Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #188
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 Rich Austin: Our Government Serves Me Well Jenifer Taylor: Comment on Ross
Goodman's Comment. Helen Montgomery: Single Payer
Won’t Add to our Deficit Maryrose
Asher: Pollyanna Creep Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef 64 House Members Demand a Public Health Care Option Creating our Liberal Movement* State and Local Links
to the Beef BIAW
Contributes Big Bucks to Conservative Candidates* Some Democratic Legislators Support BIAW* Legislator Disagrees with My SB 2261 Commentary What Are our Democratic Legislators Thinking?* Needed: an Alliance to Promote Major Reforms** Nation and World Links to the Beef John de Graaf: Protect our Workers Right to Time Featured Advocacy Group: Democrats.com 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 · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week An Unexamined Life is Not
Worth Living. Socrates
Communication
with Our Members
My Union Experience
During the summer after my freshman year
at Reed College, I worked waiting tables and long shoring for the Alaska
Packer’s Association in Chignik, Alaska and became a member of the Alaska
Fisherman’s Union. This union guaranteed
us good work and living conditions. When
I became ill with polio the following spring, the union assisted with my
hospital bills. Several union members
visited me in the hospital and gave me a carton of cigarettes. I had started smoking during my freshman year
and while in Alaska was able to obtain illegally landed sea stores for 80 cents
a carton. Yes, a carton.
My parents were not union members, but
they were strong liberal supporters of unions.
During the 1940s in Boulder, Colorado, we sang union songs at gatherings. I still have an autographed Pete Seeger song
book that I received from him as he played his guitar and sang in a union
hall.
I strongly believe that we presently
need not just more jobs, but better jobs in which the worker receives pay equal
to a fair percentage of the value of his/her production. I believe unionization is one of the best
strategies for creating better jobs. I
believe passing a robust Employee Free Choice Act should be our highest
priority after stimulating more jobs, passing health care reform and energy
reform. Dave Thomas
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.
Petitions
Thank 64 house members
who won’t vote for health care reform without a public option.
Thank
Education Secretary Arne Duncan for emphasizing cruciality of pre-k education.
Tell
NOAA to not privatize our fish resources.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Rich Austin: Our Government Serves Me Well
After reading Ross Gooding’s post entitled “Public Health Care Insurance
is Worse than Private”, I feel compelled to respond.
I speak from experience. Before retirement I was covered by private
medical insurance. Now that I am retired
I have single-payer medical coverage.
Most people refer to it as Medicare.
With private insurance almost 1/3 of my premiums went to
administration. Administrative costs for
Medicare are 4%. I have a Medicare card
in my pocket that allows me to access medical treatment anywhere in the
U.S. Today, I received my Social
Security check. Without Medicare and Social
Security I don’t know what I’d do.
Whatever Medicare shortfalls exist are a product of
under-funding, not incompetence. The
same is true of Social Security.
Minor funding adjustments would
correct both of those “government” programs.
The average American would see no change in contributions to either
program. The richest 15% would,
however, pay a pittance more if the cap
on income subject to the Social Security tax was raised to include all income rather than just the
first $102,000. 15% of the population
earns over that amount. Within that
15%, five percent earn more than $150k; one and one-fifth percent more than $200k, and
one and one-fifth more than $250k.
The wealthiest 400 families in the US. have a combined net worth of
$1.57 trillion!!!
The median annual household income in the U.S. is
$53,000. The Medicare tax is currently
1.45% for all income levels. Kicking the
rate up to 2% for the top 15% would make Medicare solvent. And by “installing” a loan-proof lock on the Social Security/Medicare Trust
Funds, solvency would be guaranteed.
"Incapable" government? Family farmers receiving subsidies don’t
think so. Neither do people here in WA who received emergency flood assistance.
And the really poor folks who receive rent subsidies or food stamps, or
help with their electric bills don’t think so either. We have National Parks, a federal highway system, and we have police and fire departments that
are part of “government”. Should they be privatized?
Ah well, perhaps it is the U.S that is right and all
the other industrialized nations that are wrong. That fits into the DNA of the U.S. – Do Not Admit. We never admit that other nations can do some
things much better than we can. Health
care is one example. Their “government”
health programs deliver much better care to everyone for a lot less money than
our “private” companies do.
In the meantime, leave my government-run Social
Security and Medicare alone! And I know
I speak for millions of other seniors!
There are other factual points I could make relating to Ross Gooding’s
post, but the length of this response precludes me from doing so. A good source of information on the topic can
be accessed by going to Healthcare-NOW.org.
Rich Austin
Jenifer Taylor: I want to comment on Ross Goodman's comment.
Ask almost any senior citizen if they wish Medicare
could be abolished. Or Veterans Administration
(VA) patients, keeping in mind that the Defense Department is not the same as
the VA medical system. Both healthcare organizations
have high ratings of satisfaction with their constituencies. Note that the VA is government run while
Medicare is contracted out. The various
governments do pretty good jobs, (we trust them anyway) managing a huge
road system, schools, libraries, police, the military--none of these
institutions would we trust to a private organization. They are too big and too important.
Why are we leery of government control of the health
industry? I personally think I'd rather
have a government bureaucrat choosing my medical care than a for-profit
insurance company bureaucrat. The former
will have to take care of me in my old age while the latter is only looking at
short term profit. How much money can
they get out of me for premiums before I get too sick to be profitable?
Google customer satisfaction with the VA or Medicare.
