Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #231
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Contents * Featured Articles Opportunities Petitions Communication to Our Members Changing Newsletter from Weekly to Every Other Week Commentaries from Our Members John deGraaf: Happiness, Not Production/Consumption Don Smith: Centrist and Progressive Democrats Fight Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef* Oval Office Address Was Primarily for damage Control Obama Administration Lacks Needed Imagination** Like Republicans, Democrats Should Play Rough* Tea Party Extremist Opposes Harry Reid State and Local Links
to the Beef Tom Cramer: A Senior Running Against Reichert Calib Mardini: Why I Am Running David Spring: I Can Win August Primary Help Gather I-1098 Signatures** Nation and World Links to the Beef* Featured Advocacy Group: Program on Corporations, Law
& Democracy Our Liberal Spirit Recommended Books 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 A Crisis
is a Terrible Thing to Waste Paul Romer
Calendar of Events
Saturday, June 19 at 6 PM at South Seattle Community
College Jerry M. Brockey Center, (6000 16th Ave. SW, Seattle) - Washington
Public Campaigns Fourth Annual Awards Banquet. $55 For more.
Opportunities
Commentaries
that have addressed major issues
Obtain
a free ‘Corporations Are Not People’ bumper sticker.
Petitions
Support
President Obama’s promotion of a clean energy future.
Tell
the International Whaling Commission to stop whale hunting.
Communication
To Our Members
Changing Newsletter
from Weekly to Every Other Week
I am caring for my wife who suffers
short term memory loss, weak legs and other ailments. Her care leaves me little time for any other
activities, including creating our weekly newsletters. So I have decided that beginning in July, I
will only create a newsletter every other week.
Our upcoming schedule will thus be June 25, July 2, July 16, July 30,
etc. With the health care and financial
reform bills passed, there may be fewer events to comment on, so you will not
miss much.
I have also been unable to leave my wife
at home alone, except for quick half hour shopping trips when she is
asleep. Thus I have been unable to go to
political meetings and recruit more people to receive this newsletter. So our membership has stabilized and even
declined slightly as a handful of people opt out each week.
Unfortunately, many of our members are
not even skimming our newsletter, in spite of this being the quickest way to
understand basic issues that are ignored or distorted by commercial media
pundits. Dave Thomas
Commentaries
From Our Members
John deGraaf: Happiness, Not
Production/Consumption
You may
have noticed that the subject of happiness is hot right now. Books and articles
galore. But the interest in happiness is not entirely new. Once upon a time, in a far-off land of green
valleys and soaring mountains, a boy of sixteen was crowned King — and began in
a quiet way to change the world. The
year was 1972 — not so long ago. The faraway land was a tiny Himalayan Kingdom
called Bhutan, thought of by many as the model for Shangri-La. And the sixteen year old king was Jigme
Wangchuck, who, when asked what he would do to increase Bhutan’s Gross National
Product, replied that, as far as he was concerned: Gross national happiness is more
important than gross national product! … and Gross National Happiness
would be the goal of his reign.
Now if any leader, young or old, had made those remarks here in the United
States, he or she would have received a few chuckles perhaps, then a collective
yawn, and an exhortation to get real and get back to making money. But the people of Bhutan take their kings
very seriously, and slowly over the next thirty eight years, they began to put
a little meat on the concept of Gross National Happiness. They wanted to figure
out how to measure it, how to enhance it through government and social
policies, and how to educate themselves about the behaviors that lead to
greater joy. They invited leading
“happiness scientists” to their once isolated land — psychologists and
economists and ecologists and philosophers and sociologists and experts in
health and in the creation of scientific surveys.
In time, they began to measure nine domains that affect happiness:
·
Psychological
well-being or mental health
·
Physical health
·
Time or
work-life balance
·
Education
·
Cultural
vitality and expression
·
Social
connection and relationships
·
Environmental
quality and access to nature
·
Quality of
government
·
Material
well-being.
