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Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of Contents *Featured
Articles Opportunities,
Petitions and Feedback Commentaries from Our Members Mike
Barer: Review of Movie, ‘Swing Vote’ Andrew
Villeneuve Strongly Supports Proposition 1 Dave Miller
on America United, Eastside Chapter Michael
Spencer on Dino Rossi’s Duplicity Liberals and Democrats Links to the
Beef Racism,
The Elephant in the Closet* State and Local Links to the
Beef Endorsements
for Primary Candidates* Washington
State Public School Expenditures* Nation and World
Links to the Beef Protecting
U.S. Farmers Wrecks Trade Negotiations Our Liberal Spirit Our Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and Competent Spending ·
Investment for Productivity ·
Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income and Retirement ·
Environmental Protection and Energy ·
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 4 Major Needs ·
Federal Funding for Health and Education ·
A Progressive Income
Tax ·
Replacing
Republican Legislators Quotes of the Week By Will Rogers (1879 - 1935) ·
It’s not what we don’t know that hurts: it’s
what we know that ain’t so. · You know everybody
is ignorant, only on different subjects. ·
An ignorant
person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out. For more.
Calendar of Events
Tuesday, August 19 at 6:30 PM at Issaquah Brewhouse
(35 W. Sunset Way #C, Issaquah) – 5th
Legislative District Primary Election Results Party. RSVP.
Thursday, August 21 at 7:30 PM at Fellowship Hall
of the United Church of Christ (Rockefeller at
Thursday, August 28 at 7:30 PM at Mukilteo Coffee
Roasters, Inc. (5331 Crawford Road, Langley) – Health Care Forum sponsored by Island County Chapter of Health Care
for All - Washington
Saturday, September 6 at 6 PM at Mainstage Comedy
Club (
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Opportunities, Petitions and Feedback
Communication with Our
Members and Feedback
Our
Website has been improved. Our Basic
Training menu now offers more commentaries.
Our Commentary menu offers four new pages formed by combining
commentaries which have appeared in our newsletter:
· Three
Crises: Peak Oil, Financial Bubble and Global Warming
· Reforming
Our Washington State Tax System
· Affordable
Housing and Urban Transportation
These
will be updated as more relevant commentaries are published.
Opportunities
Sign up to receive an email
as soon as Obama announces his vice-presidential partner.
Thanks
to Ray McBain, some great pictures of the Olympics opening ceremony in China.
See What the Iraq Occupation has cost us to this minute.
How
Would You Spend $3 Trillion instead of Iraq?
Try
MoveOn’s new game: What’s the difference between President Bush and Senator
John McCain?
Wellstone Action provides
organizing tools online.
See Paul Loeb’s organizing
tools: one, two, three.
Wellstone
Action canvassing instructions
Take
a quiz concerning how green is your vacation.
See the Story of Stuff (video).
Petitions and
Donations
Sign Healthy Washington Coalition Petition to Washington Elected
Officials
Tell your
senators to support the Broadband Data Improvement Act.
Tell
our Environmental Protection Agency to stop mercury pollution.
Tell EPA
Administrator Stephen Johnson to quit and inform congress.
Tell your congress
member to support renewable energy instead of drilling for oil.
Tell
President Bush to protect our endangered species.
Endorse the Global Marshall Plan proposed by the Network of
Spiritual Progressives.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Email from
I have a review of Swing Vote.
http://mvbarer.blogspot.com/2008/08/movie-review-swingvote.html
Email from Andrew Villeneuve
In response to my commentary on Sound Transit and Proposition 1, Andrew Villeneuve
emailed me:
“I am utterly disappointed that you have totally bought into the conservatives'
criticism of Sound Transit. Our region is doomed if we don't start investing in
a rail system. This is an incredibly
smart proposal on the table in front of us. Really, I'm stunned that you're telling fellow liberals this is a bad
idea.
Did you know I got into politics in the first place because Tim Eyman was
attacking Sound Transit? I recognized the value of what ST was doing and wanted
to defend them. This agency is the only
agency in the state that is doing anything to plan for a future with more
transportation options. Shame on you for saying
ST should be replaced.
Your criticisms of Sound Transit are so off...so
wrong... I don't know where to begin. Honestly, I don't. But I
will happily sit down with you and explain my perspective. Andrew Villeneuve, Executive Director, Northwest
Progressive Institute [Red added by
I emailed Andrew the
following reply:
“Thanks for reading and reacting to my
commentary. I am open to changing my thinking concerning a series of
issues, depending upon the evidence, regardless of who else supports or opposes
my positions.
