Category: Social and Economic Justice

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

A self-styled “Don Quixote,” Juan Del Rio ran for County Board of Supervisors in a conservative district near San Diego. These are his reflections just before the election (he lost, but the Democrats cumulatively got enough votes to force a November vote).

Guest blog by Juan Del Rio

May 28, 2010

Dear friends and supporters,
There’s a great write-up about my campaign on the front page of today’s La Prensa (Click here to read it). Daniel Muñoz compares me to Don Quixote – he even says I look the part! I’ll take that as a complement. These days, as I watch the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico unfolding, exacerbated by the deceit and greed of multi-national corporations and the failure of our government to protect us and our planet, before, during and after this man-made catastrophe, I think we will need an army of thousands of Quixotes to fix the mess we’re in.

As we move into the final week of my first foray into politics as a candidate, I have my doubts about “fixing the mess” via our election process. This experience has given me a more realistic perspective about how our democracy works, a new respect for those few who go into the electoral battle for the right reasons and a heightened disgust for the deceitful machinations used to manipulate the outcome of our elections. Here are some of the lessons I’ve reluctantly learned over the past few months:

Lesson #1: Elections have little to do with qualifications to perform the job. 

One might think that the job of running our county would require someone well-versed in urban planning and social services, who understands and cares about the present and future ramifications of decisions on human beings and the environment, and who has the proven ability to quickly size up a situation and to propose fair and viable solutions. But that’s not what wins elections. In order to win an election, a candidate must have money, time, connections, charisma and public speaking skills. Actual experience, qualifications and genuine concern are helpful but not essential.

During the course of my career in public service, I have been appalled by the pervasive incompetence of most of our elected officials. Government is supposed to exist to serve the people, but decisions are more often made based on what will advance an official’s political career than what’s the best solution. I understand now why so many unqualified people occupy public office. A campaign should be a job interview where voters get to evaluate which candidate is best qualified to perform the task, but that’s not how it works – see Lessons #2 -4.

Lesson #2: Campaigns cost gobs of money and how you get that money may be limited by the law, but not the true spirit of fairness.

There are only two ways to get the funding you need for a campaign – put in your own money or beg other people for contributions. If you are a working-class person who is running for office because you think you might be able to do a better job than the lying, scheming, arrogant slimeball who is currently in office, the first thing you need to do is to find people willing to give you the money to finance your campaign. Unless they share your altruistic motives, you’ll be hard-press to convince anyone to invest in wistful windmill chasing. That’s why I strongly support Prop 15, which would be the first step toward public campaign financing.

Needless to say, since I am campaigning to represent the needs of the poor (including unemployed and under-employed workers), I haven’t raised much money. I’m painfully aware that my supporters’ $5 contributions are a stretch for them and their faith in me keeps me going, but it won’t cover the cost of yard signs, or mailers, or much else. You might have noticed that there is no candidate statement for Juan del Rio in the Sample Ballot – that’s because it costs $1,310 to have your statement listed (in addition to the $1,430 filing fee). That was my first tip that the odds are decidedly stacked against a candidate who has an intimate understanding of what life is like for the majority of citizens. If you have a few dollars to invest in this campaign, it would really help in these final days. Please send your check to Juan del Rio for Supervisor 2010, 6675 Linda Vista Rd. #2, San Diego, CA 92111 (include your occupation and employer if your check is $100 or more!)

Lesson #3: Campaigning is a full-time job.
If you are a working person who needs to work a full-time job to pay the bills (or like myself, a person holding down two jobs just to make ends meet) you probably shouldn’t even consider running for office. I haven’t had the luxury of time to walk precincts, and to make things worse, many interviews and events are scheduled during the 9-to-5 workday, so participation means the loss of a day’s pay. I can’t help but wonder if these things are planned this way to cull the working class from public life. In any case, I now appreciate the personal sacrifice candidates and their families make to run for office. I think I’ve come a long way in my public speaking skills and I really enjoy talking to voters, especially when I have a conversation with Spanish speakers who are delighted to talk with a bilingual candidate. I can see where this would be much easier if I was retired or wasn’t trying to keep up 2 jobs.

