ISLAND COUNTY DEMOCRATS: February 2022 Newsletter
ty Democrats publish a monthly newsletter, which we are posting here. We believe that the statements made by the leadership of each party is of general public interest, particularly as we enter an election year.
Message from ICD Chair, Joseph Busig
Hello ICD,
The situation in Ukraine is truly disheartening. The struggle being experienced by the Ukrainian people is immense, and my heart is with Ukraine. With their future uncertain and homes under occupation, we must open our arms to fleeing Ukrainian refugees. We must work closely with Ukraine to provide swift and plentiful humanitarian aid at their time of crisis. I condemn in the strongest sense possible the invasion perpetuated by the Russian Federation against the sovereign nation of Ukraine and urge that justice be delivered through diplomacy, not further armed conflict. Russia must be held accountable, but not at a cost to innumerable innocent lives. I stand in solidarity with the thousands of anti-war protestors risking their safety in Russia speaking out against their president, Vladimir Putin, and his unjustified invasion which will only create massive destabilization in the region along with incalculable human suffering and loss of life. May their actions inspire many across the globe to wage peace and stand against war. We must realize, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Even as Ukraine is being invaded, other wars rage and other nations are being unjustly occupied across our planet. In Ethiopia, in Yemen, and in Palestine to name a few. Any war fought in the name of capitalist greed, imperialism, apartheid, neo-colonialism, or genocide of a people is not a war serving anyone. It is a war against our humanity, human rights, and human dignity. As former president Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex, we must heed those words more than ever. We cannot allow corruption, lust for power, or industrial greed to guide any decisions pertaining to conflict or aid whether they are the Russian oligarchs or U.S. billionaire class. As Amanda Gorman stated, “There is no such thing as a gentle war. There is no peace that can’t be flung aside. Our only enemy is that which would make us enemies to each other.” I hope that in the future we give peace, cooperation, and international solidarity a chance. Not for the sake of itself, but for the sake of our collective humanity. For a society that claims high ideals of human rights, freedom, general welfare, and justice for the few and not all has no right of brandishing moral highness as it spreads those same ideals through force, bloodshed, and oppression. I am hoping for a peaceful resolution to this conflict, safety for those impacted by inhumane foreign policy, and that justice will prevail. We must acknowledge our past errors and injustices in which we have been bequeathed. To realize their consequences, to acknowledge the pain felt today, but to also see the hope towards a brighter future when we act. To move onward, we must make the choice to continue these unjust systems or to forge a new path. A new path paved in commitment to our shared values of democracy, liberty, universal rights, justice, cooperation, and solidarity. Then perhaps in our time there will be hope for peace, for compassion, and for progress.
In Solidarity,
Joseph J. Busig
Chair, ICDCC
News from ICD
Whole Washington Information
We are committed to helping Whole Washington in any way we can to get universal healthcare in Washington. This year they are building off of the progress made to get universal healthcare on the ballot. But they can’t do it alone! Right now, Whole Washington is asking for donations to purchase supplies, train signature gatherers, and print signature sheets. Grassroots action requires grassroots support. Any amount you can donate will help push Washington towards a healthcare system that cares for every resident. To donate, you can click on the link below which will take you to Whole Washington’s donation page on their website. You can also mail a check if you prefer to donate that way. Please consider volunteering as well! Thank you!
[Ed. Note: Donation and volunteer links omitted.]
Upcoming Meetings
ICD Meetings
E-Board: Thursday March 17, 6 – 7pm
General: Thursday March 17, 7 – 8pm
Both meetings via Zoom. Email icdchair@gmail.com for meeting links.
10th LD Democrats Meeting
Sat, March 19, 10am – 12pm
The 10th LD has regular general membership meetings every other month. During those meetings elected and appointed PCOs and members in good standing have the opportunity to participate and be heard. All members get to vote on things like candidate endorsements, resolutions, and other business of the organization. Their decisions shall guide the Executive Board in the conduct of the affairs of the District.
So, you might ask, how does one become a member in good standing? Well, the answer is simple. Our by-laws say that membership is open to all persons who are registered voters, residing within the 10th Legislative District (there is a map on the website) and who publicly identify as Democrats. Upon payment of dues and after a 14-day waiting period, any eligible voter professing to be a Democrat, becomes a member in good standing and will be granted voting rights at the next general meeting. Annual dues are $20 per person or $30 per family [Ed. Note: Donation link omitted].
Message from Island County Commissioner, Janet St Clair
I am going to pause on County updates and offer another perspective. As February comes to a close, we also wrap up Black History Month. I hope you have taken advantage of the opportunities to learn more about our troubled history, the strength and resilience of Black leaders and how we can all work together for justice that recognizes and works to end disproportionality and racism.
I was in Washington DC last week, working on many issues important to Island County. I did take some time off to visit a couple of the amazing Smithsonian Museums available for free. I visited the new Smithsonian African American Museum “A People’s Journey, A Nation’s Story”. It seemed appropriate.
