Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #70

Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in Puget Sound and Beyond

 Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.

Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed Puget Sound Liberals working together.

 

May 18, 2007

Calendar of Events

Washington Public Campaigns Speaker Training $5

  Saturday May 19 - Mercer Island Library, 2-4:30 PM
  Sunday May 20 - Lacey Library near Olympia, 2-4:30
Pre-registration required, including which training

 

Friday, May 25 at 6:30 PM at Ann Rolio’s home (16109 SE 5th Street) – Lake Hills Liberals Salon, including an Egyptian gourmet buffet, followed by a presentation and discussion about Blogging by Andrew Villeneuve.  RSVP to davthom@att.net.

 

Friday, June 1 at 5:30 PM at Qwest Field Event Center’s WaMu Theatre (800 Occidental Avenue South, Seattle) – Welcome Barack Obama. $25 and up paid in advance.  For more information.

 

Saturday, June 2 at 7 PM at Traditions Fair Trade Café (300 – 5th Avenue NW, Olympia – 4 episodes of  the Reclaiming Democracy Show, including interviews with Antonia Juhasz, John Perkins,  Bruce Gagnon and David Korten, followed by discussion.  For more information: JacquiAFD@comcast.net. 

 

Thursday, June 14 at 6:30 – 8:30 every other week for 10 sessions at Traditions Café (300 – 5th Avenue SW, Olympia – Study group concerning Challenging Corporate Power and Asserting People’s Rights.  Sponsored by Alliance for Democracy. For more information and to register. To download study packets.

 

Quote of the Week

You ain’t seen nothing yet.  Ronald Reagan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents  *** featured articles

 

Puget Sound Liberals

About Puget Sound Liberals

 

Liberals and Democrats

Democratic Political Strategies

Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy ***

They Don’t Know How to Mobilize Grassroots ***

Liberal-Conservative Ratings of WA Congresspersons

Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy?

McCain Campaign Attacks Planned Parenthood

 

Nation and World

The Global Class War ***

The Decline of American Influence Abroad ***

The Surge is Failing

First Iraq, then Iran?

Oil Independence or Bust?

Who Would You Hire to Harm Our United States? ***

Conservatism Has Failed

Thrust

 

State and Local –

Shay Schual-Berke – Legislative Accomplishments ***

Are there no penalties for legislator corruption? ***

Eastside Reporter Papers Are Super Conservative

 

Our Liberal Spirit

Did My Past Bring Me Here?

 

Lake Hills Liberals

Vigiling to Bring Our Troops Home Alive

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 Independence

·  Personal Security and Equal Rights

·  International Cooperation and Leadership

 

Conservatives oppose all of these.

Recommendations

 

·       Darcy Burner for U.S. Congress, 8th District

·       Alec Fisken for Seattle Port Commission

·       Both Gael Tarleton and Jack Block, Jr. for Port

     Commission against their incumbent opponent

·       Dana Stober for Kent City Council, Position 3.

·       Keri Andrews for Bellevue City Council

·       Brian Conlin for Redmond City Council

·       Support Our Grocery Workers

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Correction of Error in last week’s newsletter: Our Defense Secretary is Robert (not Bill) Gates. Thanks to Karen Willard for noticing.

 

Creating Priorities for Precinct Canvassing

Using 2004 and 2006 election precinct votes data, I want to create get-out-the-vote quotas for each precinct in the 48th legislative district, compare them with the number of identified likely Democratic voters (A’s and B’s on the Democratic Party walking lists) and establish canvassing priorities among precincts.  Hopefully these will help cooperative Democratic PCO and candidate canvassing efforts in the 48th LD and create a model to be replicated in other LD’s.  Please join with me to analyze the data and make decisions, particularly if you have experience with MS Excel or MS Access.  Dave Thomas

 

Advocacy Groups and Candidates

 

Sample Organization or Candidate Notice

Available free to any organization or candidate who stimulate many of their members to become politically informed through joining our Puget Sound Liberals.  Published each week until updated.  For example:

 

Do Good Organization or Candidate:  Our vision is doing good.  To realize our vision, our mission is helping all.  Our major programs are increasing awareness, organizing and acting.   Present activities include protesting evil, proclaiming good and helping people.  We invite you to the following events: Leader Dunking Fundraiser, Planning session.  Picketing.  For more information and to join us, visit our website: www.DoMuchGood.org.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Liberals and Democrats

 

Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy

I strongly support Howard Dean’s permanent 50-state strategy.  Unfortunately only an abstract of Elaine C. Kamarck’s research paper, Assessing Howard Dean’s Fifty State Strategy and the 2006 Midterm Elections is available online.  Its summary states:

 

It is not surprising to find out that organizing matters and so does money. But to place this debate in the context of modern political history it is useful to note that for many years now, the national Democratic Party has lagged behind the national Republican Party when it came to the technology of elections. A large part of Governor Howard Dean’s attractiveness to the state and local party people who elected him was the hope that he would revitalize parties. As Chairman he has had to pick his battles inside the Beltway with care, knowing that he was in hostile

territory from the beginning. But the strong increase in Democratic performance in Dean’s targeted districts should settle the debate for the time being. Senator Harry Reid, the new majority leader had to admit “I didn’t support his running for chair of the DNC… I was wrong. He was right. I support his grassroots Democratic Party-building.”6

 

See what Howard Dean and his supporters say:  One, Two, Three,  Four and Five.  See what his opponents say:  One and Two.

