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FURRYDOC: On behalf of disaffected physicians and Jews, there are some naked emperors that need some exposure. Some might call this the beneficial application of Sinat Chinam
Showing posts with label Democratic Committee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democratic Committee. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2025
Offering Candor
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Mugged by Reality
Several years ago, pre-pandemic, as I compiled my semi-annual list of things I'd like to do in the upcoming half-year, I committed myself to purchasing two new subscriptions that would challenge my mental capacity. After soliciting advice, some helpful, some perfunctory, I settled on paid electronic subscriptions to The Forward and The Atlantic. I have maintained each on autopay ever since. Each week I strive to read six pieces in The Atlantic and ten in The Forward, with reasonable adherence. While The Forward specializes in news and commentary targeted to a Jewish audience, The Atlantic is more eclectic. It has staff writers, some very experienced, some promoted to journalism's big leagues after time in the minors. It has frequent contributors, usually people who hold professorships with areas of study. Each day's edition, as the electronic version has new articles daily, includes one or more essays from independent contributors. In the political year, politics dominates the daily content. The editors make sure that its readers like me receive analytically driven opinions worthy of the college grads who subscribe. As the American election results had little ambiguity, experienced political mavens went to work sorting out their pet conclusions as to why our ballot boxes reflected a clear preference for Republicans across geography and most demographic categories.
Two members of a think tank, More In Common, addressed polarization as perceptions, some right, others I think erroneous.
Their op-ed asserts that Republicans prioritized their principal goals as a party, inflation control and immigration control. As they campaigned, that was the message the voters received. Democratic voters, when polled, set their top issues as inflation control and health care access. Conceptually, there is very broad consensus on these concerns that does not segregate by party. Everyone has either modified what they purchase from the grocery due to price, or at least grumble about what they perceive as cost exceeding value. We all find our periodic doctor visits, or medical dependencies, a hardship in some way. It could be economic costs of insurance or medicines, limited availability of appointments, doctors who look at screens instead of us, or concerns about how much of the medical care we get mismatched to what we really need. People in some parts of the country feel the immediate impact of illegal border crossings more than others, but we've probably all encountered people from Latin America when we dine out or watch our neighbors have their yards upgraded. Whether properly documented or not, we suspect that they cannot all be. We live the same way irrespective of our political imprints. We shop, travel, eat, go to work, drive on the highways beyond our own towns, have mixed feelings when we send our kids off to school each morning. America offers a lot of common ground. We all know, and pretty much agree on where the failures emerge, with some contention over who is at fault.
As the two authors note, with data to present, the perception of what the Democrats as a party aspire to deflects this common ground in favor of minority views. Gender identity, ethnic entitlements, redress of historical wrongs, indignities of self with linkages to global groups with their grievances absorbed into our own. That is not at all inflation control or health care. Yet it hijacks the priority concerns, becoming subordinate to people with much smaller constituencies but more visible platforms. Their essay focuses upon how issues of subordinate broad concern, indeed widespread unpopularity, became the disseminated face of the Democratic party. Where the authors and I diverge is that they see this as a faulty perception. I see it as a very accurate perception, one in keeping with my own personal experience, undoubtedly magnified throughout the American population by people just like me with parallel personal encounters.