There was much to see but as I walked into one wing to see more contemporary stories, I had to turn away as my eyes filled with tears. In the display was the grey sweatshirt hoodie of a young boy, a can of watermelon ice tea and a bag of skittles. It was a gut wrenching visualization of the last things worn and touched by a youth killed by senseless violence. The death of Trayvon Martin set off a world wide clamor for justice and a recognition that we were losing young black men and women at a disproportionately high rate and like George Zimmerman, their killers were not held accountable. It has led to changes in policies and how these incidents are investigated and prosecuted.
I caught back a sob as I turned and faced again a truth that should not ever be denied. Black Lives Matter. It is our responsibility as allies to work together with our brothers and sisters. “Let justice roll down like a river, and righteousness an ever-flowing stream.”
For information on County updates, you can sign up for my email list at j.stclair@islandcountywa.gov. To follow the re-election campaign, check out my facebook page at Committee to Re-elect Janet St. Clair.
Thank you. Shalom.
Janet St. Clair, Island County Commissioner
Message from State Representative, Dave Paul
Dear friends, One of the best parts of serving as your state representative is having the opportunity to listen to you and advocate for you in Olympia. Over the last four years, I’ve met with many of you to learn what projects would have the most meaningful impact for our region. The House has recently released its proposed Capital Budget and the MoveAhead Washington Transportation Package. I’d like to give you a quick update on some of the investments that I sponsored and helped secure in these proposed budgets for our community this legislative session.
- $1.3 billion in funding for four new hybrid-electric ferries, plus additional resources for recruiting and training new ferry personnel
- $7 million for Island Transit to fund the purchase of electric buses
- $3.5 million to fund the construction of the Clinton to Ken’s Corner Trail
- Over $640,000 to complete the La Conner Regional Library
- $875,000 to Habitat for Humanity’s Heron Park project and $250,000 to the City of Langley for increased workforce housing
- $270,000 to Island Senior Resources to upgrade its facilities
- $400,000 to South Whidbey Parks and Recreation for its proposed aquatic wellness center
The House and the Senate must come to an agreement on their budget priorities over the next two weeks. I will be fighting hard to keep these important community projects in the final budgets. You can help by contacting your legislators and encouraging them to support these investments. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to meet with me over the past four years; your advocacy is critical to the legislative process and securing these investments for our community. I look forward to continuing to collaborate with constituents this spring, summer, and fall to identify our legislative priorities for the 2023 Legislative Session. Sincerely, Dave P.S. If you would like to help with the campaign, please reach out to Marie by emailing [Ed. Note: email address omitted.]
Message from 2nd CD Congressman Rick Larsen
We did it.
Back in 2020, I asked our grassroots supporters three times – in May, August, and September – to sign petitions calling on Congress to save the US Postal Service.
And thousands upon thousands of folks signed those petitions – joining over a million supporters across the country.
The issue? A 2006 law that required the USPS to pay today for the retirements of workers who will retire 75 years from now. Those future retirees are not even born yet! That law was making it very difficult for the Postal Service to meet its service demands here and now.
Here is the exciting news. This past week, on a huge bipartisan vote, Congress listened and passed a Postal Service reform bill to guarantee its fiscal solvency for decades to come. We will now require six days of home delivery every week, and an online dashboard that will show those delivery metrics on a weekly basis.
Sure, this is nerdy stuff, but I hope you share my enthusiasm. Most of all, I am just really proud that all those who signed petitions, wrote letters, made phone calls, and spoke up at town halls all across the country have finally been heard.
We did it. You did it, FIRST!
Rick
News from the State Party
In poll after poll, voters say that the economy is one of their top concerns in 2022. We can’t be silent, or let Republicans control the conversation by talking about inflation.
In our discussions with each other and with the opposition (and independents), Democrats need to tell this story to voters!
We know that there’s still more to be done to create an economy that works for all Washingtonians, but we can’t let the only news people hear be Fox News.
We need to tell the story about how Democratic leadership has brought back jobs and small businesses – how the American Rescue Plan (bitterly opposed by Congressional Republicans!) helped get our economy back on its feet and created historic numbers of new jobs.
When folks talk about inflation, we need to make the root cause clear – corporations are taking advantage of our economic recovery to jack their prices up as high as they can. They know that more people are working and making money and they want to make as much profit as they can, while they can. Yeah, gas prices are high – that’s not because of Joe Biden, that’s because Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell & BP made nearly $25 billion in profits last quarter.
Don’t take it from us – take it from the people who run the grocery store business: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/18/business/grocery-store-inflation-kroger-albertsons/index.html
- “You might not be excited about paying higher prices for meat and vegetables, but your grocery store is thrilled.
- The rising prices for staples like milk and pork affect grocery stores too, as they have to pay more to their suppliers. But while they are raising prices under the guise of increasing supplier costs, they’re adding a little extra on top of that.
