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Table of Contents * featured articles Opportunities,
Petitions and Feedback Commentaries from Our Members Liv Grohn
on Community Organizing* Ray McBain
on Political Priorities* Michael
Menkin on Physicians for National Health Plan Liberals and Democrats Links to
the Beef Is the
Reid-Pelosi Strategy Working? * State and Local Links to the
Beef What to
Expect from Our 2008 Legislature? * Nation and World
Links to the Beef A Personal Cap
and Trade System? Global
Warming Is Not Linear. It Is
Exponential. By Wrecking
Our Economy, We Can Slow Immigration. 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 You can't
have everything. Where would you put it? Stephen
Wright
Calendar of Events
Wednesday, January 9 at 6
PM at
Thursday, January 10
at 5-7 PM at Joseph Vance Building (1402 Third Avenue, Seattle) – Open House (food, Drinks, music and
more) for Sightline Institute,
Climate Solutions, Earth Share, Fuse, guenthermedia.com, Northwest Seed,
One/Northwest, Progress Alliance, Washington Budget and Policy Center,
Washington Conservation Voters, Washington Environmental Council, Washington
State Tax Fairness, Win/Win Networks and other advocacy organizations.
Saturday, February 9 at 10
AM at
Saturday, March 22 at 10
AM at
Precinct Caucuses - Saturday February 9, 2008
Legislative District Conventions - Saturday April 5, 2008
County Conventions - Saturday April 19, 2008
Congressional District Conventions - Saturday May 17, 2008
Washington State Convention - June 14 & 15, 2008 - Spokane, Washington
Opportunities, Petitions and Feedback
Opportunities
Join GoPetition to easily create your own
petitions. Great tool for advocacy groups.
Join
Working America in alliance with labor union members
Wellstone Action will offer its Advanced Management Training
School in Seattle on April 25-7
Order Democracy
in America ‘Precinct Organizing’ and other Night School Training videos
Order Sightline’s
2007 Cascadia Scorecard. See other
research that they share with our politicians.
Buy a
calendar which counts down to Bush leaving office.
Order Lester Brown’s Plan
B, #3.0, Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
Petition EPA to
grant states permission to regulate auto emissions.
Feedback Needed
Concerning Our Website
Do you have any suggestions for
improving our newsletter. Issues and
sources which should receive more attention.
Please email me
your suggestions. Dave Thomas
Commentaries
From Our Members
Email from Liv Grohn About
Community Organizing
You wrote: 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.
I
couldn't agree more wholeheartedly and would like to add:
The hidden or unacknowledged reason that community organizing ultimately
works is because it is not just about accomplishing something, it is about
building relationships . Community organizing truly is an organic
process. It occurs quite naturally . . . but only IF one really
cares. And all too often, it feels like "political
activists" don't really seem to care.
When was the last time that you as an active figure in the party were called to
see how you were if you missed a meeting or major event? When I stopped
attending local meetings, I can tell you that not one "political
activist" checked in with me to see what was up and I know that to
be the case with many others in my community network.
Jeanette recently lost her mother, Richard's wife is battling cancer, my
children have been sick on and off all month and I'm not getting any sleep . .
. why are we annoyed and "write" Jeanette off as unreliable when she
isn't returning calls (when if we had a relationship we would know it's because
she is out-of-town dealing with her mother's estate?) . . . why would we write
Richard off as a "do-nothing PCO" when he isn't committing to walking
his precinct this summer (when if we had a relationship we would know that his
wife is battling another round of chemo?) . . . why would we say that an active
community organizer "really doesn't seem interested" in helping
organize the upcoming caucus' (when if we had a relationship we would recognize
that a mother of two small children with a husband who will be out-of-town
serving the public during a legislative session might have a bit too much on
her plate?) . . . Why would anyone with already full lives want to do anything
extra for someone (now or in the future) who seems only to want
something from us but doesn't seem to care about us as
individuals?
