We Can Train Your Members

Hundreds of Washington advocacy and caring organizations (such as our Washington Community Action Network (CAN), Sierra Club, Futurewise, Washington PTSA, United Steel Workers and Democratic Party) would benefit if your members become politically informed. This newsletter can inform them about our liberal values, historic struggles to realize them, political policies and strategies. They learn to find political information, interpret it and use it for political action. We can support you by training your members, without in any way competing for resources.

Most of your organizations have a website. Some have a regular newsletter. A few offer leadership training. These usually focus upon your particular concerns and activities. Most members remain politically unsophisticated. Recent conversations with several leaders suggest our newsletter can help your members become more effective.

Here’s the deal. You encourage your members to become subscribers to our newsletter. They will then receive our basic education and weekly training. We will provide your organization space to include your regularly updated information within our newsletter. We need no specific formal arrangement, so you can simply recommend that your members participate, without violating any non-partisan requirements.

Our service is free. We hope to work closely with you to improve our planning and training support services.

Liberals and Democrats

A Plea to Democrats

Sixteen months ago, we attempted to form a Lake Hills Democratic Club. When our Democratic party refused to cooperate, we established Lake Hills Liberals which reaches two thirds more members: 60% Democratic Liberals and 40% Independent Liberals, virtually all of whom vote for Democratic candidates. Cooperating with our Democratic Coordinating Committee, we canvassed 1200 households in our 12 precincts last summer to identify 1000 additional likely Democratic voters. We distributed candidate brochures to 1700 likely Democratic voters and gave their names and addresses to all of our candidates, resulting in 2-8% more votes for our Democratic candidates than occurred in the rest of the 48^th legislative district.

Our website and orientation materials concerning our values, history, political policies and strategies and this weekly newsletter with commentary concerning political events now go to over 1000 Puget Sound Liberals resulting in our name change. With limited resources ($1600 and several dozen volunteers), we provide training and communication beyond that which our Democratic Party provides to its members. We have always supported the Democratic Party while avoiding competing with it for influence or resources.

Yet we understand that at Democratic Party meetings, participants have expressed concern with our activities. It is time for this to cease. Until the Democratic Party trains and communicates with its members better than we are doing, they should embrace our support. Dozens of other advocacy and caring organizations (whose members are also benefiting from our services) should also encourage their members to join us to receive political training and weekly communication in support of their efforts. We will provide space within this newsletter to any organization which successfully encourages 100 members to join us. Let’s work together to realize our shared values. Through using our free support for you, you can greatly strengthen your members and your organization. Try it. You’ll like it.

Two-Way Communication is Better

When I visit websites of so-called grassroots organizations, such as the Democratic Party, labor Unions, environmental and other organizations, they typically encourage me to sign up to receive their reports and may offer answers to frequently asked questions. But they virtually never provide an email address to enable me to ask my particular question or make suggestions. When I receive emails from them and reply, I receive no response. Their communication is top down only. My enthusiasm for working with them rapidly diminishes without being able to participate except passively. These organizations could have a much stronger grassroots presence, if they empowered their participants through two-way communication.

Our Puget Sound Liberals provides email addresses for our members to communicate to us. We respond to their emails, benefit from their suggestions and often publish them. This is one of the many tactics which have enabled our success.

Polling Results

We received few responses to the questions we posed in last week’s newsletter. But several are resulting in dramatic changes in our newsletter and website. We have changed our opening page and fonts. We will likely soon distribute this newsletter as a .pdf file which will increase its accessibility and better preserve its appearance in our website archive. We also expect to greatly improve our website. Thanks to the NW Progressive Institute, we also expect to soon send our newsletter by separate emails to each of you instead of as blind copies. Andrew Villeneuve and Chad Lupkas, thanks for your help. We always welcome your suggestions.

Liberal Values and Conservative Insults

Liberals believe in freedom, including freedom of speech. But each of our freedoms must end where other people’s freedom begins. Another freedom is the freedom from abuse, including freedom from insult. As usual, it is difficult to precisely define boundaries between such differing freedoms. And our definitions change over time.

We have increasingly accepted the public use of profane language, regardless of the discomfort of listeners. Similarly, some of our rappers, comedians and conservative commentators have increasingly freely expressed serious insults concerning women, racial minorities, and political opponents. But public opinion has now reacted strongly against Don Imus’s insults against completely undeserving members of a women’s basketball team. Let’s hope that this negative reaction broadens to our other major insulters.

It is difficult to defend that the freedom to insult is as important as the freedom from insult. Especially if we don’t include the teasing that may occur among friends. And if we understand that insulting means accusing someone of something they didn’t do, not of something they did do. Calling a person a liar is only an insult if the person isn’t a liar.

