As I begin to formalize and detail the issues we are all facing as 2023 comes to a close, the CNN ticker reads…
“ICELAND VOLCANO ERUPTS AFTER WEEKS OF EARTHQUAKES”
Let that sink in for a minute…
How much more can we take? Are we equipped to handle or manage any more of what we have already somehow withstood in the last few years?
What do our leaders do? What do Representatives do? What do communities, citizens, and neighbors do? What are we all going to do, and how can we equip ourselves for the best chance for success? Will we be able to pursue the local, day-to-day concerns like crime, inflation, or taxes when such broad foundational issues overwhelm the narrative instead?
I will start here…
rr With the existential risks our planet and environment face, risks our humanity faces with technology’s blinding speed and progress, and even our country’s risk to it's very own democracy, this is the reason I’m running for office.
As I go door-to-door, in some of the most compelling and sincere moments I’ve had, this is clear. We have lost trust in our elected officials. Corruption has crossed party lines and seeped into our society in insipid ways. But commonality still exists, and I see it across the boards, neighbor after neighbor.
However it certainly is not a good sign that Congressmen, Senators, even our Supreme Court Justices are at least all guilty of the appearance of improprieties, if not much worse, like in the case of our former “President”.
Corruption, like a shadow finds itself in all corners of American society.
This is the first, obvious, and necessary step. Taking as much money out of politics as possible will help repair the broken trust we have with our elected officials. The more we remove money from the equation, the more we will believe the system will help us and act as it’s supposed to do in faithfully addressing our most genuinely held beliefs and concerns.
Then, and only then, will we realize we are being used as pawns, pitting us against each other in the ceaseless pursuit of money and votes to sustain the careers of politicians, their special interests, and their unquenchable thirst for power.
We are not enemies, and we will never be…except for those who need to divide us to win and tear down our democracy in order to rule over its ashes.
This is entirely and fundamentally Un-American.
You know whom I’m referring to… Politicians care nothing about this country and its promise unless money and special interests dictate it to do so, even if it means profiting from its own destruction. The cowards in Congress who allow this to happen enable the news media to be an arm of propaganda, obliterating truth in the name of riches and ratings.
Anti-corruption laws go unenforced by a Federal Elections Commission hopelessly mired in gridlock and unwilling to do its job as BOTH parties embrace an ever-escalating political arms race. (Issue One- Penniman/Ratliff)
It must stop.
This broken campaign finance system gives undue influence to lobbyists, special interests, and the wealthiest Americans, while the majority of Americans lack a seat at the table…thinking their country will never again prove itself loyal to their values. (Issue One- Penniman/Ratliff)
In defunding politics, we will welcome back democrats, republicans, and independents alike to America’s identity and ideals, and America will prove itself worthy of being called the UNITED States again.
This is why I’m not asking for money, only your vote.
Winning an election isn’t necessarily everything, either. Success will make it easier in the future for someone else to conduct a campaign similarly. That would be truly groundbreaking and would resonate in ways I cannot even predict.
If any or all of this is linked, and I believe it is, we cannot ignore the dangers we are facing with technology’s inexorable march toward the future and the serious risks A.I. is posing while we are trying to come to grips with the necessary balance of humanity and progress. If money becomes the deciding factor in this, I’m afraid we face a very dark world. Regulating the Internet, social media, and AI must go hand in hand with repairing the divide I’ve mentioned above. There’s no other choice. We must succeed.
These times are a philosophical and sociological reckoning.
Many have suggested a pause, and if it’s not dissimilar to the efforts in cloning in the 1990s, we must pause again because this time, it is clear we are really on the cusp of cloning humans, and there are scientists right now who believe we may have already allowed A.I. to become sentient.
The existential threat to humanity in this way has endangered truth itself. We are clearly at a crossroads, and if our elected officials aren’t engaged in this absolute priority, they are not fit to be called leaders at all. They are allowing truth to become an endangered species and reality to be a commodity that can be sold to the highest bidder.
We must balance a beneficial, positive and sober outlook with technology’s attendant global risks to reach a clear-eyed view of the absolute necessity of alignment, containment and proliferation before it becomes too big to control.
If there is any real existential risk, it is this. I still remember days as a kid being able to take a deep breath to see if my lungs hurt, to know if it was really a nice day or not.
I know this country and California have done a lot since then to improve our environment, but we can’t afford to slow down.
Through the Biden Administration’s efforts, and in particular the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S., has made the largest investment ever in reducing U.S. emissions, accelerating the clean energy economy and protecting communities from climate impact, creating jobs, and building a more secure and sustainable future.
Political coalitions, here and abroad, must be forged in order for our efforts to last beyond election cycles and strengthen our commitment to addressing the dire situation our planet faces.
Nearly 200 countries convened by the United Nations in Dubai for the 28th climate change conference (COP28) approved a milestone plan to ramp up renewable energy in an effort to address climate crisis.
The sweeping global pact “transitioning us away from fossil fuels” comes during the hottest year in recorded history.
