Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #180

Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in Puget Sound and Beyond

Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.

 

Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed Puget Sound Liberals working together.

 

          3000 members                               June 26, 2009                    formerly Lake Hills Liberals                

 

 

 

 

                                                     

Our Website                                   Our  Editor                  To Unsubscribe

 

              Table of Contents  * Featured Articles

 

About Puget Sound Liberals

Calendars of Events

Communication with Our Members

Opportunities

Petitions

 

Commentaries from Our Members

Shankar Narayan: It’s Time to Legalize Pot

Sharon Abreu: It Is Time for Single Payer Health Care

Rich Austin: Misinformation about Health Care Reform

Linda Jansen: Netanyahu’s Phony Call for Peace

Jack Smith: Compare Our 2000 Response to Iranian’s.

 

Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef

Government Watch

Another Cost of Health Care Reform*

 

State and Local Links to the Beef

Featured Advocates: Washington CAN & Sound Alliance*

Transportation 2040 Plan, But No Housing 2040 Plan

 

Nation and World Links to the Beef

Why Did Workers Quit Getting their Productivity Gains?*

Not Just More Jobs.  We Need Better Jobs.*

Iran’s Democracy Movement

American Jews Oppose More West Bank Settlements

 

Our Liberal Spirit

Intentional Budgeting

 

Recommended Books

 

 

 

Our Political Values

 

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

·       Stop Corporate Abuse

·       Public Campaign Financing

·       Substitute a Progressive Income Tax

·       Replacing Conservative Legislators

 

Quote of the Week

If we can’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.  William Feathers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Calendar of Events

Saturday, June 27 at 7 PM at Town Hall (1119 – 8th Avenue, Seattle) – Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

Sunday, June 28 at 8 AM at 4th and Spring in SeattleGay Pride March and Festival

Tuesday, June 30 at 7 PM at Shoreline Community College Theater (16101 Greenwood Ave North, Seattle) – Forum: Achieving Health Care for All, sponsored by Washington Public Campaigns and others

Tuesday, June 30 at 7 PM at Town Hall (1119 8th Avenue, Seattle) – King County Council Candidate Debate concerning environmental issues.  For more information and RSVP.

Monday, August 10 at 6 PM to Wednesday, August 12 at 12:30 PM at Seattle University – National Vacations Matter Summit, with three hundred experts, advocates, and stakeholders from the fields of health, travel and tourism, family studies and the environment with other interested citizens.  $95.  To Register.  $120-180 for room for both nights, meals, and parking.  Sponsored by right2vacation.org

 

Calendars of Events                             

 

King County Democrats - LD Meetings            Some 2008 Legislature Lobby Days

Thurston County Progressive Net                  Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation

Alliance for Democracy                                Democratic Underground.Com                          

Sierra Club Cascade Chapter Calendar           Cool State Washington

Washington Public Campaigns Calendar          Town Hall Seattle Calendar

Washington State Labor Council                    Whatcom County Peace and Justice Calendar 

Conversation Cafe      Drinking Liberally          Seattle NOW          

Wallingford Neighbors for Peace and Justice – Friday Night Movies      Liberal films on PBS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Communication with Our Members

 

To obtain a public health insurance option, a robust cap and trade greenhouse emissions bill and other reforms, it is vital that we ask our congress members to support them.  A convenient quick way to do this is to sign the petitions in our newsletters.  Several thousand of our members can make a difference by sending the petitions. 

 

We are lucky that we don’t live in Iran.  It is much easier to send petitions to our officials than to risk getting hurt, maimed or killed by protesting in the streets.  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.

Create your own petition.

Conduct your own home energy audit.

See all of President Obama’s weekly (Saturday) addresses.

Open Congress: Race Tracker

 

Petitions

Pledge to refuse to sign the referendum which would repeal same sex couple rights.

Sign a petition indicating what health care must provide children.

Ask your senators whether they support a public health care option.

Three senators ask you to sign their petition supporting a public health insurance option.

Tell your congress members to support a public health insurance option.

Tell your senators to support a public health insurance option.