Quite interesting. Jenifer Taylor
Helen Montgomery: Single Payer Won’t Add to our Deficit
Hi Dave, I recently wrote letters to both Health and Human Service Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius and President
Obama about the need for better options for health care. Medicare is a
"public option" health plan that is run by the government, and runs
with only about 3% overhead, compared to the 30% overhead of private insurance
companies.
I would much rather have my doctor paid by a government employee whose
job is to Pay my Doctor. Insurance
company bureaucratic employees, on the other hand, are paid to NOT pay my
doctor, if at all possible, even if I have paid my premiums for many years.
Single payer (Medicare for anyone who wants it) is the best option for a public plan. There have been many studies done, that show that single payer is the ONLY government health insurance system that will NOT add to the deficit. Obama says he will not sign any bill that adds to the deficit, so obviously... Here is a study:
Opening up Medicare to anyone who wants it, would not require a bill of
a thousand pages. It would be easy and easy to understand: just add in other
classes, as when disabled people were added in. It could be optional, so people
could keep their old insurance if they wanted.
If the insurance companies can't compete, well they've had 30 years to
show they could do a good job and they have failed. Thanks, Helen Montgomery
Maryrose Asher: Pollyanna Creep
in Department of Labor’s Latest
Jobs report
“Pollyanna Creep” is a phrase familiar to economists and statisticians and
is credited to John Williams, an economic analyst and statistician from
California, who “shadows” government statistics (see his website http://www.shadowstats.com/). Williams first used the phrase in a 2006
interview, stating the government “always footnotes the changes and provides
all the fine detail. Nonetheless, some
of the changes are nothing short of remarkable, and the pattern over time is
what I call Pollyanna Creep.”
If Washington’s harping on weapons of mass destruction
was essential to buoy public support for the invasion of Iraq, the use of
deceptive statistics has played its own vital role in convincing many Americans
that the U.S. economy is stronger, fairer, more productive, more dominant, and
richer with opportunity than it actually is.
The Department of Labor in
their job’s report also does not include those who have stopped looking for
work and those who are involuntarily working part-time. If it did include these figures, the correct
unemployment rate would be 16.8 percent, not 9.4 percent as reported.
Just as John Williams said,
the government
“always footnotes the changes and provides all the fine detail.” The Department of Labor’s U-6 report has the
actual unemployment rate of 16.8 percent cited above http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm.
The BLS has six different regular
jobless measurements—U-1, U-2, U-3 (the one routinely cited), U-4, U-5, and
U-6. In January 2008, the U-4 to U-6
series produced unemployment numbers ranging from 5.2 percent to 9.0 percent,
all above the “official” number. The
series nearest to real-world conditions is, not surprisingly, the highest: U-6,
which includes part-timers looking for full-time employment as well as other
members of the “marginally attached,” a new catchall meaning those not looking
for a job but who say they want one. Yet this does not even include the
Americans who (as Austan Goolsbee* puts it) have been “bought off the
unemployment rolls” by government programs such as Social Security disability,
whose recipients are classified as outside the labor force.
If those “bought off the unemployment rolls” were included, 20 percent
unemployment would probably be a more accurate number.
This manipulation of economic
data started shortly after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy (1961). Since high unemployment numbers would not
look good for “Camelot-on-the-Potomac,” the administration appointed a
committee to recommend some changes in reporting. The result was those unemployed who gave up
looking for job were labeled “discouraged workers” and excluded from
unemployment figures.
Not to be outdone, the
Clintonites used Pollyanna Creep in their statistical reports. Although
previously excluded from unemployment figures, as stated above, these
“discouraged workers” were still counted as part of the larger workforce. That changed during the Clinton
administration (1994) when the Bureau of Labor Statistics “redefined the
workforce” and only included those “discouraged workers” who had been actively
looking for work for less than a year.
Those looking for work for longer periods were not tallied into the
monthly reports (“hidden unemployed”).
The Clinton Administration also dropped the household economic sampling
from 60,000 to 50,000, a disproportionate number from inner cities, resulting
in the perception of reduced unemployment among Blacks and lower poverty
figures. Pollyanna Creep at its best.
Unfortunately, as time goes on, unemployment insurance benefits will be
lost to millions of jobless Americans.
Already, Congress has voted for emergency extensions in states hardest
hit by the recession, extending benefits for up to 79 weeks. However, as this recession continue, even
this extension will be used up before many job seekers find new employment.
Tens of thousands of workers have already used up their benefits, and the
numbers are expected to soar in the months to come, reaching half a million by
the end of September and 1.5 million by the end of the year, according to new
projections by the National Employment Law Project, a private research group.
Unemployment insurance is now a lifeline for nine million Americans, with
payments averaging just over $300 per week, varying by state and work history. While many recipients find new jobs before
exhausting their benefits, large numbers in the current recession have been
unable to find work for a year or more.
Calls are rising for Congress to pass yet another extension this fall, possibly adding 13 more
weeks of coverage in states with especially high unemployment. [Note: The
present extension to 79 weeks is the longest period since the unemployment
insurance program was created in the 1930s]
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/no-jobs-sight-and-unemployment-checks
It is unfortunate that
the American public is being misled by this manipulation of data. As
stated in the Harper’s article, “Ttransparency is the hallmark of democracy, but we now
find ourselves with economic statistics every bit as opaque—and as vulnerable
to double-dealing—as a subprime CDO.”
*
Obama designated Austan Goolsbee as chief economist and staff director of the
Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, a newly created body. Goolsbee
was also appointed to the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), which develops
much of White House economic policy.
