EDP Has a Logo!
With many thanks to those who submitted entries, our winner is Kristy McKay. You will see the logo begin to appear on posters, letters, email messages, the website, and more. Congratulations, Kristy!
Environmental Work Group - Public Lands Workshop July 20, 2017
El Dorado Progressives, along with the El Dorado Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (EDC CNPS) and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), hosted a workshop July 20th in Cameron Park on "Defending Our Public Lands," led by CBD's Public Lands Campaigner Ryan Beam.
Over 50 people attended the workshop, which included an overview of what constitutes "public land," what threats they face from the present administration and Congress in Washington DC, and particularly, what the role of Dist. 4 Congressional Rep. Tom McClintock is.
McClintock has been named "Public Lands Enemy #14" in CBD's Public Lands Enemies report. Indicative of making this list, McClintock recently introduced legislation to allow bikes and other mechanized transport into designated "foot only" wilderness areas.
As stated in the CBD report: "Despite the irreplaceable value these places hold, in recent years, a concerted effort has been driven forward by certain senators and U.S. representatives to seize, dismantle, destroy, and privatize our public lands. These lawmakers are backed by fossil fuel corporations and other extractive industries that already squeeze massive profits out of America’s public lands and only want more."
CBD is spearheading an ongoing campaign aimed at blunting these GOP-led efforts by asking people to send letters to the editor and opinion articles to local newspapers and to also send targeted letters and petitions expressing strong opposition to McClintock and the other "Dirty 15.” At this time, Sequoia National Monument is facing an immediate threat, with the boards of supervisors of two California counties siding with Trump and McClintock and proposing a two-thirds reduction in acreage for the monument. By shrinking it to less than 100,000 acres, approximately 200,000 acres of "big trees" would be made available to timber sales.
Other national monuments "under review" by Trump appointee Secretary of the Interior Zinke include Giant Sequoia, Bears Ears, Carrizo Plain, Basin and Range, Mojave Trails, and more. With almost half of El Dorado County being public lands, we have a lot at stake here in the foothills and mountains of El Dorado County. We all partake of their beauty and abundant resources for recreation, hunting and fishing, our livelihoods, the all-important water provision and protection, and natural habitat for native plants and animals. Our public lands are neither Red nor Blue, but an important legacy ALL of us share.
To become involved in the effort to protect and defend our public lands, sign-up with EDP's Environmental Working Group (contact: Frank Baker, fbhikku@gmail.com) and/or the CBD action network (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/action/ or PublicLandsWorkshop@gmail.com).
Healthcare Work Group Update June 29, 2017
Although summer is here, the Health Care Group continues to meet monthly, the second Monday of each month. The next meeting is on July 10th at El Dorado County Office of Education (EDCOE) at the intersection of Missouri Flat and Green Valley Rd. Meeting starts at 6:30 with potluck snacks and social. Work meeting starts at 7pm and goes till 9 or so.
Please bring a name tag.
There is much to focus on locally, and at the State and Federal Levels. Join us to meet like minded people who are passionate about improving access to health care and reproductive health services.
1. Booth at the County Fair: We helped staff a booth with the theme "Rallies", along with the Local Democratic Clubs.
We conducted a brief "Health Care Survey". It was good to get out there and talk with our community about their health care concerns and provide information about the Bills at both the Federal and State level. Over 100 surveys were completed and the results are being tabulated. Overall 95% of people surveyed had health care concerns with high prescription drug prices and insurance costs at the top of the list.
2. Continue Local Health Care Rallies which were held twice in June. We want to raise local visibility about our health care concerns. Overall, we receive positive responses from many people. We walk with our signs and banner from the Cozmic Cafe down Main St to the intersection of Canal and then stay awhile along Route 50; then walk back to the Cozmic. Total time is one hour and it is a nice way to meet "health care friends".
3. Participation with the Single Payer Rally at the State Capitol to protest the tabling of SB562 by Assemblyman Rendon. The bill needs to be completed and discussed.
We Rallied in the rotunda, left personal messages at Speaker Rendon's Office and then also rallied in front of the Governor's office.
4. Phone calls to key US Senate Republicans who are wavering on their support for the Republican "UnHealth" Care Bill. The GOP couldn't get enough votes so it has been delayed. We will continue with calls and resistance. It is not over yet. Public support for the Republican Bill is very low.
5. The Reproductive Health Care Workgroup continues work to develop a Teen Wallet Card and dissemination plan to provide resources about the State of California Family PACT Program. This program provides free, confidential services to teens for birth control and sexually transmitted infections. We are working with County Public Health and Marshall Medical Center on this project. This groups next meeting is July 17th also at the El Dorado County Office of Education. 6:30 for potluck snacks and social, followed by meeting start at 7pm.
6. We are considering planning a Local Town Hall Meeting and a Medical Education Program on Health Care Issues. This will be discussed at our next Work Group Meeting.
What is this “Progressive” you speak of?!