People's lives fluctuate. Some years we can do more than others.
The community organizer "gets" this. The community organizer
understands that abilities and time constraints ebb and flow through the
years. The community organizer cares about the individual regardless of
what they can "get" from them at any given time. It's ALL
about relationships. Relationships grow and build over time.
They are forgiving and understanding. They are two-way streets.
They are more than any one particular political agenda. The
community organizer/activist understands the give and take in a
relationship--they understand that where there is no investment in people,
where there is no investment in a relationship, one will not get much return.
So bottom line, if you don't like people, if you don't care about your
neighbors and community in very real, tangible, hands-on ways--people read
that, loud and clear. They understand and know it innately.
Community organizers LOVE the people they are working with--and THAT is why
they are ultimately successful in organizing. And sadly, when we fail to
care, we all lose much more than political advantages . . . we lose our
community.
I hope that you had a lovely holiday and enjoy your New Year's
celebration! Liv Grohn
Email from Ray
McBain on Political Priorities
Your
Political Priorities (not ordered
by priority):
* 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 Independence
* Personal Security and Equal Rights
* Justice and Peace Everywhere
* International Cooperation and Leadership
My Political Priorities
(most important first):
* Stop waging war
* Ensure personal security by enforcing
the laws now on the books
* Begin by repeal of the PATRIOT Act.
* Provide health care for everyone in
the USA
* paid for by taxes (single-payer), including increased taxes on
the very wealthy
* and by savings due to cutting out the
private insurers, negotiating with drug companies, etc.
* Promote unionization by repealing and revising laws unfavorable to unions and
to joining unions
* Provide a means for undocumented immigrants to become citizens
* Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income and Retirement
* International Cooperation and Leadership
* Fair Clean Elections and Open Government
* Fair Taxes and Competent Spending
* Investment for Productivity
* Environmental Protection and Energy
* Justice and Peace Everywhere
Ray McBain
Response from Dave Thomas: All
priorities are important and should be addressed simultaneously to the extent
possible. But Fair Elections and Open
Government, Fair Taxes and Competent Spending and Withdrawing from
Email from Michael
Menkin on Physicians for a National Health Program
You may be interested to know that the Physicians
for a National Health Program support Dennis Kucinich and say he is the only
candidate with a real national health program. Their website is www.pnhp.org Michael Menkin
Letter by Dave Thomas published by
Responding to my
letter, a writer suggested that liberals don’t have new ideas. Try these:
1.
Pay as you go instead of borrowing and spending.
2.
Restore budgetary sanity instead of starving government by rewarding
campaign contributors with tax cuts and pork.
3.
Substitute a progressive revenue-neutral flat income tax applicable
only to income above the medium.
4.
Increase competitiveness and employment by replacing the job tax
(FICA) with a revenue-neutral value added tax (VAT), which would be no more
regressive.
5.
Stop over-competing militarily and under-competing economically.
6.
Reduce our national debt and increase productivity to keep social
security viable instead of privatizing and reducing benefits.
7.
Spend 2% more of our national production to provide effective
efficient cost-controlled Medicare to all, give every child a well-paid great
teacher in a fixed-up school and every full-time worker a living wage.
8.
Provide early learning programs to all who qualify, VA type vouchers
for college students and life-long training funds.
9.
Replace our chaotic mess of training and income-security programs
oriented to satisfying congressional power grabbing with standardized programs
for all.
10. Fund scientific
advances to increase our competitiveness, create jobs and
provide needed new technologies.
11. Promote non-carbon
based energy production and efficient energy use.
12. Reward protectors
instead of destroyers of our environment.
13. Protect privacy
for people, not privacy for government.
14. Substitute
bipartisan solutions for political homicide.
These are only a few
of the many liberal ideas that conservatives fear to discuss. Dave
Thomas
Liberals and Democrats
Is the Reid-Pelosi Strategy Working?