Resources used:
US Department of Labor, Table
A-12. Alternative measures of labor underutilization
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm
Open Left: 247K Job Losses;
Unemployment Rate Drops to 9.4%
http://www.openleft.com/diary/14517/247k-job-losses-but-unemployment-rate-drops-to-94
Not as Bad, but Not Good -
Floyd Norris Blog - NYTimes.com
Numbers racket: Why the
economy is worse than we know-By Kevin P. Phillips (Harper's Magazine)
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/05/0082023
No Jobs In Sight and
Unemployment Checks Running Out. Mr. President, Help Us! | Crooks and
Liars
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/no-jobs-sight-and-unemployment-checks
Mary Rose Asher
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Health Care Reform
President
Obama criticizes private health insurers’ practices. Chairman Henry Waxman has asked
large health insurance companies to submit information about executive
compensation and other business practices.
President
Obama answers complaints about health care reform. Health care
reform depends on regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition. Many
good things will happen once health care reform passes. Some high income people are saying that it is appropriate for congress
to increase their taxes to pay for health care reform. House Energy and Commerce Committee
As governor, Sarah
Palin supported counseling concerning advance directives. By referring to a death panel, Senator
Chuck Grassley probably ruined his supposed role as a Republican willing to
support form of health care reform. Tea
party protestors at congressional town meetings have motivated
supporters of health care reform to attend in large numbers. For more. Everything
you wanted to know about Lou Dobb’s CNN show. See an Obama Administration website to refute lies about
proposed health care reform bills.
I’m not sure
why we
received some mixed messages last week from the Obama Administration
concerning a public health care insurance option. Maybe they are trying to tell supporters that
there will be one, while telling opponents that maybe there will be something
else. A neat trick if it works. The problem is people on all sides are
paranoid. So supporters fear there won’t
be a public option and opponents fear there will be one. Anyway, there will be a public option. In both the house and the senate, there are
significant majorities who favor a public option. Is it time to give upon
on a bi-partisan compromise? For
more.
With a public
option, providers
can still be cooperatives, such as for Washington State seniors with Medicare;
over 500,000 have Group Health Cooperative (GHC) as our provider. Instead of paying lots of bills submitted by
uncoordinated providers, Medicare pays GHC a certain amount (capitated
fee) for each member they treat. GHC also charges its members an extra fee for
services beyond those guaranteed by Medicare.
Health Care Provider Cooperatives like Washington State’s Group Health
offer superior coordinated preventive, treatment and hospice health care; but
are too
small to negotiate savings below that of private profit health insurers. I believe it would be good if all providers
were organized into consumer controlled cooperatives, so that people would
receive the benefits of coordinated care.
Note That Group
Health Cooperative is a consumer controlled non-profit Health Maintenance
Organization (HMO) which has a very different bottom line and patient service
strategy than a
for-profit HMO. Learn about the challenges
posed by Medicare managed care.
Defense of Marriage Act
Our
Obama Justice Department says the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is
discriminatory and should be repealed.
Immigration Reform
Due to other
priorities, our Obama Administration is
delaying immigration reform until early 2010. But it
has changed its practice from detaining undocumented immigrants to auditing
the hiring records of employers and acting against those who hire undocumented
immigrants. This is a much more humane
approach to reducing the number of undocumented immigrants who obtain American
jobs. Unfortunately, anti-immigration
hate groups are proliferating.
Other
Obama family’s visit to Yellowstone and Grand Canyon
National Parks emphasizes
importance of parks. For
more.
Healthier
school lunches are being initiated.
64 House Members Demand a
Public Health Care Insurance Option
Albio Sires
(NJ-13) Alcee Hastings
(FL-23) Andre Carson (IN-07)
Barbara Lee
(CA-09)
Barney Frank (MA-14)
Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
Bill Delahunt
(MA-10) Bill
Pascrell
(NJ-08)
Bob Filner (CA-51)
Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13) Carolyn Maloney
(NY-14) Chaka
Fattah (PA-02)
Chellie Pingree (MN-01) Corrine Brown
(FL-03) Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Diane Watson (CA-33) Donald Payne
(NJ-10) Donna Edwards (MD-04)
Earl Blumenauer (OR-03) Ed Towns
(NY-10)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Elijah Cummings (MD-07) Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05) Eric
Massa (NY-29)
Pete Stark
(CA-13)
Grace Napolitano (CA-38) Gwen
Moore (WI-04)
Jackie Spier
(CA-12)
Jerry Nadler
(NY-08) Jesse
Jackson, Jr. (IL-02)
Jim McDermott
(WA-07) Jim McGovern
(MA-03) John Conyers (MI-14)
John Olver
(MA-01)
John Tierney (MA-06)
John Yarmuth (KY-03)
Jose Serrano
(NY-16) Judy
Chu
(CA-32)
Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Laura Richardson (CA-37) Linda Sanchez
(CA-39) Lloyd Doggett (TX-25)
Lucille Roybal-Alard (CA-34) Luis
Gutierrez (IL-04) Lynn
Woolsey (CA-06)
Marcia Fudge
(OH-11) Marcy Kaptur
(OH-09) Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Maxine Waters (CA-35) Mazie Hirono
(HI-02) Mel Watts
(NC-12)
Michael Honda (CA-15)
Mike Capuano (MA-08) Nydia Valezquez
(NY-12)
Peter DeFazio (OR-04) Phil Hare
(IL-17)
Raul Grijalva (AZ-07)
Robert Wexler (FL-19)
Rush Holt
(NJ-12)
Sam Farr (CA-17)
Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) William Lacy Clay (M0-01)
Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
Hank Johnson (GA-04)
If
these members vote against a health care reform bill without a public insurance
option, it can’t pass. Notice that there
are 3 each from Texas and Florida, and 1 each from Mississippi, Georgia and
North Carolina. Of our 6 Washington Democratic house members,
only Jim McDermott is on this list.
