Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Joe
Martin: It's Time for Civilized Medicine Jack
Smith: Frank Chop. Re-Election. Re-Election. George
Robertson: Better Health Care Costs Less. Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef How to Pay for Health Care Reform? * Did Obama Provide a Model for the Iranian Campaign? State and Local Links
to the Beef Amidst Quiet Politics, State Services Are Deteriorating* See Congressional District Differences in War Support Report Shows Northwest Impact of Global Warming Nation and World Links to the Beef Featured Advocacy Group:Southern Poverty Law Center Financial
Regulation for Dummies 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 ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
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 More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs ·
Federal
Funding for Health and Education · Substitute
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quotes of the Week Laws
alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present
his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire
population. Albert Einstein
(1879 - 1955) More Einstein
quotes How far you
go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with
the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the
strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. George
Washington Carver (1864-1943)
Don
Smith: Should Progressives Cancel Seattle Times?
Calendar of Events
Friday, June 19 at 9 PM at
Tuesday, June 23 at 7 PM at
Sunday, June 28 at 8 AM at 4th and Spring in
Tuesday, June 30 at 7 PM at Shoreline Community College Theater (
Monday, August 10 at 6 PM to Wednesday, August 12 at 12:30 PM at Seattle
University – National
Vacations Matter Summit, with three
hundred experts, advocates, and stakeholders from the fields of health, travel
and tourism, family studies and the environment with other interested citizens. $95. To Register. $120-180 for room
for both nights, meals, and parking. Sponsored by right2vacation.org
Communication
with Our Members
I make significant effort to provide you
with links to petitions so you can easily express your desires to lawmakers and
other officials. I hope you are taking
advantage of these opportunities.
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
Download
Sightline Institute’s climate policy primer ‘Cap and Trade 101’. About
Sightline.
Conduct your own home energy audit.
See all of President Obama’s
weekly (Saturday) addresses.
If you want to spend an hour watching
a beautiful video of the destruction of our world.
International
‘Stand by Me’ song video.
Sightline
has released the latest version of its Cap
and Trade 101: A Climate Policy Primer.
Petitions
Tell
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to promote solutions to global warming.
Tell
Senator Marie Cantwell to support a public health insurance option.
Tell
Senator Marie Cantwell what you think about health care reform.
Tell
your senators to support the Hate Crimes Bill.
Tell your
house member to strengthen the American Clean Energy and Security Act.
Tell
your house member to correct the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Different from above.
Tell
your house member to correct the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Different from above.
Tell
your congress members to save American wildlife by passing global warming
legislation.
Tell EPA to
quickly take action to fight global warming.
Tell
U.S. and Canadian officials to ban mining near Glacier Park.
Tell
congress to stop Homeland Security Department from invading our privacy without
cause.
Tell
congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Tell
congress to include a public health insurance option in our health care reform.
Tell
congress to pass a single payer health care bill.
Tell
President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to stop defending Defense of
Marriage Act.
Tell
President Obama to reveal his Darfur peace plan and express his commitment.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Joe Martin: It's time for civilized medicine, single-payer
health care
Published by the
Syndicated columnist David S. Broder states that
President Obama may have to be flexible regarding a government-run health-care
option ["Government-run plan the rock that could block health
reform," June 11] sound familiar? In other words, the lucrative insurance
industry and those elected officials who kowtow to it are already poised to do
all they can to thwart what is the only truly thorough solution to our nation's
health-care woes.
A government-sponsored single-payer system can control
spiraling costs and simultaneously guarantee coverage to all. By eliminating
overhead, simplifying the presently arcane and convoluted system of billing and
making health care accessible to everyone, the current out-of-control mishmash
that characterizes today's medical labyrinth can be turned into a reasonable
and humane program of universal care. Of course, that would mean the
evaporation of gargantuan profits reaped annually by the bloated barons of the
private insurance business.
Obama and all enlightened elected federal officials
must stand up to those reactionary forces that would demolish a genuine
overhaul of health care in this country. The creation of a single-payer system
is long overdue and the bulk of the American people want it. It's not
socialized medicine. It's civilized medicine. Joe
Martin
Jack Smith: Reelection,
Reelection, Reelection, Frank Chopp, Frank Chopp
Frank, you asked for more Democratic legislators
and we voters gave you them. Remember? How
have you returned the favor
·
40,000 people off the health care
roles.
