2006 A Year of Transition...

…The Saga Continues (Cross Posted at The Left Shue )

There has been much blog chatter this week about comments made at a fundraiser for Senator Maria Cantwell . It seems that our junior senator has finally muttered those long sought after words, “Bring the Troops Home.” But wait! In what context were those words spoken? I mean, is there really a shift in the Iraq policy of “no regrets” Cantwell? Not exactly. Senator Cantwell was simply bringing out the D(L)C Democrats’ election year Iraq policy – “2006, a year of transition in Iraq.” In an increasingly publicized meeting with some local anti-war activists on the day before the fundraiser, Cantwell reminded those in attendance that she had voted for the Werner-Frist Resolution declaring 2006 a year of transition in Iraq. The resolution speaks of benchmarks and milestones that should be met in regard to the training of the Iraqi security forces and the establishment of a functional government in that country. The congress will somehow measure the progress in these areas to determine when and how many American troops can be deployed out of the country (presumably back home).

Where did this resolution come from? You may remember Rep. John Murtha (D-PA); a previously strong supporter of the invasion of Iraq, who broke ranks with the administration late last year, saying that it was time to set a time table for bringing the troops out of Iraq. His contention was that our military had done everything that they could and that their further involvement in that country was only adding fuel to the insurgency. He said that he thought we should have the bulk of our forces out of the country in six months. Under his breath, he made it known that this was also an assessment shared with many field officers and Pentagon brass. Murtha was immediately attacked by republicans and Democrats alike for advocating a “cut and run” policy. The republicans went so far as inventing a fraudulent resolution calling for immediate (as in NOW) withdrawal from Iraq and referred to it as the Murtha Resolution. The resolution was brought to the floor of the House and soundly defeated. At the same time, members of Congress were starting to read the poll numbers that now showed a solid majority of Americans calling for withdrawal from Iraq. This brings us to Werner-Frist. This resolution says all the right things to give the Cantwells of the world all the cover they would need in an election year. Establish “guidelines” without solid timelines for achievement and tie those to troop withdrawal. All tied up with a pretty bow.

So where are we in this “Year of Transition”? According to conflicting reports from the Generals on the ground or in the Pentagon, after three years of occupation, there are only between one and three battalions of Iraqis capable of defending themselves without our help at any given time. There is no reliable timeframe for increasing that number in the foreseeable future and, according to reports coming from the commanders in the field, Iraqi troops are able to come and go from duty at their own discretion with little or no punishment for desertion. Iraqi police and other security forces are being killed by the ongoing sectarian violence faster than they can be trained. As for the functional government, in the months since the parliamentary elections in December, the members of that body have decided on a place to hold their meetings and have met approximately a half dozen times. Major differences remain between the three primary factions – Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd - in forming an inclusive and representative government. The fact that the country is in the beginning stages of a civil war is either a result of this power vacuum or a prime cause of it, depending on who you ask.

How well is this policy of “benchmarks and mileposts” working out for our troops and the average Iraqi? From January through March of this year, American deaths reached one hundred, forty seven. April is already on pace to reach seventy more. In this same time period, Iraqi deaths are estimated to be in excess of two thousand. The confirmed number of American casualties as of this writing stands at two thousand, three hundred sixty nine while the estimated total of Iraqi civilian deaths is well in excess of forty thousand as a direct result of our invasion and occupation (this would include acts of the insurgency or resistance). Basic necessities such as electricity and clean water are still limited in availability and certainly nothing close to even pre-invasion standards (which were somewhat diminished by our previous bombings during the Gulf War and the economic sanctions imposed after that). As I mentioned before, a civil war is breaking out and with it various militias representing the various religious and secular factions are forming death squads and either running people from their homes and villages or killing entire families as examples to others. The increasing exodus from Iraq is creating refuge problems in neighboring countries.

Senator Cantwell, Rick Larsen, and the rest of the “Year of Transition” delegation need to rethink this non-position that is being paid for with the lives and limbs of our brave men and women in uniform and innocent Iraqis. They should realize that, without a timeline and enforceable benchmarks, you might as well just say “Stay the Course.”