It’s telling that material well-being (translation: stuff), the
near-obsessive goal of American economics, is only one of the dimensions Bhutan
uses to analyze economic decisions. That’s because research has shown that
stuff only makes us happier up to a point. For poor nations, happiness tends to
rise quickly as purchasing power and standard of living increases. But past a certain level of income, the curve
of increased satisfaction flattens and eventually becomes a straight line. It
may even begin to decline. So, for instance, in the United States, surveys of
self-reported life satisfaction show a slight downward trend over the past half
century, despite a near-tripling of average incomes.
It is true that in virtually all societies, rich people are happier than poor
people, a phenomenon that reflects status and power differences and the
psychological fact that we tend to judge our success, and therefore, rate our
satisfaction, in comparison to others. But as an entire society’s income rises
past a minimum of modest comfort, overall levels of happiness do not rise with
it. This finding leads former Harvard
University president Derek Bok, author of the terrific new book, The Politics of Happiness, to a sensible
observation: If it turns out to be true that rising incomes have failed to make
Americans happier, as much of the recent research suggests, what is the point
of working such long hours and risking environmental disaster in order to keep
on doubling and redoubling our Gross Domestic Product? What is the point, indeed?
By now, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with progressive
politics. Well, some of the world’s
leading happiness experts created surveys for Bhutan to use in measuring its people’s
life satisfaction. And the government of Bhutan is using the results to guide
its economic, social and environmental policies. They’ve even used it to decide not to
join the WTO!
In the past decade, Bhutan has taken its message of happiness to the world. In
fact, Bhutan’s Secretary of Happiness was in Seattle this week. He spoke at the Green Festival and the
Environmental Protection Agency, and met with members of the City Council. The happiness surveys developed for Bhutan
have been used in Brazil and Canada and other countries — in cities, in
universities and even in corporations.
In our neighbor community of Victoria, British Columbia, civic
organizations formed a Happiness Partnership and conducted a scientific
sampling of the nine domains of happiness in their city.
We are now hoping to do that in Seattle.
And I want to invite you all to be part of this campaign. In fact, it
seems we may have a little friendly “happiness” competition among Northwest
cities — Victoria, Vancouver, Bellingham, Seattle, Olympia and Portland. Imagine taking seriously what Thomas
Jefferson wrote about governments being instituted to promote “life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.” He didn’t say property, or maximum incomes or
the grossest national product. He said happiness.
Imagine asking a simple question: What’s our economy for, anyway? And concluding, with Gifford Pinchot, the
first director of the Forest Service, that its purpose is “the greatest good
for the greatest number over the longest run.”
In other words, Gross National Happiness with justice and
sustainability.
How might this affect our politics?
Well, interestingly, only six percent of Victoria residents said they
thought they’d be happier if they had more possessions. Ranking their material
satisfaction, they gave it a score of ninety two on a scale of one
hundred. They were far less happy with
their financial security, giving it a score of only fifty three. But the lowest
score of all was for “time balance” — a score of only forty six out of one
hundred. According to the Victoria
survey, “Stress and problems of time-balance were the most important factors in
limiting well-being across the regional population.” I suspect that our survey in Seattle will
produce similar results, but with scores for time balance and economic security
even lower than in Victoria.
And I would suggest that this has some implications for our politics that
progressives have not taken seriously. Our
ecological footprint is already five times what is sustainable. If everyone in
the world consumed as we do, we’d need five planets. What we need now is not supercharged economic
growth, but an economy that is less consumptive, kinder to the earth, more
local and with less of our time committed to the market, so that we have more
time for our communities, for our families, for our health and to be good
environmental stewards. Green,
alternative technologies can help us to transition there, but they can never
perpetuate a consumer lifestyle that knows no limits on a planet already
stretched to the limit. Here of some examples of the kind of policies we should
promote:
· Paid family leave. Only the United States, Swaziland,
Liberia and Papua New Guinea don’t guarantee at least paid maternity leave.
· Paid sick days. Only a handful of desperately poor
countries and the United States, don’t guarantee paid leave when you’re sick.
