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May 4, 2007
Calendar
of Events Saturday,
May 5 - all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing
companies. You may then receive and be charged for sales calls. Call
888-382-1222 from your cell phone to place it on a national ‘no call’ list
for five years. Tuesday,
May 15 at 8 PM at . Saturday May 12th - Burien Library, 2-4:30
PM Friday,
May 25 at 6:30 PM at Quote of the Week “There are two things
that are important in politics. The
first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Mark Hanna, 19th century
political boss Table
of Contents *** featured
articles Free Notices for Candidates and Advocacy Groups Liberals and Democrats A Scary Fable: Big Red Republicans Return *** Democrats Fail to Mobilize Grass Roots *** Ronna Weltman’s Warning to be Cautious Nation and World Reagan Initiated Massive Assault on Liberal Progress John Roberts’ Activist Supreme Court *** Will Data Mining Reveal Bush’s Subversion? Washington DC Press Reacts to Bill Moyers’ Expose Dave
Broder Attacked for Attacking Harry Reid DLC
Recommended Budget to Reduce Bush Deficits The Many Facets of Poverty *** Under-Investment for Productivity *** Global Unions Needed to Counter Global Businesses Immigration
Raids Tear Families Apart State and Local Democratic Legislative Leaders Avoid Over-Reaching Seattle
Port Commissioner Alec Fisken Reports *** Our Liberal Spirit Barack Obama responds to Reinhold Niebuhr *** Vigiling to Bring Our
Troops Home Alive
Sunday May 13th - Bellingham
Educational Credit Union, 3:30-6 PM
Saturday May 19th - Mercer Island
Library, 2-4:30 PM
Sunday May 20 - Lacey Library near
Olympia, 2-4:30
Pre-registration required,
including which training
Our
Political Priorities · Fair Elections and Open Government · Fair Taxes and Competent Spending · Investment for Productivity · Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income and Retirement
· Environmental Protection and Energy · Personal Security and Equal Rights · International Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these. Recommendations ·
Darcy Burner for ·
Alec
Fisken for ·
Holly Plackett for ·
Brian Conlin for ·
Keri Andrews for ·
Dana Stober for WOW!
Unbelievable! View at
least 5 minutes
Free Notices for Advocacy Groups and Candidates
In
this section, we will provide a page containing continuing free notices for any
advocacy group or candidate who stimulates 50-100 liberals to join our
Do You Want an Email list for
Communicating with Other Members
An
email list will let you ask questions, express information and opinions in an
email which goes to all other members, each of whom can reply to create a
conversation. An email list is similar
to a blog, but private instead of public.
Now you can only send a communication to me to publish, which people can
only respond to a week later.
I
have easily used Topica to create a half dozen email lists for members of
various groups to privately communicate with each other. Topica has advertisements, but they are not
nearly as obtrusive as Google’s email lists.
I wouldn’t use Riseup because their radical views are inconsistent with
our liberal ones.
All
communications would be unmonitored, except I would warn and then reject
members who personally attack others. I
have warned several people, but never rejected anyone from my other email
lists. Members would only be identified
when they send messages. Let me know if you would join such an
opt-in list. I can create it next
week if demand exists for you to converse with each other.
Liberals and
Democrats
A Scary Fable: Big Red Republicans
Return
It
is now 2010. The Democrats are in power
nationally and at state and local levels.
But all is not going well.
Arabian
states have ceased exporting oil to the
As
happened earlier with the New Republicans, Democrats succumb to campaign
contributors. With severe resistance
from private health insurers and pharmaceuticals, Democrats fail to pass
legislation to provide universal health coverage. With falling revenues and increased welfare
costs, Democrats can’t pass legislation to significantly reduce our families’
financial vulnerability, nor balance our budget. The hopes of millions of voters remain
unfulfilled.
Traditional
Republicans like Richard Nixon and Dan Evans regain control of the Republican
Party. They continue to rail against big
government, but promote compassion at state and local levels. Giving less attention to the religious right
and to libertarians, they build a strong support network among small business
entrepreneurs whom Democrats have long neglected. They show more support for immigrants and
ethnic minorities. They support many
conservation measures, even energy independence and reduction of climate
warming emissions. They become more
somewhat more liberal, but still strongly oppose major legislation to provide
access to quality healthcare, education, jobs, income and retirement. They also oppose regulation of businesses to
protect workers, suppliers, consumers, and our general public.
The
Conservative political infrastructure remains intact and improves, especially
through applying Karl Rove’s strategies and tactics for grass roots
mobilization. Democrats continue to fail
to identify and mobilize their grass roots supporters. Our most enthusiastic Democrats prefer to use
blogs to converse with each other.