Peace,

Chad (The Left) Shue

Welcome to Democracy for Washington

Edits in progress

Do you feel it? I do. It's the feeling that the tiger is starting to wake up again. It last awoke in 1932, and again in 1941. Conservatives have spent the last 60 years trying to put and keep the tiger asleep.

People are starting post on DFW again. I'll be working to get this page and the navigation of the site updated to 2008. We'll see where this goes.

The Progressive Party Platform, 1948

Preamble

Three years after the end of the second world war, the drums are beating for a third. Civil liberties are being destroyed. Millions cry out for relief from unbearably high prices. The American way of life is in danger. The root cause of this crisis is Big Business control of our economy and government. With toil and enterprise the American people have created from their rich resources the world's greatest productive machine. This machine no longer belongs to the people. Its ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few and its product used for their enrichment. Never before have so few owned so much at the expense of so many. Ten years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned: "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state. That, in its essence, is fascism." Today that private power has constituted itself an invisible government which pulls the strings of its puppet Republican and Democratic parties. Two sets of candidates compete for votes under the outworn emblems of the old parties. But both represent a single program-a program of monopoly profits through war preparations, lower living standards, and suppression of dissent. For generations the common man of America has resisted this concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few. The greatest of America's political leaders have, led the people into battle against the money power, the railroads, the trusts, the economic royalists. We of the Progressive Party are the present-day descendants of these people's movements and fighting leaders. We are the political heirs of Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoin, of Frederick Douglass, Altgeld, and Debs, of "Fighting Bob" La Follette, George Norris, and Franklin Roosevelt. Throughout our history new parties have arisen when the old parties have betrayed the people. As Jefferson headed a new party to defeat the reactionaries of his day, and as Lincoln led a new party to victory over the slaveowners, so today the people, inspired and led by Henry Wallace, have created a new party to secure peace, freedom, and abundance.

Betrayal by the Old Parties

The American people want peace. But the old parties, obedient to the dictates of monopoly and the military, prepare for war in the name of peace. They refuse to negotiate a settlement of differences with the Soviet Union. They reject the United Nations as an instrument for promoting world peace and reconstruction. They use the Marshall Plan to rebuild Nazi Germany as a war base and to subjugate the economies of other European countries to American Big Business. They finance and arm corrupt, fascist governments in China, Greece, Turkey, and elsewhere, through the Truman Doctrine, wasting billions in American resources and squandering America's heritage as the enemy of despotism. They encircle the globe with military bases which other peoples cannot but view as -threats to their freedom and security. They protect the war-making industrial and financial barons of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, to restore them to power. They stockpile atomic bombs. They pass legislation to admit displaced persons, discriminating against Catholics, Jews, and other victims of Hitler. They impose a peacetime draft and move toward Universal Military Training. They fill policy-making positions in government with generals and Wall Street bankers. Peace cannot be won-but profits can-by spending ever-increasing billions of the people's money in war preparations. Yet these are the policies of the two old parties-policies profaning the name of peace. The American people cherish freedom. But the old parties, acting for the forces of special privilege, conspire to destroy traditional American freedoms. They deny the Negro people the rights of citizenship. They impose a universal policy of Jim Crow and enforce it with every weapon of terror. They refuse to outlaw its most bestial expression-the crime of lynching. They refuse to abolish the poll tax, and year after year they deny the right to vote to Negroes and millions of white people in the South. They aim to reduce nationality groups to a position of social, economic, and political inferiority. They connive to bar the Progressive Party from the ballot. They move to outlaw the Communist Party as a decisive step in their assault on the democratic rights of labor, of national, racial, and political minorities, and of all those who oppose their drive to war. In this they repeat the history of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Franco Spain. They support the House Committee on Un-American Activities in its vilification and persecution of citizens in total disregard of the Bill of Rights. They build the Federal Bureau of Investigation into a political police with secret dossiers on millions of Americans. They seek to regiment the thinking of the American people. and to suppress political dissent. They strive to enact such measures as the Mundt-Nixon Bill which are as destructive of democracy as were the Alien and Sedition Laws against which Jefferson fought. They concoct a spurious "loyalty" program to create an atmosphere of fear and hysteria in government and industry. They shackle American labor with the 'Taft-Hartley Act at the express command of Big Business, while encouraging exorbitant profits through uncontrolled inflation. They restore the labor injunction as a weapon for breaking strikes and smashing Unions. This is the record of the two old parties-a record profaning the American ideal of freedom. The American people want abundance. But the old parties refuse to enact effective price and rent controls, making the people victims of a disastrous inflation which dissipates the savings of millions of families and depresses their living standards. They ignore the housing problem, although more than half the nation's families including millions of veterans, are homeless or living in rural and urban slums.