· Paid vacation time. Only the United States, Guyana,
Suriname, Nepal and Burma don’t guarantee at least some paid vacation time.
Washington State could be the leader
in ensuring vacation time, either by initiative or by an act of the
Legislature. And we should support the
Paid Vacation Act of 2009, sponsored in Congress by a true progressive,
Representative Alan Grayson of Florida.
Here’s another idea: the choice of shorter work-time. In the Netherlands and some other European
countries workers have a legal right to reduce their hours without losing their
jobs. They keep the same hourly pay, pro-rated benefits and full health
care. This is an enormous expansion of
personal freedom — the right to choose time over money, to select shorter hours
of work without losing one’s livelihood.
Each of these policy reforms is essential to good health. Indeed, our lack of
these rights is one big reason Americans have the worst health in the
industrial world, despite paying twice as much as everyone else does for
healthcare. Such ideas should have been
part of the health care debate. Progressives should have made them part of the
healthcare debate. If we enact these policies, we can become healthier and
ultimately, at far less cost. Right now,
Americans work two hundred to four hundred hours more each year than Europeans
do. We need to work less so all can work. We can reduce unemployment by sharing
the work. Most Americans don’t need more stuff in their lives. But they
desperately need more time, and more opportunity to work and work reasonable
hours.
Such changes will make our families and communities stronger. And they will
reduce our impact on the environment.
With more time, people walk more, bicycle more, and use public transit
more frequently. With longer working hours, they choose the fastest, most
energy-intensive, form of transport. This is not rocket science and many
studies confirm it.
A politics of time is also a politics of happiness. Gallup does an annual poll,
measuring levels of well-being in one hundred and forty countries. Even Forbes
magazine confirmed that the United States in nowhere in the top ten. The four happiest countries are Denmark,
Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden. Forbes explained what they have in common.
They are among the world’s most egalitarian nations and they pay the greatest
attention to work-life balance.
Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett added one more commonality they
share. They pay among the highest taxes in the world. Obviously, they get something from those
taxes. A politics of happiness and of
time balance has profoundly progressive implications.
If we don’t understand this, the right does and they want to nip this in the
bud. Their think tanks and scholars are already at work to hijack
happiness. Consider two new books by
Arthur Brooks, the President of the American Enterprise Institute, and, sad to
say, a native of Seattle. One is called Gross
National Happiness. Seriously. The
other is called The Battle, and is endorsed by Carl Rove and Dick Cheney
as a “must read for conservatives who want our movement to dominate the
intellectual and policy debates of America’s coming vital decades.” Yeah, right.
These books are to the science of happiness what the shills for BP are
to the science of climate change. Contrary to what virtually every happiness
study has found, Brooks contends that the happiest countries are those with the
least government and lowest taxes. Happiness researchers have found pretty much
the opposite.
To Danes and Swedes and Finns and the Dutch, Brooks’ findings must read like a
joke book. Brooks does agree that after a certain point more money doesn’t make
people happier. Then he uses it to argue that, therefore, in America,
inequality doesn’t matter. Yeah, right. And he even argues that reducing
American working hours would make workers unhappier. Brooks says that Americans don’t work long
hours because they have to; they do it because they love to work so much. Vacations would make them completely
miserable. Yeah, right.
Well, I’ve got news for Mr. Brooks.
Gallup’s daily survey finds that Americans are twenty percent happier on
weekends than on workdays — what a surprise! They are thirty to forty percent
happier on holidays. And when they rank the happiness their daily activities
bring, working ends up second from the bottom, more pleasurable only than that
mother of all downers, the morning commute.
By contrast, socializing after work ranks second from the top! Now, I’m not knocking work. A good job that
contributes to society and provides for one’s family is central to a happy
life. We need to be sure that every
American has the opportunity to have such a job. But more is not always better and fifty hours
a week is not better than forty or thirty two, especially when we are
sacrificing our health and social connections.
