Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and
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Through informing and networking Liberals and
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Our vision is hundreds of
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June 1, 2007
Calendar
of Events Friday,
June 1 at 5:30 PM at Qwest Field Event Center’s WaMu Theatre ( 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. Presidential Nominee Debates in -Sunday, June 3 at 4 PM at Holly Placket’s ( -Tuesday, June 5 – Republican
Debate on CNN Wednesday, June 6 at 5:30 at Saturday, June 9 at 6:30 PM at Columbia City Theatre ( Sunday, June 10 at 1:30
PM at Town Hall ( 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 Friday, June 15 at 7 PM
at Table
of Contents *** featured
articles Liberals and Democrats Forgotten Liberal Victories: Aged, Disabled,
Children Conservative Organizations in Washington State Republicans Illegally
Discouraged Democratic Voters Internet Activists and Democratic Candidates
Is Hillary the Corporate Candidate? Nation and World Providing
Children with Health Insurance Helping
Our Poor: Children and Adults For
more. John Edwards’
Comprehensive Anti-Poverty Proposals Black Immigrants Have Most Education Admitting
Immigrants: Skills or Family Ties Lead, Follow or
Get Out of the Way on Environment State and Local Profiles of Legislative Courage Our Liberal Spirit Vigiling to Bring Our
Troops Home Alive Quote of the Week Am I sure?
I’m never sure. Oh, I was sure once
in 1967. But I was wrong.
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 ·
Both Gael Tarleton and Jack Block,
Jr. for Port Commission against their incumbent
opponent ·
Dana Stober for ·
Keri Andrews for ·
Brian Conlin for
Liberals and
Democrats
Forgotten
Liberal Victories: Aged, Disabled, Children
We remember many of our liberal
victories: freeing the colonists, freeing the slaves, protecting our
environment, consumers, small business people and farmers, giving women the
right to vote and own property, decreasing poverty, ending legal discrimination
against Blacks, granting more equal rights to gays and lesbians. We continue to struggle to grant equal rights
to gays and lesbians and begin the struggle to provide legal protection to our
new immigrants. We are also struggling
to treat our veterans fairly.
But several other victories are
less remembered. We have greatly
assisted our aged, not just to escape poverty and secure medical care, but also
to gain respect and freedoms concerning their work and other activities and
their dying. We have also assisted our
disabled, making it easier for them to navigate public places and giving them
the extra assistance and protection they need in education and work. As with our other victories, these have been
opposed by conservatives. They remain
incomplete. But we should remember the
progress we have made.
Another group which is drawing increasing
attention is our children. We are
becoming aware of the necessity of early intervention to assist those with
socially inadequate environments to join our mainstream. In the Island Packet Blog and the Christian
Science Monitor, Roger Hull suggests that Bill Gate’s attempts to reform high
schools would be better directed to the third grade and earlier schooling. For more.
Note that nearly 3000 children
are killed by firearms in the
Military conflict abroad is one
of the major killers of children. Both
as direct casualties and as indirect ones who can’t obtain needed health
care. We have a long way to go to
protect our children at home and abroad.
If you go abroad, especially to a less developed country, you will
quickly see that the villagers treat their children with much more love than we
do here in the
I have searched for Washington
State Conservatives with little success.
The Washington Policy Center is a think tank dedicated to the supremacy of capitalist markets over
democratic government control. The Main Stream Republicans which seem like a
The
Repugnant Party
They delight in referring to our
Democrat Party. I don’t think much of
their Repugnant Party either. The
Repugnants have no manners and worse. Yuk! Or maybe it is the Repulsive Party. The Repulsives are just as bad as the
Repugnants. A plague on them, whichever
it is.
As reported next week, I dream of
the elimination of the Repugnant Party.
As reported in our May 11th Issue (# 69), they oppose
everything we value. I fail to find any
positive contribution they make. A few
Repugnants may inconsistently join Democrats in struggling to realize some
liberal values, but their contribution is outweighed by their support of their
more consistent Repugnant colleagues. Any
Repugnants who inconsistently support many of our values should consider converting
to our Democratic Party.
Internet
Activists and Democratic Candidates
The internet may be the most
significant tool for building democracy since the printing press. The internet is empowering people politically
through enabling them to communicate, associate and cooperate. Large numbers of voters can easily support
their candidates through using the internet to volunteer and donate to their
campaigns. Political candidates who can
stimulate this grass roots activity reap large benefits.
In 2006, 22 Democratic candidates
won in ‘red districts’ due largely to internet assisted grassroots
organization. Senator Jim Webb won in
the primary due to anti-war activists.
He won the general election due to the use of YouTube to publicize his
opponent’s ethnic insult.