·
No improvement in the Criminal
Justice system - You don't want to be called soft on crime - we can build more
private jails instead of working on rehabilitation of people. Jail our kids for
having a joint. Now that is tough on crime. Send them to learn in prison how to
be real criminals.
·
Refuse any chance for equitable
funding by turning down Lisa Brown's recommendation that we have a Income Tax.
·
Raise the cost of a higher education
to assure that the wealthy are mainly the ones who can afford to attend
college.
·
Act on public school K-12 so that we
can make a significant reduction in the number of teachers.
·
Deny Homeless veterans a place to
lay their heads, let alone a road out of their situation.
Apparently the legislative role is cataloging and
categorizing problems, not solving them.
I long for the days that the Democrats were the party of the people and
not worried about almost solely about reelection. Worry about Republicans?
Explain the difference? Jack Smith
George Robertson: Better Health Care Costs Less.
Why are we talking about the cost of a public option?
Because every country with universal single-payer health care enjoys a total
cost per covered person for health care that is less than we pay in the
Still, we face a barrage of disinformation about the
cost of universal coverage and hand-wringing about who pays. These are issues
only if you fail to imitate the many successful models in
Let's keep this simple. I want exactly what the French
have. And I want to have the savings left in my bank account to spend on my
vacation.
Better health care costs less, not more -- unless you
are stupid enough allow these loud-shouting profiteers to keep charging you
double the world price for health care. George Robertson
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Unfinished Business, or Not
As I have
commented before, President Obama is focused and particularly wants to appear
to be focused upon our economic recovery and creating jobs, jobs, jobs. This includes climate change legislation
which will create green jobs. And health
care reform which will create health provider jobs, but eliminate many private
health insurance jobs which orient to reducing their health benefits payments
by disqualifying people, their illnesses and treatments.
Left as
unfinished business are such issues as
But much is
going quietly, out of public sight. For
example, it was puzzling that the Obama Administration took so long to o.k.
Financial Regulation
Various vested
congressional committee interests are preventing the consolidation of our
financial regulation into only a few agencies.
Bowing to this political reality, President
Obama announced a series of financial regulatory reforms, including:
·
Creating a Financial Services
Oversight Council to identify risks which are being inadequately dealt with by
regulations and regulators
·
Giving the Federal reserve more
authority to anticipating systemic financial failure
·
Transfer SEC regulation of large
financial companies to our Federal Reserve
·
Granting the Securities and exchange
commission (SEC) authority to supervise rating agencies and their reporting
·
Requiring hedge and other private
capital funds to register with and report to the SEC
·
Enabling our Treasury Department to
create capital requirements for all financial institutions
·
Replacing the Office of Thrift
Supervision with a national Bank Supervisor that would govern all federally
chartered lenders
·
Requiring loan bundlers to retain
some of their mystery securities so that they retain some risk
·
Requiring regulation of bets between
private parties on performances of loans and other credit (derivatives),
including that they be traded only on regulated exchanges.
·
Creating means for preventing runs
on money market funds
·
Creating
a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers of mortgages, credit
cards and other financial products.
For
more. For
more. For
more. For more. Robert Reich’s 3
essentials of financial reform. George
Soros’ 3 steps of financial reform.
Dean Baker approves of Obama’s proposals, but points out that regulations are no good if they aren’t
enforced.
Health Care Reform
On June 3rd,
President
Obama informed key Senate committee chairmen Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice
of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This
will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more
competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.” At a June 11 Green
Bay, WI town meeting, he repeated his support for a public health insurance
option: “I also strongly believe that one
of the options in the Exchange should be a public insurance option – because if
the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will
keep them honest and help keep prices down. “ For
more.
His Saturday,
June 13 address announced Medicare and Medicare savings of $300 million,
which added to the $643 million included in his 2010 budget proposal will
provide $0.943 trillion of the $1.2-15 trillion needed for health care reform. Obama’s Monday address to the AMA
provided the most comprehensive description of his health care reform thinking.
The AMA represents only
20% of doctors and is opposed by many.
Single payer is
better, but we can’t get there politically from here?
