http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=296x3890Texas Dems explain to DLC what a centerist Dem really thinks. as posted at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/houstonnorml/message/4061 The John Kelly (of Texasppc) open letter to the DLC was originally posted at
http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/texasppc but this Yahoogroup requires membership to read messages.
Apr 7, 2005 10:33 AM
Subject: An Open Letter to Al From and Bruce Reed and others in the DLC
In response to the Article by Donald Lambro in the April 4, 2005 issue of the Washington Times, "Centrist Democrats Warn Liberals" and Al From and Bruce Reed's writings in Blueprint Magazine at
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=132&subid=193&cont... An Open Letter to Al From and Bruce Reed and others in the DLC
As a bonafide working stiff out here in the heartland let me explain to you guys in D.C. what the heartland wants, and it ain't any of that hose job you sent up as a trial balloon to challenge the left to a duel for the party.
1. We want security all right; we want the security of not having multinational corporations control foreign policy for their benefit and using our government to sacrifice our children for higher corporate profits or the imperialist dreams of a bunch of megalomaniacs. We want a foreign policy that says we won't trade with you or invest capital wealth generated on the backs of working Americans if it is to be used to exploit some poor working stiff in another land, poison our environment here or there and generally piss off the rest of the world at us.
2. We want a foreign policy with projects like the peace corps that help people around the world improve their basic quality of life and teach Americans not to look through the narrow looking glass of 6% of the world's population, which in case you have forgotten is what we are. I'm not sure what you mean by the internationalism of Roosevelt (the adventurism of Teddy or the reluctant entry of Franklin), Truman (who brought us Korea and a nuclear arms race) or Kennedy (the forcing of Cuba into Russian arms or his planned withdrawal from Viet Nam). Maybe a multilateral approach that didn't consider the rest of the world our piggy bank or toilet might be a good start.
3. You want to get out of Iraq and make peace and democracy. LEAVE, Tell the Iraqi government that instead of using the 87 billion dollars we are going to spend bombing their country into the stone age we will allocate it as restitution and use it to fund infrastructure programs they decide on, as soon as they form their own government or governments as they see fit. You believe in free markets, divide the money up, it comes out to $4,142 for every man women and child in Iraq. Tell the Iraqis that and you probably will have peace tomorrow. If they want to be three countries, let them if your interest is really democracy and freedom. You guys would probably get the Nobel Peace prize, save a lot of American and Iraqi lives and it would be cheaper in the long run. What do we care what form their democracy takes, unless of course it really is about corporate profits and oil.
4. We want the security of knowing our children can get a quality education, that means elementary and middle schools with reasonable numbers of children in a classroom, well paid professional teachers, in safe clean buildings, high schools that prepare students vocationally or for college which ever they have the aptitude for and colleges and vocational schools that can help them be productive, educated and useful citizens of the world. We don't want under funded, crowded schools, with underpaid teachers, worthless testing, religious training or having our children risk death or injury in the military to get a higher education.
5. We want the security of knowing if we are incapacitated or die that our families will have basic healthcare, some income protection and retirement. We are tired of hearing you talk about responsibility. You people in Washington don't have a clue about responsibility. The Republicans and Right Wing (New) Democrats are interested in gaining and maintaining political and economic power at the working guy and poor people's expense. And while I'm at it you imply that poor people are poor because they want to be that way. A regular mistaken belief of those who have never been poor.
6. By the way we want the security of universal healthcare. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when you take all of the costs of duplication of health plan administration (federal, state, 50 Medicaid programs, Medicare, numerous private indemnity, HMO's, billing offices, etc.) that there is enough money to give everyone in the country basic healthcare if you have one system. Besides you and everyone else know that a majority of Americans support a single payer plan. You guys are gutless, talk about unifying issues. And one more thing, what about prescription drugs, you guys have taken money time and again to let pharmaceuticals companies make my great Aunt Mabel choose dog food to eat in order to buy drugs to keep herself alive, because she lives too far from Mexico.
7. We want the security of not being preyed upon by giant banks and financial companies who no longer have to abide by any usury laws. You guys want to talk the need for a constitutional amendment, there's one. Prevent credit card companies and banks from taking advantage of people when they are at their most vulnerable. And what about bankruptcy, you allowed and many of you joined in on the fuck fest of called bankruptcy reform where regular Jills an Joes who are already victimized by the healthcare system, the temptation of easy credit, divorce, college expenses or other tragedy in their life get sentenced to indentured servitude while giant corporations and fat rich fucks like you guys and your supporters walk. Then you turn around and take their excess profits in campaign donations and shift their tax burden to us. DO YOU GUYS HONESTLY THINK THAT YOU ARE THE ANSWER TO THE MIDDLE CLASSES PROBLEM?? YOU'RE EITHER SMOKING BAD STUFF OR TOTALLY DELUSIONAL.
8. We want you to support our values, that means that you reverse the trend of income degradation of almost 30% since 1970. You want to help family values and protect our children, make it possible for a family to live on one income again, don't allow "productivity" to make the work place a sixty hour a week toil for both parents in order to make it. And those folks at the bottom who are working two or three jobs at minimum wage or a little better in order to fall behind even more and watch their children fall into the criminal justice system. Either pay them more or help them more, but don't undercut what little support they get now and tell them to join the great world of capitalism. They already know about that, but their view is from under the outhouse looking out the hole, and they know an asshole when they see one.