Reid and Pelosi have ruled
out trying to impeach Vice President Cheney and President Bush. They have acquiesced to President Bush’s
vetoes of funding for our occupation of
Since the Democrats
assumed control of both houses of congress in January 2007, their strategy has
been to propose popular liberal programs, thus forcing Republicans to choose
between their Republican base and mainstream
Following these
assumptions, our Democrats have been unable to pass much legislation or to
override vetoes by President Bush. Many
Liberals have been disgusted that Democrats haven’t confronted President
Bush. Other Americans have been
disgusted that the Democrats appear to be accomplishing little. The polls show that our congress and
especially our Republican members of congress are rated extremely unfavorably.
But our congressional
Democrats have had an impact. They have
stopped Bush from implementing any additional Conservative legislation. Through investigations, they have publicized
the politicizing of the Justice Department, the poor quality of health care for
veterans and other Bush Administration failures. Their legislative strategy is stimulating
significant numbers of Republican members of congress to retire instead of
running in 2008.
We can never be sure what
would have happened if Democrats had been more confrontational. But if we win big in 2008, we can give much
credit to the Reid-Pelosi Strategy.
Attacking Dino Rossi
Republicans enjoy accusing
Democrats of guilt by association. We
should use the same strategy. If Dino
becomes governor, it will empower his Republican colleagues, who are mostly
Christian Conservatives.
We should continually ask
Dino about his positions on Christian Conservative issues: Creationism. School prayers. Abstinence only sex education. Restrictions on abortion. Stem cell research. Prolonging the lives of brain-dead
patients. Make him choose between
positions held by his supporters and those held by our
Don’t let him avoid these
religious issues. Also demand that he
address funding need social and physical infrastructure needs. How should we pay for our
Is Tim Eyeman a Liberal?
Liberals believe taxes
should be fair. We also believe that
taxes should produce enough revenue to fund programs so that people can have
access to quality services. Our
Tim Eyeman thrives because
he seeks to lower unfair taxes. But he
does not propose an alternate tax system which is more fair. Nor does he advocate a tax system which
adequately funds needed services. The
result of Tim Eyeman’s proposals is a tax system which produces even less
revenue than the inadequate amount that our present tax system produces. This is why Conservatives support his
proposals. Tim Eyeman is no
liberal.
But Tim Eyeman will
continue to thrive until our tax system is reformed to be fair. Liberals need to find a way to reform our tax
system. I believe this reform requires a
broad coalition, led not by politicians.
It should be lead by a charismatic leader, similar to the way Jim Ellis
led Forward Thrust during the 1960s. Who
would you suggest to provide this leadership?
And what groups should play a major role in the coalition?
Here’s the Beef
Iowa caucuses a bit
like instant runoff voting, with 2nd choice important.
Iowa is
unrepresentative of America. But face to
face campaigning is very revealing.
See
which Democratic presidential candidates MoveOn members support.
See Michael
Moore’s opinions concerning our Democratic presidential candidates.
Dennis Kucinich supports
Barack Obama. Ralph Nader supports John
Edwards.
John Edwards most
resembles fighting Harry Truman. Why
doesn’t he get more support?
Mike
Huckabee is a populist Christian Conservative.
Will the Economic Conservatives destroy him?
Is Hillary Clinton’s understanding
of the difficulties we face more realistic or an excuse?
John
Edwards supports U.S. membership in International Criminal Court. Clinton and Obama hesitate.
Commentaries
by Reid Wilson who is associate editor of Real Clear Politics.
Evangelical
Christians revolt against New Conservative domination
Bloomberg
leads ‘unity’ challenge
State and
Local
What to Expect from Our 2008
Our 2007 legislature
passed much legislation, including major education and environment
initiatives. Our 2008 legislature will
primarily address modifications and minor additions to our 2007 legislation,
with few new initiatives.
But several issues should
be addressed. We need decisions and
funding for replacing the
Our Democratic legislators
and their leaders are liberals. But
above all, they are dedicated to maintaining and increasing their power. So they are cautious, particularly with
respect to increasing taxes and spending, which are Republican targets.