Organizing
for
...On
June 27, volunteers are planning events nationwide. The schedule includes a
healthy-food walk in
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich comments that
non-profit health cooperatives won’t substitute for a public health insurance
option, because they won’t have the scale to bargain with providers. For
more. See arguments presented to our
Democratic Progressive Caucus for Single payer instead a only a public
insurance option. The Democratic Progressive Caucus and Democratic
Blue Dogs disagree about public health insurance option. For
more. Senator Maria Cantwell opposes a public health
insurance option. 80 representatives are co-sponsors of a
single-payer plan. Single payer would require
more public money; but it would save employers and employees much more private
money.
A
public health insurance option is not just good policy, it’s good politics.
Ff
In Fiscal Year 2009, almost
two-thirds of Recovery Act funding to states and localities will be in the
health field. By FY 2012, the major
portion of funding will shift to long-term economic growth opportunities in transportation,
energy and community development. For
many more opinions about health care reform by various interest groups.
Other
Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton is quietly producing major changes.
Michelle
Obama speaks against obesity epidemic.
Obama
Administration religious liaison Paul Montero met with an atheist advocacy
group.
Government
officials inform us about how we can get information about and participate in
our gov’t.
Lots of evidence that the
Obama Administration is less than transparent. For more.
Like Cheney did,
President Obama is arguing that he doesn’t have to reveal his visiting
lobbyists.
Our National Security
Agency is still exceeding authority to read American email and phone messages.
Obama Administration’s mountain
top removal regulation is criticized as too much and too little.
Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee passed a flawed energy package.
Envoy George Mitchell
tells Lebanese leaders they will play a key role in Israeli-Palestine peace.
Response to
President Obama
has correctly refused to take sides in
Terrorism from Abroad
Notice that During
our Bush Administration, 3,000 Americans were killed by foreign terrorists,
equaling one per day. And Al Qaeda
leaders were allowed to escape from
How to Pay for Health Care Reform?
Health
care reform is expected to cost $1.2-.5 trillion over 10 years, which equals
$120-150 billion per year. $1 billion =
$3.30 per person. $1 trillion = $3,300
per person. Health care reform should
save us much more.
President
Obama’s 2010 budget proposal included offsets of $643 billion over 10 years for
health care reform. Limiting the tax
deduction for employer-provided health benefits to benefits above $13,000 (the
value of a standard plan for federal employees) could produce an additional
$400 billion. Limiting the charitable
donations deduction and increasing taxes on unhealthy products have also been
considered. For
more. Also see my
interesting proposal below. And this
week, Obama
indicated that $313 billion could be saved from Medicare and Medicaid
expenditures. For
more. For
more health care savings and revenue options. Sodas
could be taxed to raise revenue and discourage unhealthy weight gain. For
more.
Top taxpayer deductions
Employer-provided health benefits represent the nation's most expensive
tax break, costing the Treasury more than deductions for home mortgage interest
and charitable donations combined. A look at the top tax breaks:
Estimated
Cost
Tax break 2010
2010-14
Employer-provided health benefits $155 billion $924
billion
Home mortgage interest deduction $108
billion $646 billion
401(k) plans $53
billion $343 billion
Charitable donations deduction $47 billion $274
billion
State and local tax deduction $30 billion $268
billion
Capital gains exclusion on home sales $30 billion $235
billion
Source: White House Office of Management and Budget
Also
see our previously reported alternatives
for increased taxes on our wealthy people.
Also see the commentary below. Also, what if we restored a top income tax
bracket of 50% which existed before the Reagan tax cuts? There
are lots of possibilities for raising the money necessary for health care and
other reforms.
Did Obama Provide Model for Iranian Presidential
Campaign?
Like
during our 2008 presidential election, Iran’s incumbent president Mahmoud
Ahmedinjad is very unpopular. Last
minute news reports indicated that Mousavi’s campaign had some similarity to
Obama’s campaign, arousing much enthusiasm among people who are young, educated
and/or urban.
But the
announced election returns don’t reflect these expectations. Various
reports indicate that Mousavi was credited with only a third of the votes
in areas where almost all voters preferred him.
Just as President Ahmedinjad resembles our president Bush, so this
election resembles our 2000 election. It
will be interesting to see what additional evidence of fraud will surface and
what types of protest will result. Read
Obama Administration’s immediate reaction to the election. For more.
Even if Mousavi
doesn’t become president, the enthusiasm for him among the young and educated
is similar to the enthusiasm for Barack Obama.