- When grocery stores’ costs rise, stores will “mark up the full rate of inflation plus a little bit more,” said Burt Flickinger, the managing director of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group. For example, if the price of meat that a store pays to its suppliers goes up 6 cents a pound, the store might raise the price it charges for that same meat by 10 cents.
- Stores are betting most customers won’t balk at price increases because they need to buy groceries, after all, and will still consider shopping a bargain compared to eating out at restaurants. Prices for food at restaurants are growing faster than prices at grocery stores, according to Labor Department data, giving grocers more flexibility to charge you extra.
- Leading grocery chains such as Kroger and Albertsons have said in recent days that they expect to benefit from rising prices. Sales boomed at these chains and other grocers during the early stages of the pandemic, but have slowed down in recent months as more people return to eating meals out.
- “Our business operates the best when inflation is about 3% to 4%,” Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said on an earnings call with analysts Thursday. “A little bit of inflation is always good in our business.”
- Kroger can pass off costs to consumers when inflation hovers around that mark, McMullen said, and “customers don’t overly react to that.”
- “Businesses like ours have done well when in periods where the inflation was 3% to 4%,” Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said at an investor conference Tuesday.
- Sankaran did not specify why inflation would help Albertsons, but his “sense is this inflation will just be passed through” to customers. Albertsons did not respond to a request for further comment.”
We’ve got to be clear about what’s happening in America – President Biden and Congressional Democrats have taken great action to get folks back to work and our economy back on track.
Greedy corporations are taking advantage of this positive momentum to boost their own profits by jacking up prices as high as they can.
Democrats don’t need to stop and give up – we need to do more, to restrain corporate power and center the needs of workers and their families. That’s the story that we need to tell about our economy to win in 2022.
Albert Ondo and Fe Mischo, your State Committee Members
Message from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee
As Black History Month closes and Womxn’s History Month begins, I cannot help but think about the ways in which these two identities intersect with the Democratic Party in the United States. The first individual that comes to mind is U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D).
Representative Lee has a record of pushing the Democratic Party forward but her political work spans before entering office. Lee served as a delegate for Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign in the 1972 Democratic National Convention in the wake of the New Deal Coalition, the Democratic Party’s support which bolstered rights and equity to many marginalized groups throughout the United States and dissolved in the late 1960s. While she was a student at Mills College in Oakland, California, Lee volunteered at the local Black Panther Party chapters’ Community Learning Center. At this time in Oakland, the city was home to gang and drug-related violence, including a murder rate twice that of New York or San Francisco. Lee worked on Bobby Seale’s Oakland mayoral campaign in 1973. Three years earlier in Oakland, Chicano organizers led a movement, entailing student walkouts and protests, in protest of the Vietnam War dubbed the National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against The Vietnam War, part of a larger global anti-war movement at the time. One cannot help but think the air filled with local and global movements for human rights and freedom inspired Representative Lee’s stances for when she was elected to office in 1990 as a California State Assembly member. This is because as a representative, Lee maintained an anti-war stance throughout her career being the only member of congress to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, voting against airstrikes in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, and calling for a cut to the national defense budget.
Representative Lee, however, is just one individual. An individual that, since the beginning of her political activity, has been part of a long global struggle for human rights and freedom. As individuals there is only so much change we can make. Lee’s political history embodies the principle that in human rights, we cannot ignore how we legislate when it comes to domestic and foreign policies as they often mirror one another. In fact, our foreign policy impacts United States citizens just as much as it impacts people in other countries. Marginalized identities around the world, like womxn and Black people, are inextricably tied with global movements for human rights, freedom, and peace. As global movements inspired Representative Lee before, I hope her individual efforts can continue to inspire larger, organized global efforts to create a truly healthier future for us all.
Happy Black History Month and Womxn’s History Month
-Island County Democrats Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Lee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Oakland,_California#1960s_and_1970s
Message from the Editor
I ran into our beloved former District 1 County Commissioner, Helen Price Johnson the other day and asked her about her new job. I’d heard she had a new position, but didn’t really know anything about it, so it was great to learn more. Then I realized that probably a number of our readers would want to know what she’s up to as well, so I thought I’d write a short note to share.
Helen was named USDA Rural Development State Director for Washington State by president Biden. State Directors serve as the chief executive officer of USDA Rural Development in the states and territories and are tasked with carrying out the mission of rural development to the benefit of everyone in rural America. In conjunction with the guidance and support of the National Office, State Directors are responsible for promoting the mission and strategic goals of Rural Development and provide key leadership to develop and support a productive, diverse, and inclusive state workforce.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to help expand economic opportunities, create jobs, and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans in rural areas. This assistance supports infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access in rural, tribal and high-poverty areas.
I can’t think of anyone more experienced or deserving to serve in this position and I’m very excited for Helen as she enters this new phase of her career.
Carol Flax, ICD Newsletter Editor
[Ed. Note: additional donation information omitted.]
