Self-deprecatory humor — that’s what the title of this post is, which I explain given the almost certainty that Dan Chmielewski doesn’t get it — generally does not play well in politics. I engage in self-deprecatory humor all of the time — I consider it much nicer than other-deprecatory humor — but it tends to weird out political people. That’s OK; I think that it’s good to expose them to more of it! And the more people say that I can’t do something, the more — after I think it through — I generally realize that I can, if I have the guts.
This is not what I’m like inside. Really. You have to believe me.
Anyway, this post’s title notwithstanding, I do not actually have delusions of grandeur. I do not think that the entire local Labor movement is going to defund the Democratic Party unless I resign my position as Vice-Chair. Moreover, I don’t think that the entire state Democratic Party will do so, or the national Democratic Party, or whatever secret alliances may exist beyond that. But I’ll tell you what — if I’ve inadvertently hit the sort of huge throbbing nerve that Chmielewski’s heaving bosom suggests that I have, then there’s no way that I’m leaving party office other than on a rail or a slab!
If the Building Trades want to bring that much of a spotlight onto the Convention Center bonds, Poseidon, the 405 toll roads, the GardenWalk Giveaway, San Onofre, the Stadium Giveaway, and all of the other boondoggles and disasters that I’ve opposed — then I guess that I will just have to let them do so. I’m not seeking to become front-page news — but if it happens, I know just what to do with it. And it’s not the sort of thing that the Building Trades should want.
So that you don’t have to go to The Liberal OC to read Dan’s screed — and you know that you don’t want to — I’ll review it for you here, a protected practice of rebuttal called “fisking.”
Two independent sources tell TheLiberalOC that at Wednesday’s special Executive Board meeting of the OC Labor Fed, that all 90-plus unions represented by the Labor Fed united with the 20-plus Building Trade unions in demanding that the Democratic Party of Orange County remove Greg Diamond from his North OC Vice Chair post or organized labor will withhold support of Democratic candidates in the coming June primaries and November elections.
Unless I’m mistaken, the 20-plus Building Trades are part of that “90-plus” (actually, it’s 93) unions in the Labor Fed. And, unless I’m mistaken, the threat that “organized labor” — not just the Building Trades, but the whole shebang — will withhold support from Sharon Quirk-Silva and other Democratic candidates is ludicrous. Some people are so insular that they have absolutely no idea when they have gone over the top.
Diamond, a candidate for District Attorney and a blogger for the Orange Juice Blog, also represents CATER, a secretive organization suing the city of Anaheim over the Convention Center expansion and alleged Brown Act violations concerns negotiations with the Angels. And its the lawsuits that represent thousands of union jobs that has raised the ire of organized labor.
CATER is no more secretive than any other 501(c)(4) group. (Nor is it more so that Dan’s source.) And the rationale for and importance of the Convention Center expansion bonds — especially the $120MM of the $300MM that aren’t slated to be used for the Convention Center — will become more clear in time.
“Organized labor was united in declaring Greg Diamond to be anti-Labor no matter what Greg Diamond says he is,” said a source granted anonymity by this blog.
Ask yourself: why would someone demand anonymity to say that? You have to positively delight in anonymity to want to keep that anonymous.
Beyond that, I recently printed a whole bunch of my responses to the absolutely excellent COPE questionnaire from the Labor movement; did you see even a single response there that addressed a question like “will you support gigantic spending projects that produce some union jobs even if they are adopted illegally, threaten public health, waste huge amounts of taxpayer money (most of it on Republican-oriented corporations and middlemen rather than on Labor, by the way) and play into every bad (and generally incorrect, at least in Orange County) public stereotype of what Labor wants?
Why do I have to worry more about Labor’s “brand” than the Building Trades do? Well, at least that will be something worth a good discussion — if Chmielewski’s chmielickenshit source has the guts.
The Building Trades sent the DPOPC a letter on march 31 calling for Diamond’s removal or else. Representatives told the Liberal OC then that the letter was “the tip of the iceberg” and they would be seeking support from other OC unions to join their effort. The Building Trades were successful in convincing the OC Labor Fed and its 90+ unions to sign on in support. We’re told each labor union at the meeting in Orange County as well as labor connections in Sacramento stood united and joined the Building Trades of OC and Los Angeles in demanding the Party remove Diamond.