Creating our Liberal Movement
American Liberal Movements
Perhaps more than most
countries, America has spawned major liberal movements, oriented to providing
increased political and economic opportunities and freedoms to people with few
of them. Major liberal movements have
been our revolutionary, abolitionist, populist, feminist, labor, civil rights
and GLBT movements. Of these, our
revolutionary populist movements have been the most comprehensive.
Revolutionary Movement
Prior to our declaration of
independence, especially in Massachusetts, people (wanting freedom to conduct
their own economic and political affairs) took control of local government away
from colonial administrators. Eloquently
expressing their reasons, Thomas Paine stimulated their spread throughout the
colonies, providing public opinion in favor of declaring and fighting for
independence.
Increasing Suffrage
After winning independence,
fear of broad political suffrage stimulated imposition of property requirements
for political participation. Thomas
Jefferson advocated that property and education should be widely available to
qualify more people. To avoid
concentration of power among either elites or non-elites James Madison
advocated separations of government powers between three branches with the
legislative branch divided into two houses and between federal and state
governments.
Political parties developed
and suffrage (the right to vote) was broadened, resulting in the election of
President Andrew Jackson. The
abolitionist movement and civil war ended slavery and temporarily broadened the
suffrage to newly freed slaves. A
southern backlash resulted in a split between a Republican north and a Democratic
south, with the Democrats again denying suffrage to African Americans.
Populist Movement
The Populist Movement grew
from the oppression of farmers by the eastern banking establishment which
denied them capital, except at ruinous cost.
During the 1880s, they created a new political consciousness, reframed
political objectives and sought to replace prevailing partisan loyalties
stemming from the Civil War They did
this through organizing experimental demonstration projects, learning about
their opponents, refining their ideology (including basic priorities) and
spreading the word. In doing these,
Populists were extremely successful.
Especially in Texas and throughout the South, they built a large base.
Their proposals included crucially the creating of Greenback paper currency,
controlled by the government, instead of gold or silver controlled by the
banking establishment.
Failed Attempts to Broaden their Base
To implement Greenback
capital, Populists had to elect candidates.
To become nationally strong, Populists made overtures to potential
allies: black southern farmers, Midwestern and Western interests; predominantly
Catholic northern labor unions, northern urban political machine served
Catholics, Eugene Debs’ socialists and even to feminists.
But such collaboration was
not successful. Racism divided blacks
and whites. Labor unions had not
developed a populist ideology. They remained
weak until the New Deal. Midwestern
interests were not primarily oriented to farm poverty or securing control of
capital. Western interests promoted
Silver instead of Greenbacks. Believing
in confrontation, instead of development of grassroots consciousness and
activity, Socialists rejected Populist overtures.
Feminism finally won during
the 1920s. With the assistance of the
New Deal, labor finally won during the 1940s.
The Civil Rights movement grew during the 1950s and made significant
gains with passage of the Civil Rights Act during the 1960s. But each of these movements had limited
objectives, far short of the Populist sweeping changes of consciousness and
advocacy of a new economic order.
Failed Fusion Strategy
Stifled by lack of capital,
Populists advocated government creation of greenback currency to be made
broadly available to those without capital.
They attempted to achieve this politically through fusion with
politicians. But seldom understanding or
committed to greenbacks, politicians gave Populist objectives only enough lip
service to gain their support. Upon
winning, these Fusion-supported politicians ignored Populist objectives and
failed to support greenbacks. Populists
were pressured to forsake their own priorities, resulting in weakening their
movement.
In opposition to Republicans
who embraced gold, Democrats led by William Jennings Bryan embraced silver to
create more capital. Using oodles of
business establishment campaign contributions, Mark Hanna created campaigns
which beat the Democrats. Democrats lost
elections. Having no place to go
politically, unable to advance toward Greenback extension of capital, Populists
faded as a political movement. For
Populists, fusion was both necessary to win politically and suicidal to
maintaining their basic integrity.
Toward New Politics
The result has been private
interest politics (now labeled Old Politics) instead of public interest
politics (now labeled New Politics) at both federal and state levels. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Howard
Dean may have been the first to advocate a New Politics, when he spoke of
representing the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. During his successful 2008 campaign, Barack
Obama emphasized change you can believe in, consisting of changing from Old
partisan Politics to New Politics oriented to achieving results. The extent to which New Politics will avail
remains to be seen.
Socialism, Liberalism and Conservatism
Put simply, Socialists trust
public enterprise, while rejecting abusive private enterprise. Conservatives trust private enterprise, while
rejecting abusive public enterprise.
Liberals recognize that both public and private enterprise can yield
benefits and can be abusive. Being more
questioning and experimental, Liberals create less ideological problem-solving
strategies.
In adopting our definition of
Liberalism, I have avoided theoretical details concerning the relation of
democracy and freedom. Our key
definition is that all Americans should have the same freedoms and
opportunities, with these freedoms and opportunities only limited by the
avoiding some people benefiting at the expense of others or our social and
natural environment. Expanding these
freedoms politically requires changing to a New Politics (Public Interest Politics) from our Old Politics (Private Interest Politics). Expanding our economic freedoms and
opportunities requires changing from our present Borrow, Consume and Speculate economy and mindset to an Earn, Conserve and Invest economy and
mindset.