Tell senators Murray and Cantwell to support a public health insurance option.

Tell your congress members to support the Safe Schools Improvement Act to penalize bullying.

Tell your senators to vote for the hate crimes bill.

Tell your house member to support a stronger American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Tell your house member to support a stronger American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Tell your senators to require EPA to disclose locations of toxic coal ash sites.

Tell congress to ban mountain top removal coal mining.

Tell EPA to provide science based regulation of fuels.

Tell your house member to support immigration reform.

Tell your senators to remove funding for unneeded airplanes from military authorization bill.

Tell relevant house members to protest Peru’s abuse of indigenous protesters.

 

Commentaries From Our Members

 

Shankar Narayan: It’s Time to Legalize Pot

Published by Seattle Times on 6/19/2009

 

Your front-page article on marijuana legalization ["More are asking: Is it time to legalize pot?" June 16] certainly is timely. However, it failed to mention important, relevant bills pending in the Washington Legislature.

 

House Bill 1177, sponsored by Rep. Dave Upthegrove and 11 other representatives, would reclassify adult marijuana possession from a misdemeanor carrying mandatory jail time to a civil infraction imposing a $100 penalty that could be paid by mail. The companion Senate Bill 5615, sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, was voted out of committee with a bipartisan "do pass" recommendation. Both bills are alive for the 2010 session.

 

The fiscal note for SB 5615 prepared by the state's Office of Financial Management reports that its passage would save $16 million and generate $1 million in new revenue each year. Of that, $590,000 would be earmarked for underfunded treatment and prevention services.

 

When more and more Americans are questioning the wisdom of treating marijuana use as a crime rather than a public-health issue, we should not overlook local opportunities to enact change.  Shankar Narayan, American Civil Liberties Union of Washington legislative director

 

Sharon Abreu: It Is Time for Single Payer Health Care

 

I support single payer health care because I believe it is the only way for all Americans to have decent health coverage and it will cost a lot less than our current system.  The majority of Americans want this system and if we are to be truly represented it is time for Congress to approve a single payer expanded Medicare for all system in the U.S. We are the only wealthy industrialized country that does not allow its citizens access to decent health care and to this type of system.  It is time for single payer health care in the U.S.

 

Our current system is not only wasteful but it is unethical in that insurance companies deny coverage and treatments to those who need them and makes decisions based on their bottom line - decisions that ought to be made by doctors and their patients. A single payer system will relieve small businesses (and large ones) of the burden of having to provide their employees' health coverage.

 

Employees will benefit by having access to better health care. And all Americans will benefit because our health coverage will no longer be tied to our jobs. If a company lays people off, those people will still have their health care. It will give the American people more freedom, allow for more creativity in our society, and protect people from losing their health care due to layoffs. Anything less than single payer will be inadequate.  Sharon Abreu

 

Rich Austin: Misinformation about Health Care Reform

 

The discussion about health care reform is fraught with disinformation and misinformation.

 

Take, as an example, the phrase "universal health care".  All that hackneyed rallying cry for retreat means is that everyone would be covered.  It does not describe a type of coverage. "Building on what

we already have while including everyone" means some people would [still] have Band Aid and aspirin coverage, while others would have full coverage for everything imaginable, just like now.  Universal simply means "all".

 

Another red flag is "basic health care".   Who gets to decide what is basic? A more honest term (if, in fact, honesty is even an issue with the movers and shakers) would be "all medically necessary care".  Who would decide "medically necessary"?  Under the terms of HR 676 - a single payer bill pending in Congress, - medically necessary care is described as evidence based care.  Medical providers would make the call, not bean counters working for insurance companies, or bureaucrats.

 

And, of course, we have the so-called "public option".  Too many people of good will have fallen for the public option claptrap.  They are supporting the public option concept without ever seeing it! That's like signing blank mortgage papers.

 

Republicans and their "Blue Dog" bunk mates are telling us that single payer would cost more than a trillion dollars annually.  Wow!  Does that mean we'd save $1.7 trillion dollars each year?  Here in 2009, $2.7 trillion will be spent on heath care, and the future looks even more bleak and expensive if we "keep what we have".  Prices are going up!

