Thursday, February 27, 2020

Democratic propositions are worth taking a look at

First and foremost I want to remind you that in order to vote in Texas you’ll need some form of identification. The most common is a Texas driver’s license or state ID. You can also use a U.S. military I.D. card with your photo on it, a U.S. passport book or card, U.S. Certificate of Citizenship or Naturalization with your photo, Texas concealed handgun license issued by the Department of Public Safety, or a Texas Election I.D. also issued by DPS. If you have none of those you can still vote a regular ballot if you bring one of the following to your voting site: Valid voter registration card/certificate, current utility bill (or a copy), bank statement (or a copy), government check (or a copy), paycheck (or a copy), current government document with your name and address on it, certified birth certificate (must be an original). Then you’ll fill out a form at the voting site stating that (1) you are who you say you are and (2) have a reasonable impediment or difficulty getting one of the acceptable photo IDs. Then you can vote a regular ballot.

Besides candidates there are eleven propositions on the Democratic Party ballot asking for your view on a wide range of important topics.

Proposition #1 asks “Should everyone in Texas have a right to quality healthcare, protected by a universally accessible Medicare-style system that saves rural hospitals, reduces the cost of prescription drugs, and guarantees access to reproductive healthcare?” Wouldn’t it be great knowing that your employer wasn’t in control of your health insurance? It sure would be nice to never worry that if you become too ill to work or your employer goes bust that your health insurance and that of your family wouldn’t end.

Proposition #2 asks “Should everyone in Texas have the right to high-quality public education from pre-k to 12th grade, and affordable college and career training without the burden of crushing student loan debt?” Imagine every child having the same opportunity to get a great education regardless of whether they live in a rich or poor district. Imagine every young adult having the realistic opportunity to further their education without the fear that they’d be paying back student loans until the cows come home.

Proposition #3 asks “Should everyone in Texas have the right to clean air, safe water, affordable and sustainable alternative energy sources, and a ​responsible climate policy that recognizes and addresses the climate crisis as a real and serious threat that impacts every aspect of life on this planet?” Who doesn’t want to leave their children and grandchildren a planet that can sustain them without fear of mass crop failure, famine, flooding and worse? Every time we have demanded that industry take action against pollution and climate change they’ve claimed that it’s too expensive and will cost jobs yet once it finally gets done those same industries find that they’re more efficient and that the benefits outweigh the costs even strictly on the financials let alone the lives and health saved.

Proposition #4 asks “Should everyone in Texas have the right to economic security, where all workers have earned paid family and sick leave, training to prepare for future economies, and a living wage that respects their hard work?” Shouldn’t people who work full time be able to expect that they can afford a roof over their head and three meals a day?

There’s plenty more but no room for them all in this column. I think you get the gist of what kinds of issues are being addressed.

Now go vote!

Published in the Seguin Gazette - February 26, 2020

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Inspiration by Aspiration Will Turn Out the Vote