Talking to People who Regard Liberals as Extremists and Ideologues

I have recently talked with one person who characterized Liberals as extremists and another who expressed that we need to avoid labels like liberals and conservatives and listen tolerantly to all points of view. Can’t we just all get along? With the first person, I asked what extremes? He indicated that liberals waste a lot of public money, especially helping people who don’t deserve and won’t benefit. I replied that Liberals believe in competence in both taking care of oneself and in spending public money. We agree that it doesn’t make sense to spend money that no one benefits from. Although as with any triage situation, it is often difficult to know who needs and will benefit from the help and who won’t.

After dealing with several such accusations, I reviewed our liberal values with him, asking which of these he disagreed with. When he indicated he agreed with our values, I suggested that maybe he is a liberal, who had been misled by those who don’t agree with our values and mischaracterize us.

With the woman who thought we should listen to conservatives, trying to understand their values. I agree that we should try to understand their values. But when we realize their values are intolerance, always relegating some of us to second class status, with fewer freedoms and opportunities than the rest of us, it is time to oppose them. If people had just listened to the English Tories, the Southern Slave Owners, and other conservatives, we would still be colonists, slavery would exist, women wouldn’t have the right to own property and vote, oppressive labor conditions and dangerous consumer goods would prevail, just to mention a few of the many abuses we liberals have curtailed against conservative opposition. Toleration makes sense between different uncertain strategies toward good ends. But not toward bad ends.

In both these cases, I think I made some progress in helping people toward becoming self conscious liberals. What are your strategies for dealing with those who denigrate liberals?

National and World

'Mushy middle' swing voters are few these days

Posted by Joshua Holland on Alternet, April 16, 2007.

Elected officials in the "middle" do not better represent America as a whole, because most of America is not in the middle. Rather than straddling the two major coalitions, the "mushy middle" is mainly just a bunch of low-information voters who form a minority of the electorate. This is an important notion to hammer home to Democrats for the 2008 elections, now that it is growingly increasingly clear that our coalition in larger than the Republican coalition. For two years now, independents have overwhelmingly looked like Democrats on virtually every single issue, and in every single state. Paul Krugman summed this up nicely in his column today:

There's no conflict between catering to the Democratic base and staking out positions that can win in the 2008 election, because the things the base wants -- an end to the Iraq war, a guarantee of health insurance for all -- are also things that the country as a whole supports. The only risk the party now faces is excessive caution on the part of its politicians. Or, to coin a phrase, the only thing Democrats have to fear is fear itself.

Right now, there is no real difference between pleasing the majority of American voters and pleasing the Democratic base. On a wide number of issues, but most notably on Iraq, a significant majority of America has moved to where the Democratic base has been for some time. For more.

Democratic and Republican Parties, Realigned

By Lawrence Goodwyn, The Nation. Posted April 14, 2007.

The Iraq disaster undermines the Republicans but will not in itself bring party realignment. Rather, the energizing momentum is economic -- and it is driven by abiding public anxiety here in America. Ahead in Washington are the sharpest kinds of party divisions over domestic policy. The signals are everywhere. The new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, began by mobilizing all 233 Democrats to co-sponsor the minimum-wage bill. On their first opportunity to decamp, eighty-two Republicans did so. The final tally -- an early harbinger of the realigned future – was 315 to 116.

After redistricting in response to the 2010 census, it does not seem out of line to envision something approaching a Democratic margin of 275 to 160. The path to these numbers travels through Social Security, the issue that, as Bush has already experienced, remains the third rail of American politics. Debate before the 2008 election should produce the first of many win-win options for the Democrats: Either enough GOP senators defect to protect themselves as well as Social Security, or they don't defect and boost their own vulnerability at the polls. Of forty-nine GOP-held Senate seats, twenty-one are up for grabs. For More.

Local and State

Evaluating our Democratically Dominated Legislative Session

As our legislature finishes this session, we can evaluate their success and failures. First we must decide our criteria. The following eight might be used when relevant information can be obtained.

· Realized their party platform. See King County Democrats Platform.

· Responded to public opinion, as expressed in public hearings or polls.

· Served public versus private interests.

· Served our most, middle or least advantaged.

· Overcame basic obstacles to providing needed services.

· Satisfied Constitutional and other legal requirements.

· Adopted best practices of other states and nations.

· Pioneered effective new practices.

We have asked various experts to submit evaluations which will be published in our next several newsletters. We will then also ask our legislators to submit their evaluations.