 

Under single payer we'd actually spend less that $2.7 trillion, yet everything would be covered for everyone.  How?  First of all, the hundreds of billions of dollars currently wasted on "administrative

expenses" in the private sector would be saved and would be enough to fund the presently uninsured.  Those "administrative" costs run anywhere from 27% up to 35%. Medicare, on the other hand (i.e. single payer) only spends about 4% on administration.  Rich Austin

 

Linda Jansen: Netanyahu’s Phony Call for Peace

Published by Seattle Times on 6/23/2009

 

Thank you so much for the extremely clear picture you painted of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for peace with Palestine. [Half an olive branch,” Opinion, June 19].  If he offered half an olive branch, it was from one of the dead olive trees the Israeli Defense Forces have destroyed to put up settlements on Palestinian land.  Linda Jansen

 

Jack Smith: Compare Our 2000 Response to Iranian’s.

 

As we think about the courageous Iranians who stand up to what they believe to be a rigged election.

Didn't the same thing happen in 2000 when Bush and Cheney stole the election and our Nation for eight years? We sat by and watched on TV. Which nation is more Democratic?  Jack Smith

 

Liberals and Democrats

 

Government Watch

Also go to Whitehouse.gov.

Press Coverage

President Obama’s is effectively using the media, to the chagrin of Conservatives.  At a press conference, Obama addresses Iranian protests, building a clean economy and heath care reform.  More Obama comments on Iran.  President Obama defends a public health insurance option.  In his weekly address, Obama discusses his proposals to protect consumers from commercial abuse.

 

The Importance of Fathering

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Responsible-Fatherhood/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/A-Town-Hall-on-Fatherhood/

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20286116,00.html

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-te.md.obama20jun20,0,7583940.story

 

Financial Regulation

Should we give the Federal reserve more power without making it more accountable?  Financial regulations won’t be enforced unless those who fail to enforce them are fired.  For more.

 

Climate Change Impacts

Our White House released a report showing the regional impacts of climate change.  House cap and trade bill is ready for vote.  Reasons why the cap and trade greenhouse emissions bill is flawed.

 

Other Presidential Actions

President Obama signs tobacco regulation bill.  Obama gets drug companies to reduce their prices by $80 billion.

 

Another Cost of Health Care Reform

 

Three House Committees (Ways and Means Committee, Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Committee on Education and Labor) are cooperating to write a health reform bill.  In the Senate, two committees (Finance Committee and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) are writing separate health reform bills.  It appears that the Finance Committee bill with contain the least robust public option.  It will have to be reconciled with the other Senate bill.  The result will have to be reconciled with the House bill. 

 

I believe that the result will be a bill with a robust public health insurance option.  See Dean Baker’s arguments for the necessity of a robust public health insurance option.  In spite of the political costs, the Republicans will vote against it.  Money will be found to fund the health care reform, satisfying the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, such that most will support it, at least enough to pass it.  Note that public opinion supports a public option. 

 

Private insurers, pharmaceuticals and many businesses will oppose any health reform bill with a robust public option.  The Obama administration has invited them to join in deliberations, to delay their coming out it full opposition.  This strategy appears to be working so far.

 

A major cost of health care reform is that the Obama Administration is delaying action on major labor issues, including especially the Employee Free Choice Act.  It hopes to avoid alienating business until health care reform is passed.  Whitehouse.gov doesn’t even list labor as one of the issues which the Obama Administration is addressing.  For more.

 

Failure to reform health care will severely wound Democrats in 2010 elections.  For more.

Health care reform bills are still being drafted, so final bill is uncertain.

Nurses and progressive Democrats support a single payer system.

A health reform bill with a public health insurance option will be less expensive.

A majority of Americans want a public health insurance option.

Progressive States Network told Obama Administration that it supports public health insurance option.

Doctors Group informs Blue Dog Democrats that single payer health insurance is most cost effective.