They refuse social security protection to millions and allow only meager benefits to the rest. They block national health legislation even though millions of men, women, and children are without adequate medical care. They foster the concentration of private economic power. They replace progressive government officials, the supporters of Franklin Roosevelt, with spokesmen of Big Business. They pass tax legislation for the greedy, giving only insignificant reductions to the needy. These are the acts of the old parties-acts profaning the American dream of abundance. No glittering party platforms or election promises of the Democratic and Republican parties can hide their betrayal of the needs of the American people. Nor can they act otherwise. For both parties, as the record of the 80th Congress makes clear, are the champions of Big Business.

The Republican platform admits it.

The Democratic platform attempts to conceal it. But the very composition of the Democratic leadership exposes the demogogy of its platform. It is a party of machine politicians and Southern Bourbons who veto in Congress the liberal planks "won" in convention. Such platforms, conceived in hypocrisy and lack of principle, deserve nothing but contempt.

Principles of the Progressive Party

The Progressive Party is born in the deep conviction that the national wealth and natural resources of our country belong to the people who inhabit it and must be employed in their behalf; that freedom and opportunity must be secured equally to all; that the brotherhood of man can be achieved and scourge of war ended. The Progressive Party holds that basic to the organization of world peace is a return to the purposes of Franklin Roosevelt to seek areas of international agreement rather than disagreement. It was his conviction that within the framework of the United Nations different social and economic systems can and must live together. If peace is to be achieved capitalist United States and Communist Russia must establish good relations and work together. The Progressive Party holds that it is the first duty of just government to secure for all the people, regardless of race, creed, color, sex, national background, political belief, or station in life, the inalienable rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The government must actively protect these rights against the encroachments of public and private agencies. The Progressive Party holds that a just government must use its powers to promote an abundant life for its people. This is the basic idea of Franklin Roosevelt's Economic Bill of Rights. Heretofore every attempt to give effect to this principle has failed because Big Business dominates the key sectors of the economy. Antitrust laws and government regulation cannot break this domination. Therefore the people, through their democratically elected representatives, must take control of the main levers of the economic system. Public ownership of these levers will enable the people to plan the use of their productive resources so as to develop the limitless potential of modem technology and to create a true American Commonwealth free from poverty and insecurity. The Progressive Party believes that only through peaceful understanding can the world make progress toward reconstruction and higher standards of living; that peace is the essential condition for safe-guarding and extending our traditional freedoms; that only by preserving liberty and by planning an abundant life for all can we eliminate the sources of world conflict. Peace, freedom, and abundance - the goals of the Progressive Party - are indivisible. Only the Progressive Party can destroy the power of private monopoly and restore the government to the American people. For ours is a party uncorrupted by privilege, committed to no special interests, free from machine control, and open to all Americans of all races, colors, and creeds. The Progressive Party is a party of action. We seek through the democratic process and through day-by-day activity to lead the American people toward the fulfillment of these principles.

---

Communists and their close allies wrote most of the Progressive Party platform of 1948. These individuals were not a majority of the platform committee, but enough non-Communists agreed with some parts of the party line to allow the Communists to dominate the proceedings. Lee Pressman, who earlier in 1948 had been eased from his position in the CIO national office because of his Communist sympathies, directed the writing of the first or "New York" draft of the platform. University of Chicago's Rexford G. Tugwell, chairman of the platform committee, quietly withdrew from party activity before the election as he came to realize that the Progressive movement was Communist-controlled.