Lesson #4: Anything goes – except, it seems, honesty.
Judging by some of the trickery going on with Ron Roberts, you’d think elections were all about winning and keeping the people in power who will preserve the status quo. Every day I get another slate mailer in my mailbox that makes me furious. These are designed to look like they come from the Democratic Party. They have titles that say “Voter Information Guide for Democrats” and “Democrat Election Guide”. They have almost all Democratic Party candidates featured, so it’s easy to think that the mailer is coming from the Democratic Party. One even said: “OFFICIALLY Featuring Every Statewide Candidate and Proposition Endorsed by the CA DEMOCRATIC PARTY”! The catch is that the Supervisor’s race is NOT a “Statewide” race, and it’s not even a partisan race. So the fact that these mailers all have Ron Roberts listed as the candidate for Board of Supervisors, implying that he is: 1. a Democrat and 2. endorsed by the Democratic party, is as close to outright fraud as you can possibly get without getting arrested. Unless a voter is actively involved in politics, they probably won’t realize that they are being deliberately misled. That’s what money buys you in politics. But what does it say about Ron Roberts, that he has to resort to such fraudulent, deceitful practices?

Remember all that stuff they taught in civics class about how even a poor kid can grow up to be president… that a democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people… that we have a say in our government… As I said, this has been a very enlightening experience and I think Mr. Muñoz nailed it; I do feel a bit like Don Quixote! If you live in District 4, you can vote for this windmill-tilter of San Diego – Juan del Rio.

Warm regards,
Juan del Rio

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

MarketWatch is not normally known as a hotbed of progressive thought. Yet that’s where this scathing critique of Obama from his left side appeared, under the title, “How Obama is Failing Investors” by Paul B. Farrell. It was published on the one-year anniversary of Obama’s inauguration, and still very much worth reading.

Here’s a little taste:

You are failing us. Many people now question voting for you, and your ‘fat-cat bankers’ are destroying capitalism and democracy.

A year ago, millions of Americans — investors, taxpayers, consumers, voters — came together, uplifted by the “audacity of hope,” inspired by a vision of “change we can believe in,” heartened by “bold and specific ideas about how to fix our ailing economy and strengthen the middle class, make health care affordable for all, achieve energy independence and keep America safe in a dangerous world.”

“Yes, we can” was the rallying cheer. You were the game-changer after the Bush-Cheney fiasco. What happened?

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Media Ethics, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

It’s really hard to imagine that anyone could take seriously the nonsense—make that the total falsehoods—spewed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. It would make for good humor, except that people believe these shameless harlots who have dedicated their lives to the service of corporate greed and gratuitous attacks on progressives (or even liberals).

Limbaugh has crammed his foot even farther down his mouth than usual a few times lately. Two examples: He blamed environmentalists for the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and he blamed the United Mine Workers of America for failing to head off the 29-fatality disaster at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia.

Let’s look at the Massey case. Talk about blaming the victim: Early in his career as CEO of Massey, Don Blankenship broke the back of the UMWA by refusing to honor the industry agreement and demanding that the union bargain individually with Massey’s 14 subsidiaries. This was 1984, during the notoriously anti-union presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Thus, Upper Big Branch, like many Massey mines, is non-union. The union has tried to organize there repeatedly. And the government has repeatedly cited the mine for safety violations, closing it 61 times in the 15 months preceding the explosion.

Now, the really interesting part: According to “How King Coal Killed the Union Man,” by Lauri Lebo, published in the May 15 issue of the Washington Spectator union mines are far, far safer than nonunion You need to be a subscriber to read the article, so let me summarize some of the findings:

  • 254 of the 284 miners killed in the US since 2002 were in non-union mines
  • 25 percent of American miners belong to the UMWA, but union members accounted for only 11 percent of fatalities
  • Safety inspectors at union mines have the power to shut down mines operating unsafely; in non-union mines, the inspectors are absent, and workers can be fired for calling for inspection
  • Even without an on-site inspector, Upper Big Branch was cited by the Mine safety and Health Administration for safety violations 639 times from january1 2009 to April1 2010, but Massey uses a funky procedural maneuver to block meaningful sanctions

    How does Limbaugh sleep at night? He is a propagandist, not a journalist

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    By Posted on Posted in censorship, Diversity, Ethics: General, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

    I am Jewish, and I can say this. Nazi-like behavior is unacceptable no matter who does it. Jews have no more right to be disgusting and criminal than anyone else.