If Republicans are
decisively defeated in 2008, both nationally and in
Here’s the Beef
Dave
Reichert Is a Tough Competitor.
Jessyn
Farrell on Transportation
Nation
and World
A Personal Cap and Trade System
Groups
of nations, provinces, states and
municipalities are instituting cap and trade systems to reduce various types of
resource consumption and pollution. A certain number of permits is allowed with each participant allocated a certain
number of these permits. Any participant that wants to use more permits must purchase them from other
participants that will use less and sell their surplus. This creates a
profit motive for participants to reduce consumption and sell surplus permits.
Imagine
creating a similar system for individual people. Based upon
sustainability, quotas would be set for the use of water, carbon and other
resources. Dividing these by the number of our world’s population, we
calculate quotas for individuals and families. We would each have a quota
for water, for carbon and other resources. If we use electricity, the
sources of the electricity could be calculated as so much water, coal (carbon)
etc. If we use more than our quota, we would
have to pay the market price for the extra resources that we need.
Assuming
that each person should have the same quota is very different from our present
pattern of resource usage. And those who use the most resources have the
most power. So such a personal cap and trade system would be politically
impossible. Even if it were
politically feasible, it would be tremendously complicated, intrusive and
difficult to administer. But the idea
clearly demonstrates the immoral distribution of resource usage and power in
our world today. It might help people to reduce their consumption, if
these quotas and the probable cost of exceeding them were calculated and
publicized.
It
might be possible that an organization could provide the tools for people to
calculate their resource usage and then provide recognition for those who
demonstrate that they live within sustainable limits.
Dave Thomas wrote the above. Eric de Place, a researcher at Sightline suggested
some changes which I made. He also
stated, “As a way of illustrating inequity, I think it would be interesting to
calculate a quota or per capita allowable resource consumption. However, I don’t really see a close link to cap
& trade. The purpose of the “trade”
part of cap & trade is to avoid quotas and to allow maximum flexibility so
that the cheapest and easiest reductions get made first across the whole
economy.”
Global Warming Is Not Linear. It Is Exponential.
As carbon emissions produce global warming, our
polar ice caps melt, losing their reflective ability to cause additional global
warming. Global warming also increases
storms which wreck our forests, releasing more carbon than are released by
burning fossil fuels. This also
increases global warming. Thus global
warming causes more global warming. Unless
we can quickly find ways to extract carbon from our atmosphere, global warming
and its effects are going to alter our environment to a net detriment to our
human sustenance.
By Wrecking Our Economy, We Can Slow
Immigration
Due to the decline in
housing construction, fewer Latinos are migrating to the
Don’t worry about how an
economic slowdown will harm Americans.
Don’t worry about the goods and services you won’t get. Don’t worry about how we’ll fund social
security. We’ll teach those immigrants a
thing or two. For
more.
Here’s the Beef
Ten good things
that happened in 2007.
Top ten economic stories in
2007?
ACLU names ten worst threats
to our civil liberties. Also ten best
actions to protect them.
National Popular Vote Group’s
proposal would spread presidential election campaigning to all states.
Ten worst Bush
appointees concerning reproductive freedom.
Chipping
away at tough crack sentencing
Hydrogen powered
cars: now, soon or much later?
United States and
European governments increasingly invade people’s privacy.
Mexican
farmers protest NAFTA which threatens to ruin them.
Scott
Ritter - 5 Iraqs: Green Zone, Baghdad Shiite, Iranian South, Sunni and Kurdish.
Our Liberal Spirit
Voluntary
Simplicity
Our
Copied from reviews posted on Amazon.com and excerpts from
Duane
Voluntary Simplicity by
Duane Elgin, first published in 1981 and revised in 1993, is the sacred text
for those wanting to liberate themselves from enslavement to a job and the
pursuit of status symbols.
