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Table of Contents * featured articles Commentaries from Our Members Dave
Upthegrove: For Environmental Protection Peter
Henry: Bush/Cheney exert Extra Powers Jeff
Nygaard: Deceptive Deficit Statistics Jeff
Nygaard: Export Health Care (Cuba) or Arms (US) Liberals and Democrats Links to
the Beef Hispanic
Vote is Increasing, but Must Be Earned. State and Local Links to the
Beef Toward an
Effective Washington Tax System * Nation and World
Links to the Beef What If
Today’s Immigrants Behaved Like Earlier Ones? Is It Your
Money? Can You Spend It Best? * Leapfrogging
the Electoral College Our Liberal Spirit Our Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean 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 ·
Justice and Peace Everywhere ·
International Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives
oppose all of these. Let’s End Our National Nightmare Let’s Restore Our American Dream Quote of the Week Legislation is like making sausage. The result might be great, but you surely
don’t want to watch the process. German
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898). More about
sausage.
I
strongly recommend that everyone see the movie Inlaws and Outlaws. With remarkable honesty, good
humor, great music and real heart, Inlaws
& Outlaws weaves together true stories of couples and singles,
gay and straight to celebrate what we all have in common: we love. For
more.
Tuesday,
December 11 at 8:30 PM at the Comedy Underground (
Wednesday,
December 12 at 6:30 PM at
Wednesday,
December 12 at 7 PM at Rodney and Deborah Tom’s home (
Join
Working America in alliance with labor union members
Join Fuse to identify and communicate and
cooperate with other Washington State Liberals
Order Democracy
in America ‘Precinct Organizing’ and other Night School Training videos
Order Lester Ward’s Plan B 3.0, Mobilizing to Save Civilization,
a great xmas gift.
Order You Decide/Usted Decide, NARAL’s
bilingual English-Spanish resource guide for accessing reproductive health care
and safe abortion services across
Order gifts to help third world people improve their
lives. Sewing machine, bicycle,
training, etc.
Petition
your national representatives to oppose loan guarantees for private nuclear
plants.
Ask
your congressperson to support global warming legislation.
Petition congress to
give President Bush no more funds for Iraq War.
Petition congress to stop President Bush from starting
another war.
Commentaries From Our
Members
Excerpts from Email from member Dave Upthegrove
Dave Upthegrove won praise
for his work as Chair of the Select Committee on Puget Sound where he
shepherded landmark legislation through the House to
coordinate
Letter from
member
I was heartened to see Linda Boyd's
column on impeachment leading the Nov. 25 Sunday Focus section. Serious
observers on the left and the right see plainly that the Bush/Cheney
administration is asserting extra powers that aren't in the Constitution. To
list just a few:
·
The
power to disregard laws when not convenient.
·
The
power to administratively detain people without trial or review in open court.
·
The
power to use fake military tribunals to try and convict people.
·
The
power to take the
·
The
power to torture people in
·
The
power to kidnap people all over the world and send them to other places to be
tortured.
·
The
power to read people's e-mails, listen to their phone calls and monitor other
privileged information, without the benefit of a warrant.
·
The
power to propagandize the
·
The
power to deny judicial redress by asserting blanket claims of "state
secrecy."
It really doesn't matter what their
justification is. Today it's Islamic terrorists. Tomorrow it might be Mexican
undocumented workers. They're using fear to get the American public to go
along. But they themselves -- the very ones charged with defending our rights
-- are waging a far more dangerous and potent attack on American democracy than
any terrorist could dream of.
I don't know what Congress is waiting
for.
Email from member
“
A story from the Washington Post that was reprinted in my local newspaper, the
Star Tribune, on October 16th bore the headline “‘Fiscal Showdown’
Brewing?” It was about the “battle” between Bush and the Congress over
spending.
The sub-head in the Star Trib began with the words “With the deficit way
down...” And in the article we read that “the deficit now represents just
1.2 percent of the overall economy, lower than the average rate over the past
four decades. Yet Bush has gotten no credit for that with the public...”