Misled

By Josh Feit, The Stranger, April 10, 2007

Democrats Have a Supermajority in Olympia. Progressive Legislation Is Being Killed. Who's Blocking the Democratic Agenda? Seattle's Frank Chopp, Speaker of the House.

The viaduct isn't the only issue where state Democrats let progressives down in 2007. Despite their 62–36 supermajority in the state house and 32–17 supermajority in the state senate, the list of disappointments is lengthy. The Democratic leadership has tabled or thwarted a number of no-brainer legislative items: a cap on payday-loan interest rates, a bill closing the gun-show loophole, a bill to keep tabs on corporate tax breaks by including those de facto expenditures in the budget, legislation preventing employers from holding "captive audience" anti-unionizing meetings, regulations requiring disclosure from pharmaceutical-industry lobbyists, an overall cap on CO2 emissions, tenant relocation assistance and a cap on condo conversions, legislation preventing strip-mining operations on Maury Island, protecting student free-speech rights, a homebuyers' protection bill, full funding for health-care workers in nursing homes, and a cool follow-up to the infamous $3.2 billion tax break Boeing got in 2003, making the money contingent on a requirement that the company doesn't engage in union busting. For more.

The Democratic Dictator?

By Josh Feit, The Stranger, April 14, 2007

Despite their heavy majority, the Democrats in Olympia, wary of scaring off mainstream voters by overreaching, have tabled a number of liberal legislative items this session: a cap on payday-loan interest rates, a bill closing the gun-show loophole, regulations requiring disclosure from pharmaceutical-industry lobbyists, a hard cap on CO2 emissions, a cap on condo conversions, a bill protecting student free-speech rights, and a comprehensive family leave bill.

It wasn't until last week, however, that Democratic caucus members rebelled and started grousing publicly. The final straw? House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43, Seattle) effectively overruled both a 30–19 Dem vote in the senate and a Democratic majority vote in the house judiciary committee by killing a Democratic bill that would have given homebuyers legal recourse against irresponsible homebuilders. The word among disgruntled Democrats: Chopp was kissing up to the most powerful and conservative lobbying group in Olympia, the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW). For More.

Democrats Try to Restrain Themselves

By Austin Jenkins, April 16, 2007

Frustrating for some, Speaker Frank Chopp's moderate agenda is designed to leave no one vulnerable when election time rolls around.

The legislative gods willing, Washington lawmakers will wrap-up the 2007 session next Sunday, April 22, if not before. It's a whirlwind of activity here in Olympia with bills flying off the floors and late-night sessions. Everyone's a bit punch-drunk. A perfect time to step back and take stock of Democratic one-party rule in Olympia.

Despite having control of both chambers and the governor's mansion, Democrats have been trying to show restraint. Republicans might not agree, but those in the liberal wing of the Democratic party can see it plainly in the leadership of House Speaker Frank Chopp of Seattle. He's been working to keep the party somewhat in check, to keep the agenda mainstream, in part to protect all the moderate swing-district Dems who got elected last year but also to keep the state safe for the 2008 reelection of Gov. Chris Gregoire, who barely won in 2004. For more.

The ‘90’s Are Over

By Stillwell, NW Progressive Institute Official Blog, April 16, 2007

Over at Crosscut, Austin Jenkins sizes up the performance of Democrats in the Legislature as the sessions nears its end. It's a decent round-up anlaysis piece, if rather conventional (which to be fair reflects the thinking of leadership:)

Dunshee says Chopp and other Democratic leaders are ever mindful of what happened in the early 1990s. That's when Democrats rose to power and enacted a sweeping agenda that included tax hikes. Voters responded by sending Democrats into oblivion in the 1994 election. (It didn't help that 1994 was a Republican year nationally.) Dunshee calls that bloodletting the "'94 Debacle." He says vulnerable Democrats back then were forced to take "god-awful" votes on the floor.

Not this time around. Divisive issues like gun control and whether Washington should have an income tax are topics-non-grata. Case in point: Look at what happened to Rep. Jim McIntyre, D-Seattle, a vocal supporter of an income tax. Before the session, McIntyre was stripped of his chairmanship of the House Finance Committee. A caucus spokesman maintains that was part of a larger committee reorganization.

Well, yeah. But who in their right mind thinks 2008 is going to even remotely resemble 1994? If anything it could turn into a complete disaster for the GOP, not us.

It's fine to be smart, but there is no magical "centrist" population. Why are we still playing this silly game where the "middle," as defined by the media or political spin masters, is an equal point between extremes? That's how the whole zeitgeist got shifted so far to the right in the first place. It's a sucker's game, 'cause the BIAW, EFFWA and the GOP are going to attack our candidates no matter what, often with outright lies. That's what they do.

