the [alternate] patriot

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Letter to democrats.org

Today I received a letter frmo the democratic party asking me to sign a petition for gay rights, which I support. I never went to their website to sign it, becaue I got so taken up in their email, which typically asks for my opinion and then offers me a few narrow choices within which to express myself. The paper surveys I've received over the years don't have even a few spaces for other comment at the end.

Today's email was titled:

If you were setting the agenda

The body says in part (edited for brevity):

Imagine that you're Republican Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, and you control what issues the Senate considers and when it considers them, would your top priority be to:

Force the administration to change its failed strategy in Iraq

Help consumers walloped by $3.00 a gallon gas and take steps to reduce our oil addiction
Pass the first minimum wage increase in 10 years and develop plans to create good jobs in America
Expand educational opportunities for college by providing relief from skyrocketing college tuition
Ensure access to health care for every American
Amend the Constitution to deprive gay people of equal rights under the law

Then it gives the link for signing a petition to Sen. Frist to get on with the nation's real business.

Instead of following instructions, I replied to the email as follows:

If you were setting the agenda... Gee, for a minute there, I was suckered into thinking you actually wanted to know what I think. Well, fooled again.

Please know that what I think is not chunked into four 1-sentence choices. (The fifth, of course, is not a reasonable choice-- I agree with you there.) I agree Frist is a jerk as are 90 percent of the Republicans. Trouble is, about half or more of the Democrats have problems, too.

I do not understand why Washington is working so hard to pander to the right and ignoring a great deal of the left. Oh, wait; you feel the left is already in your pocket and the votes up for grabs are right of center somewhere, correct?

I wish you would show some leadership on the important issues, instead of framing them all in terms of what might be acceptable to the right-of-center folks whose views have already been seriously warped by 25 years of unrelenting and often subtle rightwing propaganda.

Be warned you may lose more and more of the leftward side of your party. I'm not all that far left, either (except on Reagan's skewed political topography) .

If the Democratic party wants to stay in Iraq, you'd better start explaining why it's a good idea to have been there in the first place -- and if it wasn't, come home right away. Would a Democratic president be able to say to the world: "We were wrong; we apologize; and we'll try to make it right to the Iraq people, at least by means of some financial aid for rebuilding what we tore down."

My choices for a presidential candidate would be anyone who :
- is honest with the public -- ie announces their true goals and then works for them, not the opposite AND
-will protect the constitution
-will preotect and improve the environment, now dangerously eroded, and work for new clean, renewable energy sources (understanding at least in general how science works would help)
- will restore the civil service, removing all the ideological appointees of the past 20 odd years who were put in place to undermine agency missions
- wants to stop that ethical, legal and financial disaster in Iraq;
-considers that 'what's good for America' means what's good for its people, or the vast majority of them not just select business cronies;
- is not beholden to either international corporations or the NRA
- is willing to ban very severly restrict the use of handguns and assault rifles, Shooting is the only sport protected by the constitution; isn't that curious?
- change the law that makes a corporation a "person."

Palema 7:38 AM

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