9. We want the security of not having the boss take the money he earns off from our labor and start a factory in China where he can make more money off some other poor mook's labor, send me cheap plastic shit that I give him money for from my unemployment check which is financed by treasury bonds that the government sold to China, which they bought with the money that my boss stole from me. GET IT!! I don't want the poor mook in China to not have a job, I just want him to get the same decent wage as me so we can all make a living.
10. Speaking of cheap plastic shit, you want to do something about TV, do something about the advertising, I don't need more cheap plastic crap, a newer bigger SUV (ever hear of CAFÉ), pecker hardener drugs to beg my Dr. for, an attorney to sue somebody's sorry ass or most of the other junk that passes as a poor substitute for a real happiness and joy in life. And while you're at it could you ban those damned TV preachers too. And you wonder why half the adult male population is hooked on internet porn (which by the way has probably saved more marriages then Billy Graham), their children are on medication and the women who aren't just totally worn out are trying to figure out who they have to blow to get a tit job so they can escape their miserable lives. You want to restore morality to America, give us a decent wage, some time off and less distraction from real life.
11. And for GOD'S SAKE BAN CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS. I would gladly pay tax money for a 30 day (THAT'S RIGHT 30 DAY) campaign race. The candidates could have a debates four times a week at different places around the country, where real people not some snot nosed, suck up, laughingly referred to as a journalist ask real questions like "WHAT THE HELL YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT GETTING MY STREET FIXED". Any thing more then that is just bull shit any way.
12. And open up the system for other parties and candidates, my junior high social studies teacher would have been a better legislator or president then most of these dumb asses we have had lately and that includes Clinton. Every dumb ass cracker in the country knows you don't get blowjobs from some girl who has everything in the world to gain by telling your wife.
13. Now you say where would we get the money for all of this. It ain't hard Bubba. First you get rid of all of that high tech military crap and secret agent stuff and train every man and woman in America how to defend this country incase those screaming ass chinamen come charging over the hill in the back yard and organize them by communities. Of course that would be dangerous since they would figure out that they might be able to accomplish all kinds of things by themselves without depending on your blood sucking asses. The terrorists in my life that I have to watch out for are the electric company and the bank. This ain't rocket science Bubba, (or as Dumsfeld said maybe it is) but it don't take a genius to figure out that when just the military budget that you know about, is more then almost all of the other countries in the world IT IS NOT FOR DEFENSE.
14. You want to pass laws, pass some that tell a corporation they don't have the same and in many cases more rights then me. I read the bill of rights, it don't say nothing about no damn corporation having more rights then me. You want to help society become a bunch of entrepreneurs, pass universal healthcare, strengthen disability and retirement programs, Most corporate employees will be out the door by 8:15 to start their own business. WE DON'T LIKE BEING SLAVES TO HEALTHCARE AND RETIREMENT SO WE CAN LET SOME MIDDLE MANAGEMENT PSYCHO WITHOUT A DIAGNOSIS PISS ON OUR SHOES EVERY TIME HE FEELS LIKE IT.
15. I want security from crime too, and I know how to do it. Change the economy so people can get a decent job that doesn't make them so hopeless that they drink or drug themselves daily to cope or have to sell drugs to get by. "Let me see I can work at McDonalds with my high school diploma or I can sell drugs and buy the American dream". Watch MTV, dude it's a career plan. Hell if my local drug dealer would agree to just sell cocaine and heroin to rich bastards, sell pot to everyone else and contribute some money to community projects, I'd let him put up a sign and a drive through.
I love it when you guys talk about the multibillion-dollar war on drugs like its some battle against evil. It's a joke, cocaine and heroin are cheaper on the street then in the 70's, Rush and the rest of you rich assholes are getting your good dope from your doctors, we're using it as an excuse to let corporate America invade other countries, more people die every month from alcohol related causes then in Iraq and you guys are busting grandmas for using pot to deal with their arthritis because they can't afford prescription drugs. The average American doesn't realize that the war on drugs has produced a full employment guarantee, tribute collection (confiscation laws), and prison industry that keeps people of color oppressed and provides jobs to lawyers and white bubbas as prison guards and cops. I know communities that are terrified of changes in parole laws because it threatens their economic base, prisons.
16. If I missed anything else about security, just come down here in the heartland and work at Wal-Mart, clean someone else's toilet for minimum wage, get your ass out shoveling pig shit, working pulling the guts out of cows all day, be chained to a desk in a 5X5 cubicle in some meaningless go no where "career", buy student supplies and needs out of your own pocket for kids who are growing up alone and anxious, cull shrimp all night bouncing on the gulf, all the while watching tv images that tell you what a loser you are while the people who are supposed to protect you tell you to be very, very afraid. All of the time you get to think about what if that one thing happens to push me over the edge financially into that hole that I will never get out of. Then maybe you will know something about what would make us secure. UNTIL THEN KEEP YOUR SILLY ASS OPINIONS TO YOURSELF.
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