Kirk H. Porter and Donald B. Johnson, compilers, National Party Platforms, 1840-1956 (Urbana, Ill., 1956) pp. 436437.

Dino Rossi

Dino Rossi for Governor:

Website: http://www.dinorossi.com/

The following is a good summary of talking points comparing Dino Rossi's new
"run to the middle" TV-spot with his actual State Senate record. Where
DO the Republicans find these phoneys ??

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: - Contact: Kirstin
Brost

Date: August 31, 2004 - - - PH 206-281-9124

The Great Disconnect - Rossi Sells Bio: But What Did He
Learn?

SEATTLE – Today, real-estate salesman Dino Rossi took his
sales pitch to the airwaves, launching his first round of
television advertisements statewide. In his new ad, Rossi
talks about his life, his parents, and his work waxing
floors (before his current work waxing over his record).
A man’s bio can tell you where he came from, but where did
he go with it?
For your benefit we’ve put together a little side-by-side
comparing what Rossi says in his ad, his life experience,
with how he legislated.

LIFE EXPERIENCE: ROSSI INTERPRETATION :

DINO ROSSI: “I was really blessed to have wonderful
parents.”

DR LEGISLATION - When the Christian Coalition began pushing
model “parental rights” legislation, Rossi responded by
sponsoring just such a bill in Washington State, SJM 8004.
Opponents of such legislation warned it could “promote suits
against school boards and social service agencies and hinder
child-abuse investigations.”[SJM 8004, New York Times,
1/15/96]

DINO ROSSI: “My Mother was from Alaska—left a difficult
situation. Ended up in Holly Park projects. “

DR LEGISLATION - Rossi voted against a bill that would give
unemployment benefits to domestic violence or stalking
victims who must leave their jobs. [SB 5189 3/8/01,
Spokesman Review, 3/9/01]

DR LEGISLATION - Rossi voted against granting a temporary
welfare work exemption to parents with an infant less than
12 months. The measure required parents to attend parenting
or job-skills classes once their child was three-months old.
[HB 1144 3/7/02]

DINO ROSSI: “She worked as a waitress and went to beauty
school and worked her way out of the projects. She never
shied away from hard work.”

DR LEGISLATION - Rossi voted against a measure to allow
welfare recipients to attend college. [SB 6296 3/3/00,
Seattle Times 3/10/00]

DR LEGISLATION - Rossi voted to undermine a voter-approved
initiative that allows the minimum wage to increase each
year with cost-of-living standards. Rossi voted for a bill
that would freeze the wage increase when the state
unemployment rate is above the federal jobless rate. [SB
5697 3/12/03, Associated Press 3/13/03]

DINO ROSSI: “My father was a Seattle public school
teacher.”

DR LEGISLATION - In his 2003 budget, Dino Rossi:
o Undermined a voter-approved initiative to provide
annual cost-of-living increases for teachers. [The Olympian
6/5/03]
o Gave only a fraction of the funding to reduce class
size that public schools were slated to receive under
voter-approved Initiative 728. [The Olympian 6/5/03]

DINO ROSSI: “My dad taught me patience.”
Unable to outlaw a woman’s right to choose in 1991 by
working against Initiative 120, Rossi has patiently chipped
away at women’s rights during his time in the Senate.
DR LEGISLATION -
o Rossi voted against funding for low income
family planning services. [SB 5465, 3/16/99; SB 5186,
3/9/01].

o Rossi pushed to fund an abstinence-only sex
education program. [SB 5592, Seattle PI 3/17/97, Seattle
PI 7/24/97, SB 5592 3/15/97]

o Rossi voted twice to mandate parental
notification before abortion. [SB 6290 2/16/98, Seattle
Times 2/17/98, SB 5255 3/19/97, Seattle Times 3/19/97]

o Rossi vote allowed insurance companies to
discriminate against women. [SB 5512 3/9/99, Seattle PI
3/10/99]

DINO ROSSI: “My folks couldn’t afford to pay for me to go
to college. So I decided to work waxing floors at the space
needle to make it through school.”