Lessons for Reformers Today
There are both similarities
and differences between our situation today and that of 120 years ago. While much can be learned from studying the
Populist Movement, we must adapt many of their strategies and tactics to our
very different potential allies and technologies for reaching them.
Prevailing loyalties in the
1880s stemmed from the Civil War. The
Grand Army of the Republic in the northern states and the Democrats in the
southern states. To attract members,
Populists had to lure people from these party loyalties. A really tough job, but one with which they
had mixed success. Similarly today,
loyalties to Republicans and Democrats stem from long struggles dating from the
1930s New Deal.
Reformers focus upon creating
a new consciousness through successful demonstration projects, grass roots
organizing and spreading their ideology.
These were the keys to Populist success in rapidly creating their
movement. Politicians focus upon winning elections now. Most politicians (especially successful ones)
are unwilling to espouse a new consciousness for the long run. Most would rather win elections by appearing
as moderates. The same is true
today. Our Washington Democratic Party
actively counsels and assists their candidates and elected officials to appear
less Liberal than they are.
What Change Strategies for Today?
We face most of the same
challenges that the Populists faced:
·
What projects or
programs can we create which we can demonstrate to others? Through developing these projects, how can we
clarify and elaborate our basic values, our opponents, our priorities and proposals?
·
How can we spread
the word? (Today’s technology allows and
requires us to replace traveling lecturers with internet communication.)
·
How can we work
with allies (environmentalists, health care advocates, educators, labor, and a
variety of civil rights, ethnic, poverty, housing and other advocacy groups)
who often have specific priorities with which we must meld ours?
As with the Populists, I
believe our basic strength must be our
ideology. Our understanding of our
values, our situation, our opponents, and our priorities. I believe that our basic value is to grant
each of Washington’s people access to quality infrastructure and safety net
service. We must strengthen our state
government’s to provide such services.
We must next address our social
and political vehicle for driving change.
What projects do we want to begin?
To learn how our various groups can work together. To figure a way for mobilizing our
resources. To financing our
activities.
One possible beginning is
shooting some legal and other shots across the bow of our opponents. Thus creating ways to work together.
I have developing thoughts,
but no confident answers to these questions.
I will continue to explore them in future commentaries. I strongly invite your assistance. Your imaginative tentative thoughts.
Here’s the Beef
How
we must counter the Fascist Teabag disrupters.
Could
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s crazy health care reform claims cost him
his seat?
See
which senators get a high proportion of their campaign funds from PACs.
Due
to Glenn Beck’s wild accusations, advertisers are removing their ads from his
program.
Some
people are bringing their guns Obama meetings.
Will our Supreme Court
reduce restrictions on corporate political campaign donations?
State
and Local
BIAW Contributes Big Bucks to Conservative Candidates
BIAW’s Support for Supreme Court Candidates
·
In 2002, Building Industry Association of
Washington (BIAW) spent $200,000 in a failed bid to elect Jim Johnson.
·
In 2004, Building
Industry Association of Washington (BIAW)
financially supported (with more than $200,000) the successful campaign of a
Conservative Supreme Court Justice: Jim Johnson.
·
In 2005, BIAW helped form the
Constitutional Law PAC to help elect candidates
to our State Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. For
more.
·
An Alliance of
Liberal groups: FairPAC
is formed to counter the Conservative support given to judicial
candidates. For
more. For more. For
more.
· In 2006, BIAW financially
supported John Groen in his effort to replace
Chief Justice Gerry Alexander of the state Supreme Court and Sen. Stephen
Johnson, R-Kent, in his effort to replace Supreme Court Justice Susan Owens,
giving Groen and Johnson a large financial advantage over their
competitors. Nevertheless Groen and
Johnson lost. Interests
led by BIAW gave $1.3 million to Groen’s campaign. For
more.
BIAW’s Support for Dino Rossi
·
Building
Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) close relations with Dino Rossi dates
back to 1996. For more.
·
In 2008, BIAW’s
political action committee spent $6.3 million, more than was spent by the
Washington state Republican Party.
·
Various lawsuits
have failed to stop BIAW’s political spending.
One claims an improper
coordination between BIAW and Dino Rossi.
See
results of a disposition.
BIAW’s Support for Tim Eyman’s Initiatives
·
BIAW funded Tim Eyman’s
Initiative 985 which would require cuts in schools, criminal justice and
other priorities, in order to pay for some Seattle area highways.
·
BIAW is also
funding Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033 which would cap state spending, thereby
keeping our school funding among the lowest in America.
BIAW’s Support for Republican Party (and Some
Democrats)
·
BIAW
helped pay off the Republican Party’s debt (incurred in an unsuccessful
attempt to overturn the election of Governor Christine Gregoire).
· BIAW also contributed campaign funds to 15 Democrats and Democratic Committees
Some Democratic Legislators Support BIAW
New Politics is Public
Interest Politics. It attempts to
realize access to quality public services by all Washington’s people. It attempts to develop and maintain quality
state services available to all.
Old Politics is Private
Interest Politics. Participants seek to
further their own private interests.
Participant legislators seek to promote their own party’s strength, even
when this may involve compromising our public interests.
Some
Democratic Legislators support Building Industry Association of Washington
(BIAW), even though BIAW is our state’s most powerful opponent of our public
interests. Our Democratic House Speaker
attended and addressed BIAW’s February
2006 quarterly board meeting. 15 Democrats
and Democratic committees have obtained contributions from BIAW.