I believe that we need a long range vision, an
understanding of the obstacles, and strategies to overcome these
obstacles. I believe that a key part of the vision must be affordable
housing near jobs, to reduce urban sprawl, expensive infrastructure,
environmental infringement, commuting, congestion and pollution, and to provide
people more time with their families. I believe that increasingly
expensive fuel will increase concentration of housing near jobs, and reduce
commuting to the point that many fewer highway improvements will be
needed. I believe that we need public transit including a network of
light rail along major transportation routes, supplemented by a network of bus
service to reach neighborhoods beyond major transportation routes. This
public transit should be oriented to facilitating all of our many work,
shopping, recreational and visiting trips. The faster the progress toward
a quality public transit system, the better.
I believe that one of the obstacles has been that
commercial interests seek service primarily oriented to their shopping, office
and other work areas. Construction interests primarily seek projects from
which they can profit. And labor seeks jobs, whether or not the jobs are
the most useful ones. Thus we get detailed transportation studies and
proposals instead of detailed affordable housing studies and proposals which
address the more basic problems.
I believe that Sound Transit serves narrow
interests and has a track record of overspending their budgets, cutting back
their projects and missing their projected timelines. Within a sensible
long range plan, specific smaller scale projects should be proposed, so that
there is better accountability for each project. As some are progressing
well, others should be initiated. We don't need more gigantic
WHOOPS (WPPSS) type projects.
I believe that Eastside rail should orient to
providing service between all of our population nodes, including
These are my major hypotheses, which I believe are
backed by evidence. I think they are fully in accord with Liberal
Principles (well planned and responsibly implemented projects oriented to
serving our public interests) and opposed to Conservative 'Crony Capitalism' or
'Starve Public Infrastructure' Principles. I don't do what I do in
response to what some Conservative is doing. I do it because of my vision
of a Liberal Society and my attempts to find ways to implement such a society,
in the face of obstacles. Conservative opposition is one set of
obstacles. Others include self interests among so-called liberal
groups, public apathy, superficial thinking and shortsightedness.
This should be enough to start a good
conversation. Show me the evidence
that my assumptions are wrong and I will modify them.”
Critics
say, proposition 1 has too few buses.
California
is making land use decisions to reduce commuting, congestion and pollution.
Email
from
First, I’d like to tell
everyone that our membership is approaching 100. This is quite a jump from a
year and a half ago when we had 10-15 members. For all who’ve joined recently,
thanks for your support.
Our AU Eastside brand
At our last chapter
meeting, board members and other members in attendance spent a good deal of
time discussing our chapter “brand,” i.e., what it is we want people to believe
our chapter is all about. This discussion was occasioned by a question about
what other groups’ materials, if any, we want to put on our AU Eastside table
when we’re providing information and soliciting new members at various events.
A concern expressed by several people was that we not portray ourselves as a generalized
social-action organization of any particular political philosophy, but that we
remain focused on protecting the separation of church and state in a
nonpartisan and nondiscriminatory way.
Based on our discussion,
I attempted to meld people’s thoughts into a statement any of us could use when
we’re asked how AU Eastside stands upon a particular issue (e.g., “death with
dignity,” abortion rights, gay marriage, etc.). This is what I’ve come up
with so far:
“As a chapter of
Americans United, our focus is on securing the separation of church and state.
We are nonpartisan and nonsectarian. Our concern with specific public-policy
issues will depend upon whether those advocating or those opposing those issues
are doing so from a sectarian perspective. We oppose attempts to turn religious
doctrine into public policy.”
Michael Spencer on Dino Rossi’s Duplicity
Published by
It is sad to see the duplicity of Dino
Rossi in not wanting to "prefer" to run as a Republican on the Aug.
19 primary ballot. He apparently does
not want to be associated with such prominent and duly elected Republican
officials as Sam Reed, Rob McKenna and Doug Sutherland.
Rather, Rossi prefers to align himself with the
likes of failed oilman President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney,
ex-Halliburton CEO, of the greedy oil profiteers (GOP) party. Michael
J. Spencer
Liberals and Democrats
Racism, The Elephant in the Closet
National polls show Barack Obama leading John McCain
by 4-6 points. Polls show that people
prefer Democrats to Republicans by much more.