Arthur Brooks’ conclusions may be laughable to happiness researchers. But the fact that the President of the
American Enterprise Institute devotes not one, but two, books to the politics
of happiness, tells us just how dangerous he feels this subject is for the
right and just how necessary he — and the big conservative money that feeds him
— feel it is to hijack this dialogue before it begins. We can’t let them do that. And we can’t let
this moment pass without action.
The politics of happiness are progressive at their core. They call for policies
that go deeper than economic growth, to the core values of family and
community, health and stewardship, a balanced life on a sustainable
planet. And they are part of our
progressive tradition. Nearly a hundred
years ago, when thousands of women left the dismal textile mills of Lawrence,
Massachusetts, to demand a better life, they carried banners which read: We want bread and roses too. Bread and roses. The twin goals of
the old labor movement. Higher wages to
buy the bread. Shorter hours to smell
the roses. Somehow we’ve come to focus
solely on the bread and we’ve left the roses to wither. It’s time to water them
again. John deGraaf For more.
Don Smith: Centrist and Progressive Democrats Fight:
There's a title fight going on for the soul of Washington
State's Democratic Party.
Or maybe the fight is just over the speed of
change. In one corner sit House Speaker
Frank Chopp, Governor Gregoire, and the Road
Kill Caucus of middle-of-the-road Democrats. In the other corner sit the progressive
caucus, the Netroots, and
most of the PCOs and Democratic activists (including yours truly). For
more. Don Smith
Liberals
and Democrats
Oval Office Address Was Primarily for damage
Control
President
Obama’s first oval office address was primarily to indicate that he would
both ensure that those whose seafood and tourist businesses were ruined by oil
would be compensated and that attempts would be made to reclaim and enhance the
damaged wetlands and beaches. But he
offered no specifics concerning how this would be done on a sustainable basis (see below). For
more. For
more. For
more. For
more. For
more.
In
the absence of specific, there is no assurance that sustainable jobs will be
provided to those who have lost their previous ones and no assurance that a
sustainable effort will be made to restore and enhance the wetlands and beaches. Without such assurance, President Obama’s
address fails even to provide damage control.
Obama Administration Lacks Needed Imagination
Due
to it’s inside the beltway perspective, the Obama Administration is lacking
imagination concerning the creation of jobs without adding to the federal
deficit. Two examples:
State
and local governments can adopt best practices for creating jobs by encouraging
successful entrepreneurs in their and other areas to act as consultants to
would be entrepreneurs. Helping would be
entrepreneurs to create jobs would add nothing to the federal deficit. But the Obama Administration has failed to
promote this course of action by state and local governments.
There are
many wetlands recovery efforts across the country, although perhaps none where
the obstacle has been the intrusion of oil.
Nevertheless, efforts should be made to reclaim and enhance the
Caribbean wetlands and beaches, employing fishermen and others who have been
harmed by oil in union jobs paid for by BP.
Such efforts would not add to the federal deficit, would help us learn
how to deal with the intrusion of oil and create needed jobs. For
more.
In
addition, the Obama Administration has failed to adopt the Republican strategy
of playing rough, which is vital for passing needed legislation assist Main
Street and to maintain fiscal responsibility.
Like Republicans, Democrats Should Play Rough
Conservatives
have always played rough, using reconciliation procedures when necessary to
pass measures such as tax cuts and military expenditures that they favor. And imposing sanctions upon Republican
congress members who deviate from their agenda.
As Colorado Democrats have shown, playing rough can also be to their
advantage. They changed Colorado from
having predominantly Republican state and national legislators to having
predominantly Democratic ones.
Instead
of making drastic compromises in an attempt to defeat filibusters, Democrats
should craft their reforms to use reconciliation procedures. In particular, they should use reconciliation
procedures to impose taxes and fees on Wall Street speculators and other high
income earners to both curb speculative bubbles and to provide lower fiscal
deficits. Democrats should refute and
not be deterred by false Republican claims that these tax increases would harm
job creation, just as President Clinton’s tax increases on the very wealthy did
not harm job creation or keep federal deficits from decreasing.