    There’s a certain ultra-rightist segment of the American Jewish population that is completely intolerant of any criticism of Israel–just as there are certain ultra-rightist Americans that don’t accept legitimate criticism of the United States government (or at least they didn’t while Bush was in charge).

    Rabbi Michael Lerner is the founder of Tikkun magazine and a prominent Jewish progressive (and yes, a supporter of Israel, though not always of Israel’s policies). Apparently, these fascists thought it wasn’t Kosher that he extended an invitation to South Africa’s Judge Richard Goldstone to host his grandson’s Bar Mitzvah (and gave the judge an award), because the judge was persuaded by similar thugs not to attend the event in its original location. Click here to read Tikkun’s press release.

    Goldstone, you’ll remember, is the well-respected jurist and ardent Zionist who conducted an independent report on the Gaza invasion, and found that Israel’s conduct was deplorable.

    Both the US and Israel were founded on the premise of democracy. In a democracy, dissent is acceptable. Criticism of the government is acceptable, and in fact is necessary to keep the government honest. The terrorist thugs who attacked Rabbi Lerner’s house must be held accountable.

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    By Posted on Posted in Diversity, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

    Finally, a decades-overdue move to allow hospitalized patients to choose who should be allowed in to see them! President Obama issued a presidential directive Thursday night making federal funding contingent on nondiscrimination in visitation, and providing much greater respect for patients’ wishes in carrying out healthcare decisions.

    This is a victory not only for gays and lesbians, but for anyone who “chooses their family” through means other than legal marriage, including many elderly, or those with common-law companions.

    The above link includes a video interview with a woman who broke into tears, remembering that she was barred from visiting her dying female partner, and who said she felt like she’d failed her partner of 17 years, because she wasn’t there to hold her hand.

    Obama is to be commended for this. It should have been done by FDR, or Kennedy, or Johnson, or even Clinton.

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    By Posted on Posted in propaganda, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

    Glen Beck has always represented a weird and radical extremism, but I never expected that even he would go so far as to diss Jesus’ own legacy, calling for congregants to leave churches that talk about social justice.

    Here’s the brief note I wrote to him:

    Dear Mr. Beck:

    When I heard your call to boycott churches that talk about social justice, I had to wonder if you have actually read the New Testament.

    Jesus’ own words are rooted firmly in social justice…in helping the economically or culturally oppressed, fighting back against the crushing pressure of the oligarchs of his day, giving aid and comfort to those opposing the totalitarian Roman regime, and bringing a new message of justice through nonviolence.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

    Yesterday, conservative commentator George Will called Barack Obama a “timid progressive.”

    Will is an interesting writer. He’s far more thoughtful and articulate than the bloviators who dominate the talk channels, and he will criticize both the Right and the Left as he sees fit. I’ve often said that one of my secret fantasies is to be “a George Will of the Left.”

    And I’d agree with him about Obama’s timidity. Obama talks a big, bold line, but when it comes to action, his moves are for the most part tiny little reforms, and even those don’t get pushed very hard for the most part. Obama was pretty progressive a few years ago, but his term in the Senate and his desire to be President seemed to have cooled his ardor. By the time he was elected, I figured he was a mainstream liberal, somewhere to the right of Ted Kennedy but well to the left of any recent occupant of the Oval Office.

    Still, although my expectations for Obama’s presidency were pretty low, they haven’t even come close to being reached. On the timidity factor, he’s drowning the hopes of his mandate in the bathtub of timidity. I appreciate Obama’s conciliatory approach—but there’s a difference he doesn’t understand between trying to make common cause with the other side and walking away when it’s obvious the other side doesn’t care, doesn’t want to be engaged, and will do everything in its power to sabotage you.