 

In Washington, I support a 49 legislative district strategy conducted every day of every year.  We need to identify our voters, recruit and train them as volunteers, and recruit and train our candidates.  We need to do all these in cooperation among our state and legislative district organizations and our political campaigns for federal and state offices.  An 8th Congressional District organization just being formed may assist the coordination of these activities there.  Dave Thomas

 

They Don’t Know How to Mobilize Grassroots

Our Lake Hills Liberals was initially established by a local MoveOn Operation Democracy team with seven members, six of whom are still with us.  But MoveOn has totally ignored our efforts and achievements in spite of my efforts to inform them.  Democracy for America, our Democratic Central Committee (headed by Howard Dean) and at least several Democratic candidate campaigns have also established local grassroots groups.  See the Democrats’ Party Builder and John Edwards’ One Corps.  But these local groups are floundering, with no clearly defined vision and mission, little cohesion and cooperative action among their members and little impact.  None of these national organizations know how to mobilize grassroots groups. 

 

I have attempted to communicate some suggestions concerning grass roots mobilization with their regional coordinators, but get no responses.  Their top-down communication makes it difficult to communicate upward and indicates that they don’t care about what suggestions local people might make.  Several local groups have contacted me to suggest coordinating the efforts of our Puget Sound Liberals with their efforts.  When I ask what efforts of theirs they want me to coordinate with and how, there are no answers.

 

To mobilize our grassroots, a national organization or campaign must do the following:

·       Establish a vision and mission for their local grassroots groups, including examples of activities to further their mission

·       Identify their members in various local areas (small enough that members can meet and work together)

·       Invite their members to create and join local groups

·       Provide ways for those who join to communicate, meet, plan activities and cooperate

·       Provide newsletters to grassroots groups or groups of groups to educate and inform their members

·       Allow questions and feedback from local grassroots groups upward to the national organization

 

I am unaware of any organizations in our Puget Sound region that are doing these necessary things.  Until they do, enormous energy is being wasted.  If any of them do begin to this, our Puget Sound Liberals will cooperate fully with them, helping to educate and inform their members, providing them space in our newsletter to advertise their activities and more.

 

Community Organizers Take Different Approach than Political Campaigners

Most of the political activists I meet assume that a major objective is to obtain maximum publicity concerning intentions and capabilities.  My background is not politics.  It is community organizing which makes a very different assumption.  We seek to quietly create an infrastructure, which enables us to perform.  Without advance publicity, when we perform something that no one believed could happen, it appears as a miracle which surprises them and catches their attention.  We avoid raising expectations and creating vaporware.  Our credibility may come more slowly, but if it comes it is much more deeply rooted in a product rather than a dream.  Miracles entice people to become involved.

 

Among our Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama (who was a community organizer before becoming involved in politics) is clearly far better than his competitors at grass roots mobilization.  With lesser poll ratings than Clinton, he is getting massive turnouts at his appearances and surprised everyone with his fundraising and the breadth of his donor base. I am guessing that these miracles are based upon unpublicized organizing.  Being unanticipated, they have created a huge impression.  Go to Barack Obama’s, John Edwards’ and the Democratic Central Committee’s websites to see their alternative approaches to establishing and empowering local grassroots groups

 

If Barack Obama’s local groups can canvass and get out the vote in next winter’s primaries the way they have gotten people out for his appearances and raised funds, we may see another miracle: vote totals far exceeding those predicted by the polls.  For us strategy enthusiasts, we want to know the respective values of local organizing, electronic politicking and media campaigning.  What is the ideal mix for various political situations?

 

Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy?

Barack Obama rightly opposed our occupation of Iraq from the beginning.  His strategy for getting out of Iraq is less clear than that of other Democratic presidential candidates.  He has supported Israel’s foreign policy, including the destruction it wrecked upon Lebanon and its treatment of the Palestinians.  He is a hawk on Iran, citing it as a threat to Israel and the U.S.  Is he just going along with conventional anti-liberal inside Washington wisdom?  For more.