On another personal semi-annual assessment, I concluded two years into retirement that I needed more human interaction. The pandemic had just upended our lives. My Senior Program at the state university where I mingled with others most weekdays had shut down. Synagogue services paused, as Zoom was not an option for an Orthodox congregation on the Sabbath. As I compiled twelve initiatives, I committed myself to joining two new organizations. I had never engaged in formal politics, but my Representative District sought committee members. I volunteered, gaining one of the two seats on that committee allotted to my voting location. Great people. We met monthly, mostly electronically. On a few occasions, the elected officials arranged committee gatherings in a central location with refreshments and their presence. Interesting, affable people. The State Rep and Senator each had mental agility, an understanding of legislation, and a willingness to engage with nobodies like me. We chatted about ourselves, about how to make schools more effective, why medical care has become more problematic for both doctors like me and patients like everyone else, about insecurities we shared with our changing world. The 2020 election brought a Presidential change, one welcome to us, as most of us had met the new President when he represented us in the Senate. The year also brought a US Census. My polling place and the acreage it served would be shifted to a new State Representative as district lines were redrawn by the state legislature. My seat would be shifted to the Committee of the new district, as the Democratic Party infrastructure apportions its committees by state representative. Nobody contested my seat. We met the first Monday of every month by Zoom. However, our representative had no interest in engaging in committee meetings. My Senator would remain the same, though she focused more on the previous district. Another Senator had a territory partly within this district. She came to the Zoom meetings, making a favorable impression. As a school teacher, she had interest and familiarity with public education, a big item in the state budget and top concern of many citizens. In addition, my new committee chairman had contacts with the central party, bringing statewide office holders to our meetings. We never met each other live, the forum where people exchange their spontaneous thoughts. Agendas came across as more trivial, though the new district had greater prosperity than my old one. Hardly anyone challenged the elected representatives who agreed to appear, which may be why so many agreed. Discussions involved procedures and some land use, which is not the purpose of the committee. I found the people half ideologues, half dull, with crossover between the halves. I learned that some had been national committeemen for Senator Sanders' delegation. What lacked were people like my neighbors. People who worked in the offices and the labs, folks with a business, people young enough to have kids in school. Many had been with the committee for decades. One relative newcomer had once held office, another chummed with people of title. Yet, I did hold the chair, a financial professional of skill and party loyalty, in proper esteem. And the new committee contained a personal friend, a member of my own synagogue with his agenda that saw his home's property value in jeopardy based on a land use issue that had languished for years.
Was either Committee a face of the Democratic Party? Maybe the second one. More political hobbyists, though the first had its ideologues. The elected officials, though, all dependent on the support of the various Party structures, never forgot their primary mission of making their districts and our state as a whole the type of place people would want to live. Contented voters reelect. While we only have one dominant party, we have contested primaries.
I attended every meeting, engaged sometimes, bored other sessions. Rarely irritated, but even then rationalized by knowing that everyone on the screen was personally ineffectual but enabled elected officials of quality to emerge. I took my turn at the nuts and bolts of political committee operations, failing miserably at my one attempt at contacting voters by an automated phone bank.
Buddha once advised his disciples that when their personal experiences diverged from what their leaders promoted, act on experience. My turn came soon, exposing the face of the Democratic Party to me in an unflattering way. A young man had just requested to join our committee. He had recently authored an op-ed in the local newspaper advocating a Gaza ceasefire. I did not read it, and opposed what he recommended, but I also know that the newspaper has to select from a broad array of opinions submitted to their editors. They chose his editorial, so at least the writing must have been coherent. When he came, he requested that our Committee go on record as supporting a resolution by Rep Cori Bush demanding an end to hostilities in Gaza. The massacre of October 7 2023 transformed me. This Congresswoman was the placard carrier of the anti-Jewish African American view that we are oppressors who must be contained because we have too much control. A scripted anti-Semite. A River to the Sea you don't belong in usurped land type. And I once lived in the City of St. Louis that elected her. I remained polite. This is not the purpose of our committee. Our committee does itself a disservice disconnecting its upper middle class highly educated October 8 Jews. The rest of the Committee thought this made the Democrats stand for the oppressed. I prevailed on a technicality, as he was not a committee member who could make proposals. After adjournment, I stayed on Zoom with the chair and one or two others. These guys could spout the slogans. I happen to be very knowledgeable about this subject, its history, its many facets. Those I dealt with were not, and did not care to be. Their slogans and alignments would suffice. At the next month's meeting, we voted on his membership in the Committee. I voted yes. The Big Tent should be the Democratic Party's foundation. Now with standing he brought it up again. He had support. Just like on the news, you could see who the River to Sea crowd were. Some were on that Zoom. That became the face of the Democratic Party to me that evening. I resigned from the Committee the next day. The chairman telephoned me. We agreed that I would think about it for a month. When the pre-meeting email reminder arrived, I affirmed that I am not willing to watch the committee that should be focusing on local issues that we all experience veer in that direction. I would not be back. My party has elected officials that I can support in their primary races, including another Jewish candidate who would ultimately get elected Governor.
A more chance encounter with the face of the Democratic Party came later. As I was departing, a dedicated politico, one who ran legislative campaigns, applied to return to the District 10 Committee after an absence. He had experience as a political operative, so having him offer those skills would advance the Committee's purpose of keeping Democratic candidates in office. By chance, I would meet him not long after. For several years I have engaged in a labor of love, scoring scholarship applications from HS seniors and medical students on behalf of a local foundation that administers the scholarship funds. This organization holds two receptions each year which I make an effort to attend. At the summer event, I saw the name tag of the man I had recently voted onto the committee. He had decided to run for a new vacancy in the state assembly. Our conversation touched a little on the committee. I told him why I departed. We did not discuss any issues related to his candidacy, but more to the fine organization that sponsored the event we were attending. A cordial chat, then we went our own ways to the snack table.