When August and Mihkel Kuuskvere created the Facebook page that now bears the name of our 501c4 non-profit, I doubt there was much debate about the term. Though I wasn’t sitting with them at that moment, I bet it went something like this. August: “Hey dad—we ought to make a Facebook Group for our coffee get-togethers. MIhkel: “Sure. Sounds good.” August: “What should we call it?” Mihkel: “How about El Dorado Progressives… is that taken?” August: “Nope.” And, with little more debate than that, we are forever tagged with the progressive brand.
So, what is that brand--what is a progressive? What does it mean to BE progressive? Though it’s tempting to take the coward’s way out and say, “I don’t know, but I know it when I see it”, I’ll instead attempt to provide some definition to the term, and provide some links to other opinions on the topic. In the end, maybe we’ll all be a little closer to having a definition of this mercurial political term.
If you Google the term progressive, you’ll get this: “Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of social reform. As a philosophy, it is based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition.” And really, that’s not too bad a definition, as far as it goes. I think our group could agree that we believe in progress, and we assert that advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition, but it seems to lack some essential elements that might separate us from Libertarians or people in an entry level position at a tech company. Some very important things seem to be missing from that definition.
American Progressivism has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not surprisingly, the excesses of the Gilded Age were fertile ground for a new political movement that rejected Social Darwinism and believed that the social ills of the time could be handled by a government dedicated to good education, a clean environment, and by organized labor acting as a check on the power of corporations. If that sounds familiar, it should—largely because we are living in a second Gilded Age. If Progressivism made sense then, it definitely makes sense now!
So now we have some good working definitions of the term Progressive, but there is still something missing—and I believe what’s missing is a set of values that sit at the core of Progressivism. To give El Dorado Progressives a center and a place of agreement, we sought out a set of values that encompassed what we stand for. Our search led us to What it Means to be Progressive: A Manifesto on ThinkProgress. This document gave us exactly what we were looking for—values and definitions. It proposed that Progressives believe in Freedom, Opportunity, Responsibility and Cooperation, and then defined what each of those mean. Freedom—remaining free from undue government encroachment into our personal lives and relationships. Opportunity—the belief that society should be organized to provide an equal opportunity for all and that opportunity requires things like education, health care, and a clean environment because they are the foundation upon which the potential of each citizen rests. Responsibility—the notion that if we have freedom and opportunity, we must have responsibility to be good stewards of those values, and that we must be responsible to ensure fairness in their application. Cooperation—the notion that we ARE the keepers of our fellow humans and that we can only have community and civilization by working together.
And there it is. Progressives fundamentally believe in progress, we cherish the historical precedent for our movement and the relevance it has to this day, and we share common values. For this to be a movement, what we need is action and people. Do these definitions, the history and values sound like they fit you? If so, join us. Make El Dorado Progressive.
Dark Money Corruption
We all instinctively know that Dark Money is corrupting our political process. Polls indicate that more than 80 percent of Americans, across all parties, are concerned about the effects of secret money. It’s not a partisan problem; it is a democracy problem. Many people like to say it was the Citizens United decision in 2010 that unleased billions of dollars in Dark Money into our elections, but corporations and the rich have actually been gaining the upper hand much longer than that.
And now we have a system where 95% of the time, the biggest spender in an election is the winner. These obscene expenditures are not just at the national level. It affects state and local elections of all types, even our judicial elections.
Not only do the voices of Special Interests matter more than individuals’ voices, but our corrupted system also leads to citizen paralysis. "Since the system is rigged, why bother trying to fix anything? Why bother to vote?"
What’s your favorite issue: healthcare, tax reform, climate change, workers’ rights, education? In all of these, the “rights” of Special Interests outweigh the concerns of the voters. Special Interests distort our elections, using their Secret Money to confuse and overwhelm voters.
Just one example: last year California’s Prop 61, which would lower prescription drug prices, was favored by more than 5 to 1 in early polling. Yet it lost, after $109 million was spent on ads by “Californians Against the Deceptive Rx Proposition.” So, who funded the money for this shadow group? Top three funders were Merck, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. Might voters have voted differently if they weren’t confused and misled by ads paid for by Big Pharma?
Don’t despair! There is a large pro-democracy movement taking hold across the country, from the reddest red rural areas to the bluest blue cities. Citizens are working hard to change our broken system, to put the rights of individuals above the privileges of the rich, corporations, unions, and super PACs.
Citizens are standing up for a variety of Clean Money issues: disclosure in political ads, campaign finance reform, reversing the Citizens United decision, ending corporate Personhood, and calling for a Constitutional Amendment to affirm that We, the People, govern America.
A variety of organizations are working diligently on these Clean Money initiatives, including California Clean Money Campaign, Move to Amend, American Promise, Money Out Voters In, Common Cause, Center for Responsive Politics, Issue One and many, many more.
So, don’t despair. And do get active. Some core issues require action from every single one of us. Getting Dark Money out of politics is one of those. As you invest your time working on your favorite issue, whether it’s healthcare reform, immigration reform, LGBT rights, or something else, include a few extra minutes in your week to make some calls, gather petition signatures, attend a local meeting or a phone conference meeting to learn more about getting rid of Dark Money. We can do this!