In
addition, the Obama Administration should reward those congress members who
support reconciliation measures to increase taxes on the wealthy but helping
them raise campaign funds and in other ways.
It should refuse to reward and even punish those congress members who do
not support such members. Even if a few
of these latter lose to Republicans, converting some of them to supporting the
reconciliation will be worthwhile. Like
the Republicans, Democrats should impose discipline upon their members.
Wall Street Regulatory Reform
Wall
Street Regulatory Reform will hopefully pass before the July 4th
congressional recess. But which
regulations will be included are still being decided in the conference
committee. Wall
Street lobbyists are strongly opposing regulations necessary to prevent future
speculative bubbles. Our treasury
department is siding with Wall Street to oppose derivative reform. Attempts
to reform credit rating agency procedures are weakened. For
more. Attempts
are still being made to weaken ‘too big to fail’ mega-banks.
Fiscal Responsibility
House Financial Services Chairman
Barney Frank (D-Mass.), along with a bipartisan task force that includes
members of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Cato Institute,
Center for Defense Information and others, announced the release today of a new
report that identifies $960 billion in Pentagon budget savings that can be
generated over the next ten years from realistic reductions in defense
spending. The report was produced by the Sustainable Defense Task Force,
a group convened in response to a request from Rep. Frank to explore options
for reducing the defense budget's contribution to the federal deficit without
compromising the essential security of the United States. For more. For more.
Our deficits should be
reduced by increasing income taxes upon our wealthiest people.
A financial
transactions tax will both raise money and discourage speculation.
Democrats are daring
Republicans to try to repeal health care reform. In spite of
health care reform, abuses continue. States can improve
health care reform.
Tea Party Extremist Sharron Angle Opposes
Harry Reid
Look at how outside the mainstream Sharron Angle is:
·
She opposed fluoride in
the public water supplies because she claimed it might contain "lead,
arsenic, [or] mercury." Meanwhile, the Center for Disease Control has
recognized water fluoridation as "one of the 10 great public health
achievements of the 20th Century."
·
She proposed a bill in
the Nevada Legislature to require doctors to inform women seeking abortions
about a debunked theory linking abortions to an increased risk of breast cancer
-- a myth spread by anti-choice forces to discourage women seeking legal
medical procedures.
·
She responded to the
disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico by actually suggesting that we
should deregulate Big Oil.
·
She stated her belief
that it is unacceptable and wrong for both parents to hold jobs simultaneously.
·
She favors abolishing
Social Security, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Despite these radical views, which place her far
beyond the fringe of American politics, Sharron Angle was able to win her
primary last week and deliver a huge victory to right-wing extremists. Now
they're rallying behind her and getting ready to throw everything they have at
Harry Reid. For more.
Here’s the Beef
President
Obama should choose President Truman’s strategy instead of President Clinton’s.
Consistent
Liberals must organize to pressure President Obama to create more far-reaching
reforms.
Bill
Halter’s primary challenge to Blanche Lincoln was worth it.
Liberal
challenges to Obama Administration compromises may strengthen the Obama
Administration.
Mayors
call for immigration reform and oppose Arizona’s anti-immigrant law.
Attempt to stop EPA
from regulating green house gas emissions fails.
Republicans
oppose making BP accountable for consequences of its failed deep sea oil
drilling. For
more.
Some
government hating Conservatives.
State and
Local
Tom Cramer: A Senior Running Against Reichert
Tom
Cramer is a senior running for Congress here in 8th Congressional
District of East King and Pierce Counties. Congress is currently considering cutting
Social Security and Medicare benefits to balance the budget. Tom is opposed to
balancing the budget on the backs of seniors and opposed to cutting Social
Security and Medicare. Instead, Tom believes we should balance the budget by
requiring billionaires to pay their fair share of federal taxes.
Tom
is running against Dave Reichert, who supported the Bush Wall Street
deregulation that got us into the mess we are in today. Dave Reichert has opposed health care reform,
opposed financial reform of Wall Street and taken millions of dollars from his
corporate backers.