Our commercial media pundits suggest that the difference is because
Obama’s political proposals don’t appeal to less educated and politically
active voters, especially men. But there
is a better explanation.
As I commented before, Obama would likely be
leading by 10% more except for the racist anti-African American vote. If Obama was the same as he is, except that
he was White, he would likely be leading by 15% or more. His lead in the national polls may not
increase much until his grass roots organizing surfaces in October to get the
vote out. Many of the racist voters are
in the South and
Here’s the Beef
Sign up to receive an email
as soon as Obama announces his vice-presidential partner.
Barack
Obama needs to stay on the offense against John McCain.
Will
John McCain’s negative campaigning help or hurt him?
A chart showing Barack Obama’s policy
advisers.
Both
John McCain and Barack Obama seek advice from those responsible for credit
mess. For
more.
League
of Women Voters President asks presidential candidates to disclose amounts
bundlers raise.
Evangelical
voters, who are mostly in southern and border states, favor McCain on most
issues.
Joseph Stiglitz
presents reasons to vote Democratic for a productive and fair economy.
Conservatives blame our economic
slowdown (caused by deregulation) on regulation.
President
Bush is doing diplomacy as Barack Obama has advocated.
President Bush is moving
toward a Barack Obama and Darcy Burner type timetable for Iraq withdrawal.
From the party of ideas, the
GOP has become the party of stupid ideas.
For more. For more.
The superficiality
of our commercial media is harming Obama and helping McCain.
If racism or
something gave McCain the election, young people will provide future Democratic
wins.
Democratic
platform reflects widespread support for government paid privately provided
health care.
State and
Local
Endorsements for Primary Candidates
See who’s filing to run for Washington state and federal offices. Google
any candidates to find their website, which may show their endorsements.
League
of Women Voters explains top-2 primary
--------------------------Endorsements---------------------------------------------------------------
Progressive
Majority NARAL
Pro-Choice Washington
Washington Conservation Voters Sierra Club Cascade
Chapter
Washington State Labor
Council King County Labor
Council
Washington
State Democratic Party King County
Democratic Party
King County Bar
Association Municipal League of King
County
Washington
Education Association Washington State Stonewall
Democrats
Washington State Public School Expenditures
One million students are enrolled in our 2,200
public schools in 295 school districts, 75,000 attend private schools and
18,000 are home schooled. Educational
policies are the result of decisions made by our Legislature, Governor, State
Board of Education, Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Auditor’s
Office, Professional Educations Standards Board, Educational Service Districts
and the local school districts.
Our 2007-2009 biennium general fund budget provides
$12.1 billion (40.8%) for K-12 public education. This is a decrease from 47.6% in the 1993-95 biennium. This is partly due to a slowing of the growth
rate of K-12 enrollment and rapid growth of health care, human services and
corrections expenditures. Besides state
funding (70.6%), school districts also received funding from local taxes
(16.2%) our federal government (9.3%) and other revenues and reserves (3.9%)
during school year 2006-07, resulting in a total of $8,836 per student.
The amount of funds which school districts can
raise from local tax levies varies, such that some can raise much more than
others. School construction funds come
partially from our state capital budget and partially from local bond levies,
with the result that some districts have much more difficulty raising the money
necessary for school construction.
These expenditures go for teaching (60.6%), other
support services (11.1%), teaching support (8.5%), central administration
(6.2%), building administration (6.0%), pupil transportation (4.1%), and food
services (3.5%). Comparisons of spending
through time are difficult because they must take into account both changes in
the number and types of students and inflation rates. Comparisons with other states are also
difficult due to different accounting systems.
For more. For more.
Here’s the Beef
See who’s filing to run for Washington state and federal offices.
Unprecedented
campaign to get out the Latino vote in Yakima and tri-cities.
Republican
attacks on immigrants affect us all.
Unlikely
allies: Al Gore and T. Boone Pickens support wind power. For more.
We can’t do it
all. Triage needed to clean up Puget
Sound
Nation
and World
Economics Without Money
Economics is primarily concerned with production
and consumption and their causes.
Production and consumption is a major part of what people do each
day. We get up and on or off the job,
produce things and consume things.
Sometimes we produce for our own consumption. More often we play a role in producing some
things and play a role in consuming other things. Most of our production and much of our
consumption is not individually, but done as part of work groups or consumer
groups.
Through history, money in increasing varying forms
motivates our production and consumption.
Understanding the many forms of money (including their creation and
distribution) is extremely complicated.
To simplify an understanding of our production and consumption and how
we would like it to be, it can be helpful to first disregard the money which
influences it.
For example, people work in various industries to
produce various goods. Over time, a
smaller proportion of our people work to produce food, more and then a lesser
proportion have worked to manufacture goods, and more people are providing
services. We are now producing more
goods and services of more kinds. Fewer
people are doing physical labor and more are doing various types of
management. Similarly, we are consuming
more and different types of goods and services.
We can imagine being better off if more people more
were building and maintaining our physical and social infrastructure, and more
were producing non-carbon based energies,.
Similarly we might gain from more people providing high quality personal
services, such as health care, counseling and education.
We can imagine being better off if we could
maintain our security with fewer people fighting wars. We might benefit if fewer people were
involved in our financial industry, including arranging transactions and
credit. Fewer people might be involved
in making decisions concerning who qualifies for health care expenditures.
We can imagine that our consumption changes with
more public consumption and less private consumption. With less consumption which involves waste of
materials and energy. With less consumption
of polluting products to ones which are less polluting. With more consumption of quality personal services
and less of personal things.
Once we envision more desirable ways of distributing
our labor and consumption (including changes such as these examples and more),
we can then look at how to change our use of money to motivate these
changes. How can we as individuals and
government provide more money to fund and motivate the production and
consumption that we want? How can we
provide less money for the production and consumption that we don’t want.
I find this approach very optimistic. We in the
Conservatives will say that our regulations and
funding will interfere with our free choice.
But they ignore that all production and consumption (industries and
markets) are regulated and funded. At
present, many of our regulations and funding are the result of the influence of
wealthy and powerful private interests.
We are simply changing regulations and funding that have resulted from
the influence of private interests to ones which are more oriented to our
public interests. A basic obstacle to
doing this is to restrict the influence of wealthy and powerful private
interests, freeing up the democratic influence of the great majority of our
people.
As we look ahead to the many momentous decisions to
be made in 2009 and beyond, we should begin to note the many types of
consumption and production that we want less of. The resources that we free up from decreasing
these are the ones which will enable us to have quality family care (much
provided by family members to each other), health care, education, jobs,
incomes, and retirement. Even more
resources result when we improve our physical and social infrastructure to
enable more efficient production and consumption.
A final note: Don’t imagine that consumption is
only using things and services.
Communing with nature, relaxed mutual intimacy, pondering issues great
and small and many other forms of consumption require time more than goods and
services. The one who gets the most toys
is often not the one who most thrives.
We
have the human resources. Will we
redeploy them?
Protecting
Here’s the Beef
One of the few
things in America that’s in great shape is Social Security.
Fannie Mae
and Freddy Mac are losing lots of money and buying fewer loans.
Conservative
corruption and privatization have taken us toward crony capitalism.
One
fifth of money spent in Iraq has gone to corrupt private contractors.
Two
thirds of American Corporations paid no income taxes between 1998 and 2005.
Private
health insurance tricks to deny you payments.
More
regulation of credit card companies coming soon.
Corporate America
is preparing to fight against restoration of labor rights.
We
subsidize accumulation of capital for rich people, how about for poorer people?
Does helping
others create a moral hazard. Should we
be bad Samaritans?
Can
I be a good Samaritan as easily as I could four years ago?
How
our Mono Lake ecosystem in California is being reclaimed.
States are banning
anti-environmental homeowner association agreements.
With
new affordable financing, home solar panels are economically feasible,
especially in Southwest.
Chain
stores are installing solar panels.
Per
mile vehicle insurance would greatly discourage driving.
Oil
prices increase. Demand falls. But how much and how long? Supply is still decreasing.
League of Women Voters
calls for no more construction of coal fired electricity generation plants.
Arab
money is partially funding Zap, a California electric car company.
Any
oil found in U.S. won’t belong to us. It
will belong to oil companies and sold on global market.
Our U.S. never had
and doesn’t now have control over events in Iraq.
Groups around the
world are calling for elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Health
and Human Services Dept wants to define some contraceptives as abortion.
Lousy
economy is causing increased interest in single payer health care.
Massachusetts
health care plan using private insurers is financially unsustainable.