In their position, that was the right thing to do. The Building Trades may need to do this, as they have said, to show their members that they are doing something to create jobs. Other unions don’t need to get in the way of that. But it’s not going to make me leave the post — and, if the DPOC follows its Bylaws, it won’t allow them to remove me. All it will do is to focus public attention on the basis for the rift. I’m fine with that.
It is also highly unlikely Diamond will receive any labor support in his race to defeat Tony Rackauckas including Labor Fed support he sought. Diamond’s campaign website currently posts no endorsements, no events and no issues.
Yeah, I’ve been busy writing complaints and other court submissions to worry much about the website. It will be more complete within a couple of weeks — around the time that people other than inward-looking politicos start paying attention to the race. I have spoken at several events already and have another one or two next week. And we’ll soon be announcing a low-dollar fundraiser. I came into this late, remember?
The prospect of tight Democratic races in AD-65 and SD-34 without Labor support would be devastating to Sharon Quirk-Silva and Jose Solorio chances in November.
Let me see — the rest of the state gets wind that the OC Building Trades have gone completely around the bend. Now, do they send less money to Sharon — a deserving candidate in a critical race, or do they send more, to make up for the wackos? I guess that we might find out!
It takes two thirds of the DPOC Central Committee to remove someone from a leadership post; it’s unclear if Diamond has enough votes to defeat a motion to remove him from his party position. But fighting his removal from Party leadership in the wake of a unified labor move to demand his ouster holds serious consequences for the Party and our candidates.
You may be wondering what grounds are required for removal of someone from office. I’ll let Dan and his chickenshources think about that for a while. I think that it’s online, if they care.
If he were to fight his removal, doing so with so much at stake is simply the height of arrogance that places his own interests ahead of those interests of Democratic candidates, the Democratic Party’s interest, and the interests of organized labor.
Ah, this is where I have to get serious. What’s at stake here is whether a faction of Labor, threatening who-knows-what consequences to other unions if they don’t fall into line, can demand the ouster of a party official for taking stances that, in most cases, most of the party also supported — and for, in his private capacity, fighting an underdog battle against huge amounts of corruption in Orange County’s largest city.
They really thought that hostage-taking would be the way to get me to resign? How stupid are they?
Diamond needs to be a team player here and do the right thing. He should resign his Party leadership position effectively immediately. This would free him to continue his lawsuit against the city of Anaheim on behalf of CATER, maintain his campaign for DA, and continue his long winded posts and commentary on the Orange Juice Blog.
Diamond is already doing the right thing. He is already free “to continue his lawsuit against the city of Anaheim on behalf of CATER.” He is already maintaining his campaign for DA — although he may be blogging less for the next while. The only thing he is doing “effective[] immediately” is to stop talking about myself in the third person, which I consider awkward.
I don’t speak for Chris Prevatt who publishes this blog and is a union member. But I call on Diamond to resign from the DPOC North Vice Chair and Central Committee. Make amends with Labor. Don’t hurt our candidates. Do the right thing and resign.
I’ll say one thing to that: Chris Prevatt is a good guy who has more brains in his ankles and more grace in his toes than Dan Chmielewski does in his entire body. (Even pre-surgery.) So I’m glad that Dan does not speak for him — but I’m worry that he continues to hang so heavily — flapping wildly like a wounded penguin — around Chris’s neck. It will be a nicer political world in OC when Dan, Kris Murray, Matt Cunningham, are his other political supporters (like the mysterious people who leaked this to him) are no longer part of it. And we’ll also have a better Labor movement, including the Building Trades, who will be able to get more jobs when so much public wealth is not being siphoned into plutocrats’ private pockets.
Meanwhile, I call upon Dan Chmielewski to grow a brain — and on his anonymous sources to grow a spine. This sort of crap is what turns people off to party politics — and, as someone who cares a lot about having a party worth people’s votes, I will not take it meekly. Whoever predicted that I would do so is an idiot.
Awesome.
chmielickenshit
I wish I’d written that. But I still have no idea how to spell his name.
yeah his name is a clusterfuck for sure thats why i spell it cheminowski it’s easier to spell and it just sounds better i actually improved on it you think he would be grateful but nooooooo thats what i get for trying to be a nice guy.
Jose did you mail Paul yet? When I talked to him the other day he hadn’t gotten anything yet… don’t forget!
he got it, dude … he was real happy and says thanks…
i didnt see this till now but yes i sent it on the 14th tell him he’s very welcome.