Tom’s
other opponent, multi-millionaire Suzan DelBene, made her money by importing
foreign workers through the H1B program - which cost thousands of East King
County computer programmers their jobs. Suzan also opposes universal health
care and did not even bother to vote in 9 elections in the past 5 years.
As
a small business owner, a parent and a former teacher, Tom will work hard to
restore our economy by providing good jobs for working families, supporting
small businesses, preparing our children for a successful future and protecting
the right of our seniors to a safe and secure retirement. Tom has called for
an end to the Bush tax breaks for millionaires so we can use these billions of
dollars to lower taxes on middle class families, jump start our economy and get
Americans working again.
Tom
stated: “I am running to represent the real people of the 8th
District. Middle class and working families deserve a better choice and a
better future. Working together, we can restore our economy and rebuild our
community, our State and our nation.”
-----------
Several
other people have filed to run as Democrats in the 8th Congressional
District primary. One of them Calib
Mardini presents his reason for running.
Calib
Mardini: Why I Am Running
I am
running because the integrity of our democracy is under threat from the
corrupting money that pervades our political system. Voting Democrat or
Republican is meaningless and we are not represented when both parties are
funded, and legislation is approved by campaign sponsors. We need a
choice.
Today
those that helped bring down our economy use our money to lobby against the
reform necessary to rebuild. The people who lobbied for the removal of
Depression era laws that would have protected us are now the same people
directing hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money to prop up their
bankrupt institutions.
We
witnessed the crippling effects of money on healthcare legislation and I am
concerned that other important issues including jobs and our environment will
be affected by the same distorting forces. The Supreme Court ruling
allowing unlimited spending to buy elections will make things much worse.
Our campaign finance laws served us well in the past but they are in
desperate need of an update.
With
our top-two primary Washington State voters have an opportunity to shake things
up. My campaign offers a choice. That choice is to send a message
that we will not accept having anyone buy our elections, we are not for sale.
I am
limiting contributions for my campaign to $25. Those who want to
contribute more can help by getting others involved. Everyone is a top
contributor and there is no “pay for access.”
The interests of campaign donors will continue to be put ahead of the best
interests of this nation and we will suffer for it as long as we continue to
vote for those who we tacitly accept are bought and paid for. When we
signal a change by rejecting those candidates we will see a change in the
quality of our choices. Your choice matters. Calib
Mardini
David Spring: I Can Win August Primary
I am sending you this because some people have
been worried I might not make it past the August primary. It is true I will be
outspent more than 20 to 1. But as I note below, there are many reasons
for optimism. I hope you will continue to encourage your friends and neighbors
to vote for me. But I don’t want you to stay awake at night worrying. I am
working hard to get the message out, but as I note below, many voters know who
I am, why I am running and they are already planning on voting for me…
Today, June 12th, I handed out several
hundred flyers while walking the sidelines during the three hours before and
during the Maple Valley Parade. I also did this in 2008, but this time there
were about twice as many people. My guess is more than 1,000 and perhaps as
many as 2,000 people were there. The nice weather really helped the turn out.
Most were parents with children (my natural supporters).
In 2008, there was definitely
an “anti-Democrat” atmosphere in Maple Valley. As many as half those I
talked with did not even want to take one of my flyers. Many said they “never
vote for Democrats.” In 2008, I got the impression I was the first
Democratic candidate to even make an appearance in Maple Valley. I said I was
from North Bend, all my neighbors are Republicans and I understood why they did
not like Democrats. But I was running to restore funding for public schools and
I hoped they would consider voting for me anyway.
However,
the atmosphere in Maple Valley today was completely different than 2008. Most
encouraging, many parents said they already knew who I was. They said they
voted for me in 2008 and they were glad I was running again! Many said “You are that guy who is running to save our
public schools – I hope you win!” I
told them to email their friends and neighbors and ask them to vote for me too.