Months later, in the midst of the primary campaign, his opponent's husband and daughters knocked on my door. They being Jewish, recognized my mezuzah and Shalom welcome mat. I listened to his description of what his wife supports, which is not very different from what I support. I briefly told him why I had resigned from that district committee six months earlier. Apparently, her primary opponent, the gentleman I had found affable at the reception, had confronted her as an inferior candidate because she was a Zionist. That from a talented operative in my own District Committee, whose endorsement he had. The primaries took place in September. The Party Choice for that seat, their committeeman, lost to the lady whose family had knocked on my door. Their choice for Governor, the incumbent Lt. Governor, lost to my candidate. So even within the Party, its committee could not get the very middle-class Democratic suburban public, those people with degrees from America's most prestigious institutions, to vote for their less capable candidates. My perception and that of my neighbors linked progressive ideology to less capable.
Not entirely accurate. We did elect the first trans woman to Congress. While trans is one of the characters that Republicans successfully linked to an undesirable Democratic social agenda, this lady, and she definitely looks female in person, spent her years in our State Senate functioning as a statesman, crafting legislation that considered minority sensitivities. And while the progressive face has its intersectionalities where Jews sympathetic to individual causes are not welcome because we've been labeled their oppressors, this lady has been very gracious to us. I met her at the Jewish National Fund breakfast, the ultimate of advocacy for Zionism. While this stands out to me personally, it highlights the exception. The real face is the support of scripted anti-Semites who think they know which oppressors will galvanize their political base. It does, but at a very high price in November.
We saw the image of the Democratic Party, accurate or not, on TV last fall. My alma mater made the news as its President got baited for all to see by a Congresswoman. As students and non-students expressed support for a massacre as a legitimate liberation technique, our university president spoke of context. With the financial protection of tenure, faculty of the highest IQs came out in support of River to Sea by any means necessary. I think they vote Democrat, just like me, but for very different reasons. They have no alternatives as Republican agendas summarily reject what they promote. The Democrats make space in their big tent. Those profs may not have an alternative voting pattern, but I do, with enmity to those folks as a campaign asset. I didn't change my vote, but the national electorate rebuffed that view in a very consistent way.
My alma mater was at the forefront of not just pro-Palestinian but pro-Hamas advocacy. Nobody is more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight than me. I want them to have prosperity and stability. Nobody is more in favor of people of color succeeding. But as a United Way Donor, I got invited to their annual meeting, even winning mucho dinero in their raffle. This umbrella charity, this resource for the disabled, the disadvantaged, the elderly, had become woke right down to Spelling Bees for the Community peppered with buzzwords of Black victimhood. The United Way exists to help these people succeed. Their approach won’t accomplish that. After the meeting, I approached the spelling champion, a personable young man to ask if he watched the National Spelling Bee. He knew nothing of it. The coach apparently lacked the saichel to realize that his kids, dedicated to their own learning, could move themselves ahead in a national forum. They are the face of the Democratic party, with people like us with marriages of long duration, diligence to our profession, generosity to our people and their people, and reverence for the icons of American history who enabled what we have, now labeled as their oppressors. River to the Sea with fists in the air and faces obscured.
Those are the side issues that divert attention. But prices and immigration drive decisions of voter preference. I did a seminar this year for a course that I take at the state university's senior division. The course is part of an ongoing series on NYCity, as the instructor has a fondness for Broadway and lived there much of his life. Due to the economic activities that dominate our region, science enterprise, corporate law, banking, and medical care, many from Metro NY have settled here to make our living, including me. We are very attached to this course in retirement. My presentation involved people who a visitor to NYC might meet. City employees, vagrants, street vendors, and diplomats. NYC has people assembling from everywhere. In researching the section on vendors, I found an advocacy group that compiles data about who the people manning the stands on the street are. They originate disproportionately from Latin America, with a second cluster from North Africa. Those who sell food are regulated separately from those who sell merchandise. Of the food vendors about a quarter are undocumented residents, about an eighth for the merchandise sellers. And that's from their own advocacy group. Remove them all, as the incoming administration suggests, and hardship will likely ensue, both to other illegal residents who work and shop at the vendors and people who work, visit, or live in Manhattan where lunch at the cart is a welcome convenience. Being sympathetic, or at least not disruptive, could have been the Democratic public face, one that affirms the kindness that most people of either party have. They didn't take that approach. The Republicans had a plan, likely a trouble-making one with an element of cruelty. The Democrats not only did not propose a plan, but held the responsibility for the current circumstances.
And prices. I do the family grocery shopping. Once a week I read every page of the circular of my principal supermarket. As I review each column, I write desired items on a notepad. On the front, things I must get. On the back of the page, items I would consider, a much longer list than the front. From this I can plan menus for the week around what discounts the grocer is willing to share with me. A challenge, almost like a sport, to keep the conglomerates that supply most of our food competitive with each other. And they are. Price gouging claims, the face of the Democratic progressives, seem inaccurate. Prices are not uniformly excessive. Things with licensed team logos and pharmaceutical patents carry enormous premiums. Intellectual property is lucrative, but defensibly so. Raw produce, meats, and seafood, those commodities, always have discounted items. The highly processed foods, those snack items, sodas, prepared foods for reheating, carry the brunt of inflation. I suspect this reflects supply chains, as these concoctions by the best and brightest of the corporate food labs require global input of ingredients all being at the factory at the same time. They also support consumer panels that maximize the taste acceptability to the public and assess what people are willing to pay. That part will probably not change much as political ideologies shift every few years in America. Democrats controlling prices? For medicines they did. For food, there's a very big downside when products people want become scarce. What can change are incentives to producers. Part of the Republican campaign to address the problem, even if not a great solution.
My wife defaults to MSNBC when she needs a break from more redeeming PBS and TCM. Their talking heads spent the campaign telling us the dangers of Donald Trump. He spent the campaign telling us how he would use Presidential power to address our woes. My conscience and character told me to vote blue, and I did. My intellect, those mental elements of binah and saichel incorporated into our Jewish central prayer each day, questioned that.
Did the Red Wave crest because squeaky wheels within the Democratic party misrepresented it, as The Atlantic's essayists state? I don't think so. The product distinction between the two voting options seemed clear. Inflation and health were concerns for sure, but solutions did not emerge. The face of the party repels even people like me with multiple university degrees and generational gratitude for what FDR and LBJ did to enhance lives of Americans in economic or racial disadvantage. That summarizes my experience this past year. The voters saw a very accurate position of the party the majority rejected. They acted on experience, just as Buddha advised us.
Monday, February 5, 2024
Redirecting
In anticipation of my monthly meeting of my Representative District's monthly Committee Meeting, I sent the chairman a message of withdrawal. The activity wasn't me, it never achieved what I hoped it would.
My involvement began with a different district whose activities I greatly enjoyed being a part of. I got to meet my legislative representatives, finding each thoughtful and personable. When I commented to them, they commented back. Scheduled meetings were electronic, as the pandemic was still in its active stage, but with precautions, we were able to meet in person on occasion in a reception type setting. And the officials were always there. They were invariably gregarious in their own ways, interactive with me. I got to chat with other members of the group, finding out a little about them. Nobody gathered to pitch their personal agendas.
Our Constitution requires a formal census every ten years, which has become the Zero Year of each decade. So in 2020, the inhabitants of America were counted with reasonable accuracy given the enormity of the project. People were assigned to their categories, primarily by principal residence. From that, our state legislators created new districts for US Congress and state legislators. My district's boundaries were shifted in the process. That delightful man who displaced my own personal friend in the last primary would no longer be my state representative but the state senator would continue. Party Committees were by representative district. The path of least resistance would be to shift my neighborhood's committee representatives to the district of their new representative. Nobody contested my seat, making me a presence on Zoom the first Monday night of each month when the Committee met. A year or so later, I had occasion to meet a few at a backyard reception that one of the other people also displaced from my committee hosted, but it wasn't the same as the gatherings of our prior district. No elected officials. No restriction of guests to Committee members and their households. There were some interesting people, most notable to me, a teenager doing her Mormon missionary assignment. She told me a bit about what they do and how they do it.