I went to visit Paul last night. He says hi to all. He did receive jose’s letter (and is basically in fine fettle, upset more than anything about the absolutely insanely extravagant cost of his incarceration, when he should be at home wearing an ankle bracelet and confined to house arrest. HEY JOHN MOORLACH — HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK IT SHOULD COST TO KEEP A NON-VIOLENT PERSON WHO PLEADED TO SIMPLE POSSESSION IN JAIL FOR 53 DAYS?) Those of you who don’t write him will be judged harshly by history. (Perhaps I overstate things there.)
You can send him clippings from articles if you’d like. Again: DO NOT SEND CONTRABAND. DO NOT SEND PORN. DON’T BE AN IDIOT.
He wants the Weekly to send him issues — Vern, use your contacts! — as he can only get magazines and (paperback only) books from the publisher or other licensed vendor. I’m going to try to get him a copy of “The Shock Doctrine” to cheer him up (or depress him, whichever.)
I will pass on those notes from my conversation that are NOT legally privileged to Vern. Paul wants Vern, rather than me, to write any story OJB publishes about him, because he’s concerned that given recent events his reputation might suffer from any association with me. (Yes, he really said that; I think it was a joke, though.)
I already asked our great pal Gustavo to send him Weekly’s, and Gustavo immediately messaged back, “On it!” We’ll see soon if that happens; Paul said “That guy, you gotta remind and remind.”
Jail Sucks.
If this is the same group of people I volunteered to be office manager for a few years ago at the Fullerton office, I’m not surprised. From my observation as an “outsider” there were two maybe three people who worth a shit. The rest never showed up to even phone bank or do anything worth while. The office carpet and some of the furniture donated by some members belonged in the dump. They just saw a chance for someone to pick up their trash for free and it ended up at the DPOC office. I was embarrassed to be seen there and I do not embarrass easily.
The experience I took away from the month I was there (I couldn’t tolerate one more day) is that those people call themselves a Dem party but behave as though they are members of a “club.”
Why do you want to hang around with these back stabbing schmucks anyway?
in 1994 the OCDP was run by the Telecommunications Workers of America. Having actually been a member of that union when it made sweetheart deals with Pacific Bell I didn’t have much faith in the leadership of the OCDP then, and after seeing this fiasco I have less (if that is even possible) in the OCDP now.
When “what’s good for the union” becomes more important than “what’s good for the community” then the “Party” apparatus has failed.
In Orange County, in 1975 homeowners have gone from 59% of the property tax burden to 72% in 2010 (and it’s higher today, four years later), while commercial property owners have gone from paying 40% to 27%. This is because of the loopholes in Prop 13. Here is the elevator pitch “As a homeowner taxpayer since the Prop 13 loopholes were made the law your tax burdens have been going up while commercial property tax burdens have dropped. Every candidate that signs a statement promising to not fix this is ensuring that you homeowners will have to shoulder even more of the tax burden rather than correct and close the corporate loophole. I want to close the loopholes that cost you more.”
If EVERY Democrat running for office were to repeat that elevator pitch then the other side would have to run as wanting to keep tax loopholes that favor the rich and punish the working class. That’s the type of thing at a Party apparatus is supposed to do. Create and refine a winning message for the Party. Not inflict punishment on those that don’t tow a specific union line.
There is a reason why most rank and file Democrats in OC ignore the Party. This “do what our union wants even if it’s bad policy or we will shoot the hostages” is a damn good reason just walk away shaking you head sadly.
We really are working on creating change within the Party, JM. You don’t see this sort of reaction to a mere annoyance; you see it in response to a threat.
We can be the sort of party you suggest that we should be — but that depends on rank and file voters deciding to take it back rather than walking away.
I like the elevator pitch, by the way.
I gave that elevator pitch to a Dem who is running in one of the AD races. He isn’t using it (as far as I know). That’s what I get for sticking my nose in the door again. He’s a nice guy and I really do like him, and since the (R) is going to run on “low taxes” and a positive thing he did that sits well with the “working class” unless you can increase his negatives in an (R) district the chances of a (D) wining sink drastically. Since he has embraced and touts his “tax policy” as a strength, this attack on the status quo that makes it worse every year for the working class and only benefits the corporate overlords, it’s a great line of differentiation to run on.
Oh, and when they (the press and the people) ask “What’s your solution?” the answer is even simpler. “Every non-residential property over 20,000 square feet is re-assessed every three years.”
I’ve been pushing for a “split roll” on Prop 13 since 2007 or so. I presume that you’ve seen the new Field Poll that says that the voters may finally be ready to consider it. We also need someone in the Assessor’s office who can enforce the law as it is to its permissible extent, which is why I’m so happy to be supporting Jorge Lopez in that race.
I presume that you’re speaking of Joel Block, who is indeed a nice guy and would be a great Assemblymember. One thing to keep in mind is that there are only so many themes you can hit and expect people to follow, but I’d keep talking to him about it, because that Field Poll may raise the prominence of that issue. And another thing to keep in mind is that the advice of the local “experts” is almost always going to be to trim one’s sails and avoid issues that hit nerves. I have so much more that I can say about that, but I’ll be prudent just this once.
Why be prudent?
The sad reality of the Democratic Party is that we are very inclusive. That means that we will allow anyone to claim to be a Democrat, even if they disagree with many of the things that the Party stands for. This makes it much harder to march in lockstep on any issue, because you can always find at least on declared Democrat who will be more than happy to be marching to a different drummer.
Rata-tat verses Tat-a-tat. It’s almost the same.
Thus the Democratic Party ends up with mixed messages that don’t provide a common theme or support for one elective office and another even when there are overlapping borders.
The loopholes in Prop 13 have been there since the funders paid Howard Jarvis to sell it to the people with the loopholes in it for them. The teacher’s unions blew the whistle loud and long about the loopholes when the vote was going on, but they were drowned out as a whining special interest group. The sad part is that they were 100% correct. But now they are so busy fighting off the Michelle Rhee’s of privatization that they don’t have the ability to focus on the fact that they were right, and that this law has shafted every child in our K-12 system as well as our post graduate system.
It’s funny that Travis Allen can talk about getting back to the quality education that California was famous for in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but he is also the same candidate that signed a pact that said he wouldn’t fix the loopholes in the funding mechanism for that same education system. Thus ensuring that the system can NOT be fixed, because it can not be funded.
While it’s nice that there is a Field Poll that support the idea that we should be talking about this, it’s not going to work if there is just one lone voice out there saying this. If Mr. Block is out there saying this, so should Mr. Solorio. If every AD and SD Dem in OC was on board and repeating the same message, the message would get out and the pendulum would be in swing. But having just one candidate out there saying the elevator pitch, well remember that the OC is one of the most populous counties in the country not served by a single commercial TV station. Can you say “echo”?
The OC Democrats, where we excel at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
We give Young Kim crap because she said that she will win because she is Asian and Asian will vote for her because she is one of them and that the Latino’s don’t vote…. and then we have Venezia (R) asking if Onofre (D) believes she will simply win the Latino vote solely because she’s a Latina. and Onofre says voters will vote for someone who looks like them. exactly what Young Kim said! and for which most (D)’s had hoped would be used to show that she is playing the race card…. Damn, give me some of that defeat because victory is just too damn hard to get, especially when it’s been handed to you on a silver platter by a candidate who is going into what is expected to be a tight race.
[yeah, I know that Onofre is as much a (D) as I am an (DTS), but that’s what is after her name this time around, so we are stuck with her as a (D) claiming, like Crazy Kim (R), that race matters.]
There is no need to be prudent when you have a clown car careening down the road with either no one at the wheel or with so many people pulling the wheel in different directions that you can’t get a single clear concise winning message out. I may loath the GOP (“the Party of “NO!”), but at least they can all get marching orders and almost all follow them to some degree of winning…. at least in the OC.
Sorry to rant, but when I can get hard core conservative members of the GOP to agree with the elevator pitch, it pisses me off that we can’t get our act together enough as Democrats to make use of the fact that we can win with this simple message.
I can’t think of a single Democrat who doesn’t wish that Onofre would just get out of the race and let the endorsed candidate run without tripping over her. How do you think that we can prevent someone who isn’t a Dem from running as one? If we could, it would have happened right there. So blaming Dems for Onofre’s Tea Party message is absurd. What more could we do?
As for the rest: Gandhi said “be the change you want to be in the world.” That’s what I’m doing.
Onofre has a message?
Nobody could figure out what it was when she went to Los Amigos last year.
There’s a video of her presenting her platform, which is basically “Tea Party except don’t hate on Latinas.” That’s a message of a sort.
Greg, JM… I really think it would be a great idea for JM to write a whole piece about this idea, for this blog. What do you say, JM? And I’ll make sure all our Dems see it. Republicans too.
I agree.
The two party monopoly is so last century…. Do you know about this event May 10th? I’m going https://unitedwestandfest.com/about-united-we-stand-festival/
There are many Americans who are waking up to the “spin” and outright lies delivered by mainstream media, who work for corporate owned government.
You are a critical thinker. You speak your mind. You are needed to run for office as an Independent.
I left the Democratic Party In 2009 after I figured out that Obama is another sell-out. I am so glad I did.
Under our current political system, where people are elected on a “first-past-the-post” basis, I don’t believe that third parties can generally do more than raise important issues that the major parties don’t. I know some excellent people in third parties — but few officeholders. If change comes — including change in our voting systems that make third parties viable — it’s almost always going to come through the major parties. Our system is set up to assure that.
So, what seems best to me is for honest people of good will to take over both major parties. I’d like the Democratic Party to represent the views of people like me and Vern, the Republican Party to be led by people like Ryan and Cynthia, and then we’d argue out our antagonistic positions from a largely consensus moral and ethical core. It’s essence would be: “you can be an elephant or a donkey, but don’t be a pig.”
Imagine what a better Democratic (or Republican) party could do for our society! I think that that’s worth fighting for. Many Democrats agree with me — more, I think, than are in the Green, P&F, and Libertarian Parties combined — and I don’t want to abandon them. They deserve a better party than one led by the friends of Dan.
And as prices one must pay go, having to deal with the occasional jerk is pretty cheap for doing good works.
It occurs to me that you and Ward have scared the shit out of some important people. Then again how important can someone be that uses Matt and Dan to carry their water.
I’d say your doing all the right things. So might, Supervisor Moorlach, who rode into power by righting a wrong and then fucked the whole thing up.
We don’t need to be Left or Right. We need to be Right or Wrong (or Good and Bad).
Aside from all that it SUCKS that this week is when this rears it’s ugly head, when we all have better things to be thinking about: “You, Me, Them…Everybody” .
Yeah, I’ve seen holier-seeming Holy Weeks (and more passable Passovers)!
My husband loves to remind me, “Honey all the right people hate your guts.” In fact, we have a pact that if the day ever comes that the Kleptocracy LIKES me, he is to put a pillow over my face in my sleep, and push down hard until i stop struggling. I am astonished at how quickly he agreed to that. But I get it. These people are so genuinely evil that there is no way we want their approval. It is a sign of their illness that they fail to see why anyone wouldn’t want to buddy up with them.’
So how long till the Labor Fed figures out they are doing the bidding of Curt Pringle? Now THAT is ironic.
“all the right people hate your guts”
Yep. We are known by the enemies we make.
Hey Greg. Screw ’em. You go kick some non-partisan ass. Corruption has no party boundaries. Let these morons go out and make a big, fat stink with the media, on record, that it is just fine to play funky finance games with public funds, as long as the unions get their paychecks. Then see how fast candidates distance themselves from any connections to the Building Trades. They will be toxic.
Then let them go on record saying that as long as they get their paychecks, they are OK with using bond deals that escalate over time, with WALL STREET in first position when the payback becomes unsustainable, and public employee pensions in subordinate position for payment. Building trades really want to go public that they will throw their union brethren on the public sector side under the bus? Or the streetcar? Yep, let them go public, Hell it saves US the trouble of buying the ads exposing what they are up to. Who is advising these lunk-heads?
True…Corruption has no party boundaries, and it must be exposed wherever found.
It is good to see able individuals from different political parties coming together for the greater long-term good.
Separately, In some of my corporate roles, I would ask the senior managers of our international subsidiaries:
“Do you want to MAXIMIZE profits in the short-term, if it means that you also have to do this in an unethical or possibly illegal manner; or do you want to SATISFY profits in the mid- to long-term, and do so ethically and legally?
What do you think Senior Management at Corporate Headquarters would want you to do?” Thankfully, within these companies, both the subsidiary and the corporate management understood that SATISFYING profits was the better alternative, and we put certain procedures in place to ensure this.
If the public/taxpayers knew and understood what the real costs and long-term consequences are would they allow this short-term gain for a few special interests???
Cynthia, all of the reasons, much better said than I could, and very succinctly put, why I want Greg to start going public too.
“…CATER, a secretive organization…”
My favorite line, BTW. How can a 501c(3) be secretive? Only in the chipmunkski world of words meaning whatever he wants them to mean.
Now that word would aptly apply to that secretive koven known as the Kleptocracy; the Masters of the Universe who pull and persuade the strings of OC transit policy and in Anaheim always make sure their hirelings leave the back of the store unlocked.
CATER’s a 501(c)(4), so our contributors who desire anonymity can have it. No apology for that; fighting against powerful and corrupt local officials is pretty much the best reason I can imagine to justify donor anonymity!
In other words, no more secretive than the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce which has actually siphoned PUBLIC Funds into its coffers by mismanaging the EZ program.
I hope that Diamond sticks to his principled position – I would enjoy watching that train wreck.
And if you ever take a principled position, I will hold out the same hope for you.
@Skallywag:
Would you really “enjoy watching that train wreck” knowing that Greg Diamond and Cynthia Ward are taking a principled stand to protect taxpayers???
I think they realize that jobs would be created…but what they are highlighting is:
a) Do taxpayers realize the prohibitive costs? Benefiting the few at the expense of the many…which could also then hurt, in the long-run AND for the long-run, those who were benefited in the short term with those jobs.
b) How the process is not transparent; and decisions taken may possibly be illegal.
paco
Not only that, the Anaheim agreements I know of – Gardenwalk Giveaway and the latest Convention Center expansion desmadre – don’t include any guarantee of union OR local jobs. It’s really mystifying why these Building Trades fight like badgers for these dirty agreements. (Or for the toll-lane Alternative 3 either, which would be no more jobs than the non-toll Alternatives.)
Secret deals, secret deals. That’s what Gus thought, before he died…
So what did Adams and the unions do when the Ball Road peaker plant project came up? Did they pack the Water District meeting room wearing their vests and hard hats importuning for good construction jobs?
I’m getting to the point that when I see these guys in the audience I know they’ve been summoned by the Kleptocracy.
I wasn’t following that closely. Vern is, of course, our Senior Water Board Correspondent.
Labor comes out in force on many good issues. My sense is that the Trades tend to come out to support construction projects. Whether it is at the behest of the developers and middlemen, or just because they’re reading the newspapers and know what’s coming up, who can say?
That’s an excellent point.
David, the building trades are told by the Kleptocracy or any other hacks needing artificial support that they will give the constructions jobs to them. Nothing is put in writing, they are just told to “trust them.” Building Trades then packs the rooms and intimidate and maddog anyone who is against them. THen the bad guys get the project they want. Then the developer hires non-union labor. End of story.
That’s exactly the impression I’ve gotten.
So, are Adams, Kelly and Medrano fools? Or are they secretly compensated somehow for putting their poor palookas through these charades?
Brandman had it down, when he was angrily and passionately justifying the Gardenwalk Giveaway’s lack of any labor guarantee. “I know these people, and I trust them,” he insisted. “They say they’ll do their best to hire local, union labor, and I believe them that they’ll do their best!” Lord what fools these kleptos be. Or anyone who votes for them, rather.
” Building Trades then packs the rooms and intimidate and maddog anyone who is against them.”
Also, they file by Kris Murray and give her big winks and thumbs up. To them, she is Evita meets Marilyn!
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how Gus would be reacting to this turn of events in my campaign. If the deceased do get to look in on mortal affairs in the afterlife, he’s probably having a blast right now — mostly because the powers that be are screwing up so badly, but also because he always enjoyed making me slightly uncomfortable. The campaign would be ten times more fun to run if he were around.
I bet he’d be running it for you.
That’s part of why it would be ten times as fun.
Vern, voting for the Pringle-backed candidates does not necessarily mean that people are fools. Many people are being fooled, as I was before I learnt about them.Their glossy and misleading campaign literature fooled people. They will continue to do so, as they have the money to do so. Reaching out to the voters, getting people to register and vote will hopefully keep the Pringle-linked candidates out of city hall.
Not necessarily a terrible insult, amigo. Being fooled makes one a fool, if only temporarily.
We, the county progressive movement, of which Labor is a critical component, are at one hell of a crossroads. Someone has decided to place a wedge in the few cracks we have– and just whack away. There is a lot to be lost in this divisive pounding. It is certain that there is more that unites us than divides us.
However, this latest attempt at internal politicking cries out for extraordinary leadership in some painful areas were reasonable minds and souls disagree and where there is real suffering of working men and women. What we don’t need are segments of our movement to declare that other segments are not worthy enough to be part of the discussion. If were are going to fight internally, then lets fight our way to common ground. We are bigger than this moment.
*”Kermie………………………………..” said Miss Piggy! We love the title photo….as you can see. We have become so inspired by this dialogious discertationionist sterile look at our political realities in Orange County 2014…..that we will pull our old dusty copy of “Life of Brian” out and play it in a endless loop for the next three days.
We love Dr. Diamond….and he is fast becoming so endearing us – to the point that scratching his name on the ballot in this election cycle could become a real possibility.
Labor Unions, Trade Unions, Municipal Toilet Facilities……..all seem….so unseemly. All lacking the cleanliness, that so exposed to various environmental threats and homeless politicians. As members of the recently conjoined SAG-AFTRA Union…..we can say – THIS is the real train wreck! When power becomes all consuming…and when that power eminates from outside of the internal process…….you are generally in real trouble….right here in River City. But that is a whole story in itself and hardly can be included in the top 90 or so Unions which will have a rudderless catamaran in the next America’s Cup!
Psychic Symbolism? Let’s hope so! Don’t forget Creativity is next to Godliness Dr. Diamond…..and we are pulling for you ….bigtime!
This recent article, published on April 15, 2014, The Rise of Corporate Democrats in California, confirms why Dan C is comfortably shilling for Brandman and Pringle’s machine. The description of one of these type of Dems, from northern CA, applies to our local ones:
“He remains a committed suburban liberal. One, that is, who happened to attend a local Mitt Romney rally in 2012 and who felt at ease appearing at a Republican Lincoln Dinner last year. Levine is also no aberration. Rather, he is part of a new breed of Democrat, one exceedingly attentive to big business while tone-deaf toward the Democratic Party’s traditional base, which includes union workers, environmentalists and public school advocates.”
Using the legitimate needs of union workers is another demagoguery move by these OC corporate Dems.
http://www.alternet.org/investigations/plain-sight-rise-corporate-democrats-california
Yes, I posted that article up on Facebook last week and referenced Brandman. Immediately people were reminding me that corporate Dems have been a plague for decades. But this writer was talking about a new breed of them in California, a new epidemic of them in California, resulting from Prop 14’s top-two primaries. This guy you refer to is from a strong liberal Democratic district, but running against a good progressive, and picking up votes from Republicans, independents, and more conservative Democrats, he handily squashed the progressive, even though the progressive more faithfully represents the values of his district.
Another tragedy of Prop 14, which was opposed by both progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans. We knew it would favor the sleazy middle who could attract the most campaign cash and offend the least amount of people.
*”Follow the money……….” and they are!
What a cluster. I may have missed it, but what is the position of the service unions on the expansion?
I presume that they would support it. Other than some people quoted in a Voice of OC article who say that it’s a stupid proposal that won’t pay off, no one seems to have come out against the $180 million for the expansion itself. The questions involve to some extent the $20 million being touted as for firehouses and street repairs — although the firehouses haven’t been approved and street repairs aren’t the sort of lasting construction that one funds using 30 year bonds, so there’s some concern that this may turn out to be a slush fund — and the other $65 to $100 million for refinancing old bonds and other things, which they don’t seem to want to discuss or explain.
The question for me is: if there was any ambiguity as to the legality of doing this without a vote — and I think that it’s pretty clearly going to be found illegal — why didn’t they just put it on the June ballot? The proposal easily could have been ready in time. Either they don’t want people poking into the grisly details or they just don’t want voters to have a chance to have a say over a $300 million capital expenditure. I don’t know which explanation is worse.
I think that the service unions are reacting rationally to the information they’ve been given. The information, though, is flawed.
Thanks Greg. I admire your expertise and tenacity. I’ve not heard a cogent case put forward yet regarding “grounds for dismissal”.
The DPOC is a perpetual disappointment, regardless of the change in leadership, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Well meaning, but clueless.
Just sayin’.
I realize that I’m biased, but I think that the Resolutions Committee did some new things this year, including making lots of inroads to outreach with people who were not already activated Democrats. Of course, that may change given recent changes in committee leadership.