­From time to time I hear critiques of Bernie Sanders and some of the policies that he and Elizabeth Warren have espoused like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal as being unattainable and therefore bad politics. I disagree, in fact lofty goals are inspirational, look at John Kennedy’s goal of putting a man on the moon within a decade. That feat was thought unattainable by many and NASA scrambled to make it happen but we did it.
When we elected President Obama with promises to fix our broken health care system many thought he would fail since Bill and Hillary Clinton had failed to do it more than a decade earlier. My friends and I quickly learned that his proposal was a stretch as far as congress was concerned. We worked hard to convince Congressman Henry Cuellar, who represented Guadalupe County at that time, to support the bill which he finally did though he threw his share of monkey wrenches into the mix. Democratic Senators like Max Baucus from Montana held up the bill for months while stripping it of some of the best parts. We didn’t get everything we wanted but the Affordable Care Act was an improvement over what had existed before. Had our Republican governor not failed to take advantage of the tens of millions of dollars available to expand Medicaid, tens of thousands of Texans could be healthier and happier today.
During Obama’s presidency we learned that pre-emptive compromise intended to get the support of Republicans early in the process was a failure because they just moved the goalpost further off center. Now that many of us have turned our attention to electing a president to replace the ignoramus currently in office some folks seem to believe that the only important issue is winning the election and therefore we should choose a candidate that at least some who voted for Trump will vote for. Oddly they seem to think that those are folks who are somewhere in the middle on most policy issues. The reality is that those voters who voted for Obama in 2008/2012 then voted for Trump in 2016 wanted to “shake things up”, they didn’t vote for Trump as much as they voted against Hillary Clinton whom they viewed as an establishment candidate.
Pre-emptively compromising on a centrist/establishment candidate like Joe Biden or Mike Bloomberg, etc. isn’t going to win over those voters, they’ll just go for another four years of Trump trashing our democracy, violating the constitution, and lining his own pockets with public funds. Instead we need an inspirational candidate who talks about the possibilities that can be achieved. Joe Biden has essentially campaigned on bringing another four years of the Obama presidency. First Biden no Barack Obama and second at least the people I talk to think it’s time to move forward not have more of the same.
Voters who switched to Trump after voting for Obama wanted to shake things up because they felt that our federal government was more responsive to big business than working class people and they’re absolutely right even if their prescription for fixing it was totally wrong. Giving them a candidate that doesn’t offer a big change in how our government works isn’t going to bring them back.
Early voting started yesterday, vote for the candidate whose message inspires you and your family because that is the candidate who will inspire others. For me that’s Bernie Sanders.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - February 19, 2020

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Racist Fascist March in DC

Last Saturday in the wake of Donald Trump’s acquittal by cowed Republicans in his senate trial a group of roughly 100 young men belonging to the self-described fascist and white nationalist organization, Patriot Front, marched through parts of Washington D.C. chanting “reclaim America”. I find their march disturbing as my father and three uncles were World War II veterans fighting against fascists and now these people who adhere to the same kind of ideology and Mussolini and Hitler get police escort through our nation’s capitol.
Nearly all wore khaki pants, blue jackets, khaki ball caps and all but their leader wore face masks so they could remain anonymous just like the Ku Klux Klan before them. As I’ve noticed in the past with groups like this one their manifesto starts out reasonably and I found myself agreeing with the first three paragraphs. As I read on it became clear that while we agree that our democracy is broken their diagnosis of the cause is typical white supremacist hogwash. Prominent in the tract are racist quotes from Calvin Coolidge and Charles Lindbergh. According to Patriot Front’s manifesto you can’t truly be American unless your ancestors were European.
The manifesto reminds me of the writings of a fellow native of Louisiana by the name of David Duke. The former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which he founded in 1974, is well versed in sounding reasonable long enough to draw you in before turning to blame everyone else except white men like Donald Trump for the problems of downtrodden white men.
I’m not foolish enough to believe that groups like Patriot Front exist because of Donald Trump nativist and white supremacist rhetoric. It isn’t like the Ku Klux Klan ever really went away and anyone watching the news after the election of President Obama saw racist signs and rhetoric spouted by TEA Party demonstrators. Nevertheless our current president cheers these hateful groups on even as the FBI has finally recognized that right wing hate groups of this sort are every bit as dangerous as followers of ISIS if not more so.
It’s just so sad that within weeks of marches in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King and the work that continues to bring about racial harmony and justice in this country that a group of young white men look to reverse all the progress. I should note that not only were the Patriot Front marchers in the capitol exclusively male, the rhetoric in their manifesto makes it quite clear their focus isn’t just on supremacy of whites, it is about the supremacy of white males.
Patriot Front was founded by Thomas Ryan Rousseau, now 22 years old. Rousseau participated in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer. Rousseau appears to be well spoken and media savvy similar to David Duke. I suspect he’ll be around for quite a while drawing disaffected white men like flies to a rotting carcass. We should all hope that the FBI keeps an eye on him and his followers.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - February 12, 2020