It calls for nations to triple the amount of renewable energy like wind and solar power by 2030.
So if there are signs of improvement in the area of our climate, though we’ve needed this much sooner, we can't afford to let up. Scientists say,
“Nations would have to slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent this decade if they hope to limit total global warming to 1.5 degrees, and avoiding the inability to adapt to rising sea, wildfires, extreme storms and drought.” (New York Times- Plumer/Bearak)
To achieve this goal, Congress has approved hundreds of billions of dollars to adopt and manufacture clean energy technologies like solar panels, electric vehicles, and heat pumps that would help curb the world’s appetite for oil, coal and natural gas.
Other technologies like nuclear energy, hydrogen power and carbon capture, utilization and storage can be used to help transition us to a carbon-neutral economy.
After the agreement in Dubai was reached, John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, said countries could still work together.
“In a world of Ukraine and Middle East war and all the other challenges of a planet that is foundering, this is a moment where multilateralism has come together, and people have taken individual interests and attempted to define the common good.” Kerry said.
I am glad we’ve had Congressman Brad Sherman acting with urgency on behalf of our District and the climate crisis, and I commend his sponsorship of The Green New Deal and Climate Emergency Act, which requires the President to declare a national climate emergency and take further steps to quell the crisis.
His 100 percent rating from the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters proves he’s been on the right side of one of America’s, and the world’s top priorities.
I would be proud if I could follow in his footsteps, protecting our local environment too, by protecting the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, ending drilling off the California Coast, as well as empowering the EPA to protect our groundwater, which cracks down on the practice of fracking.
Let’s encourage even more responsible and urgent behavior on behalf of the environment, whoever becomes the next representative of CA District 32.
The list of issues and responsibilities of a U.S. Representative is seemingly endless and continues to grow in both number and imperative. I see the lines beginning to blur between what are local and national issues into the broader concept of what’s best for the people of the District as a whole.
When I was in my 20s, I went door-to-door for Greenpeace. It was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. As a shy young man, it was almost unthinkable that I would have to knock on total stranger’s doors and engage them on issues with which they may or may not have sympathized.
An older Englishman gentleman became a sort of mentor. He helped me by saying the quicker you made your point, the more appreciative people would be and the more efficient the whole process would be as well. The sooner you’d be on to your next door, increasing your chances of support and success.
In this vein, I’m going to try and get through more of the incredibly important issues we are facing with a little more alacrity, but without sacrificing significance.
Sexual and reproductive rights mean you should be able to make your own decisions about your body and get accurate information about these issues, access sexual and reproductive services, including contraception, choose if, when, or who to marry, and decide if you want to have children and how many.
Overturning Roe v. Wade was and is a symptom of a problem that goes beyond depriving women of the freedom to choose what is right for them without the government interfering, which is alarming and unacceptable enough on its own. It is a ruling that goes against how the majority of people feel on this issue and is, therefore, entirely illiberal and undemocratic.
The imbalance in the Senate, along with a politicized SCOTUS, is how America has betrayed representative government and catastrophically ruled against women’s rights they’ve had for a half-century.
With the slim one-vote majority it has, the Senate is comprised such that this majority amounts to representing about 40 million more people than the minority does. 40 million people whose rights and beliefs are being circumvented.
The greatest deliberative body is no such entity. It does not represent what citizens want.
This imbalance and betrayal translate to the SCOTUS as well.
The irrefutable fact is that the majority of voters wanted Al Gore to be President in 2000. With that election, they voted for him to have 2 Supreme Court picks. With Barack Obama’s presidency, the electorate ultimately wanted him to have 3 picks. And finally, the majority of voters wanted Hillary Clinton to have 2 picks of her own.
The simple math shows SCOTUS should be 7-2 instead of 3-6 in its makeup representing the will of the people, instead of the imbalance it is comprised of currently.
The Supreme Court does NOT represent what America wants, and I consider it illegitimate in the way it is comprised and how it has ruled and skirted issues of ethics and corruption of its own.
Appointing justices with lifetime terms whom the majority of people do not support is of grave consequence and need of remedy and redress.
Unfortunately, the same injustice and imbalance in the Senate and Supreme Court described above is what prevents and disables government the ability to enact sensible gun laws. We need to ban assault weapons once again, but politicians are too weak and corrupt to support what the majority of Americans want. They’re bought and paid for and in the NRA’s pocket.
We also need much stricter background checks, red flag laws, and to close loopholes allowing guns to get in the wrong hands.
I agree with Republicans that mental illness is a factor in all of this. America has a gun fetish, and it’s that fetish that is the mental illness! It is grotesque.
Republicans, or anyone cowardly and corrupt enough, to do nothing about our gun epidemic is an accomplice to murder when weapons of war are used to kill innocent people like they are in mass shootings.
It really is simple. Rifles for hunting or handguns for one's own protection are part of the 2nd Amendment I support.
However, if you want or think you need an assault weapon, you are deranged. Deranged people should never have these weapons. This is the sickness. It's as simple as that.