Public health insurance option isn’t enough to stop abuses.  Need single payer.

Commercial media mostly ignore single payer as a health care reform alternative.

ND Democratic Senator Kent Conrad may support public insurance option instead of cooperatives.

 

Here’s the Beef

Supreme Court decisions are affected by judge’s political views.

A new populist coalition is emerging.

Are lobbyists successfully gutting reform bills?  For more.

Congress members who are deciding health care reform have financial interests in affected companies.

Former Bush staff are making out like bandits.  For more.

Conservative lies about hate crimes.

Congress should investigate and report causes of our economic bubble and collapse.

Some criticisms of President Obama’s financial regulation proposals.

A mixed review of Obama Administration’s proposed financial regulatory reforms. 

Another mixed review.

Obama supported military appropriations bill oriented to pork instead of defense.

Five steps to eliminating ‘Don’t Ask.  Don’t Tell.’

Environmentalists split on supporting good, bad and ugly cap and trade bill.

On Friday, June 26, house will vote on American Clean Energy and Security Act.  For more.

Fish and Wildlife Service nominee has failed to support endangered species act.

Will Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stop oil pipelines carrying dirty oil from Canadian oil shale?

Congress may waste several billion purchasing useless cold war oriented fighter jets.

Anti-war activists plan to challenge Democratic congress members who support Afghanistan war.

Middle East Arabian dictatorships are nervous about Iranian protests.

While President Obama is right to avoid supporting Iranian protesters, Liberals should support them.

Obama Administration is bringing its first trade case against China.

 

State and Local

 

Featured Advocacy Group --- Washington Can & Sound Alliance ----------------

 

·       Washington Can and Sound Alliance have been featured before.  Sound Alliance seeks to increase the ability of its alliance members (churches, educational associations, labor unions and ethnic organizations) to advocate social and political reforms.  To do this, it recruits members of their alliance members to leadership (community organizing and advocacy) training and into task groups concerning five present priority issues:

·       Provision and protection of civil rights for immigrants.

·       Universal affordable access to affordable quality housing

·       Universal affordable access to quality health care

·       Universal affordable access to quality education

·       Creation of sustainable living wage green jobs, oriented to energy conservation and reduction of green house emissions.

 

Although new, with only a few active alliance members to date, Sound Alliance is already claiming that its focused efforts have produced progress, especially concerning green jobs.

 

Unlike Sound Alliance, Washington CAN does not have alliance member organizations.  It recruits people through door-to-door canvassing.  The two organizations have in common their recruitment of people who have not been active advocates of social or political reform.  They both seek to assist these recruits to become effective advocates.  But Sound Alliance has several advantages:

·       Its leadership training program

·       Its focused strategies concerning the five priority issues listed above

·       Its recruitment of trained members into advocacy task groups to implement focused strategies

 

Unlike Sound Alliance’s focused priorities and strategies for each priority, Washington CAN’s values are very general.  Washington CAN indicates its values (not priorities) as:

·         Economic, racial, gender and social justice for all.

·         Shared community and collective responsibility.

·         Respect for diversity and building strong communities.

·         Decent quality of life for all.

·         Change relations of power so all individuals can significantly impact decisions that affect their lives.

·         Truly democratic society with open honest participation by all.

 

Unlike Sound Alliance, Washington CAN doesn’t define specific priorities and create advocacy groups.  It doesn’t train members and recruit them into advocacy groups.  Instead Washington CAN implements various advocacy efforts (primarily asking its members to indicate through communication with lawmakers or letters to the public their support for various proposals). 

 

I believe that Washington CAN could much more effectively involve its members through adopting some of Sound Alliance’s practices, including specifically training of their members and recruiting them into advocacy groups which focus upon realizing specific reforms.  I also believe that Sound Alliance and Washington CAN should cooperate closely.  Joint advocacy efforts would benefit from the efforts of many of Washington CAN’s 30,000 members.  I think they could easily agree on many priorities.  I think they could benefit from joint training.  Through their door-to-door recruitment, Washington CAN could continue to reach many less socially and politically active people that are not members of the organizations that participate in Sound Alliance.

 

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Transportation 2040 Plan, But No Housing 2040 Plan

 

It seems obvious that the lack of affordable housing near jobs and shopping centers creates urban sprawl, commuting, congestion and pollution.  A housing plan which provided appropriately located affordable housing would point the way toward reducing urban sprawl and the rest.

 

Our region’s V ISION 2040 plan treats affordable housing only in generalities, with no specific statistics concerning how much housing in various price ranges should be available in the various parts of our region.  It indicates that providing affordable housing is the responsibility of local governments.

 

The recently released Transportation 2040 DEIS indicates that the transportation strategy is designed to support the regional economic strategy and regional growth strategy expressed in VISION 2040.  It assumes the existence of commuting and attempts to alleviate it.  Instead of examining how the location of affordable housing might affect transportation, Transportation 2040  only concerns how transportation may affect the location of housing.  There is no suggestion that it might be cheaper and more beneficial to spend money to create affordable housing than to spend the same amount on transportation to deal with its absence. 

 

Could focus upon transportation instead of affordable housing be due to the greater benefits of transportation projects for public transportation departments and private contractors?

 

Here’s the Beef

Seattle Times supports public health insurance option.

Washington’s coal fired park is creating haze over nearby national parks.

Puget Sound ranks high for cancer risk from toxic air pollution.

Northwest prisons cut waste.  Prepare inmates for green jobs.

More federal money for cleaning up Puget Sound.  Victoria will treat its sewage.

Using cow manure to produce methane fuel may produce cap and trade revenue.

Some people are spending more time, less money using a clothes line.

Green jobs can include tree thinning to reduce forest fires and restore vibrant ecosystem.

Innovation in Klamath County helps its economy.

Both Seattle and Vancouver, BC have many metropolitan amenities (and also Bellevue).

In Seattle, integrating light rail and bus service provides an alternative to travel by automobile.

Due to climate change, Pacific NW birds are moving north.

Oregon and other states are passing progressive tax measures.

 

Nation and World  

 

Why Did Workers Quit Getting their Productivity Gains?

 

·       Oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 produced stagflation.  Costly oil increased inflation.  More money diverted to foreign oil suppliers reduced demand and increased unemployment. 

·       Inexpensive quality foreign auto and other imports competed with domestic producers, causing unemployment.

·       Deregulation began under President Carter and escalated under president Reagan created opportunities for non-unionized startup businesses, which paid low wages.

·       President Reagan initiated anti-union business activities, including many illegal abuses.

·       In the era of junk bond takeovers, pressures to achieve short term profits produce massive layoffs of employees who contribute to long term productivity of companies.

·       Moving manufacturing production to foreign countries, with low wages, little worker safety regulation, and few environmental safeguards reduces the number of manufacturing jobs.

·       Off shoring of white collar jobs reduces such jobs in U.S.

·       When the number of jobs decline, unemployment increases and businesses can lower their wage scales.

·       In the absence of sufficient public health and retirement benefits, businesses have provided them.  But with increasing competition, many businesses have reduced or eliminated these benefits.

 

To restore fair earnings to our workers, we need to:

·       Maintain low unemployment through maintaining sufficient credit, but not excessive credit which would create speculative bubbles.

·       Reduce trade imbalance through reducing oil consumption by changing to non-carbon based energy usage.

·       And by making American business more competitive through reducing their health and pension costs, stimulating innovation and improving the health and training of our workers.

·       Shift the FICA (jobs) tax to a VAT or other tax to reduce costs of creating jobs.

·       Encouraging other countries allow unionization and require worker and environmental protections.

·       Reduce pressures for short term profits by changing our tax laws to encourage equity instead of loan financing (as occurred before 1986 tax changes).

·       Increase taxes on high earning people who create less demand for domestic goods and services than would occur if the revenue was used for public investment or for tax reductions for less wealthy and poor people.

·       Reduce unemployment by increasing the number of jobs through stimulating infrastructure and green jobs.

