A few days ago, I received an invitation from Kevin Jennings to an Obama fundraiser. It was apparently aimed at well-off members of New York's GLBTQ community. As much as I want to see marriage equality and other advances for our community, this invitation and other news about Obama's campaign have reinforced my impression that Democrats are completely blind to economic reality. By slicing off little pieces of the progressive agenda without tackling unemployment and inequality, they just reinforce the old image of elitism that the faux populist plutocrats in the Republican party have used against them ever since the 1970s.
The invitation and response are below the fold.
The invitation
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Dear Friends:
Yesterday was my last day as an official in the US Department of Education. Today is my first day back at political fundraising.
As many of you already know the President will be joining us here in New York on Thursday June 23 for a gala fundraiser. I am urging you to attend.
Let me be blunt: we can forget – ABSOLUTELY FORGET – about ANY progress on LGBT issues at the federal level if President Obama is not re-elected. It’s that simple.
Thanks for any support you can lend.
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My response:
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Over the weekend, I received an invitation for a June 23 fundraiser with tickets starting at $1250. While I am happy that the President seems to have remembered gay rights in time for the next election, I will be declining this invitation and all subsequent invitations to donate unless and until the President and the Democratic Party get serious about helping the unemployed and about economic justice. First the administration squandered a majority in both houses of Congress. Instead of eliminating the Bush tax cuts and proposing Medicare for all, both of which were political winners, it negotiated against itself in order to appear "reasonable." It didn't even propose the amount of stimulus that economists said would be necessary, so now it has no ammunition to use against the Republican lie that the stimulus didn't work. And given the latest unemployment data, the attitude seems to be that nothing can be done. Even if it wouldn't pass, couldn't Democrats at least propose a new WPA focused on conservation and the development of alternative energy sources?
Coincidentally, yesterday's New York Times had a front page story on Obama's courting of Wall Street cash. When combined with events like this fundraiser, the message to working people is that the administration will cater to the concerns of socially liberal fat cats while ignoring the pain of the unemployed. While I myself am a gay man with a good paying job who could probably afford to buy a ticket to your fundraiser, several members of my extended family are among the long-term unemployed and my church is feeding record numbers of homeless every week. Under these circumstances, my resources are going directly to the people whom this government has forgotten and to candidates who will remember them even after the election.