The Zoom sessions, however, lacked anything creative and next to nothing interactive, until the end. Our state rep, around whom the committee was created, appeared on Zoom one time to defend votes he had taken that his district's voters would likely disapprove. This district spans two senatorial districts. The Senator from the other district attended a few times. I found her capable and likable. My Senator, who I already knew was even more capable, came only one time, and that at my suggestion to the Chair that she be invited, as the majority of our Representative District is in her Senatorial District. We had some statewide elected officials take their turn. The State Treasurer made the best impression. The Attorney General I'd wonder about. And the County Rep came regularly to update us on things that, if they matter at all, never really change from one monthly Zoom screen to the next. And I got placed on a phone squad, where I lasted ten minutes of my two hour assignment.
Eventually, as we begin a year with real primaries, two guys on Zoom basically tanked any interest I had on staying on. A newcomer, a progressive, the kind that made the other party have a real chance at taking over as an enduring national majority, submitted a resolution asking our Representative Committee to endorse his resolution sponsored by a Rep. I politically abhor, one sponsored by scripted anti-Semites know as The Squad, that we as a Committee call for a cease fire in Gaza whose militants thought it would bring them cheer and kavod to massacre whoever they could bring into their path. Despite the large number of Israelis killed, I did not personally know any of them, but I do personally know citizens called up abruptly by the Israeli Defense Forces to show that raids of this type will have some very negative consequences. And I did know personally the Doctor killed in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. Expressions of any type that we can intimidate Jews with anticipation of violence against them is not at all OK. It is transformative. Irving Kristol, a convert from New Deal and 1950s Democrat to the forefront of neo-conservatism, once quipped that a neocon was a liberal who had been mugged by reality. I became an October 8 Democrat, fully in conformity with all of my statewide officials and the President, who I met many times as Senator. Policy is run by our elected officials and the experts they appoint. Our own Washington contingent did not sign on with this. It is just not a Committee agenda item. Moreover, Tel Aviv and my Representative District are pretty nice places for people to live. North St. Louis, the district of this guy's legislative hero, a district adjacent to one where I, and a generation later my son, once lived, and Gaza are not. Neither has the kind of diligent, tolerant, productive community that our Committee should identify with and preserve. Too many casualties in Gaza, agreed, but a predictable consequence of the leadership. And North St. Louis could use its own cease-fire, the gun violence center that has decimated the city where I once lived. And as I discuss my views and my experience on this, it is clear that he and his supporter have zippo knowledge of history, zippo appreciation of who his preferred legislator actually is, and zippo appreciation of what our Committee's purpose is.
I'm still a Democrat, though an October 8 Jewish democrat whose synagogue now has a police officer in a marked city police van situated in the parking lot to chase these guys away when they come by. The prominent neocons of public stature are no longer Democrats, but still decent people who keep their distance from the MAGA rot that we see on TV. But the Democrats have their own rot, and I saw some of it at my committee, though not by men of the neocon's intellect.
George Packer of The Atlantic divided the American electorate into quadrants. Voting Republican: Free America, those libertarians who want less regulation, and Real America, those working people who should be democrats, and maybe once were, flipped to the GOP as their livelihoods were made less secure by people who wore ties to work who gave too much of the rewards of their labor to people of entitlement who didn't work. And on my side, the Democrats. Smart America, which is me and the statewide officials in my state, indeed my part of America. We live in places like I live, or in a nice place in Paris, Vancouver, or Jerusalem if we ever decided we wanted to live someplace else. We spent our time with our homework, took our lumps with equanimity, went to college, got experiences living with people we didn't like, so as doctors and lawyers we understood that we had a certain amount of obligation to people who annoyed us. We are probably the last of those four quadrants not intent on squashing our enemies, let alone being the slave to our enemy who forces a response. We have it good, and would like people who don't have it as well to have their chance to elevate their own position. In that sense, we may be the last descendants of FDR, or maybe even Henry Ford, who made his fortune by also wanting everyone to have their chance at a consumer upgrade. That's a long way from Gaza or North St. Louis. The final quadrant also votes Democratic, is and should be represented on our Committee and in our legislators. Packer labels them Just America. No question, there are people who struggle as much as because of who they are as because of their own choices when their opportunities come and go. But resentment dominates over correction. That is where the two Democratic quadrants separate. Their enemy is anyone to be blamed for their circumstances and the response is a Gazan response, get even with all those people who made Tel Aviv or Beverly Hills sparkle because they left me out.
The Jewish lens on this, and at one time the Democratic Party lens was very different. At the end of our Sabbath morning prayers, there is a short section that does a play on words of the Hebrew Text. Al tikrah banaich ela bonaich. Don't read it as your Sons but as your Builders. It is the builders who create peace. Smart America and Free America, though we vote differently, are your builders. Between these groups we generate philanthropy for all to benefit, create commerce, advance science, derive benefit from the educational options available to us, enable communication and travel. It is the world we aspire to. While war is destructive, it is probably subordinate to aggression as the uppermost evil. And impeding a response to aggression, to say nothing of celebrating it, diminishes the world.
And groups really do flip. When I lived in St. Louis, the Speaker of the State House, a Democrat, lived across the street from me. Their legislature will never be Democratic again in my actuarial lifetime. My Congressman was a Democrat as was one Senator and not long after my departure a Governor. That entire state has flipped. So has my current one, though in the other direction. We had one or more statewide elected Republican officials just a few years ago. I do not anticipate that happening again. Working people, that Real America, changed parties. Might we Jews, over-represented as elected officials of the Democratic Party across America, also migrate to a different part of the ballot. A couple of state would certainly notice if that were to become a reality. And as I address these Progressive ideologues of my own Committee, I can see some very honorable Jewish people concluding that they need to escape them.
So my role on my Committee. I live in a good place that elects good people. Not MAGAs. Not anti-Semites. Not people who use their elected office to intimidate but to address challenges. Some of them seek a new office with more responsibility this year. They are the people who share my fondness for advancing people. It makes much more sense to me to pick one or two of the several who have convinced me of their worthiness and join their team to reinforce the decency that the majority of our voters value. It will take more effort than showing up on Zoom the first Monday evening of each month, but I anticipate the effort a good deal more satisfying than trying to sidestep or placate, or maybe even respect, alliances of convenience whose views reverse decency in some way.
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Getting Militant
My stay on my Representative District's Democratic Committee needs to be reconsidered. We represent a phantom elected official who declines invitations to present his efforts in the state capital to the committee that sponsors him, to say nothing of ignoring constituent contacts. He needs to be defeated in a primary, and I said so.
Then a young socialist, the type who likely does not appreciate a day's work for a day's pay, asked the committee to endorse an anti-Israel resolution by one of the most despicable representatives in Congress, a lady elected to represent a failing district that was once adjacent to mine and later to my son's. I avoided name-calling and personal demeaning comments either of the socialist or the person he wanted to support, but was upfront about moral clarity on the Gaza attacks of Simchat Torah and some basic moral clarity. I support a just war, not his or that congressman's ceasefire which enables a Next Act.
To be fair, after the meeting I met with the committee chair and the recording secretary. The socialist did have to get his piece approved by a legitimate editor to appear in print. But that's not the purpose of our Committee. And even during the meeting even my best friend on that committee would think me too militant.
But I see the party of Roosevelt, JFK, Johnson of his Presidential years, and Clinton becoming relics, and me with them. These men all saw an obligation to enable others to rise to their potential, as do I. JFK saw all boats rising with the tide. I see it through more Jewish lenses. We have Mitzvot, things we are commanded by Torah in the name of the One God to either do or not do. Fulfilling them is hard, and we often fall short, though not inevitably fall short in the manner of Christian Original Sin that dooms everyone to inferiority. Instead, we have those Mitzvot as benchmarks. We must rise to the mitzvot. We cannot diminish what is expected of us to accommodate our own shortcomings. There are rules of what we can eat. While Kosher enough is what many of us, including me, actually do, we do not change commercial certification of the products that we purchase. We must rise to the occasion by purchasing them. Shabbos and Festivals are on specified days. We do not change the days to adapt to our schedules, even when it risks not fulfilling our best observance. We rise to the Mitzvot, the Mitzvot do not descend to us.
Where I see my Democrats shifting, and Jews shifting with it, is along those principles. We not only cannot have the butchery that came our way last Simchat Torah, planned a year in advance, part of an express Hamas quest for Jewish elimination, but we cannot tolerate its rationalization. We all know what rape, child abduction, dismembering, massacring are. And like pornography, perhaps, we know it when we see it. That means doing what it takes for a humanity that raises its fists in the air now but benefits later. That means calling out anyone, from that scripted socialist ignoramus to those like his admired congressman who divide the world into oppressed like them who need to squash the oppressor like me. No, the better outcome is to enable their rise, which the Democrats of my own day, including the current President, seek to bring about. But you cannot even pursue that when the moral clarity fails, which theirs has.