Triangulation, as the Clintons called it, is dead as a political strategy. That's not an argument for extremism, it's an argument for pursuing legislation that will be in the best interest of the ordinary citizens of Washington state. Like, for example, modest consumer protections that would help people who buy defective houses. Leaky plumbing doesn't have a political identity.

None of this is to disparage the very good legislation that is coming out of the session, particularly when it comes to education and health care. It's a comment on how we look at politics. Sometimes, you need to think outside the bun.

New Bellevue Crime Maps

The Bellevue Police Department has initiated a very informative crime mapping website, which shows the location and brief description of reported incidents. You can view the crime distribution throughout Bellevue or easily zoom in on your neighborhood and get brief descriptions of incidents near you home. You can understand why our police are so busy, due to the number of misbehaviors in even apparently tranquil neighborhoods. You will also notice that areas where recent immigrants live do not have higher incident rates than others.

The information is recorded automatically from 911 calls. Perhaps this best practice could be copied by other cities and counties. Thanks to detective Michael Chiu for his part in promoting this service and informing us of it.

Recommended Books

Newt Gingrich orchestrated the 1994 Republican achievement of congressional control. Joe Scarborough and Patrick Buchanan tell us how the new conservatives betrayed Gingrich’s traditional Republican principles. Buchanan, Lou Dobbs and Ross Perot are our leading nationalists, valuing our United States prosperity and power far more than that of the rest of our world. However they have little concern for the poor within our country and oppose our newest immigrants. Lee Iacocco is not primarily political, but similarly critical of our present administration.

Newt Gingrich, To Renew America

Joe Scarborough, 2004, Rome Wasn’t Burnt in a Day

Patrick Buchanan, 2004, Where the Right Went Wrong, How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency

Lee Iacocco, 2007, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Lake Hills Liberals Newsletter

Lake Hills in Bellevue, Our City Where Neighbors Care for Each Other

Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in Lake Hills and Beyond

Bring Our Troops Home

During this past 5 weeks, some of us have been vigiling for peace, including members of Lake Hills Liberals, MoveOn, Eastside Reconciliation for Peace and Eastside Liberals for John Edwards. Several times a week, 2 to 4 of us hold signs at a 4-way stoplight one mile south of the main Microsoft campus. On a stake, each 12" x 17" sign says `Bring Our Troops Home Alive'. Below signs carried by his supporters is a 4" x 12" sign which says `John Edwards'.

We stand there from 4:30 to 5:30 PM. About 500 cars pass by slowly as they wait their turn at the intersection. About one out of five indicate their approval by waving, thumbs up, flashing their lights or honking, About the same proportion are talking on cell phones. Contact Dave Thomas (davthom@att.net) or 425-746-4572) to make arrangements to join us.

Events Calendar

· Every Thursday 7-8:30 PM in Crossroads Mall near the large chess board at table with red checkerboard patterned tablecloth – Conversation Café –. Participants (mostly Lake Hills Liberals) use a discussion format with each participant addressing an issue in turn with listeners respecting what they say. A great way to learn different understandings and opinions, while presenting and modifying your own.

· Every first Wednesday at 7 PM at Redmond Community Center (16600 NE 80th Street, Redmond) – 45^th District Democrats monthly meeting

· Every third Tuesday at 7:00 at Lake Hills Clubhouse next to Lake Hills Library – Lake Hills Neighborhood Association

· Every third Wednesday at 7 PM at Stevenson Elementary School (14220 NE 8th Street in Bellevue) – 48^th District Democrats monthly meeting

· Every third Wednesday at 7 PM at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church (4228 Factoria Boulevard SE, Bellevue) - 41^st District Democrats monthly meeting

· Every third Thusday at 7 PM at Angelos Restaurant (818230 – 130^th Avenue NE, Bellevue) – Drinking Liberally

· Every fourth Friday at 6:30 PM at Ann Rolio’s home (16109 SE 5^th Street) – Lake Hills Liberals Salon, including gourmet buffet and political presentation and discussion. RSVP to davthom@att.net.

Activities and Services

Our Neighborhood Enhancement Interests and Activities include: block parties; welcoming new neighbors; cooperation among home owners and apartment tenants; environmental enhancement (recycling exchange), crime prevention, disaster response, school and youth services, military concerns, family financial security, and elder support task groups; and free advertisements for members.

Our Political Actions include: displaying yard signs and bumper stickers, letters-to-editors and government officials, campaign support for liberal candidates, canvassing to identify liberal voters and stimulate them to vote, and encouraging formation of liberal groups in other neighborhoods. Our newsletter stimulates networking of liberals thr