Six of 31
Democratic Senators (Fred Jarrett, Derek Kilmer, James Hargrove, Brian
Hatfield, Mary Haugen, and Timothy Sheldon) voted with all of the Republicans
against SB 6035 which would restrict BIAW funding. House Majority
Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said the BIAW has a right to spend the money as
it likes. In the House, the bill
passed two different committees, but House Speaker Frank Chopp refused to bring
it to the floor for a vote and it died.
After
the session, the Building Industry Association of Washington, which runs the
single largest Retro program, and has turned it into a notorious cash cow for
aggressive political spending to advance its Conservative intentions, bragged that its "excellent relations
with legislators from both sides of the political aisle" killed this and
other legislation it opposed. For more. For more.
Those Democratic legislators
who support BIAW do so even though the BIAW is a major contributor to the
Republican Party; to both Republican candidates who have competed with Governor
Gregoire; to Republican legislative candidates (some incumbents and some
challengers), five of whom won; and to Tim Eyman. The attitude of those Democratic legislators seems
to be I will support whoever will help me, even if they are harming our state
government and other Democrats. This is Old
Politics at its worst. Dave Thomas
Legislator Disagrees with My SB 2261 Commentary
A state
legislator who led the creation and adoption of SB 2261 responded “Bullshit”
to my commentary, entitled “SB 2261, a Legislative Power Grab”. Such language. If I used it, my mother would wash my mouth
out with soap.
Does
he believe that our budget meets our constitutional criteria for funding public
education? When it provides fewer
resources to schools than most other states?
Does he believe that SB 2261 justifies the present budget and any other
budget our legislature passes in future years?
If our legislated budgets don’t meet constitutional criteria, hasn’t our
legislature taken the responsibility to fund public education away from our
constitution and our courts? Isn’t that
a power grab?
The
K-12 Funding Formula Technical Working Group is formulating numerical criteria
for a prototypical school model to determine the amount and allocation of
school funding. The schedule is for this
model to be adopted by our state legislature in April 2011 and implemented in
September 2011. But evaluation and
changes may occur during the 7 years.
The Technical Working Group is clear that their mission is to satisfy
our state legislature, not our state constitution. Dave Thomas
State Superintendent of schools Randy Dorn says our
state now needs “Education Reform II”, which will require at least a
billion dollar increase in the states annual budget for public schools.
What Are our Democratic Legislators Thinking?
Democrats
worked hard to obtain large majorities in our Washington state house and
senate. Three obstacles to strengthening
our state government’s ability to serve our people loom large:
·
Our unfair tax
system which produces inadequate and unstable revenues
·
Lobbyists backed
by campaign contributions
·
The Conservative
influence of Builders Industry Association of Washington (BIAW)
Our Democratic legislators have addressed none of
these issues.
In
addition, our Democratic legislators greatly harmed two of its long time
supporters: educators and labor. Not
just their private interests. They have
trashed their and our public interests. Their
budget is trashing our schools. Their
record on labor issues (both issues of public interest and those of labor
union’s private interest) is directly opposed to what labor desires. Labor is now withdrawing its support for
Democrats. Educators may do the
same. None of this bodes well for
Democratic legislators. They may soon
lose their hard earned large majorities.
What are our Democratic legislators thinking? Are they going to waste their power of the
majority? Dave Thomas For more from Joel
Connelly.
Needed: an Alliance to Promote Major Reforms
To improve Washington State’s ability to serve our
Washington’s people, we need three major reforms:
· Tax reform to lower taxes for most taxpayers, increase
revenues and make them more stable
· Public campaign financing
· Elimination of BIAW’s actions to reduce Washington
State’s revenue and expenditures
These reforms are
politically risky, such that a broad civic alliance is needed to promote them
before our legislators can act.
Such a civic alliance (composed of Washington State Labor Council (WSLC),
Service Employees
International Union (SEIU), Washington
Education Association (WEA), NARAL Pro-Choice, Equal Rights
Washington, Washington Conservation
Voters and our state Trial Lawyers Association) was formed as FAIR PAC to
counter the influence of special interests on the election of Supreme Court
judges. But this elusive group (also known as Allies) has apparently restricted
its mission to countering any special interest group’s attempt to influence the
election of judges or other officials.
Imagine
that this alliance expanded its vision and mission to promote the three reforms noted above. As Forward Thrust did four decades ago, this
civic alliance would enable our legislators to act. Without such an alliance to lead the way, our
legislature can’t act to deal with these obstacles. Private interests will continue to destroy
our state government’s capacity to maintain adequate public services, including
environmental, health, welfare, education and others.
As well as our general public, members of FAIR PAC
particularly have much to lose if the present situation continues. Both public interest and their private
interests suggest that they should act.
Dave Thomas
Here’s the Beef
Washington
Children’s Alliance rates legislators’ support for children.
City of
Bellevue expands its support for neighborhood togetherness to downtown.
Sound
Alliance and related Alliances are influencing governments to create green jobs
and more.
People
are training in Vancouver, WA to maintain wind turbines.
Coal
fired clunker electric generating plans may continue unaffected by climate
control legislation.
Vancouver’s
third rapid transit line begins operation.
A
Skagit County farmer is attempting to establish a tea growing venture.
Nation
and World
John de Graaf: Protect our Workers Right to Time
Plenary speech presented to
the Washington State Labor Convention
A
big thank you to everyone in the Washington State Labor Council for allowing me
the time to speak to you today. You
represent the Labor Movement, the people who, through their struggles and
courage, gave us the weekend and the forty hour week.
I
come to ask you to champion the right to time for working men and women once
more. And in particular, I ask you to
support national legislation that would give all workers the right to a paid
vacation.
I
want to start with a question: what do
the United States, the Guyanas, Nepal, and that model of human rights, Burma,
have in common? Any guesses? Believe it or not—and I’m not making this
up—the United States, the Guyanas, Nepal and Burma are the only countries in
the world that do not have a law guaranteeing paid vacation time for workers.
It’s
pretty much the same for paid family leave and paid sick days. Virtually every other country in the world
knows how important these things are. They give children a head start in life
and keep workplaces free from disease.
They improve health and extend our years. But our corporations don’t want them. We don’t need those things, they say, and we
can’t afford them, especially now. Well,
they couldn’t be more wrong. We can’t
afford NOT to do these things.
Right
now, as you know all too well, we are engaged in a powerful struggle for health
care reform in this country. Alone among
all the rich countries in the world, we do not have a universal health care system. 47 million of our brothers and sisters lack
access to health care. We must change
that. We will change that. And we must do it with a public option that
competes effectively with the insurance industry and brings costs down. That’s an imperative.
We
Americans now spend nearly half the world’s health care budget and nearly twice
as much per person as the citizens of any other country. In a few years, we will be spending one
dollar out of every five on health care alone.
We should be the healthiest people on Earth, right? Actually, we’re 50th in the world
in life expectancy, 45th in infant mortality—these figures are from
the
No
matter what measure of health performance you look at, the United States ranks
near the bottom among the wealthy countries of the world. If you lived in Western Europe you’d be
likely to live longer than we do and only about half as likely to suffer from
chronic illness in old age. But it’s not
just that they have better access to health care. Even if we insured all Americans tomorrow,
we’d still be less healthy.
Good
health, not health care—that’s the goal isn’t it? Imagine with me for a moment that health is a
house. Think about it. Let’s get metaphorical, OK? Now imagine that health care is the roof of the house—the final protection
against disease. In our case, the roof
is gold plated—the most expensive roof in the world—but it has 47 million holes
in it. We want to patch the holes. We have to patch the holes. But a good roof won’t do much for a house
where the foundation and the walls are weak and crumbling.
And
the strength of the foundation and the walls has a whole lot to do with having
time away from work. That’s the main reason the Europeans are
doing so much better than we are; they work 300 fewer hours than we do each
year. The foundation of our house of
health consists of the things we do to care for children—most importantly, paid
family leave that allows children to bond with parents. Studies show it reduces child mortality and
improves children’s health dramatically. Every country requires it by law except
Swaziland, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and the United States.
Wall One is lifestyle. Drinking moderately and not smoking are
big. But it also matters to eat a
healthy diet, get enough sleep and exercise.
All those things require some time off
the job. Fast food is a response to
hurried, overworked lives.
Wall Two is Stress Relief. Stress is a killer—we all know that. It’s the number one cause of heart disease
and hypertension and contributes greatly to obesity and diabetes. And we live in the most stressful of
societies. We have the poorest social
safety net should we lose our job. We
are hyper-competitive and hierarchical, with the biggest gap between rich and
poor of any industrial country. We work
the longest hours.
Wall Three is Connection. Loneliness is the worst thing you can do for
your health. Strong relationships with
family and friends are the best thing.
But when you’re overworked there’s less and less time for that.
Wall Four is Workplace and
Environmental Health and Safety. Even
that is connected to time. Without paid
sick days, many workers come to work sick and we all get sicker. Every other country knows that and provides
paid sick days by law.
No
wonder we’re not healthy. Even with
universal health care, if we don’t re-build the foundations and the walls of
our house, then costs will simply go through the roof. No doubt about it. Now consider this: one surprising result of the current
recession is a rather dramatic improvement
in American health. In fact, for every
one percent increase in unemployment in the past two years, we’ve seen a drop
of half a percent in the mortality rate.
How is this possible?
Sudden
joblessness often leads to abuse of alcohol or even spouses. And suicides are actually up a bit. Yet many Americans have used their unemployed
time to take better care of their health.
And for those who still have jobs, working hours are at their lowest in
decades. With more time, people are
exercising more. While car sales are
down, bicycle sales have risen. With
less money to eat out, we’re making healthier meals at home. Heart attacks are down.
We’ve
saving money for the first time in decades and because we’re driving less, traffic
deaths are way down. With less traffic
and with factories producing less, air pollution is down and child mortality
from asthma and other pollution-related illnesses is falling.
Yet
we cannot make light of the pain that unemployment, insecurity and this
recession are causing. We cannot make
light of the many economic struggles Americans face. We want to get the economy going again, get
people employed again. But we don’t want to lose these improvements
in health.
There
is one good way to do this. We must
bring back work-life balance by giving people more time off and sharing the
work that needs to be done. As Samuel
Gompers put it: “As long as a single worker cannot find work, the hours of
labor are too long!” And that’s where
vacations come in. Workers who don’t
regularly take vacations are 30 to 50 percent more likely to suffer from heart
attacks than those who do, twice as likely to suffer from depression.
Vacations
improve our sleep patterns and connect us more strongly with our families. They even improve our productivity so we
don’t have to work as long to produce the same amount.
Yet
last year, half of Washington workers took less than a week of paid vacation
time. Thirty percent got none at
all. The number of Washington businesses
providing paid vacation as a benefit dropped from 73 percent in 2007 to 63
percent in 2008. Who knows how low
that’s fallen this year? Things are
getting worse, not better, here and throughout the United States.
That’s
why Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida introduced the Paid Vacation Act of
2009 and why several unions have already supported the goal of paid vacation by
law. Grayson’s bill is very modest,
providing only one week of guaranteed paid vacation for companies with 50
employees or more, and two weeks for companies with 100 employees or more.
I
would like to see a stronger bill and my hope is that Senator Murray, who
chairs the Workplace Safety subcommittee in the Senate, will offer a stronger
version there. But Congressman Grayson’s
bill is an important start, a down payment if you will. If the results are positive—and I know they
will be—we can extend this bill to cover more of the workforce.
I
ask you to support the bill with your recommendation that it be made even
stronger, and that you encourage Washington’s senators and representatives to
get on board on co-sponsors.
Supporting
legislation like this falls fully within the great tradition of American labor.
When
thousands of poor women left their textile mills to march in the streets of
Lawrence, Massachusetts in January of 1912, they carried banners that read: WE
WANT BREAD
Bread
representing higher wages—and the
women of Lawrence who made sixteen cents an hour certainly needed higher
wages. But Roses, too. Roses representing shorter hours—time to smell the roses, time to live. “Small art and love and beauty their drudging
spirits knew,”--so the Labor anthem tells us of the women of Lawrence. “Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight
for roses too!”
Way
back in 1936, union leaders threw their support behind the Labor Department’s
Committee Report on Vacations with Pay. Back
then, the committee wrote: “Some 30 countries have laws under which workers
enjoy the benefits of annual vacations with pay. Especially because of our advanced
technological development, it is imperative that we provide for American
workers the protection to health and efficiency now guaranteed by law to many
workers throughout the world”
That
was in 1936. Now every country but the
United States, the Guyanas, Nepal and Burma has come on board. The
United States and Burma! Shouldn’t we be
a little embarrassed?
Two-thirds
of Americans favor a law that would guarantee some paid vacation time for
workers. They would be grateful to a
labor movement that helped them win such a law just as you’ve already won
vacation time for your members.
There
are those who will say now is not the time to bring up such issues as paid
vacations—not when the economy is hurting and people are out of work. But that is to forget history and lose sight
of the forest for the trees. It was in
the depths of the Great Depression that Labor pressed President Roosevelt
toward the most sweeping worker-supporting reforms this country has ever
seen—Social Security, The Right to Organize, the Minimum Wage, the Forty Hour
Week, Unemployment Insurance, Progressive Taxation.
Against
every one of these, the corporations and the timid cried, “No, we can’t! Not now!
It will cost jobs and make us less competitive.” None of those dire warnings turned out to be
true. In every case, the result was the
opposite—our country and its
corporations gained from the change.
So
it’s time to tell the corporations, “Enough with your cries of wolf! You can’t fool us anymore! “You won’t block progress any more! “You won’t stop American working men and
women from achieving the same protections and the same balanced lives that
workers have won in other countries.”
We
must not come out of this recession the same way we entered it, with stagnant
wages, longer hours and ever-increasing stress.
Vacations are not a luxury. Time away from work is not a luxury. They are essential to our health, our
families, our freedom. It’s time to restore
the roses! Every generation must light the flame anew. Join us now because there’s no present like
the time. Thank you and solidarity
forever. John de Graaf
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Here’s the Beef
America
has lots of small businesses and other myths.
80%
of derivatives are owned by just 5 large banks.
Many
unemployed people are trying to switch their careers to teaching, just when we
need more.
Work
demands stimulate workers to take shorter vacations.
Automakers
are cautiously making more cars which are in demand by those getting cash for
clunkers.
Bye
bye water in our southwestern states.
Power generating
clunker plants should be closed, not grandfathered.
Wal-Mart
launches program to require suppliers to disclose environmental impacts of
their products.
Learn
how grocery stores entice you into impulse buying of foods that are often
unhealthy.
When
CEOs buy luxurious homes, their companies stocks underperform.
Since
they supposedly don’t kill, police are using tasers more often. Sometimes inappropriately.
Turkey’s
dominant AK political party is curbing military’s ability to intervene in
politics. For
more.
Less developed
nations’ increased population deters reduction of poverty.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Action and Reflection
My participation in the National Vacations Matter
Summit (skillfully arranged by John de Graaf) stimulated lots of ideas. One thing I noticed is an assumption that
when people are working, they are performing many actions, thinking about their
specific actions; but doing little thinking more broadly about their world and
their lives. When they are on vacation,
they do little acting, but reflect more broadly.
Stemming from my participation in a religious order,
my pattern is different. Whether or not
I’m on vacation, when I wake up I often do a daily office which is a rehearsal
of my life in our world. Then I plan my
activities for the day, leaving perhaps a quarter of my time free, to be able
to take advantage of opportunities that occur.
As I go through my day, I tend to not do one task longer than several
hours. If a task takes longer than
several hours, I take recesses to do other tasks (there is always housework)
before returning to the larger one.
Sometimes, they say a job isn’t over until you do the
paper work. Upon completion of any task,
even some small novel ones, I usually reflect about it, how it went, what was
accomplished, what I learned, etc. I do
a larger reflection when I finish a project, consisting of various tasks. So my life is a series of
action-reflections. Before going to
sleep, I reflect on the day, what happened, what were the high and low points,
what were the struggles and breakthroughs, what did I learn, how am I different
from yesterday. I also let various dates
stimulate reflection, such as my birthday and the end of the year.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for Liberals
John de Graaf, 2003, Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America