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Post-Election Assessment
My Democratic Representative District Committee had its post-election meeting. The sponsored candidates all prevailed. No discussion of vulnerabilities or things our district can do to improve the fortunes of neighboring districts, though we have two years for that.
Most of the discussion involved the process of voting. The state's elections staff underestimated the attraction of early voting. Much like the Sooners rushed before Oklahoma formally opened, we had a big line waiting to get in, though we had more decorum than those settlers. The location kept most of us queued outside the front door. The people of European ancestry were almost exclusively an older group, those of color a bit younger, with a brisk mid-day mostly tolerable. Had it been colder or serious precipitation, there were no reasonable provisions for those most eager to vote that day. The Community Center seems a big place that could manage that type of attendance better. One Election Day venue included a Nursing Home where voters were screened for Covid risk. Nobody knows if the brow thermometer denied anyone with a borderline, or even high temperature their rightful franchise.
Machines malfunctioned. Response of Republicans, fire election officials. Response of Democrats, investigate and correct the snafus. There are party differences in real issues. But there are party differences in how people are treated and misadventures are remedied. I'm a Democrat.
Friday, October 7, 2022
Phone Bank
As a political committee member I have an obligation to support our candidates. As somebody who might like to move ahead, I have a parallel obligation to myself to do a few things that I'd prefer not to do. A two-for=one came my way with a mass invitation to man a phone bank on behalf of our state representative, one who did not make a good impression on me but a trusted friend vouched for. I assume our state Senator, who I do admire, will get some support from the phone effort as well.
This late in the campaign season, I assume the focus, or script if they provide us one, will be to encourage people to cast their ballots. The party registration balance favors my Democrats so turnout correlates with victory, even if we get some Republicans to turn out as a byproduct of the phone effort. This late in the season, Dialing for Dollars has long passed.
I don't particularly like being on phone squads, but I am part of the group and need to take my turn. In all likelihood, technology has advanced some since I last called a list for the synagogue some time ago. That list was about a dozen, all with some attachment and no hostility. I don't know if this session will only call registered Democrats or a broader public. See how it goes. The date I picked, and I only picked one, comes about two weeks before Election Day and maybe a week before voluntary early voting, which I plan to do myself. If the session goes well, I will have the option of doing another. And I could use a new experience.
Friday, July 8, 2022
Democratic Endorsements
Having been booted from one representative district to another by the need for our state legislature to create districts of reasonably uniform population, I still retained my committee position in the new district. We met via Zoom with other districts to hear from those holding statewide office who desire the party's endorsement. Only one incumbent personally present, a very sincere State Treasurer who has done some useful things. Our Congresswoman and our AG were represented by their campaign managers. It would have been better to have a Chief of Staff present instead. Our Auditor, recently convicted of some not entirely petty misconduct, though not a felony that would have made her ineligible to hold office, stayed away, but her primary opponent made a compelling case for why she would be a better replacement. I agree with her, as the 10th district unanimously offered our endorsement.
My newly assigned district seems more like me. The housing patterns bring us people dominated by Smart America, those university educated professionals that make the world sparkle. We live in attractive neighborhoods which we keep free of litter. We desire good schools. We desire honesty. Don't know how many have defected from their childhood religion or retained it. We express ourselves in writing or by personal protest, but looting flat screen TVs from K-Mart is not part of our protest protocol. Yet we are highly sympathetic to Just America's causes, though repelled by its tactics. Our Treasurer expressed it well. People who don't yet have pensions would benefit from having one. Create one for them. And she did. Don't begrudge state employees benefits similar to private employees. It expands Smart America.
AGs rep took a similar approach. Harsh on predators who shoot us, steal from us, or who profit from drug supplying whether street people or corporate conglomerates. Easy on the petty offenders who don't pose a public danger.
The congresswoman's manager had a bit more of a Progressive agenda than the Congresswoman herself seems to convey. I think she is also fundamentally part of Smart America, one who knows the hot button issues, is aware of the damage recent federal directions will create, but really only offers making a statement with the illusion of making a difference. The difference will need to be made by voters elsewhere.
Good Meeting. I'm part of Smart America and now more fully immersed among similar minds.
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