ad in The New York Times protesting the Viet Nam War -without being disciplined by the United States Army - specifically being shipped to front line combat units in Viet Nam.)

Attorney Sheehan served as the Assistant New York State Campaign Director for the National Democratic Party in the 1972 Presidential Campaign of Senator George McGovern under Pierre Salinger and Robert Wagner and also served under Ann Wexler, Gary Hart and Frank Mankiewicz as the New York State Director of Voter Registration for the National Democratic Party in New York State in 1972.

Mr. Sheehan served as Legal Counsel to the Attica Prison Inmates in the Federal Civil Action before Judge Curtain of the Western District of New York to place attorneys inside Attica Prison on the day before the Attica Prison killings, was present at Attica State Prison on the night the hostages were killed and then served as Chief Counsel in the case which reversed the official New York State Coroner's Report falsely certifying the deaths of all 41 Attica Prison hostages as having been caused by having had their throats cut by inmates - whereas each had, in fact, been killed by gunfire from New York State Police while retaking the prison.

Mr. Sheehan was appointed by New York City Republican Mayor John Lindsey as the pro bono attorney for the inmates at the Manhattan House of Correction for Men ("The Tombs") in New York City.

Mr. Sheehan served under William vanden Heuvel as Special Counsel to The Rockefeller Commission which oversaw the work of The Knapp Commission Investigation of the New York City Police Department (which conducted the Hearings into New York City Police Department Corruption featuring the testimony of Frank Serpico.)

Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Counsel to the United States Native American Rights Committee of the National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union and as Amicus Curiae Counsel to the American Indian Movement at The Wounded Knee Trials in South Dakota.

Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Trial Counsel to the National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union for the Ten Rocky Mountain States, serving as Trial Counsel in such cases as:

In re: "The Last Tango in Paris" (successfully defending United Artists' "Last Tango in Paris" against state criminal obscenity charges in the State of Idaho);

University of Wyoming Student Body v. University of Wyoming (successfully defending the First Amendment Right of the University of Wyoming Student Body To Select Motion Pictures for Student Events Free From Faculty Censorship);

In re: Dr. Rufus Lyman (successfully representing the Chairman of the Life Sciences Department of the University of Idaho in a Federal Civil Rights Act action for reinstatement of tenure after being dismissed for "insubordination" for speaking out publicly against the institution of an ad hoc committee to investigate public opponents of the President of Idaho State University);

In re: Starr (successfully defending 12 University of Colorado students against federal criminal charges filed by the United States Attorney in Nebraska under The Rap Brown Act [Interstate Travel To Aid & Abet a Civil Disturbance] for attempting to attend the funeral of a member of the American Indian Movement killed by F.B.I. officials at Wounded Knee);

In re: Slaughterhouse Five (successfully representing, in a Federal Civil Rights Act action, a North Dakota senior high school English teacher in his demand for reinstatement to his public high school teaching post after being dismissed for assigning Slaughterhouse Five to his Senior English Class; and

Mr. Sheehan was the principle author of the Legal Briefs filed before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the National American Civil Liberties Union in Mancari v. Morton (successfully asserting the right of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to engage in racially-preferential hiring of Native Americans.)

Mr. Sheehan then served as Trial Counsel in the Boston law firm of Bailey & Alch (the law firm of Attorney F. Lee Bailey). There, Mr. Sheehan successfully participated in defending Attorney F. Lee Bailey against federal criminal charges in the case of United States v. Glenn W. Turner & F. Lee Bailey in Florida and served as Special Counsel in the case of United States v. McCord et.al ("The Watergate Burglary Case") before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Attorney Sheehan then returned to Harvard University to undertake his studies for his Masters Degree and then his Ph.D. Degree in Judeo-Christian Social Ethics and Comparative Social Ethics at The Harvard Divinity School.