·       And by enabling more people to afford school and volunteering.  (But reduce the number of people incarcerated for minor offenses.)

·       Increase protections for unionizing through more legislation and enforcement.

 

Chuck Collins’ book Economic Apartheid in America presents detailed strategies for realizing these goals and for dealing with the underlying obstacle of excessive corporate power.  I strongly recommend reading the last chapter of his book.

 

I am disgusted that our Obama Administration (which is doing so many things right) is giving little attention to most of these reforms.  See the next commentary.  Dave Thomas

 

Not Just More Jobs.  Better Jobs.

 

Our priority and President Obama’s priority is restoring our economy, especially creating more jobs.  But to sustain our economy and our families, these jobs need to be good jobs.  They need to pay a fair proportion of what the worker produces.  They need to provide safety protections.  They need to include health and retirement benefits until our government offers better alternatives. 

 

They should include mentors whose responsibility is to ensure that those they mentor succeed.  They need to provide training and career ladders for advancement.  These jobs need to time flexible and include paid vacation time, sick leave and time for various family responsibilities. 

 

To obtain and guard these benefits, workers need to be able to unionize.  Existing labor laws should be enforced.  Where necessary, penalties should be increased and more laws added.  Steven Greenhouse’s The Big Squeeze provides an excellent description of the defects in our present system and remedies which are needed.

 

For more, read the preceding commentary.

 

I am surprised that our Obama Administration has so far almost completely ignored these issues.  Whitehouse.gov doesn’t even include labor among its list of issues to be addressed.  Although the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed only 9 days after President Obama assumed the presidency, no other labor legislation has yet followed.  We have seen no action concerning the Employee Free Choice Act.  The U.S. Labor Department reports what it does; but I find no proposals for reforming our labor situation.  Nor do I found that labor unions are applying pressure upon the Obama administration for reforms.  Let me know if you find these.  Dave Thomas

 

Iran’s Democracy Movement

 

What began as a protest against the fraudulent election returns has now escalated into an attempt to eliminate the undemocratic influence of Iran’s religious leaders.  Stopping the protests is impossible without a blood bath.  Splits within Iran’s religious and other leadership will inhibit massive bloodshed.  There is also evidence that various members of the military and police will refuse to participate in such bloodshed.  The result resembles the 1986 Philippine protests which forced Ferdinand Marcos to leave office and the country.

 

The struggle for Iranian democracy may be long and hard, but present events are a major impetus to eliminating the theocratic stranglehold.

 

American Jews Oppose More West Bank Settlements

 

A poll shows that 72% of American Jews support U.S. pressure on both Israel and its Arab neighbors to reach an accord.  57% support U.S. pressure just on Israel.  60% oppose expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.  American Jews are no longer giving knee jerk support to Israel’s policies, freeing up President Obama and our U.S. congress to be more even handed in seeking a just and peaceful solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

Here’s the Beef

Medicare enrollees are far more satisfied than people with private health insurance.  For more.

Pesticides may be causing Parkinson’s disease.

Rhode Island will be first state to license medical marijuana shops.

Climate legislation would cost average consumer $175 per year, much less than GOP estimates.

International action to counter global warming is imperative.

United Nations pushes countries to take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Scotland passes the world’s most ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction bill.

Vehicle exhaust causes premature births.

Bye bye oil.  Bye bye food.

Commercial media expression of anti-immigrant sentiment is stimulating anti-Hispanic hate crimes.

What you can do to discourage hate crimes.

The stupidity of forcing airline passengers to remove their shoes, but not their bras.

Human Rights First reports that U.S. detains asylum seekers

Ecuadorian President Correa’s liberal policies have improved Ecuador’s economy.

Like previous mass rallies, Iran’s rallies change the popular understanding of who is the majority.

Iran’s Democracy movement has a martyr.  Religious leadership may split.

Dissenting Iranian religious leaders want to restore Iran’s reputation.

Dissenting Iranian religious leaders may persuade military to avoid harming protestors.

U.S. encouragement of dissonant movements has backfired.

