As a lefty activist, I have voted in 16 Democratic Presidential primaries. This diary tackles a couple controversial issues. I will include a bit of my personal history to explain a background that probably allows me to challenge the Democratic party establishment.
I served in the first two UN military operations. The first one was in Trieste. That's where the Eastern and Western Fronts met at the end of WW II. We were there to protect the area against any encroachment by the communist armies. After a couple years, I returned to Camp Kilmer to be discharged. However, because a new war was ongoing in Korea, my term of service was involuntarily extended a full year. I was ordered to Korea where I served as a first scout in an infantry platoon. That job is the most hazardous in the military. It's usually assigned to a disposable low-ranking grunt.
Each day of my life, I think about infantry buddies that were killed in 1951, in the frozen mountains of North Korea--away from family and loved ones. They were denied life. Sharing love with a beautiful , caring woman, enjoying the growth of four healthy, children and six precious grandchildren, having a long-successful professional career. All things, I was fortunate to realize.
I use “frostbite” a lousy sounding name on this site. It's a way to honor the tens of thousands of my infantry buddies who were injured, and those who died of frostbite in North Korea. I believe, that most grunts who spent the entire winter living in the field had problems with frostbite. Generals and politicians sent us to war without winter clothing. I suspect that thousands of casualties were largely covered up, because it shames those who would send troops into battle, in below zero weather, without proper clothing. Furthermore, while the basic weapon in our infantry squads was a semi-automatic M1 rifle (from WW II) with an eight round clip, Chinese soldiers had better guns for the usual night-time fighting-- fully automatics with magazines that held 35 or more bullets.
I was born in 1930, on a small Vermont farm bordering Canada. Herbert Hoover was President. America and the World was inflicted by the Great Depression. My father was a strong union lefty, and he passes that passion down to his nine children. The farm used horses to pull supply wagons, for transportation, to plow fields, and collect hay for long winters. Cows were milked by hand, milk was stored in home-made ice filled coolers, Chickens and pigs provided food. Mother worked long hours, cleaning, cooking, canning, washing clothes, sewing, and knitting mittens for everyone. Nothing was motorized. It was a hardy, but peaceful life. For elementary school, we walked over the border into Canada. For a doctor's care, a luxury we could rarely afford, we walked, or biked into Canada. We had no car.
In 1932, Roosevelt defeated Hoover. He governed with optimism and activism. In his first hundred days, he pushed for unprecedented legislation and issued executive orders creating the New Deal. FDR defined American liberalism for the Democratic party. He moved the country forward with socialistic programs. In 1945, he died. Harry Truman succeeded, kept the Roosevelt cabinet, and continued a progressive leadership in a Democratic party, that has since slid to the right. HT was quoted as saying that, "There was no such thing as a good Republican." In 1948, the year that Truman integrated the military, I joined the US Army for a 3-years term--to get a job, and to get away from the poverty in northern Vermont.
Korea in 1951: Most days we would see UN fighter planes (mostly Americans) bomb, shell, and machine gun well dug-in Chinese positions. After dropping bombs, they would fly two circles that would take about 10 minutes, then fly back to nice comfortable bases. We envied them, as we were stuck to front-line duty, 24-hour per day, every day of the month. My infantry platoon spent an entire winter living in the field, without heat, sleeping in holes and trenches like wild animals. I assume that most grunts had problems with various degrees of frostbite. We had no thermostats, but I have heard that it was 20 and more below zero. Similar to the temperature back home in Vermont. About 90% of all US military casualties in that "police action" were combat infantry.
Each year of my life, I seem to become more of a lefty and more radical. Most people do the reverse, becoming more conservative as they age. Which is why, in the current Democratic primary, the young and the progressive support Bernie, while the old and the establishment support Hillary. For example, on 2/11/16, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC staged a media event to praise and endorse Hillary Clinton, and to denigrate Bernie Sanders long-standing civil rights record. This PAC, representative of the old and the establishment, used this well-timed media event, two weeks prior to the 2/27/16 South Carolina primary. To give this assault more credibility, it was filmed at the Capitol Hill Headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. John Conyers (D-MI), age 86, was there. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), age 63, endorsed Hillary, as a long-trusted CBC partner. Importantly, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) age 75, questioned Sanders honesty. Lewis later claimed that it was not his intent. The damaged was done. All CBC PAC members who participated in the falsification of Sanders' history diminished themselves. When a reporter asked Lewis about Sanders' involvement in the SNCC, he interrupted saying,
"Well, to be very frank, I'm going to cut you off, but I never saw him, I never met him," Lewis said. "I'm a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years, from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the freedom rides, the March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgomery, and directed their voter education project for six years. But I met Hillary Clinton. I met President Clinton."