    Why do I say Obama’s not progressive anymore?
    This is what a progressive agenda would have looked like:

  • Health care: Medicare for All, a one-paragraph or at most one-page unamendable document that would have galvanized support, been hard to attack, and would have passed easily, months ago, with none of the backroom dealing that gave so much leverage to people like Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe.
  • Foreign policy: Rapid withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan (three to six months). Strong condemnation of the Iraq venture as an illegal war waged under utterly false pretenses. Immediate halt on torture, rapid closing of Guantanamo, some sort of legal proceedings (perhaps a Nelson Mandela-style Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) to hold the Bush administration accountable for the rogue state we had become. An indelible message to Israel that its actions in Gaza were unacceptable and would have consequences for US support, insistence on a settlement freeze, and pressure on the Palestinian Authority to both crack down on terrorists and to negotiate in good faith.
  • Domestic policy: Consequences and safeguards around the Wall Street bailout that held the banks and brokerage firms accountable and prevented large bonuses going to executives of failing companies. Economic measures in addition to TARP that addressed working-class and middle-class Americans, especially in the areas of foreclosure and Main Street business help. A Marshall Plan-size effort to move off oil/coal and replace fossil fuels with true renewables (nuclear emphatically doesn’t count).

    • Energy is one area where Obama did make a start, at least. The appointment of Van Jones and the attention to Green jobs were laudable, but Jones was quickly kicked out under pressure from the Right, and the momentum for Green jobs withered.

    Timidity: George Will Was Right
    The other big problem was that not only did his agenda lack real progressive substance for the most part, but he hasn’t been willing to use his considerable persuasive powers to retain his support base and pressure Congress. Nor is he able to simply hold the Democratic Party together long enough to move change forward. The lack of 60 reliable votes in the Senate is a red herring; during the few months he had the supermajority, the Democrats still couldn’t get much done. Look at the GW Bush administration, which never head anything like 60 votes, whose election legitimacy was never certain, and which generated significant public opposition to many of its policies. Bush was still was able to ram through all kinds of things, many of which the country has lived to regret.

    From a marketing and PR point of view, Obama could have taken a leaf from Franklin Roosevelt’s book: When Roosevelt couldn’t get things through Congress, he turned to the people; he appealed directly to voters. He used Republican intransigence to build up pressure, and then at election time, was able to replace some of the obstacles. For the last year, Obama has totally blown the opportunity to blame the mess both on the past administration and on the unwillingness of Republicans to let him through to make the change he promised during the campaign. If he had used different strategy, 2010 should have seen a sweeping housecleaning in the House and Senate and a vast Democratic majority in place for the next two years. Instead, I think Obama’s cushion will be a lot thinner, and he’ll have even less room to work. The result will be a one-term presidency with meager accomplishments, and probably another round of Republican aggression.

    The last Democrat who was willing to use some muscle to move his agenda forward (an agenda that was not at all popular in large sections of the country) was Lyndon Johnson. From his grave, LBJ must be wondering why Obama is afraid to lead.

    Of course, the Left hasn’t had Obama’s back. We’ve given the streets to the tea partiers, where we should have been out there putting pressure on of our own (for example, not letting a health care bill move forward that doesn’t even have a public option, let alone single-payer/Medicare for All), and marshaling support for the few progressive initiatives.

    Obama has eight more months to change the dynamic. Eight months in which he needs to start being very public about why change is not emanating through Congress. Eight months to appeal to the American people for support, and to get winnable candidates in place to challenge the intransigents. I wish him luck.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

    An article with that headline appeared the other day in Firedog Lake and was reprinted in Common Dreams

    The writer, Cenk Uygur, believes Obama is good-hearted and sincerely wants change, but that he feels powerless.

    Why? Because not only doesn’t the left get out there and make noise, and push the discourse overwhelmingly toward real change (as the right has done so horribly effectively for a few decades now)—but we don’t even “have his back” for the moderate changes he could have fought for. Of course, he hasn’t fought very hard, and he was careful to appoint Cabinet members who for the most part were not visionaries, were not even change agents, but were part and parcel of the status quo, some of them the same people who brought the economy crashing down and got us into illegal and immoral wars in the first place.