A couple of people said they voted for me because they “liked my Voters Guide
Statement.” I was amazed they even remembered my Voters Guide Statement. The
great news is that hundreds of people in
Maple Valley actually know who I am and they know I am trying to get funding
for our public schools!
I was expecting I would do well in the August primary
for the same three reasons I did well in 2008. I am a parent, and a teacher and
I am trying to restore funding for our public schools. Voters trust parents and
teachers and they recognize that our public schools are in deep trouble.
Neither of my opponents are a parent or a teacher and neither has offered any
solutions to the school funding problem. So those are three reasons I believed
I would do well in the August primary. However, thanks to the folks in Maple
Valley, there is a fourth reason for optimism: A surprisingly large number of voters already know who I am! They not
only know who I am, they know why I am running!
In 2008, I took a lot of flack for focusing on the
school funding crisis. Folks complained I was a “single issue candidate.” They said I needed to talk about something
else besides the school funding problem. I warned that thousands of teachers
would lose their jobs if we did not solve this problem. Sadly, since 2008, I
have been proven right. Thousands of teachers have lost their jobs in the past
two years as the legislature cut more than one billion dollars in school
funding. In the next two years, with the ongoing budget problems and the loss
of federal funding, thousands more teachers are at risk of being fired.
In 2010, I am also trying to talk about creating more
jobs and reducing corporate corruption in Olympia. But the school funding
disaster remains a central issue for many parents. The three major school
districts in the 5th Legislative District – the Issaquah, Snoqualmie
Valley and Tahoma School Districts – are three of the lowest funded, most
over-crowded school districts in America. Yet middle class families in East
King County pay some of the highest State taxes in America. The legislature
takes our precious tax dollars and diverts it away from our schools and into
corporate welfare for the largest and richest corporations in the world. This
is not just unconstitutional, it is immoral. Our legislature is placing the
future of one million children at risk just so billionaires can buy bigger
boats.
After talking with hundreds of voters in Maple Valley,
I am more confident than ever we will do well in the August primary. Many
voters already know that our public schools are facing a financial disaster.
These voters also know I will work day and night to restore funding for our
public schools. I had not counted on so many people remembering me from the
2008 campaign. But they do and because of that, I am confident we will do well
in the August primary. So keep working hard. But stop worrying!
Regards, David
Spring
Help Gather I-1098 Signatures
Dear
Dave, I have to let you know about the most touching story we have heard on the
campaign trail so far. Esther Instebo is
99 years old. She has already
turned in 60 signatures and requested 2 more sheets. Watch
this video of her explaining why she feels so strongly about Initiative 1098 here. Esther is an example to us all. She is
bravely working to collect signatures with the help of her hospice care nurse. Will
you join her by volunteering at the Fremont Fair this weekend?
Esther understands that 1098 is about more than just taxes. It is about our
commitment to our fellow Washingtonians. Initiative 1098 will help keep our
schools funded and provide desperately needed support for the basic healthcare
plan all while reducing taxes on the middle class. If Esther can commit to gathering 60
signatures, can't you?
Click here to join us this
weekend at the Fremont Fair. The Edmonds
Art Festival is this weekend at the Frances Anderson Cultural Center in
downtown Edmonds @ 700 Main St. Edmonds, WA 98026. The hours are Saturday
11am-8pm and Sunday 10am-6pm. Any amount of time those two days would be
greatly appreciated by the campaign. This is untapped ground! We have not had
an event in Edmonds yet, so this could potentially be a huge gathering
mobilization! or if you can't
make it this weekend, find or create another event near you by using our online organizing tools.
Future Washingtonians will thank you for your willingness to stand up for what
is right. In appreciation of all you do,
Kelly Evans, Yes on 1098.
How
would I-1098 affect Washington’s regressive tax system?
How
would I-1098 affect the Business & Occupation tax for small businesses?
Here’s the Beef
Seattle
policeman punches jaywalker.