Lewis, now a lifetime politicians and part of the Democratic establishment, and the CBC, can look forward to nice congressional medical and retirement plans. Sadly, their low-income black constituents are not so privileged. Hillary Clinton's conservative planks do less for poor blacks workers compared to Sanders. His $15 minimum wage proposal, his universal medical care plan, his break up of big banks, and his plan to tax the super rich would benefit life for poor blacks. Hillary and the CBC PAC spin Sanders proposal for higher taxes on the super rich as being unrealistic. They forget that under FDR's progressive leadership, a tax rate of 94% was imposed on income over $200,000. The country prospered. Incrementalism is loved be all politicians who fear the idea of change.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who has endorsed Bernie Sanders, noted that the Congressional Black Caucus itself has not issued a presidential endorsement--that CBC's separate PAC “endorsed without input from CBC membership, including me.” Contrary to the well publicised CBC PAC endorsement, Ellison's remarks were ignored by a biased pro-Hillary media.
The CBC PAC money trail: From International Business Times (2/11/16)
During the last two election cycles, the group received donations from pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Merck and Amgen; consumer goods companies Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Walmart; and Wall Street banks and trade groups including the Mortgage Bankers Association, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and UBS — the latter a Clinton Foundation donor that she aided as secretary of state, according to the Wall Street Journal. In 2010, the New York Times reported that "cigarette companies, Internet poker operators, beer brewers and the rent-to-own industry" were among companies that made major contributions to the CBC's separate foundation. The Times said the money was used to fund conventions where “lobbyists and executives who give to caucus charities get to mingle with lawmakers.
A week ago, Bill Press had a good article in The Hartford Courant titled, “Nothing Democratic About These Delegates.” He begins:
"So you thought the smoke-filled room was dead? No way. It still exist, but only in the Democratic Party. and under a new name: “superdelegates.” Early evidence of a smoke-filled room, one of the most colorful pages n America's political history, first appeared in a report about a 1763 meeting of a Boston Caucus: "Selectmen, assessors, collectors, fire-wards, and representatives are regularly chosen there before there are chosen in the town….There they smoke tobacco till you connote see…."
"In today's Democratic Party super delegates may not smoke, but they still serve the same function and possess the same power: to overrule the vote of the people and dictate who the party's candidate for president will be. It is, in other words about as un-democratic as you can get….
"Republicans, meanwhile, have no such party-boss rule. Each stat is assigned three super delegates--the state chair, plus two more party officials--and they much vote for the winner of their state primary…."
In 2007, the out-of-touch CT DSCC and our entire delegation to Washington supported the election of hawkish Senator Lieberman, a cheerleader for the war on the people of Iraq. However, rank-and-file voters instigated a primary that Ned Lamont won when all votes were counted. They also forget that their choice, Lieberman, was a closet-racist who joined McCain presidential campaign, largely white, against Obama. This same out-of-touch CC plans to again devalue Democracy. Appointed (party officials made up of unelected ex-politicians and current politicians) all non-elected superdelegate, will represents the equivalent of many tens pf thousands of voters for Hillary. This could overturn the votes of primary voters.
A couple weeks ago in a letter to my local paper, I wrote:
Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic primary in NH by 60,000 votes, yet, ends up with the same number of pledged delegates as does the loser, Hillary Clinton. That leaves a stench. Apparently, the same playbook is coming to CT. Each appointed non-elected superdelegate can cancel democracy for millions of rank-and-file voters. Senator Murphy has already broadcasted his superdelegate vote for Hillary in a prominent Hartford Courant (2/2/16) spin. Apparently, the votes of his constituents, unless they vote for Hillary, can be shoved into the nearest garbage can.
The Democratic Party corruption of Democracy has compromised the entire 2016 Presidential Primary. The publishing of prominent text and charts in the corporate media establishment, showing a huge Hillary lead among all delegates, creates the impression with the many folks who like front-runners, that the election results have already been determined. MoveOn and the Republican party have it right. If we are to appoint superdelegates, they should be pledged to candidates who win primaries, and not like in NH to a candidate who looses a primary.
One thing caring-progressive Democrats who frequent DKos could do, is to point out to their party officials that the unelected superdelegate system is and affront to democracy. Party bosses, act like dictators when they give superdelegate the power to overrule Democratic primary voters. Even Republicans, that we like to insult, have a more democratic system. What is really sad is that I have not heard a single Democratic Representative or Senator voice criticism of this rotten system.
Are they all censored by a media owned and operated by the 1% ?