 

Nation and World

 

The Global Class War

Class, Globalization and Personal Risk

Our jobs, income, retirement and families are more at risk due to new technologies, privatization and globalization.  See especially Jacob S. Hacker, 2006, The Great Risk Shift, Lester Thurow, 2003, Fortune Favors the Bold and others on our reading list.  In his easily read 2006 book, The Global Class War, Jeff Faux demonstrates that these new technologies, privatization and globalization are all controlled and driven by a economically and politically powerful global corporate elite class of people connected with our large corporations as managers, investors and supporters. 

 

Our Global Elite Corporate Elite

Members of this class typically grew up in similarly wealthy and powerful families, went to elite universities, work in the same business environments (punctuated by academic and government employment), and associate with others of their kind.  They share an outlook which focuses upon producing what is good for corporations, even if this is damaging to our country and most members of our broader public.  Members of our global elite class appear most prominently at the various conferences in Davos and of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign relations, The Ditchley Foundation and the Fortune magazine sponsored meetings of the CEOs of the 500 largest corporations.

 

NAFTA and Its Results

Faux describes the successful bipartisan effort by our global elite class to pass the 1993 NAFTA treaty between our U.S., Canada and Mexico without labor, consumer or environmental protection.  Contrary to deceptive claims that all would benefit, the result was huge gains for the wealthy in all three countries the bankrupting of smaller businesses and farmers and reduced jobs and wages for workers.  The most obvious result was not the giant sucking sound of manufacturing jobs going to Mexico (They are actually going to China).  It was the giant sucking sound of bankrupted Mexican farmers, small business owners and workers immigrating to our United States.

 

International Organizations Serve Our Global Elite

In early 1995, our global elite class arranged the bailout of their threatened investments when Mexico became unable to pay it debts.  Using the U.S. government, the U.S. controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, our elite class was able to impose conditions favorable to themselves on investor exposed countries around the world, at the expense of public investment, social services and the jobs and incomes of their citizens.  South American and Southeast Asian countries suffered economic stagnation and worse. 

 

Controlled by our global elite, the totally non-democratic World Trade Organization (WTO) has become the main protector of our global elite’s power against governments, allowing corporations to violate countries’ laws and even sue them for damages.  Our elite strongly opposes the democratizing and strengthening of the United Nations, the World Bank, IMF, WTO and other international bodies. 

 

A Democratic North America

To protect the public interest, Jeff Faux suggests we need a movement for a democratic North America, with a platform which includes:

·       An economic bill of rights

·       “Cohesion” investment funds for Mexico as the European Union has provided for its less developed members

·       A common competitiveness agenda to compete with the rest of the world

·       A citizens’ North American congress to promote the public interest in contrast to the private interests of our global elite

 

Reading The Global Class War and the other books mentioned above is crucial to understand major trends shaping our lives and possible strategies for influencing these trends.

 

Another America’s Trade Deal.  Good or Bad?

Bush and the Democrats have quietly reached an agreement concerning a package of trade deals with various South American countries.  For more.

 

The Decline of American Influence Abroad

Our American cultural, economic, political and military dominance during the last 60 years and especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years ago could not last.  But who could have imagined our dominance would decline so rapidly?  Although the pattern is scarcely mentioned by our news media, the rest of the world is rapidly going in its own directions with little concern for the United States.  It is spinning out of control by America.

 

·       America cannot control immigrants or drugs arriving from Mexico

·       Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil and other South American countries are considering creation of a regional bank controlled by them as an alternative to the U.S. controlled World Bank and IMF.

·       Roadside and suicide bombs have spread from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan and perhaps next to other oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.  So much for democratizing the Mid-East

·       Various Mid-East countries are seeking to coordinate their activities, independently of our United States

·       Newly oil-rich Russia is increasing asserting its independence and criticism of the United States

·       The European Union focuses upon its cohesion and development instead of supporting United States military action

·       China is an independent power necessary to dealing with North Korea and the Sudan.

·       Most East Asian nations are banding together to form their own economic free trade zone

·       Other countries are increasingly maintaining their earnings in euros instead of dollars.

 

These trends are accelerating.  We ain’t seen nothing yet.  We may have to start living like the rest of the world, without the privileges of global power.

 

The Surge is Failing

Bush appears to want to stay in Iraq as long as possible.  But the surge is failing.  United States casualties are up.  Iraqi casualties remain high.  Roadside bombs are successfully destroying Stryker vehicles.  Now enormous numbers of our military are searching for three captured soldiers.  What if our enemies focus upon capturing more of our soldiers?  Our troops want to come home.  The Iraqi public and parliament want us to leave.  Even defenders of the surge admit that pacifying Iraq may take decades. 

 

First Iraq, Then Iran?

Our U.S. has now captured and detained 5 Iranian officials who were working in an established office in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq at the invitation of the Iraq government.  For More.  The Iraq government and the Kurds have protested their detention to no avail.  The U.S. pays little attention to so-called Iraq sovereignty. The U.S. strongly protested Iran’s recent detention of British sailors and the lack of a more hawkish British response.  If