Note that many Iranians admire the
Note
similarities between our American revolution and what’s happening in
Note also that
Iranian Moslem Democracy bears some resemblance to Israeli Jewish
Democracy. In both countries, religious
leaders exert considerable control beyond the wishes of the majority of voters.
Here’s the Beef
Read criticism of
Obama Administrations school turnaround plan.
As
Conservatives lose power, their outrage stimulates hate crimes.
Hate is
nourished by Conservative media and politicians.
Republican
energy plan ignores global warming, peak oil and dirty coal and nuclear energy. For more.
Deficits
during the next ten years are much less with Obama’s policies than if we continued
Bush’s.
Disgraced
British parliament members receive much less money than American congress
members.
Congress
is swimming is health care industry campaign donations.
Will President
Obama maintain our imperial foreign policy?
For more.
Our White House and House
of Representatives is ignoring Liberal foreign policy initiatives.
State
and Local
Amidst Quiet Politics, State Services Are Deteriorating
Since
the end of our legislative session, we hear little from our governor and
legislators. Teachers and government
workers are losing their jobs and poorer people their health care. Government services, such as public
health, are being reduced. Even so,
tax reform is no longer discussed.
Contrast
Washington’s and Oregon’s legislative action:
Oregon House Bill 2116, passed by a 20-9 vote
after little debate, will tax hospitals and insurers to expand health and
dental coverage to uninsured children and low-income adults. The expansion will
bring the share of
The state will pay the full cost of insurance for
children in families whose incomes fall below 200 percent of the federal
poverty level, $44,100 a year for a family of four. It will subsidize on a
sliding scale commercial insurance for families with incomes between 200
percent and 300 percent of poverty level. For
more.
At a
Sound Alliance strategy meeting last week, all the members of our Eastside
group supported my suggestion that we needed to add tax reform (including a
progressive income tax) to our issues of: civil rights and immigration,
housing, green jobs, education and health.
When this reported to the entire several hundred participants (associated
with labor, education and religious organizations), they cheered. I hope that Sound Alliance will join with
Washington CAN to support a progressive income tax. I hope labor, education and religious groups
will also support this public interest reform, which is also in their
interest. I hope that Organizing for
To
reverse deterioration of our state services, we need tax reform. To counterbalance Tim Eyman’s Conservative
response to the fact that most of us pay too much sales and property taxes, we
need a Liberal response to replace some of these regressive taxes with a
progressive income tax. Besides the
support of civic organizations, we need prominent leaders to lead our efforts.
See
Number
who have signed Democrats.com petition to oppose the $95 billion supplemental
appropriations bill to support troops in
District # signers Representative
7 272 Jim
McDermott (D)
2 174 Rick
Larson (D)
3 121 Brian
Baird (D)
1 109 Jay
Inslee (D)
6 107 Norm
Dicks (D)
8 84 Dave Reichert (R)
9 72 Adam Smith (D)
5 49 Cathy
McMorris Rodgers (R)
4 23 Doc Hastings (R)
Report Shows
·
Mountain snow pack runoff, critical
water needs, could run 20-40 days earlier, threatening water resources in
summer months;
·
Declining summer stream flows and
warmer water temperatures could push salmon and other cold water fish species,
already stressed by human activities, over the brink;
·
100-degree days are rare today in
the Northwest. Under higher emission scenarios, much of the region could see
30-40 days of 110+ temperatures per year.
For more
about Pacific Northwest Impacts. For
entire report.
Here’s the Beef
What
will be the future of Puget Sound region commuter rail?
Some
federal stimulus funds are released for public transit operating expenses.
Seattle will
vote on levy to provide housing for poor people.
Produce
affordable livable dense housing by reducing street and parking.
Tax
payer subsidies for green jobs should require the jobs be good jobs.
Issaquah
considers ban on polystyrene food containers.
Nation
and World
Featured Advocacy Group – Southern
We
are bombarded by references to our War on Terror, focusing almost entirely upon
the threat of foreign terrorists. We
seldom hear about the threat of domestic terrorists. For
more. No foreigners have committed
acts of terror within our
Our Southern
Poverty Law Center conducts three activities: providing
tolerance instructional tools to schools, monitoring
hate groups and supporting law
suits against hate groups which commit murder and other
violence. It identifies 926 Ku Klux
Klan, Neo-Nazi, Christian Identity, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, skinhead, militia
and other hate groups in every section of our country
and hundreds of acts of violence which they commit each year.