Possibly this is because the public is aware that the federal budget was
actually in SURPLUS when Mr. Bush was appointed to his current position—a
surplus which equaled 2.4 percent of the economy, or $236 billion. By Mr.
Bush’s fourth year in office this surplus had been transformed into a huge
deficit (3.6 percent of the economy, or $413 billion). That’s a swing of
almost $650 billion in four years.
So, is the deficit “way down”? The
answer is yes... IF we start counting from 2004, when it was considerably
higher than the average rate over the past four decades. But the answer
is NO, if we count from the time when Mr. Bush was appointed to office. [Bold added by
The article says that the current “battle” is occurring “after years of
record-high deficits.” In fact, the current Bush deficits peaked in 2004
at 2.6 percent of the economy, which is lower than it was in the fiscal years
1976, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993. [Notice that the highest deficits as
percentages of our economy occurred during the Reagan and first Bush
presidencies.
Since the article implies that this “battle” is between the fiscally-responsible
Republicans and the high-spending Democrats, misreporting the years of
“record-high deficits”—which all have occurred under Republican presidents—is a
rather serious error, and very convenient for one side in the current “battle.”
This is what passes for economic reporting in the establishment media.
Heaven help us.
Email from member
Exporting Health Care, Exporting Arms: A Tale of
Three Nations
A growing export in Cuba is health care services, and the growth is led by
Operation Miracle, a joint Cuban-Venezuelan venture that “aims to restore the
sight of six million people through free eye surgery,” according to the London
Independent. The project, launched in 2004, has already restored the
eyesight of 400,000 people from around the hemisphere. “
In January of 2006, the Agence France Presse news service reported that
The BBC reported in January of 2006 on the phenomenon, commenting that “Health
ministry officials say
While
Two-thirds of arms sales by wealthy countries go to poor (“developing”)
countries. Poor countries bought a total of almost $29 billion worth of
weapons in 2006, with more than a third of all sales made by the
Liberals and Democrats
Hispanic Vote is Increasing
2008 projections show that there will be 17 million
Hispanic Americans eligible to vote.
With millions of immigrants applying for citizenship and massive
voter-registration drives, that number may increase significantly. For more.
Many Hispanics are not accustomed to acting
politically. They include both Liberals
and Conservatives. Even though
Conservatives have alienated many of them with their anti-immigrant prejudices
and discrimination, Liberals cannot assume that Latinos are Liberals. For
more. Liberals will have to appeal
to them the same way they appeal to mainstream
Unfortunately, Democratic presidential candidates
have frequently shown more concern about alienating anti-immigrant
Conservatives than standing up for immigrants.
For
more. Unlike other other Democratic
presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton has reached out successfully to
receive endorsements from many Hispanic leaders. For
more. But even Hillary Clinton
expressed opposition to granting licenses to undocumented Hispanic drivers.
Managers of low-rent apartments in Lake Hills
inform me that there are many potential voters among their 1100 residents, many
of whom are first generation Americans, including many Hispanics. I have tried repeatedly to find Spanish
speakers to visit these apartments to register their unregistered tenants. But with no success. I appreciate any suggestions. Dave Thomas
Here’s the Beef
501(c)(4)
non-profits intervene in presidential races.
Republicans
retire. Campaign money flows to
Democrats. Two indications Democrats
will win in 2008.
A
Republican state senator sees the light.
He becomes a Democrat.
At the December 1 Heartland
Presidential forum, candidates responded to mainstream questions.
What
role does John Edwards play in Iowa?
Republicans
Giuliani and Romney confront each other while pandering to Conservative
Republicans
Mike Huckabee may be consistent
and compassionate, but he is still a religious conservative.
Mitt Romney
calls for more religion in public life.
Seattle PI cartoonist David Horsey
characterizes Mitt Romney
Ron Paul may believe in peace and
freedom, but he doesn’t find any role of government at protector.
State and
Local
Toward an Effective
The following indicates what must be done to create a fair tax system which
provides adequate revenue:
• Reduce our sales tax rate by half to 4%.