DR LEGISLATION - Rossi’s 2003 budget cut operating funds for
all public higher education institutions by $131 million.
[The Olympian 6/5/03]

DINO ROSSI: “That experience taught me that hard work . . .
pays off.”

Rossi has worked hard to advance the Bush agenda in Washington state. His pay
off? A visit from Dick Cheney that raised over $100,000 for his campaign.

DR LEGISLATION –

o As Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, Rossi
pushed two memorials that supported President Bush’s
economic agenda. One memorial supported Bush’s 2003
economic plan which analysts said “overwhelmingly
benefit[ed] the wealthy” and would particularly hurt
struggling state governments. The other memorial supported
a repeal of the estate tax, a measure that would drive up
federal deficits by at least $162 billion over ten years in
order to give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. [SJM
8006 4/7/03, Washington Post 1/8/03, SJM 8005, New York
Times 6/19/03]

o Rossi co-sponsored and voted for a memorial that
urged the US Senate to confirm Bush’s controversial judicial
nominee, Miguel Estrada. US Senate Democrats had delayed
Estrada’s confirmation because the Bush administration
refused to provide documents on Estrada’s legal work which,
according to Joel Connelly at the Seattle PI, reportedly
showed views “as far to the right as those of Supreme Court
Justice Antonin Scalia” [SJM 8020, Seattle PI 5/14/03]

o Rossi is “opposed to legal abortion.” Rossi’s
position on choice is identical to that of President George
W. Bush. [Washington Law & Politics April/May 2004,
Spokesman Review 12/10/03, New York Times 4/22/04]

VOICE: “Paid for by Rossi for Governor, GOP”

Who pays for Rossi? Rossi's campaign is financed with over
$10,000 from the pharmaceutical industry. Perhaps this
industry remembers how Rossi voted with them to kill
legislation that would give the state bargaining power to
control the escalating costs of prescription drugs.
[www.pdc.wa.gov, SB 6368 2/18/02, Associated Press 2/19/02)

Brian Baird for Congressional District 3

Brian Baird is running to keep his seat, and has a primary challenger, Cheryl Crist. Help us collect campaign information below and let's talk about his record.

Brian Baird*

P.O. Box 5016

Vancouver, WA 98668

Phone: 360-696-1993

Fax: 360-696-2013

Website: http://www.brianbaird.com/

Webmail: http://www.brianbaird.com/send/index.cfm

Alex Alben for Congressional District 8

Alex Alben

PO Box 709

Mercer Island, WA 98040

Phone: (206) 232-2545

Website: www.alben2004.com

Email: campaign@alben2004.com

MeetUp: AAlbenforCongress.meetup.com

Washington State's 2004 National Delegates!

A Very Heartfelt Thank-You to All who Ran For National Delegate!

On behalf of the Democracy for Washington Community, I would like to say a heartfelt thank-you to all the people who ran to represent the candidate of their choice at the Democratic National Convention. You all put in a lot of diligent and hard work in the events leading up to the Washington State Congressional District Caucuses and are to be commended for stepping up as you did. Thank you for showing us such an inspiring and robust democratic process.

We also congratulate the delegates who were elected in yesterday’s caucuses, and know that the national delegates join us in thanking all the other candidates for making yesterday’s election processes the inspiring events they were.

We look forward to seeing you all next week at the Washington State Convention!

Kelley Bevans

Kelley@DemocracyforWashington.com

Acting PCO, 36-3318



We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Here is the list of Delegates! If you know more than we do, please let us know!