Campaigns use the internet to
manage grassroots events, phone banks, canvassing, raise funds and more. They listen to people online and provide
accessible information about their campaigns, often interactively such that
supporters become more involved in campaign decisions and activity. However due to up-down and horizontal
conversation, internet users maintain their independence. To obtain their support, candidates must
respond to their wishes. Candidates, who
only maintain top-down communication with their internet supporters, do so to
the detriment of their campaign.
Net activists are more
consistently liberal than Democratic office holders who in running for election
have compromised. But net
activists are only a small proportion of Democratic voters. To have maximum effect, net activists must
learn to stimulate less active Democratic voters to vote, which requires first
stimulating canvassers to identify these less active Democratic voters.
All three of the major Democratic
candidates and some of the others have hired internet experts. As reported before, it appears that Barack
Obama has best been able to use the internet to gain large numbers of
grassroots supporters, as evidenced by the crowds that turn out for his
appearances and the number of his campaign contributors.
Is
Hillary the
Corporate Candidate?
If Hillary Clinton really wanted to curtail the
influence of the powerful as she says in her speeches, she might start with the
advisers to her own campaign, who represent some of the weightiest interests in
corporate
Hillary is easily the most experienced of the 8 Democratic presidential
candidates. But note that in five of the
last six elections in which the presidency has shifted from one party to
another, the less experienced candidate has won: Bush 2 over Gore, Clinton over
Bush 1, Reagan over Carter, Carter over Ford, and Kennedy over Nixon. The only exception was Nixon over
Humprey.
Experience and even values and proposals may be less important predictors
than campaign organization and fundraising.
Hillary Clinton began with an advantage in these latter, but Barack
Obama is gaining rapidly.
Rewriting History
Both Republicans and the Democrats who voted for the Iraq War often
claim that both our intelligence and intelligence agencies around the world got
it wrong and misinformed us that
Our media’s overwhelming support for the war has obscured this, but
there were many sources of information to the contrary. Any one who did their homework could have
realized the falsity of these claims. It
is ridiculous to imagine that
If they can rewrite history, why can’t we? Try these rewritings.
Health Care before NAFTA
Suppose President Clinton had decided to pass universal health care before
NAFTA. He also decided to propose a
Medicare-for-All (single-payer) plan instead of trying unsuccessfully to
placate private insurers by including private coverage. Not having alienated labor with his NAFTA
proposal, appealing to businesses who would see their competitiveness increase,
and attending to many other interest groups, universal health care passes,
ending a 100 year struggle. (Theodore
Roosevelt was the first to propose universal health coverage.)
NAFTA Didn’t Pass
If NAFTA hadn’t passed,
Monica Turned Down
Monica stalks Bill Clinton. Was
she sent by the Repugnants? But
Kerry Fights Back
Remember Harry ‘Give Them Hell’ Truman.
With the emergence of the 1960’s cultural changes, emergence of Blacks
and women as economic and political competitors, the 1980’s oil shocks and
Ronald Reagan’s fierce attacks, our Democrats went into a defensive crouch,
with next to no offense.
Imagine that John Kerry had, contrary to the advice of his campaign
consultants, begun attacking the Bush administration during the convention and
continued throughout the campaign. Media
attention is often directed toward these attacks instead of just the attacks on
Kerry. Kerry carries more states and wins
the election.
These are only some of the more crucial turning points in our recent
history. It’s great fun to imagine
alternative scenarios. Why don’t you
write some and send them to us for publication.
If we get enough, we can have a contest.
You might win a free subscription to our
Improving Black
To help address
the problems facing blacks, especially young males, the National Urban League
is proposing the following:
1. Universal
Early Childhood Education
All children in
this nation have a right to comprehensive early childhood education, which as Head
Start proves, is very effective in giving them, especially ones from
disadvantaged backgrounds, a leg-up when they start school.
2. Greater
Experimentation with All-Male Schools, Longer School Days and Mentoring
All-male schools
such as the
3. More Second
Chance Programs for High School Drop-Outs, Ex-Offenders
The Urban League
proposes the establishment of more second-chance programs to bring ex-offenders
and disadvantaged individuals who are out of school and out of work back into
the mainstream. Such programs help steer more Americans, especially those
at-risk, back on track by providing assistance in getting GEDs, skills training
and new jobs.
4. Restore The
Federal Summer Jobs Program to Its Previous State
At the end of the
21st Century, federal lawmakers agreed to ”reinvent” the federal Summer Jobs
Program that had been in place for decades by changing its status from a stand
alone mandatory program to one of 10 optional youth services programs. Under
this reform, cities and municipalities had the option of offering the program
or not. It resulted in a major scaling back of this successful federal program.
The Urban League proposes reimplementation of the Summer Jobs Program in its
previous form.
5. Drive Home
the Message That Education Pays Dividends in the Long Run
Parents need to
instill into their children the value of education in achieving their dreams
and improving their financial security. They must continually talk to their
children about how much better off they will be by graduating from high school
and college. They must tell them that their opportunities for professional and
economic advancement are much greater with a college degree or higher than
without. For More.