• Reduce our property tax rates to levels commiserate with the costs the
properties impose on our public agencies. Provide a means for low income
property owners to defer their taxes until the property is transferred.
• Eliminate our regressive utilities taxes.
• Eliminate our business and occupation tax.
• Add progressive personal and corporate income taxes at a level produces 20%
more revenues than our present tax system.
• Maintain our progressive inheritance taxes.
The result of enacting these reforms is that 80% of our residents would pay
fewer taxes, while the high income others would pay more taxes.
Until reforms similar to these are adopted, we will experience continuing
tension between trying to obtain enough revenue and between taxpayers who rebel
against paying too much tax. Initiatives to cap taxes will be proposed and
supported. Conservatives will use the too high tax rates to argue against
needed services and the expenditures necessary to provide them. Liberal
proposals to improve our services will fail.
Liberals should recognize that reforming our tax system is a top priority,
along with electing a liberal national administration and clean public campaign
financing. We must find a way to do this. The more difficult the task and the
longer it will take, the sooner we should get started. The major question is
who will provide the leadership to create a broad-based coalition to develop a
climate of opinion favorable to enacting these reforms.
Making Political Sausage
Legislation is like making sausage. The result might be great, but you surely
don’t want to watch the process. German
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898). More about
sausage.
Otto von Bismarck compared
making legislation to making sausage. He
might just as well have compared all political activity (and even all human
activity) to making sausage. To realize
any social goals (including political goals) requires getting people to
cooperate. But people generally want to
go in many directions. Getting people to
cooperate is like herding cats.
Persuasion often doesn’t
work, or only works with deception, such as generating fear. Bargaining produces legislation which has
many incentives far removed from the main objective. Coercion produces division which makes
legislation difficult to enforce. Like
sausage, the results are messy and gory.
Before we make
legislation, we must elect legislators.
Elections are also like making sausage.
Voters have a huge variety of criteria for choosing whom to vote for,
many unrelated to the official’s performance after being elected. Few voters attempt to become informed. Name familiarity often counts more than any
other criteria.
Bumper stickers and yard
signs may be the only communication about candidates that many voters
receive. Officials are motivated to
deceive voters, giving them good news instead of bad, simplifying issues and
solutions, appearing more knowledgeable and certain than they are, and more.
It is tempting to believe
that uninformed voters cancel each other out, so that informed voters decide
who gets elected. But the results
suggest that elections are often won due to misinformed voters. Irving Stone wrote a book, They Also Ran which examined defeated
presidential candidates to suggest that about half the time, the best qualified
candidate was defeated.
Cynicism never helps. We must redouble our efforts to inform people
and to stimulate informed people to vote.
Nation
and World
Torture by Americans
At our November Lake Hills Liberals Salon, Bob
Gunovick led our discussion of torture by Americans. While in the army, Bob participated in a war
games exercise. Due to his legal
training, Bob was assigned to interrogate captives. His superior officer ordered him to torture
prisoners, including placing splinters under their fingernails. Bob refused unless he received signed
detailed orders. No such orders
occurred, which greatly relieved Bob, since he isn’t sure what he would have
done.
From news accounts, it is clear that Americans have
tortured many prisoners in
What If Today’s Immigrants Behaved Like Earlier
Ones?
In the 17th Century, immigrants to
Today’s immigrants are difficult. They have brought no epidemics. While our natives have come to enjoy ethnic
foods, we are not dependent upon them. Immigrants
primarily want jobs, obtain them, pay taxes and for other goods and services
they desire. They are providing labor
which benefits us as our working age population is declining as a proportion of
our total population. They commit crimes
less frequently than natives of their same gender and age. Instead of treating natives unjustly,
immigrants are treated unjustly by their native employers. Following the pattern of previous immigrants
during the last hundred years, we expect that our recent immigrants will
peacefully adopt our American culture and mix into our society.
Aren’t we lucky that today’s immigrants are
different than our ancestors were?
Is It Your Money? Can You Spend It Best?
Our President George Bush favors tax cuts,
especially for our wealthy. He often
tells audience, “It’s your money. You can spend it best. But he is often wrong on both counts.