However, before completing his Ph.D. Thesis in Comparative Social Ethics, Mr. Sheehan was asked to become Chief Counsel to The United States Jesuit Headquarters' National Office of Social Ministry in Washington, D.C. and became a Candidate for the Jesuit Priesthood.

Mr. Sheehan served for ten years as Chief Counsel to the United States Jesuit Headquarters' National Office of Social Ministry in Washington, D.C. from 1975 to 1985. There he directed the formulation of, and drafted, the national and international public policy positions of the United States Jesuit Order of the American Catholic Church on behalf of the ten Jesuit Provincials of the United States.

While in Washington, D.C., Mr. Sheehan also served as:

Chairman of the National Inter-Religious Committee on Civil Rights & Civil Liberties and also as The Chairman of the National Inter-Religious Committee on Criminal Justice; and as

The National Chairman of The Fund For Constitutional Rights;

Attorney Sheehan has been the Presenter of Advanced Seminars in Constitutional Law and American Politics at Harvard University; at Yale Law School and at Notre Dame School of Law.

He has taught Constitutional Law at Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C.; and Constitutional History and Legal Studies, at the undergraduate level, at the University of California at Santa Barbara as The Caesar Chavez Visiting Professor in 1993 and 1994.

Mr. Sheehan served as First Amendment Legal Counsel for Dr. John Mack, the Founder and Chairman of the Department of Clinical Psychology at Harvard Medical School, before the Harvard Faculty Committee in 1994 when Dr. Mack was called before the Harvard Faculty Committee to defend his publication of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. Since then, Mr. Sheehan has been featured as the keynote speaker at the International Convention of the Mutual UFO Network and the International UFO Congress.

Mr. Sheehan served as General Counsel to The Disclosure Project in 2001, which has presented the sworn testimony to members of the United States Congress of two-dozen former high-ranking United States Military Officers and top-level Federal Employees of the Federal Aviation Agency and NASA attesting to their direct personal knowledge of the conscious cover up and concealment by United States Government agencies of information relating to the UFO issue and the potential existence of Extra-terrestrial Intelligence.

Mr. Sheehan also serves as General Counsel to the Institute for Cooperation in Space, a U.S. citizens group dedicated to the banning of all weapons from space and dedicated to the banning of the development of any and all potentially offensive weapons to be used against any potential extra-terrestrial civilization.

Mr. Sheehan was the Director of The Strategic Initiative To Identify The New Paradigm of President Mikhail Gorbachev's State of The World Forum in San Francisco.

Mr. Sheehan is the Co-Founder and President of The Cambridge Institute for The Study of Alternative Worldviews at Harvard University and is the Director of The Institute's "New Paradigm Project."

Mr. Sheehan is an active Member of the Bars of the State of New York and of the District of Columbia and is an active Member of the Federal Bars of the Southern District of New York and the District of Columbia.

Mr. Sheehan has been admitted pro hac vicae to the Bars of seventeen states in which Mr. Sheehan has conducted trials. These states include: Pennsylvania; Georgia; Ohio; North Carolina; Nebraska; Florida; Idaho; Colorado; Wyoming; Oklahoma; North Dakota; South Dakota; Virginia; Texas; Mississippi and California.

Mr. Sheehan lives in Santa Cruz, California with his two sons, Danny-Paul and Daegan, who are undergraduate students at Harvard College and The University of California at Santa Cruz respectively and his adopted son Christopher. Mr. Sheehan's wife of 25 years, Sara M. Nelson, is the former National Labor Secretary of the National Organization for Women in Washington, D.C.; the former National Executive Director of The Christic Institute in Washington, D.C.; the former National Executive Director of Mikhail Gorbachev's "State of The World Forum" at The Presidio in San Francisco, California; and presently the Co-Director and Vice President of The Cambridge Institute for the Study of Alternative Worldviews in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Website: http://www.newparadigminstitute.org

COMPLETE 6-HOUR DVD & AUDIO CD SETS
AVAILIBLE AT RVML AND AMAZON.COM

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