Voluntary Simplicity is not a book about living in poverty; it is a book
about living with balance. It illuminates the pattern of changes that an
increasing number of Americans are making in their everyday lives --
adjustments in day-to-day living that are an active, positive response to the
complex dilemmas of our time. By embracing, either partially or totally, the
tenets of voluntary simplicity -- frugal
consumption, ecological awareness, and personal growth – people can change
their lives. And in the process, they have the power to change the world.
A passionate and wide-ranging book that demonstrates the
elegance of simplicity. It is a
manifesto for the only kind of future that promises sanity and the possibility
of contentment. Bread and wine for the spirit.
Voluntary Simplicity shows that what
this nation needs is not so much a change of policy as a change of mind,
and that individual citizens, acting on their own, can do more to solve our
crisis than can any national administration.
[It needs both. The voting rights act was needed instead of waiting for
public opinion to change. Dave Thomas]
Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer
condition. It means singleness of
purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior
clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It
means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial
restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in
other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose.
Of course, as different people have different purposes in life, what is
relevant to the purpose of one person might not be relevant to the purpose of
another....The degree of simplification is a matter for each individual to
settle for himself. Richard Gregg, student of Gandhi’s teaching
To live more voluntarily is to live more deliberately,
intentionally and purposefully--in short, it is to live more consciously. We
cannot be deliberate when we are distracted from life. We cannot be intentional
when we are not paying attention. We cannot be purposeful when we are not being
present. Therefore, to act in a voluntary manner is to be aware of ourselves as
we move through life. This requires that we not only pay attention to the
actions we take in the outer world, but also that we pay attention to ourselves
acting--our inner world. To the extent
that we do not notice both inner and outer aspects of our passage through life,
then our capacity for voluntary, deliberate and purposeful action is
commensurately diminished.
To live more simply is to live more purposefully and with
a minimum of needless distraction. The particular expression of simplicity is a
personal matter. We each know where our lives are unnecessarily complicated. We
are all painfully aware of the clutter and pretense that weigh upon our lives
and make our passage through the world more cumbersome and awkward. To live
more simply is to unburden our lives--to live more lightly, cleanly,
aerodynamically. It is to establish a more direct, unpretentious and
unencumbered relationship with all aspects of our lives: the things that we
consume, the work that we do, our relationships with others, our connections
with nature and the cosmos, and more. Simplicity of living means meeting life
face to face. It means confronting life clearly, without unnecessary
distractions. It means being direct and honest in relationships of all kinds.
It means taking life as it is--straight and unadulterated.
When we combine these two ideas for integrating the inner
and outer aspects of our lives, we can describe "voluntary
simplicity" as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly
more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought
into direct and conscious contact with living. This way of life is not a static condition to be achieved, but an ever
changing balance that must be continuously and consciously made real.
Simplicity in this sense is not simple. To maintain a skillful balance between
the inner and outer aspects of our lives is an enormously challenging and
continuously changing process. The objective is not to dogmatically live with
less, but is a more demanding intention of living with balance in order to find
a life of greater purpose, fulfillment and satisfaction.
For more, Read Duane’s
Recommended Books –
See our list of books for
liberals
Duane
Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, 1993, Your
Money or Your Life
See commentary on
voluntary simplicity above.
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students. If you have one a few years
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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
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To volunteer, call our VIBES on-site coordinator, Beth Drobny (425-456-5600) to
arrange required VIBES training. For additional information, contact
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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. 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 33% to 90% and
stimulated them to vote, which assisted election of our 2006 Democratic
candidates. We hope that replication
will occur in other neighborhoods.
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
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We are
seeking reporter-reviewer-editors with knowledge of particular political groups
and issues. We have asked
the following experts to help us.
Blogs –
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Americans –
Blogs
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Party –
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Policy –
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Care –
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- Grosvenor Anschell
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and Poverty –
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and Justice –
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– Steve Johnston
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Issues –
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