	John Kerry	Howard Dean	Dennis Kucinich
1st CD		Luis Moscoso Dr. Mony Baggett	Jessica Becket
2nd CD		Stacy Pederson Jesse Salomon	Larry A. Kalb
3rd CD	Harold Abbe Norm Banks Julee Hukee Karen Titus Nicole Rickets (Alternate)	John Howes
4th CD	Scott Brines Kristin Eby David E. Molnaa (Alternate)	Ellen (Leni) Skarin Harold (Hal) Kent III
5th CD	Yvette Fox Yvonne Griffin Douglas Dobbins	Bob Schlein	Diane M. Schmitz
6th CD		Julie Bjornsson	Chris Karnes
7th CD	Lisa Dombe Georgia Spencer Greg Rodriguez _____ Soucey (Alternate)	Janis Traven Jason Szawatski	D'Adre Cunningham James I. Mullins
8th CD	Lindsay Scola Yvonne Kinoshita Ward Thomas Vance Francisco Irigon Geni P. Hawkins (Alternate)	Ricardo Polintan Joanna Decker
9th CD		Cherise Luxa Alan Dahl
At Large		PLEOs: Jeff Smith Becky Lewis Jeanne Kohl-Welles At-large Delegates: Sarah Schacht Sylvia Olveda Ada Santerre-Nigagloni Romona Brandes Sameer Kanal Robert Byrd Alternate: Lawrence Winnerman	Wes Hamilton - Delegate Dian E. Ferguson - Alternate

Hope to hear from everyone during the National Convention in Boston!

John Kerry for President!

In our opinion, and in the opinion of a True Majority of people in the US, this is the most important election in years. How important just depends on your perspective. Some say this is as important as the 1992 election, when Bill Clinton won after 12 years of Republican control. Others think back to 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt swept the entire country, bringing Democrats into the majority for the first time in decades and starting the recovery from the Great Depression. There's even another date that we can consider as equal to this one. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln received the electoral college, and was able to save our country from breaking in two pieces during the Civil War. In some ways, our country is as divided now as it was then, and it's time to start to bring us together and build our nation back into the greatest country on earth, a distinction that has been lost in the last 4 years.

We believe that Senator John Kerry can win the White House in 2004. We believe that he must win to save the institutions and promises that our government has made to us. And the best way that we can do that is to work hard from the bottom up to prove that our government is not dictated to us from the top down.

Will you help us?

Kerry Campaign field organizers are working with supporters across Washington state to lead house parties and build our grassroots movement in the Pacific Northwest. If you are already working with a coordinator in your own district or know who that is, direct people in your district to that person. However, if you need to be matched up with a volunteer activity, call 1-866-ElectJK.

Find the house party in your neighborhood or host your own! 

Contact Mike Leighs at mleighs@johnkerry.com.

 

To find out more about the John Kerry campaign in Washington State, call the Washington State Democratic Coordinated Campaign at (206) 281-9124

Want to help spread the word? Get one of the Kerry Kits from MoveOn.org and show your family, friends and neighbors what makes us believe that John Kerry is the right choice in November!

The official John Kerry website has lots of features and tools! Here's a good one. Search for events in your area by clicking here and putting in your zipcode. These can be house parties, fundraisers or sign waving parties. Get involved locally to make changes nationally!

Congradulations to the 2004 National Delegates! Let us know who you are so we can post your name on our Delegates page!

This Blog is included in our News Aggregator:

2004 Democratic Platform

Stronger at Home, Respected in the World!

The 2004 National Platform draft is out, and everyone should look at what the vision is from the Democratic Party.

Read it here.

The Washington State Democrats also have a completed platform.

Read it here.

Congressional District Map

Color Key:

Democrats

Republicans

Here's a map of the state using Google Earth with the Congressional districts in color. You can download the source file here (.KMZ).

Seattle Times Endorses Kerry - Two Months Early!

The Seattle Times editorial page, which endorsed George W. Bush four years ago, has seen the light and endorsed John F. Kerry for the presidency! The editorial is well-written, well-reasoned, and should provide strong talking points for us to use when trying to convince "undecided" voters. The fact that they have endorsed more than two months early, and immediately prior to the Republican National Convention in New York should send a clear signal as to how strong their opinion on this matter is. Huzzah!