From
white power skinheads decrying "President Obongo" at a racist
gathering in rural Missouri, to neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen hurling epithets
at Latino immigrants from courthouse steps in Oklahoma, to anti-Semitic black
separatists calling for death to Jews on bustling street corners in several
East Coast cities, hate group activity in the U.S. was disturbing and
widespread throughout 2008, as the number of hate groups operating in America
continued to rise. For
more.
As
in recent years, hate groups were animated by the national immigration debate.
But two new forces also drove them in 2008: the worsening recession, and Barack
Obama's successful campaign to become the nation's first black president.
Officials reported that Obama had received more threats than any other
presidential candidate in memory, and several white supremacists were arrested
for saying they would assassinate him or allegedly plotting to do so. For
more.
Our
commercial media seldom mentions these groups. Their spokesmen appear on Conservative talk
shows. Conservative commentators express
hatred toward hate group targetsProminent Republicans appear at their meetings
and address them. Liberals should be
aware of these groups, attack them and attack Republicans who support them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read
about inSPIRe’s June discussion of racism.
Bye Bye Household Wealth
In 2002, our household (and nonprofit organization) net worth totaled
$4.1 trillion. Our bubble inflated it to
$6.3 trillion in 2007. Our bubble’s
collapse has deflated it to $5.0 trillion now.
So we are still 22% above 2002.
Depending upon our participation in the bubble, some of us have done
much better and some much worse. Doing
much better are those who participated in the bubble early and left before the
collapse. Doing much worse are those who
began participating in the bubble just before its collapse and stayed during
the collapse. Participating means buying
securities or securities based funds or homes or refinancing homes.
# Household Net
Worth Per Household
(millions)
(trillions) (thousands)
2002 105 $41 $390
2003 106 $46 $434
2004 107 $52 $486
2005 108 $58 $537
2006 110 $62 $564
2007 111 $63 $567
2008 112 $52 $464
Now 113 $50 $442
The monetary figures are not inflation adjusted. The per household figures are means
(influenced largely by wealthiest households) which do not reflect median
household wealth. A fuller analysis
would show what has happened to household wealth for each poorest 10%, next
poorest 10%, up to wealthiest 10%. I was
only able to find one source
which presented that in 2004, mean net worth was $448 thousand and median net
worth was $93 thousand. A related excel
table shows enormous differences in wealth between bottom three quartiles
and the top 10%.
In 2004, 50,000
Washington State people with a net worth of 1.5 million or more had a total net
worth of $180 trillion. $1.5
trillion would pay the 10 year costs for reforming our health care system. That could be raised by taxing each of these
people an extra .83% of their worth. The
rate would be less than .02% if we taxed all such people in the
Here’s the Beef
No good
deed goes unpunished. People leaving water for immigrants are charged with
littering.
Would you believe that
Michael Moore is asking donations for already bailed out banks? (Video)
China, Russia and other
countries seek to replace U.S. dollar as world’s reserve currency.
Will we
repeat Roosevelt’s and Japans mistake of reducing stimulus and returning to
recession.
Our stimulus-investment
package is already creating green jobs.
Peak
oil and Chinese demand will produce increased oil prices. For more.
Many
reasons to replace other resources with hemp for materials and energy.
U.S.
and other developed countries provide little support for curbing greenhouse emissions.
For more.
Pennsylvania town
fights corporate personhood.
Housing
prices are still too high.
Bye
bye California water. Bye bye one third
of our national food supply.
80%
of electronic waste isn’t recycled. More
waste expected from transition to digital television.
Will
we have more green burials?
Recession
causes increase in free or reduced price school lunch programs to 19.7 million
students.
Mortgage
fraud continues, supported by FHA.
Amsterdam
provides a model for legalizing and taxing drug sales in California.
We bailed out AIG
bigtime. It refuses to pay passengers of
downed plane.
We
bailed out businesses. Now they want to
continue their old practices.
U.S. Government
Resettlement Program is insufficiently funded to appropriately aid Iraq
refugees.
Guantanamo
detainees are being released to other countries.
Our
Liberal Spirit
The major difference between Liberals and
Conservatives is tolerance. In keeping
with our Liberal national tradition, both tend to express support for the value
that all Americans should have equal freedoms and opportunities. But Liberals mean what they say.
