Thank you for the invitation to the Democratic Party functions in Bryan County. I consider it to be an honor.
However, my political story is long and involved, and although I was a fervent campaign organizer for Barack Obama and was elected to the chairman’s seat of the Humboldt County, Nevada, Democratic Party during the 2008 election, I was never more disappointed at his unwillingness to actually fight for poor and working people during his administration.
Before I joined the Democratic Party to work for Obama, I was a founding member of the Libertarian Party in Colorado. That was when the emphasis was on civil liberty, not as they later became the party for freedom to financially ruin all your competitors, when it was taken over by the Koch brothers and Ron Paul.
On February 20, 2001 I spent a long cold day picketing the courthouse on behalf of the Libertarian Party and November.org, a prisoner’s rights organization. We were protesting the incarceration of the 2,000,000 prisoner in the US. One quarter of all prisoners in every country in the world are imprisoned in the US. We are by far the most imprisoned country in the world, even as we sing about the land of the free, and the land of liberty. I am still a long time member of the ACLU.
During those years of fighting to reduce our prison population, Joe Biden was one of my chief nemesis’ as he was a leading figure in the War on Drugs, Three Strikes You're Out, and other schemes to throw more poor people in jail and prison.
I was no longer the Democratic Chairman in the 2016, but I campaigned hard for Bernie Sanders in northern Nevada, and take a little credit for his win in the Nevada Caucuses. I organized and conducted caucuses for four different precincts, and actually got a couple of wins for Bernie in a strongly red part of the state.
To be frank, I don’t see a lot of hope for either the old conservative wing of the Republican Party or the old Third Way Clinton coalition of the Democratic Party. The younger generations are only too aware of the total failure of both mainstream parties to move America to a place with real opportunities for progress and advancement for them. Both parties are still committed to free trade, which forces US workers to compete with Chinese workers who get pennies per hour. I believe that is one of the main motivations for the rise of Donald Trump. He lied about his intentions better than Hillary did.
I see the national picture of the Democratic Party as pretty dismal. If Joe Biden survives to the end of his term, Kamala Harris may be the nominee, which will be a disaster. Identity politics got her the vice presidency, but her performance during the primaries in 2020 was pathetic. She is not a natural politician, her policy positions are vague to nonexistent, and she just isn’t very likable.
I am a Social Democrat, still in love with Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the rest of the progressive populist wing of the Democratic Party. As usual, the official Democratic Party has endorsed an opposing candidate to Nina Turner, a hugely popular candidate in Cleveland, Ohio.
I believe if Democrats went back to the lingering legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ran on his accomplishments, they might have a chance at swaying some opinions down here in the South. I am a beneficiary of a wildly socialist electric cooperative company here in Durant. Many thousands of older people down here are existing on Social Security checks, a socialist conspiracy if ever there was one.
I believe if Democrats ever want to win again, they need to stop cringing at words like socialist and liberal, and start preaching and educating people on the real history that is fading away with those people who remember the Great Hoover Depression.
Sorry I’m so long, but I don’t know how to say it shorter.
I’d be happy to sit in on the meeting at the library on July 20, If I’m still welcome.
Thanks again,
Don Rogers
P. S. I went to the meeting today and was made to feel very welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment