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Sep 25, 2013 at 4:00 am
A Proud, Brilliant, Unapologetic Socialist Is Exactly What Our City Council Needs
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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
www.votesawant.org
votesawant.nationbuilder.com/donate
(I'm not affiliated with the Sawant campaign; just a single voter who's a supporter and donated a few bucks.)
Here is a link to her issue stances. Take a chance and open your mind.
http://www.votesawant.org/issues
Oh look, a troll. Hi troll!
Another reason to vote for Charter Amendment No. 19 (City Council election with seven districts and two at-large. Districts will make it much more likely that we'll have a range of interests represented instead of the "district of money" that Richard Conlin and the eight other mini-mayors largely comes from. Charter 19 empowers both communities and communities of interest.
I join you in skepticism about $15 minimums but it seems the current minimums are too low. 15 is also a useful number 'cause we know a person's not balling on that wage, and we know that millions of people are on much lower wages, but it still seems to us that it's impossible for capitalism to provide, so it provokes interesting questions. the number they arrive at if Mrs. Sawant is elected will probably be lower and the general standard of living of people now earning min wage or something like it will probably be higher
"Over the arc of his 16-year term, Conlin's base became the wealthy figures that lobby city hall, and Conlin himself became among the council's most bullish advocates to build more freeways, scuttle transit spending, and impose laws that penalize the poor".1 I am tired of the dishonesty of Richard portraying himself as a man for the people when he has long since sold his soul to the highest bidder.
Paraphrasing the Stranger article The Case Against Richard Conlin I agree that "Over the arc of his 16-year term, Conlin's base became the wealthy figures that lobby city hall”, (since 1997 and I think it is time for a change and Sawant is a valued alternative) Conlin himself became among the council's most bullish advocates to build more freeways, scuttle transit spending, and impose laws that penalize the poor"... I am tired of his dishonesty when Richard attempts to portray himself as a man for the people when he has long since sold his soul to the highest bidder.
Jedi Collectivization Forces, - Sept. 25, 2013.
Pope Francis: Money is the Root of All Evil.
Sept.21, 2013 the Pope also spoke of the Third Century Church that said Money is ' " The Dung Of The Devil " ' As Jesus teaches, Money Is The Way Of Evil.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/pope-fran…
https://seattleneighborhoodcoalition.wor…
American Postal Workers
American Federation of Teachers
Communication Workers of America
Washington Federation of State Employees
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Communication Workers of America
You know, in physical reality.
Sawant is not going to take over the area.
You are absolutely delusional.
It is based upon things called rules.
Your mommies and your abusive daddies cannot change these rules for you.
You're going to make Africa die of starvation if you enact a $15/hr wage, AND anyone who EVER tried to make anything of themselves will earn less than Laquandaisha the Tongan who runs the McDonald's Fry Technology Center.
Literacy classes are coming to an Empowerment Center near you.
Yes, and you clearly have no idea how those "rules" work.
What a schmuck.
Also, Richard Conlin is one of the most progressive and liberal City Council members, not some old fart like the Stranger is trying to make him out to be. He is fighting tooth and nail to have an equitably designed Rainier East Link station on Rainier and 23rd, and has also championed a proposal for a minimum density requirement in our urban villages, to stop development like the CVS on 45th in Wallingford.
Just look and see who Conlin is indorsed by versus Sawant!
You also raise that Sawant lacks Conlin' experience. I agree. She does not have 16 years of experience giving handouts to big business and real estate developers like Vulcan, Amazon, etc. You say look at Conlin's endorsers - I suggest you look at his donors! It speaks volumes. BNSF $700?! SPOG $700?! Vulcan Executives?! Richard Hedreeen $700?! its a who's who list of corporate big shots
We have way too many councilmembers with kind of experience. Its time for a change - Vote Sawant!
Nick Licata is the only consistent liberal on the Council. Mike O'Brien has liberal tendencies. The rest of the mini-mayors, not so much, and Conlin is arguably the least liberal of them all.
I disagree however regarding the emphasis on "balance" and on adding just one voice like Kshama Sawant's. I think the city needs a lot more genuine people like Sawant - in the council, in the mayor's office, and everywhere else. That's the "balance" that will help bring about progressive change - a majority of reps in city government that represents the vast majority of Seattleites and not just Amazon, Starbucks, etc. Then we can really begin to turn around public policy in Seattle - particularly if those representatives have mass movements backing them. But certainly electing Sawant is a fantastic start.
If employers fail to pay workers enough money to feed and/or house themselves and their families, other hardworking taxpayers like you and me end up paying higher taxes to cover those necessary services. That's not fair. You and I should not have to pay higher taxes so that private companies can make higher profits by failing to pay their workers a living wage.
People who work full time jobs, regardless of their jobs, should receive a paycheck that allows them to fully support both themselves and their families. If an employer for some reason cannot pay their workers a living wage, they should consider adjusting their business strategy instead of just expecting the government to always bail them out.
The city should also consider increasing the minimum wage for part time workers beyond $15 an hour in Seattle so that employers have additional incentives to hire full time workers. One of the primary goals of our city's economic agenda should be to maximize the number of workers in Seattle who can fully support themselves and their families without depending on government handouts and assistance.
http://mortgagemovies.blogspot.com/2013/…
http://youtu.be/4pgWqXHLhaY
In U.S. cities over 1/2 million population, 17 are all district, 13 are mixed district and at-large, and 3 are all at-large (Seattle, Portland, Columbus OH).
Mixed district and at-large city council systems do not violate any of the laws you cite. One person, one vote is not violated. Each voter in Seattle will have an equal say in who is on the Council; a vote for one district seat with about 90,000 people, and two at-large seats with 630,000. And Seattle's demographics and voting history make any showing of racial animus in elections very difficult.
Or might you simply be someone who's too stupid to know what you were talking about?
the districts charter amendment is backed by king county democrats, metropolitan democrats, 46th district democrats, and got majority votes in other democratic groups like 36th district democrats. it's backed by many of our best liberal democratic state senators. they're all on the website. it will bring city government closer to the people and make it less susceptible toinfluences of the huge special interests like paul allen, Vulcan, chris Hansen and other one percenters who just love huge citywide elections where they have more clout. if you run in a district of 88K instead of a citywide "district" of about 634K -- you can do a more grassroots campaign and win with like 17K votes ( many don't vote downballot in these highly local elections). you can doorbell the 13,000 perfect voters in a district, you can't doorbell the 90K perfect voters citywide. 47 of the top 50 cities in the usa by population have districts or mixed district and at large -- like this proposal here -- including san Francisco, new York, los angeles, Chicago, DC and other cities run by more or less liberal type mayors and councils. in seattle, we went to districts in like 1910 when we had only 235K population and we had had 14 teeny tiny wards with just a few hundred people voting in each one. going to districts now is what makes sense and most likely the kind of people you'd get for city council would more resemble the folks in the state leg -- you'd get an ed murray, a kohl welles, a Sharon nelson type on the city council -- totally rooted in their district and representing the district voters through close and frequent contact.
ever wonder why at large city council folks almost never rise up a level to mayor? at large diffuses their responsibility so much, they're not known for much of anything in particular; they have no real base. look at jim street v. Jamie Pedersen -- or cal Anderson or ed murray -- if state senators were at large, likely we'd never have had a ed murray elected at all. districts are more progressive and democratic, in short. council members should represent real people not abstract tions like "the good of the city as a whole!" which always turns out to be "the good of paul allen, Vulcan and chris Hansen as a whole!"
Bad point calling me stupid--I try to learn from mistakes. How about you, or do you actually choose to be a rude insult-people-whenever-possible poster who amuses (and irritates) people?
please, fix the phrase.
actually CWI(commitee for workers international) is an organisation joining up to 60(or even more) political groups(mainly trotskists) all over the world.
american socialist alternative and russian section of CWI(there`s no party, yet; warsaw-pact collapse and following SU denonsation caused deep crisis in russian socialistic movement) are equal members of the commitee.
CWI aims not only on LGBT-abolishing: year ago southern africa`s section supported platinum miners strike(succeed); kazakhstanian section supported Jana-Ѳzen oilers strike(flood in strugglers blood by Nazarbaev`s police forces on Independence Day(!) on 2011 december); irish socialist party member Paul Merphy, MEP, spectaculates repressions against opposition in so-called democracies of eurasian and african EU trade partners, ignored by mainstream politicians.
it would be fair if you fix the phrase.
thank you.
What's your point? If you disagree with something I say, point it out; engage, don't snipe. I'm always willing to argue law if you cite something specific, like a case or law review article.
BTW, please stop insulting me.
Socialism is like mold. Some of it is actually helpful bacteria for the economic engine, but too much leaves musty odors and leaves people gasping for breath.
Or forget about commerce. You want to bitch about Sawant's lack of experience while suggesting that she walk into a legislative body taking a meek position on the minimum wage? Laws are passed by compromise, not fiat. Hey, you know who has decades of legislative experience? Ed Murray. The guy who agrees the minimum wage should be $15 per hour. "Gradually," he says. "In steps," he says. Well, what's the first step in getting there?
The first step is demanding $15, doofus. Sawant even broke it down for you slow pokes: "starting out from a weak position, that's not good strategy."
Replacing one of the Council's conservative members with a progressive moves the majority center of the Council one seat to the left. It's incremental progress. Hardly a revolution.
http://seattlechannel.org/cityinsideout/
While you're there, take the online poll. So far it's 86% in favor of Sawant, 13% for Conlin!
"No, we wouldn't want a council filled with Sawants. But we wouldn't want a council filled with Richard Conlins, either—which is pretty much what we have now."
Another reason to vote for Charter Amendment No. 19 (City Council election with seven districts and two at-large. Districts will make it much more likely that we'll have a range of interests represented instead of the "district of money" that Richard Conlin and the eight other mini-mayors largely comes from. Charter 19 empowers both communities and communities of interest.
In the vein of being a one-issue candidate, an issue over which the candidate can have little or no effect, Sawant is following in the path of Mike McGinn.
McGinn was elected as a one-issue: don't build a tunnel. Subsequently he failed and not only failed but ended up promoting the plebiscite that all but guaranteed its construction by taking away the argument that "nobody wanted it".
So Sawant may get elected on a tide of support for a 15 a hour wage. Again, something that a Seattle City Council member has zero control over.
Of course, since the public here seems to respond to his logic, maybe I should run for Kent City Council on an issue of creating a manned mission to Jupiter.
It would be almost as absurd as campaigning with "if elected mayor, I promise this tunnel will not be built" and then flipping to "I won't oppose the tunnel" and then flopping back to "nah, I don't want to sign that authorization for the tunnel".
Or trolls.
Goldy, I thought that was a really well-written article and makes the case for Sawant obvious to all but the most intransigently stupid.
Plus she looks like she stinks and has life time loser David Goldstein shrilling for her.
What's not to love.
67 has it dead on, like most filthy socialist Savant weasels her way into others movements for her own personal gain. Scum like her is one of the many reasons I gave up on activism and am no longer a leftist.
@77
LOL you think David Goldstein can write LOL
"ignorant" indeed.
Gave up activism? Because of the scum. Oh, more biography. Conveniently, you always have an anecdote from your colorful past to bolster whatever line you're pushing today.
Yeah, remember the story you told about confronting the gay bashers with your gat? Back when you were gay? Except now you're not. Now you're a married straight guy, who thinks brown people smell bad and men should all do manly jobs.
What are you going to be next week, Five Large? Whatever it is, you'll always have your realistic Cascadia plan to carve out a totally realistic separatist empire in the greater Pacific northwest. So realistic it even has its own flag with a big cooter on it. Socialists got nothing on you.
Don't be jelous just because you have done nothing with your life aside from being an adult male who babysits.
Yeah, that's what I mean. You didn't say things like that when you thought you could score rhetorical points pretending to be gay.
It's weird how on the one hand you're so reactionary, while on the other hand you want to burn it all down and build a utopia. And by weird I mean, typical incoherent internet ranting from a guy who can't keep track of his lies one day to the next.
Go write Richard Conlin a check. Everyone is relieved the gun nut vote is not going to Sawant.
In some sense it's quite brilliant.
You promise this impossible thing you have no control over, and then when it fails you throw up your hands and say "see..I tried, but THEY didn't let me". (Or else blame George Bush.)
At the same time during the campaign you don't really offend many people. Who doesn't want a higher wage? And who wants to be against giving people more money. In fact -- who wants to get caught in a Goodspace Guy debate at all?!
The McGinn-Sawant Strategy could be the future of politics in America!
Nice homophobia, but socialist have historically put gays to death, so it isn't really suprising.
And sorry to disapoint but I'm really a Conlin fan, in fact I am disappointed his only opponent is a sack of socialist sewage, but I guess I will just have to put the blame on Seattle’s political establishment, I guess we get the “leadership” we deserve
@82
What does you baby sitting have to do with my sexuality?
I think that all members of society both gay and straight can agree that there is something not right about an adult male who goes out of his way to be around children. I guess you hope some kind of gun control passes before one of their dads finds out what you have been up to.
Can't comprehend my political stance, meh, not surprised it would go over your progressive pea brain, kinda like life, liberty and happiness.
In two months your "political stance" could very well be a passionate desire to nationalize Amazon, if it's convenient to you to say it. You're a bullshitter who makes shit up and you think nobody notices. How many times do you have to be called on your lies? You're not fooling anybody.
At least John Balio's garbage comes from the same place one day to the next. With you it's all noise, Five Large, and yet you want to be taken seriously?
Also, Edwin Fruit is Mary Martin's husband. I used to work with the both of them for a few months when they had real, non self-flagellating jobs for a spell. Then she decided she needed to run for governor or something and they both quit. I saw her smile and laugh a few times. Edwin? Not so much. I never saw him smile or even show any emotion at all. DOW-ER, Dour. I once said "good morning morning Ed!" He replied "I really prefer to be called Edwin".I never tried to engage the guy ever again. This actually happened.
I also enjoyed the total hand-wavy portion about how if you really push her on it she'll argue for collectivizing Amazon, but she's "not running on it." In other words, she's hiding the parts of her belief system that make her look like a completely unelectable lunatic. Great. If it's what you believe in, how about you be honest and up front about it?
Thankfully, we only have six weeks or so of this nonsense and then she'll move off into oblivion.
Lindgren's basic conclusions:
• Districts resulted in a more liberal council (in a truly, non-faux progressive sense);
• More interests and constituencies are represented;
• More people participate and vote in local elections; and
• Elections cost less on average.
I'll try to get Lindgren's papers and some other resources up at seattledistrictsnow.org asap
FYI, there is nothing wrong with zealous advocacy. Little progress or change occurs without it.
Hiding it? If she were hiding her opinions on capitalism you wouldn't know about them. "Not running on it" means it is outside the powers of the office she's seeking so making it part of her campaign would be distracting, at best.
Remember when McGinn campaigned on reforming the Seattle schools? And everyone had to keep reminding him that as Mayor he wouldn't have any authority over the schools. It made him seem like he didn't know what job he was running for. Sawant is forthright about what she thinks but has the sense to campaign on things she could actually do on the City Council, not things council members can merely grandstand about.
Putting a Tim Eyman on the council would shift the center further away from the people of Seattle. Electing a socialist would make the counsel look more like Seattle. The point of a legislative body is to be as representative as possible.
Yeah, Kshama's really gonna be fleecing her supporters when she donates the majority of ludicrous Council salary to charity and building social justice movements... Riiiight.
I realize plenty of people get passionate about socialism. Or what they think socialism is, anyway. But at least that passion makes you care about this. If Sawant replaces this empty suit, she won't be able to outvote the other eight centrists on the Council, but her mere presence will be enough to make you pay attention. I'd think even her ideological opponents would appreciate that, over a placeholder who silently rubber-stamps whatever Seattle's oligarchs tell him they want.
His decision to support a downtown tunnel, which subjected him to criticism by the Stranger and others, was totally vindicated by the voters in the referendum. The biggest criticism of him really is over the sick leave vote, which was terrible. That said, much of the criticism I've read in the Stranger feels more like sour grapes over battles they lost and he won.
Regardless, I feel like this entire conversation is a pretty big waste of time. The likelihood of him losing is close to nil, in my opinion anyway. We'll see.
** Rent control is her only terrible idea, what we need is to drastically increase housing supply and not have an artificial way to keep rents down. She's an economist, she should understand that encouraging new housing development and increasing supply is the best thing for this town in the long run, so her rhetoric against big property developers is opposed to her own goals. If you work with them as a city council member and require as dense of development as possible you increase supply, you create a more sustainable city, and you keep rents of older apartment buildings at their current, inexpensive (compared to other booming cities) levels.
*** How does she plan to be a pragmatic member of the city council while holding true to her ideals? Tea Party idealism is the reason this country can barely function. Idealism is great, I share her views and values on most things except rent control and perhaps taxing pensioners' assets and pensions, depending on her specific structure. In general, I don't trust idealists in the real world and would like to know her specific plans to be a pragmatic representative of our shared values. Can she compromise her ideals daily to keep moving (unlike the representatives sent to federal government by ass hats)?
As for rent control, at his SECB interview, Nick Licata voiced support for rent control, and made the point that taking housing outside of the market is the only way to assure affordable housing. So she's not so lonely on that issue.
And as I wrote, she's very pragmatic and is open to compromise. But she just doesn't believe in starting from you compromise position.
Vindicated?! You mean a multi-billion dollar highway project in the heart of Seattle that has little to no provision for transit, and just encourages more automobile gridlock? Just because voters pass something or elect someone doesn't mean their decision is not objectively stupid.
"this entire conversation is a pretty big waste of time" -- Maybe, but forcing Conlin to actually campaign hard is a good thing, and might even push him a little to the left of his "base". And if Sawant gets 40+%, she will have shown herself to be a viable candidate if she chooses to run again. Perhaps for an open seat. Perhaps in a district... (Remember, if Charter 19 passes, ALL 9 council positions, including Conlin's, are on the ballot again in two years.)
'Density increases affordability' is a completely bogus meme pushed by the developers and their handmaidens (planners, architects, lawyers, bought and paid for city council members). Not only do the majority of renters get pushed further out, but all of us get to pick up the tab for the infrastructure to pay to move people in and out. And for the amenities needed to make the density tolerable (parks, libraries, fire and cop shops).
Not a fan of Sawant, but I will be voting for her because I want other people who contemplate running for office to be encouraged to give it a try.
http://mortgagemovies.blogspot.com/2013/…
Peace.