If you use other people’s capital in your
enterprise, you must pay them. The money
you give them is theirs, not yours. If
you use other people’s labor, you must pay them. The money you give them is theirs, not
yours. If you use our social heritage,
you should pay to sustain it.
Our social heritage consists of both physical
infrastructure (transportation, communications, and other facilities) and
social infrastructure (our legal, education, family and other systems). Without capital, labor and our social
heritage, your enterprise could not prosper as it does. Your share of the money to sustain our
heritage belongs to the public, not to you.
So not all of the money you receive is yours. Only what’s left after you pay for your
factors of production is yours.
Progressive personal and corporate income taxes and inheritance taxes
direct the money wealthy people and enterprises owe for the benefits they
receive from our social heritage.
Conservatives deceptively claim that inheritance
taxes tax wealth twice. But much
inherited wealth consists of stocks which have appreciated without being
taxed. Capital gains taxes are not
levied against the stocks when they are inherited. Instead they are forgiven. Without inheritance taxes, much inherited wealth
would never be taxed.
Can you spend your money better than the
government? Would
Leapfrogging the Electoral College
Our electoral college system coupled with statewide
winner-take-all allows election of a president who receives a minority of the
vote. California Republicans are trying
to eliminate winner-take-all in
Better yet is for each state to pass a law pledging
that (if states with half the electors will pass the same bill) their electors
will vote for the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide. For
more.
Thomas
Friedman satire: Iran’s intelligence report on the U.S. It’s a hoot.
Australian Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd discusses Dietrich Bonhoffer’s theology.
Biden vows to vote
to impeach President Bush if he bombs Iran without congressional permission.
Could
the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Prevention Act be used against liberal
groups?
Stan
Sorscher describes market failures due to market fundamentalism
Americans oppose sweatshops, but
like the low priced products they produce.
Our
financial industry has bought Blue Dog Democratic votes to oppose relief or
sub-prime debters.
Learn how contractors have been
looting our Homeland Security funds (video).
Coal
industry deceptively advertises to build more coal generating plants. For more.
Environmental
Defense cites 12 environmental victories in 2007.
Bye bye water,
but no plans for living dry.
Iran
is or isn’t gaining nuclear weapon capability.
Either way, Bush wants military action.
Our Liberal Spirit
Political Morality
Many
of us have received surveys from Democratic Party or other organizations asking
us to indicate which issues we most care about, or policies we most agree
with. I always suspect they don’t care
about or even tally my response. I think
they only want the contribution they always ask for.
We
could each ask our self, “Which of our political priorities do I most care
about?”
Our Political Priorities
1.
Fair Clean Elections and Open Government
2.
Fair Taxes and Competent Spending
3.
Investment for Productivity
4.
Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income and Retirement
5.
Environmental Protection and Energy
6.
Personal Security and Equal Rights
7.
Justice and Peace Everywhere
8.
International Cooperation and Leadership
My
answer might be “the ones which most seem to concern morality.” Which are those? A major moral issue to me is extending
freedoms and opportunities to as many people as possible. I believe (6) Personal Security and Equal
Rights and (7) Justice and Peace Everywhere are basic freedoms. (5) Environmental Protection and (4) Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income and Retirement concern provision of immediate
opportunities.
(1)
Fair Clean Elections and Open Government, (2) Fair Taxes and Competent
Spending, (8) International Cooperation and Leadership, and (3) Investment for
Productivity are major means to the others.
These priorities are all seeking to realize moral goals. I believe that when any of us works to
realize any of these, we are moral colleagues in the quest for a better world.
Recommended Books –
See our list of books for
liberals
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, 2005, The Next Attack, The Failure of the War on
Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right.
Lawrence Wright
provides an excellent description of the rise of Al-Queda, from one of many
obscure radical
Free Member Advertising
Hire Our Lake Hills Neighbors
·
Debt Elimination
Counseling, Seminars and Workshops – price negotiable – Sherry Brandt
(206-356-8034, somerev2@comcast.net)
·
Private Piano Lessons (students must have a
piano), afternoons - Anna Khosrowian (378-7938), price negotiable
·
Housekeeper, price negotiable –
·
Psychotherapist, accepts insurance
- Sandy Mathews (462-7889, www.sandramathews.com)
·
Babysitting for infants (occasional evenings
and weekends) - $5 per hour-
·
Data Entry- $10 per 12 font, double spaced page-
·
Home Repair- prices vary, depending
on job-
·
Auto Repair, price varies depending
on job (but always fair), Jaime Speicher (AAS Auto Repair Technician)
(425-746-2353)
·
Home Repair and
Remodeling,
·
Life Support Therapies,
Volunteers and Donations Wanted
·
Healthy Start needs women volunteers
to mentor young mothers, especially Spanish speaking volunteers –
·
Head Start at Lake Hills
Elementary School needs an operational computer for parents of one of their
students. If you have one a few years
old that you no longer intend to use, call Valery Stoury at 456-5326 The low income families in the Lake Hills
Head Start program also need furniture, food, clothing, bus passes or gas vouchers,
etc. Safeway and Fred Meyer gift certificates to be used for family
emergencies would be greatly appreciated
·
Lake Hills Elementary
School
is looking for volunteers to spend one hour a week with individual students in
the classroom or as a lunch buddy. To volunteer, call our VIBES on-site
coordinator, Mary Giesen (425-456-5300) to arrange required VIBES
training. For additional information, contact Principal
·
Phantom Lake Elementary
School
needs volunteers who are willing to be trained as Reading Mentors or who are
able to spend one hour, one day a week in the school either in classrooms,
helping in the office, or being “Lunch Buddies” during our school’s lunch time.
To volunteer, call our VIBES on-site coordinator, Beth Drobny (425-456-5600) to
arrange required VIBES training. For additional information, contact
Principal
About
We began Lake Hills Liberals in October, 2005 as an
experimental demonstration of creating neighborhoods where liberals thrive and
multiply and maximizing our vote for Democratic candidates. We hope that replication will occur in other
neighborhoods. Many of our community
development initiatives failed. But we
have encouraged block parties and house parties to allow neighbors to meet each
other to be able to prevent crime, to assist each other in a disaster, and to
protect and assist our children. We also
canvassed our 12 precincts to increase the number of identified likely
Democratic voters from 1/3rd to 90%, stimulated them to vote, which
assisted election of our 2006 Democratic candidates.
Through our newsletter, we have now become
To get our free services, including our newsletter,
our ‘Proud Liberal, Time for a Change’ yard signs or ‘Proud Liberal’ bumper
stickers, volunteer or make a donation, contact
Submit your news to Editor Dave Thomas.
We are
seeking reporter-reviewer-editors with knowledge of particular political groups
and issues. We have asked
the following experts to help us.
Blogs –
African
Americans –
Blogs
–
Campaign
Finance – Sarajane Siegfriedt
Democratic
Party –
Drug
Policy –
Education
– Dennis Gerlitz, John Stokes
Environment
–
Gays
and Lesbians –
Health
Care –
Hispanics – needed
Immigration
- Grosvenor Anschell
Housing
and Poverty –
Labor Unions –
Law
and Justice –
State
Legislation –
Veterans
– Steve Johnston
Women’s
Issues –
Additional Resources
See our
website at www.PugetSoundLiberals.org,
with our basic training about being Liberal, our archive of all past
newsletters, resources for liberals, tools for Democratic legislative district organizations
and more. Join
Fuse to connect with to other Liberals and more.
We
recommend the Pacific NW Portal
for displaying many blogs through which Northwest Liberals exchange their
knowledge and opinions. See also Lefty Blogs. We recommend you go to Washblog to find blogs containing
information and opinions about
Learn about our State
Democratic Party. About 2008 Caucuses and Elections. Quickly and easily contact your national and
state officials. For
many Congressional Report Cards. Report Card on your congress member.
To
learn about particular issues, visit websites of advocacy and caring organizations.
Also see our list of helpful
websites.