Republicans remain in control of southern states which are gaining
congressional seats and Electoral College votes as our 2010 census certifies
population increases there. Through
gerrymandering, they will be able to gain still more seats. They are posed to greatly weaken Democratic
political control in 1012.
I
don’t believe that all of these events will occur. But each of them could. It’s scary. More important, what should Democrats do to
ensure they don’t happen? Above all, we
must mobilize our grass roots.
Democrats Fail to Mobilize
Grass Roots
Our
Washington State Democratic Party Chair said that “Caucuses are a test of your
ability to organize a grass roots campaign.”
If so, we flunk. Only a minority
of precincts have any members show up for caucuses. For the rest, so few show up that most who
show up can become delegates to county caucuses.
Participants
produce platforms, but most candidates ignore them and no attempt is made to
evaluate the extent to which Democratic legislators realize these platforms. Our 46th LD Platform/Resolutions Chair Dean
Fournier and Sarajane Siegfriedt have expressed concern that our 2007 schedule
provides for legislative district caucuses on April 5th and county
caucuses one week later on April 12th, not leaving enough time for
county platforms to be created based on legislative district platforms. Another instance of weak bottom-up
communication.
Another
test of our ability to organize at the grassroots level is the ability to
recruit Precinct Committee Officers (PCO’s).
Again we flunk. Only a minority
of precincts have PCO’s, most receive no training and many fail to canvass
their precincts, leaving most likely Democratic voters unidentified.
A
third test of our ability to organize at the grassroots level is the extent to
which we have identified likely Democratic voters, regularly contact them to
inform them about our party, encourage their involvement, and stimulate them to
vote. Again we fail. Most likely Democratic voters have not been
identified. Those which have been
identified receive no communication from the party, except for a minority who
are canvassed (usually by candidates’ campaigns) prior to an election.
It
is time for Democrats to get serious about grass roots mobilization. Our Lake Hills Liberals demonstrates at least
some possibilities, particularly with respect to the third test. Other possibilities have previously been
discussed in our newsletter.
Join Our
Tory Party
Queen Elizabeth is visiting us. I
have recently joined our Tory Party.
When we obtain control over our government, we will immediately send a
mission to her majesty. We will admit
that taxation with representation isn’t any better than the other kind. That we aren’t capable of governing
ourselves. We will ask to be taken back
as a colony. Unfortunately, she will
probably throw up her hands in horror and inform us that the British are no
longer in the colony business.
Letter from Member Ronna Weltman
Hi Dave, in your suggestion
to Darcy Burner, you suggest opponents aren't likely to see information in an
online newsletter, and that's highly unlikely. If her opponents have any degree
of sophistication, they will subscribe or have a staffer/volunteer subscribe to
Democratic/liberal sites to keep an eye on what she's doing and
saying. It's a good idea to remind your readers that if they wouldn't want
to read something they wrote on the cover of the New York Times, then they
shouldn't post it on the Internet.
I googled '"
I agree with Ronna that
Conservatives can see our newsletters on our website and may even find a way to
join our group to receive our newsletters.
So Ronna is right that we should be careful. Secret campaign plans shouldn’t be reported
here. The public media might report on
some of our contents, but it is more difficult for them to report on private
communications than to report on public ones.
In addition, they have larger fish to fry. I hope the Republicans also have bigger fish
to fry than worrying about threats posed by us.
I hope we can be careful without being paranoid.
Reagan Initiated Massive Assault on
Liberal Progress
Reagan's election changed the political reality. His agenda was
rolling back the welfare state, and his budgets included a wide range of cuts
for social programs. He was also very strategic about the process. One of his
first targets was Legal Aid. This program, which provides legal services for
low-income people, was staffed largely by progressive lawyers, many of whom
used it as a base to win precedent-setting legal disputes against the
government. Reagan drastically cut back the program's funding. He also
explicitly prohibited the agency from taking on class-action suits against the
government -- law suits that had been used with considerable success to expand the
rights of low- and moderate-income families.
The Reagan administration also made weakening the power of unions a top priority. The people he appointed to the National Labor Relations Board were qualitatively more pro-management than appointees by prior Democratic or Republican presidents. This allowed companies to ignore workers' rights with impunity. Reagan also made the firing of strikers an acceptable business practice when he fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Many large corporations quickly embraced the practice. Also, his high dollar policy in the mid-'80s was a severe blow to manufacturing unions, who suddenly had to compete against low-cost imports that were essentially subsidized by an overvalued dollar. The above was adapted from Dean Baker's new book, The United States since 1980 .