Conservatives from rural areas, small towns and exurbs
(which were recently rural areas) think of all Americans as only those Americans
like those in their local homogeneous communities. In which there is little ethnic or religious
diversity and poor and gay people are either in the closet or have left for
greener pastures. These Conservatives
are intolerant of ethnic minorities and immigrants; atheists, Liberal
Protestants, Jews and even Catholics; poor people and GLGT people. These areas are seed beds for hate groups and
their violence.
To increase tolerance, our first step is to increase
our own. We need to examine our attitudes
toward various groups to identify our intolerant attitudes, beliefs and
emotions which underlie them. We need to
explicitly change our intolerant emotions, beliefs, attitudes and actions. We need to become tolerant and tolerant role
models for others.
Second, we need to express our tolerance to our family
members and acquaintances, noting and opposing their intolerances. Encouraging them to identify and change their
intolerances.
Third, we need to publicly oppose intolerance,
publicly supporting the victims of prejudice and discrimination and opposing
those who express and act with prejudice to discriminate. We need to support tolerance education in schools and communities.
Forth, without waiting for public attitudes to change,
we need to support legislation which extends full freedoms and opportunities to
those who are denied them. Today, this
includes providing legal protections to all immigrants. Giving GLGT people and couples the same
rights as others. Opposing
discrimination against people based upon their spiritual beliefs. Supporting legislation against hate
crimes. For more.
Fifth, we need to notice people whose freedoms and
opportunities have been reduced due to prejudice and discrimination. We need to find ways to assist these people
to have freedoms and opportunities that they have been denied. They need to receive extra health,
educational, job, housing, credit and other services that have been denied
them, until their freedoms and opportunities equal those of others.
As is often true, when we help others, we will find
that we are selves are helped. We will
find that we live better when we are not hampered by intolerances. We will find that we live better when others
are not hampered by intolerances. We
live better individually and collectively when all Americans can realize our
American Dream.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Alan Wolfe, 2006, Does American Democracy Still Work?
James Davison Hunter and Alan Wolfe, 2006, Is There a Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public
Life.
Based on reading these and
other relevant books is that most Americans have a jumble of values concerning
the cultural issues which have been raised by Christian Conservatives. We respect freedom, and also religion, and
also life. So we are often ambivalent
about abortion, gay marriage, religious expression in our schools and public
places. The so-called cultural wars have
mainly been promoted by Christian Conservative and Republican leaders in order
to increase their influence and power.
This worked for a few years, particularly after 9/11 frightened
people. But now people are more
concerned about our economic collapse.
Increasing political participation by our Liberal young people is also
reducing the ability of Republicans to gain votes through promoting cultural
issues.
So the cultural wars were
never deeply embedded in our electorate and their usefulness to Conservative
leaders who promoted them has diminished.
By continuing to emphasize cultural issues, Republicans are primarily
harming themselves.
Free Member Advertising
Hire Our Lake Hills Neighbors
· Auto Repair, price varies depending on job (but always fair),
Jaime Speicher (AAS Auto Repair Technician) (425-746-2353)
· Babysitting
for infants (occasional evenings
and weekends) - $5 per hour- Christy Pacheco- johnpacheco01@yahoo.com 425-653-3565
· Data
Entry- $10 per 12 font, double
spaced page- Christy Pacheco (425-653-3565 johnpacheco01@yahoo.com)
· Debt
Elimination Counseling, Seminars and
Workshops – price negotiable – Sherry Brandt (206-356-8034, somerev2@comcast.net)
· Home
Repair- prices vary, depending
on job- John Pacheco 425-653-3565 johnpacheco01@yahoo.com)
· Home Repair
and Remodeling, Rick Hegdahl
(206-227-6280 vikingnw@comcast.net)
· Housekeeper, price negotiable – Laura Montano (641-5038 ambar_lau@hotmail.com)
· Life Support
Therapies, Astara Burlingame RN. (MD)
holistic care, acupuncture hypno therapy, biological medicines (206-370-0356)
· Private
Piano Lessons (students must have a
piano), afternoons - Anna Khosrowian (378-7938), price negotiable
· Psychotherapist, accepts insurance -
Sandy Mathews (462-7889, www.sandramathews.com)