    Here are a few (non-contiguous) paragraphs from the article:

    So, what Obama does by his nature is find the middle ground. As an excellent innate politician, he will find the political center of any field and rush to it. That’s where elections are won – the center.
    So, that’s why he sounded so progressive during the primaries, because that was the center of the left. And why he sounded like such a reformer during the general election because the great majority of Americans desperately wanted change…

    The center of Washington is very different than the center of the country. The Washington bubble leans far more to the right than the rest of the country (poll after poll indicates this). The corporate media in Washington are pros at protecting the status quo and view people who challenge the system as fringe players…

    So, our only hope is to move the island. We have to move his center. If we can move what he perceives to be the center, he will naturally flow to it. In Lost, when they move the island they move across time. In our case, when we move the island we need to move across the political spectrum.

    Right now, Obama perceives the center of the country to be somewhere between Dick Cheney and Harry Reid. Do you know where that leaves him? Joe Lieberman. That’s why we’re in the sorry shape we’re in now.

    Although it has a lot of gangster and violence metaphors that I don’t like and don’t agree with, the whole article is worth reading. And Uygur’s central thesis is absolutely on target: that it’s up to us to create a people’s movement that demands the change we elected Obama to bring, and that movement has to be loud and forceful and convincg—to the media, to the American people, and to the politicians.

    Change historically comes not from politicians, but by the people who demand it from them. The Civil Rights movement gave Lyndon Johnson (no progressive) room to push through several major pieces of Civil Rights legislation. Earth Day and the environmental movement of the early ’70s gave Richard Nixon (not a progressive bone in his body!) a mandate for the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency. yet we on the left (and I include myself in that) have largely stood by while Clinton negotiated away health care and the rights of gays in the military, while Bush and Cheney stole the election and hijacked the country, and while Obama rolls the ball ever-rightward to pass something he can pathetically call health care reform, or climate change objectives, or any of the rest of it. Let’s “have Obama’s back” for standing his ground against the right, and let’s push him further to the left with public pressure. Lots of it.

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    By Posted on Posted in People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

    1. Have you heard about the barbaric, fascistic anti-homosexuality law in Uganda? Yes, they’re calling for the death penalty for consensual sex. Read CNN’s article. Here’s the group to oppose it, please join.

    2. Especially if you’re in Western Mass, but even if you’re not: a Facebook support group has sprung up for the Northampton, Massachusetts victims of arson. My old neighborhood in Northampton got hit with dozens of fires in a one-hour period Sunday night. Two people died, and two families including some friends of ours were left homeless. Several lost their cars or sustained severe damage.

    Please distribute this message widely.

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with ,

    Spend 12 minutes listening to the best commentary I’ve heard on the healthcare mess, from MS-NBC’s Keith Olbermann.

    He is the only other person I’ve heard advocating my viewpoint: that since compromise isn’t working anyway, since the right-wing nutters will call you a socialist no matter what you do, you may as well fight for what we really need, and then in the next elections call down the progressive forces to sweep out the GOP and BlueDog intransigents, along with the ever-more-loathsome Joe Lieberman. Letting the bill go down in flames and then bringing it back as a campaign tool is a far more sensible strategy to me than chipping and chipping away at the reforms until there’s nothing left other than total capitulation to the insurance industry. This bill embodies everything wrong about the legislative process: the influence of big lobbying and big campaign money, the people shut out from the beginning, even Sanders being forced to abandon the single-payer vote on a parliamentary procedure trick.

    Like Olbermann, and like Howard Dean, if I were in the Senate, I’d be voting no until there are some crumbs in here for ordinary Americans. First Obama and Baucus rejected single-payer—what we really want and NEED—in favor of the very limited “public option.” Then they traded that away for extension of Medicare. Then they traded THAT away…for what? For the unreliable promise of a possible (not definite) yes vote from Lieberman!

    Progressive Senators like Sanders and a few others need to tell Obama and Ried tht this bill is not one they can vote for. Let the bill grind to a halt! We can play this kind of hardball as well. When there’s nothing to vote for, it’s time to vote no.

    I’ll be urging my own Senators to do so later today. Not in a petition but in a personal letter. When I’ve done the letter, I’ll post it here, and I give open permission to copy it in whole or in part to contact your own Senators.

    I’m also going to ask MSNBC for a transcript of Olbermann’s remarks, and permission to post it.

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