Nation
and World
Featured Advocacy Group
-------------------- Program on Corporations, Law
& Democracy -----------------
POCLAD works with
people experienced in stopping corporate harms who want to rethink organizing
strategies, exercise democratic authority at the local level, and strip
fundamental powers-such as free speech and due process-from corporations. Real change, led by We the People, is needed
in our nation and world. A bottom-up democracy insurgency calling and working
for genuine self-governance has begun.
POCLAD calls for individuals to come together in their own communities to join
its campaign to launch a democratic insurgency that puts corporations once
again subordinate to "We the People.":
· Study and reflect on the political, legal and institutional
oppressions of today
· Learn about democracy campaigns and cooperative
programs from democracy/anti-corporate organizations
·
More consciously
discuss what people are willing to do to work for real change over the long haul
- beginning where they are
POCLAD has prepared resources to assist those who want
to embark on this quest:
· By What Authority (BWA) article: "Spirit of
Change"
· U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776)
· Populist party Omaha platform (1892)
· BWA article: "The Case Against Judicial
Review"
·
BWA article: "Who Do We Think We Are?"
· BWA article: "The U. S. Constitution: Pull the Curtain"
· BWA article: "A U.S. Constitution with DEMOCRACY
IN MIND"
· Democratic Arts: Attitudes and Skills for
Participatory Democracy
· Democracy/anti-corporate groups and campaigns
· Information on MovetoAmend /Campaign to Legalize
Democracy
· POCLAD resource list
· Discussion questions
Order a Democracy Insurgency packet, contact POCLAD or call 508-398-1145. Cost of packet is $5.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
Social
Security is now projected to pay better benefits than was so in the 1940s
through 1960s.
Our
U.S. doesn’t have a debt crisis. It has
a jobs crisis.
Turkey is becoming an
economic and political super power.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Making Use of Crises
President Bush left President
Obama with a series of crises: housing-credit bubble and collapse, global
warming, expensive and inadequate health care coverage, political control by
lobbyists backed by private campaign contributions. The escaping oil into the Caribbean is
another crisis. Each of these crises can
stimulate people to make necessary reforms.
Unfortunately, President Obama has repeatedly failed to provide
necessary leadership. He instead surrounded
himself with close advisers who had been part of the problem and who advised
him against making necessary reforms.
President Obama has refused
to play rough and even neutered those who supported his election campaign by
placing them at the disposal of the Democratic Party, where they have been
unable to oppose inconsistently Liberal Democrats.
But MoveOn, Democracy for
America, various unions, the Netroots and others are gradually beginning to stimulate
needed reforms, partly by playing rough with inconsistently Liberal
Democrats.
Organization takes time, but
when freedoms and opportunities are threatened some people will give up, but
others will gradually rise to the occasion.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Nouriel Roubini,
2010, Crisis Economics. A Crash Course in
the Future of Finance
Nouriel Roubini
was one of the few economists to predict the housing-credit bubble and its
collapse. He offers specific suggestions
for stimulating the economy while preventing future speculative bubbles,
including:
·
Changing
compensation for traders and bankers to bring their interests in line with
shareholders
·
Far
greater transparency and standardization of securitization and regulation of
its products
·
Under-the-table
derivatives must be made transparent, put on central clearinghouses and
exchanges and registered in databases, with their use restricted
·
Rating
agencies must be paid by by investors instead of by the institutions that issue
the debt
·
‘Too
big to fail’ mega-banks and many less visible firms must be broken up into
smaller banks.
·
Glass-Steagall
banking legislation must be enacted, updated to apply to shadow banks as well as banks
·
Regulation
should be consolidated in fewer more powerful regulators, with better
compensation for regulators
·
Central
banks must proactively use monetary and credit policies to curb speculative
bubbles
·
The
IMF must be strengthened and given the power to supply the making of a new
international reserve currency, with the emerging economies given more
influence upon IMF policies
These suggestions
are much more specific than suggestions made by those who still believe that
speculation offers benefits. They are
also similar to those offered by Joe Stiglitz who also predicted the
housing-credit bubble and its collapse.
I will comment next week on Joe Stiglitz’s suggestions.