Pakistan campaign against Taliban moves into South Waziristan tribal areas.  

 

Our Liberal Spirit

 

Intentional Budgeting

 

I have long maintained a similar budget, such that I seldom have to carefully monitor my expenditures.  Each year, I spend $30 apiece for 50 magazines and organizations that I support, for a total of $1500.  I spend another $25 a month to support each of three organizations: Sightline, Economic Opportunity Council and Center for Economic Policy and Research for another $900.  During political campaigns, I donate about $500, with the average donation equaling $50.  The total donations are $3000.  I also give gifts to my family members during the year, totaling $500.

 

I used to give to public radio and television, but when they began showing advertisements (including those of major corporate abusers), I quit.  I spend another $100 per month to buy books, mostly from Amazon.com, Edward R. Hamilton or used book sales.  For many years, I spent $3,000 a year on overseas and domestic travel, but I am traveling less for expenditures of less than $1000. 

 

My budget has been able to include the above $5700-7700 per year because I spend much less than most others do on housing and cars.  I haven’t owned a house since 1990, paying only a $500 a month to my wife as for rent and utilities plus doing much home and yard work.  With two exceptions, all of my cars have been at least 8 years old when I purchased them.  I used the only new car that I bought for 15 years.  My total automobile expenses (including depreciation) are $300 per month. 

 

I spend $50 per month for clothes.  My half of our groceries costs $150 a month.  Another $50 per month goes to entertainment, mostly eating out.  The $20,000 a year total of the above leaves $5,000 for miscellaneous small items and a few larger ones and some savings.  I use a credit card to make most purchases, but pay it off every month.  So I pay no interest. 

 

Other people will have various priorities, most of them different from mine.  But it is useful to know what you spend, so you can monitor and change it if need be.  A budget also protects us from impetuous purchases which often turn out to be unsatisfying.

 

Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals

Steven Greenhouse, 2008, The Big Squeeze. Tough Times for the American Worker.

Chuck Collins, 2000, Economic Apartheid in America.  A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity.

 

These two books are added to many other books that address the issue of increased American economic inequality.  I highly recommend The Big Squeeze for its comprehensiveness, evidence and ease of reading.  In its last chapter, Economic Apartheid in America contains a comprehensive description of strategies for reducing economic inequality and insecurity, including reducing political inequality.

 

Equal Freedom and Opportunity Societies produce less abuse.

 

 

 

 

Free Member Advertising

 

Hire Our Lake Hills Neighbors

 

Barbara Rader of Black Widow Web Development created our Puget Sound Liberals Website, to which I (not a technical geek) can easily add, modify and remove files.  Learn more about this unique company, which offers a 50% discount for organizations that promote social justice and environmental stewardship.  Dave Thomas

·       Auto Repair, price varies depending on job (but always fair), Jaime Speicher (AAS Auto Repair Technician) (425-746-2353)

·       Babysitting for infants (occasional evenings and weekends) - $5 per hour- Christy Pacheco- johnpacheco01@yahoo.com  425-653-3565

·       Data Entry- $10 per 12 font, double spaced page- Christy Pacheco (425-653-3565 johnpacheco01@yahoo.com)

·       Debt Elimination Counseling, Seminars and Workshops – price negotiable – Sherry Brandt (206-356-8034, somerev2@comcast.net)

·       Home Repair- prices vary, depending on job- John Pacheco 425-653-3565 johnpacheco01@yahoo.com)

·       Home Repair and Remodeling, Rick Hegdahl (206-227-6280  vikingnw@comcast.net)

·       Housekeeper, price negotiable – Laura Montano (641-5038 ambar_lau@hotmail.com)

·       Life Support Therapies, Astara Burlingame RN. (MD) holistic care, acupuncture hypno therapy, biological medicines (206-370-0356)

·       Private Piano Lessons (students must have a piano), afternoons - Anna Khosrowian (378-7938), price negotiable

·       Psychotherapist, accepts insurance -  Sandy Mathews (462-7889, www.sandramathews.com)