Hospitals
are deporting illegal aliens who need expensive care. There has got to be a better way.
Supreme
Court and Congress may clash concerning corporate abuse.
Ten things you should know about Chinese economic growth.
Our Liberal Spirit
Show Me the Evidence
‘Show me the money’ was the memorable phrase from
the 1996 film, Jerry McGuire. ‘Show me the evidence’ is more important For
commentators.
As Dietrich Bonhoffer noted, responsible behavior
is both free and obedient. To freely
make and change decisions without regard to principles or facts, is not
responsible. To be simply obedient to a
doctrine (bible, company policy, etc.) or a person (Hitler, your employer, your
parent or spouse, etc.) is an attempt to irresponsibly avoid making free
decisions.
To be both free and obedient, one must base one’s
decision upon consideration of a number of principles and factual evidence.
This requires doing research to find and understand both. Doing research takes time and energy. Thus many commentators do not express the
principles (values) that they seek to realize and their understanding of
various alternatives and their consequences upon which they base their
conclusions. This lack of principles and
evidence requires the reader to do her or his own framing in terms of values
and factual assumptions. The reader is
alerted to a proposal, but cannot evaluate it without more study.
I avoid many attending to many commentators because
they seldom declare their values and evidence.
Or if they (especially Conservative ones) do, they express values and
evidence with which I disagree. I
consider reading them a waste of time. I
attend to others who present their values and evidence, so that I can compare
them with my own and often add at least parts of what they express to my own
repertoire for making decisions. Show me
your values. Show me your evidence.
Recommended Film
Arianna Huffington recommends the
film, ‘Swing Vote’
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About
In October, 2005, we founded our Lake Hills
Liberals as an experimental demonstration of creating neighborhoods where
liberals thrive and multiply and maximizing our vote for Liberal
candidates. In January, 2006, we began
our newsletter.
During our
first year, we focused upon Lake Hills neighborhood development, experimenting
with a variety of activities and events.
To elect Liberals, we canvassed our 12 precincts to increase the number
of identified likely Democratic voters from 33% to 90% and stimulated them to
vote, which assisted election of our 2006 Democratic candidates. We recruited 30%
(500) of them. We encouraged house
parties to allow neighbors to meet each other to be able to prevent crime, to
assist each other in a disaster, and to protect and assist our children. We created our website. We began a monthly discussion group, called
the Lake Hills Liberal Salon.
During our
second year, we recruited many members from throughout our
As we
begin our third year, we continue our past activities, especially electing Liberals,
canvassing Lake Hills, promoting house parties, educating and enabling
cooperation among Liberals, and promoting Public Campaign Financing. Our new political priority is promoting a fair
To get our free services, including our newsletter,
our ‘Proud Liberal, Time for a Change’ yard signs or ‘Proud Liberal’ bumper
stickers, volunteer or make a donation, contact
Our weekly newsletter is currently distributed to 2300 members by email each Friday. Submit your news to Editor Dave Thomas.
We are
seeking reporter-reviewer-editors with knowledge of particular political groups
and issues. We have asked
the following experts to help us.
·
African Americans –
·
Blogs –
·
Campaign Finance –
·
Democratic Party –
·
Drug Policy –
·
Education – Dennis Gerlitz, John Stokes
·
Environment –
·
Gays and Lesbians – Jack Greenlaw
·
Green Party – Trey Smith
·
Health Care – Larry Kalb, Bob Fithian
·
Hispanics – needed
·
Immigration - Grosvenor Anschell
·
Housing and Poverty –
·
Labor Unions –
·
Law and Justice –
·
State Legislation –
·
Veterans –
·
Women’s Issues –
Additional Resources
See our website at www.PugetSoundLiberals.org, with our basic training about
being Liberal, our archive of all past newsletters, resources for liberals,
tools for Democratic legislative district organizations and more.
To learn about particular issues, further your interests and meet
colleagues, visit websites of advocacy and
caring organizations. Also
see our list of helpful websites. Craig’s List Seattle
For
news about NW sustainability, visit Sightline
Daily. We recommend the Pacific NW Portal for
displaying many blogs through which Northwest Liberals exchange their knowledge
and opinions. See also Lefty Blogs. We recommend you go to Washblog to find blogs containing
information and opinions about
Learn about our State Democratic Party. About 2008 Caucuses and Elections. Contact your national and state officials. Report Card on your congress member For many Congressional Report Cards.