The Electoral College is a relic, antiquated system, and is the main reason we are in the quagmire we find ourselves.
In the 2016 election, 46% of the electorate didn’t vote. 27% voted for Hillary Clinton, and 2% voted for a third party candidate. Add those together and it amounts to 75% of the electorate who DID NOT vote for Donald Trump.
A REAL American president would have realized this and humbly vowed to win back support, even if it was just a single vote every day, for the benefit of our country over party. NOT Donald Trump! He thought he was king. This could not be further from the truth. His soul is bankrupt.
No one on earth responds to and respects the anchor of America’s political identity, and the belief in the mission of the U.S. in the world to promote democracy by wanting to know more about the Electoral College. It is outmoded and ridiculous.
“It is time to get rid of the Electoral College…it is no longer a constructive force in American Politics…” (Darrel M. West- Brookings)
We cannot afford another election where the person losing the popular vote is declared the winner again. It puts undue strain on our society and contradicts everything America stands for in the world.
Congress nearly eradicated the Electoral College in 1934, falling just two votes short of passage and in 1979 by three votes. We need to strengthen and modernize our representative democracy sooner than later.
“It is time to move ahead with abolishing the Electoral College before its clear failures undermine public confidence in American democracy, distort the popular will, and create a constitutional crisis.” (Darrel M. West- Brookings)
Since 2008, 15 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), which is a multi-state agreement to commit electors to vote for candidates who win the nation wide popular vote, even if that candidate loses the popular vote within their state.
Should the NPVIC ever gain enough electoral votes to go into effect, it will certainly face constitutional challenges from there.
But many countries have made necessary changes to their Constitutions in the pursuit of better government, and so has America.
However, Gerrymandering our electoral landscapes, and in so doing having candidates picking voters, as opposed to voters picking our candidates is a betrayal of the Constitution and of America’s principles.
With our District in mind, what may be needed for one neighborhood might not be exactly what is needed for another. I think it is important to consider our district’s different areas in considering our local priorities.
For instance, what applies to Northridge might not apply to Malibu, and likewise what Reseda considers important Bel-Air might not.
A study distinguishing crime and inflation data from neighborhood to neighborhood seems especially warranted.
Studies like this similarly have shown using cross-national data that the relationship between crime and the economy found that higher rates of inflation had significant effects on homicide, robbery and burglary rates in European nations and the United States.
Regardless of what the FED does to help our current monetary situation, the most important action Congress, state legislature, and local governments can take when prices and crime are both rising is to adequately fund public safety. Strategic spending on culturally responsive and evidence-supported practices will strengthen and protect our district. (Howard Henderson- The Hill)
Legislation like the Invest to Protect Act focuses on providing police the necessary resources for recruitment, retention, equipment and mental health services needed for the success, safety and wellbeing of our communities too. (National Sheriffs’ Assoc.- Skinner)
Additionally, supporting small business, adding funding in healthcare, education, and infrastructure, as well as increasing the minimum wage and ensuring a livable wage will also have a long-term positive effect on our safety and security.
Ultimately, there may be an encouraging story emerging that is supporting how inflation is decreasing, along with positive job numbers and a vibrant stock market; crime is also down. Maybe people aren’t willing to accept this yet, with social media seemingly contradicting the narrative.
“Crime in the United States has declined significantly over the last year, according to new FBI data that contradicts a widespread national perception that law-breaking and violence are on the rise.” (Ken Dilanian- NBC News).
So, it seems that inflation and crime are again proving the effects one has on the other.
For a number of reasons, going into an election year, I hope the good news continues to get better.
A recent New York Times poll asked voters about what issues their vote would be based on found that 57% of respondents said jobs, taxes and cost of living versus 29% saying it was abortion, guns and democracy.
In America, 34 million people and 1 in 7 children live in poverty. 30 million people are without insurance while 1 in 4 can’t afford their prescriptions.
Passing the Raise the Wage Act in 2024 would mean raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour for 40 million Americans. The fact is no one working full time in the wealthiest country in the world should suffer in poverty.
America’s economy needs to work for all of us, and not just the top 1%.
We need to fight to create a better world based on principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice.
Those principles include the fight against Wall Street greed, expanding social security, capping credit card and interest rates, along with a tax system requiring the largest corporations to pay their fair share.
These goals and solutions should go hand-in-hand with the efforts to combat monopolies wherever they exist, be it in corporate America, the media or the Internet.
We need to hold all media companies responsible for providing content that serves the public and offers a diverse range of opinions.
The FCC needs to ensure we keep small, local and independent voices in areas short on local news and substantive journalism.
We must promote competition in cable television and thereby insure “Net neutrality” the idea that everyone has unfettered access to the same information on the Internet.
Also, with the COVID pandemic that forced people to continue working from home we must ensure every American has access to affordable high-speed Internet. Expanding high speed Internet ensures that we can participate fully in education, business development and healthcare.
As a union member for 40 years, and in the last 15 years as a council member at the Director’s Guild, I fought strongly to increase wages, expand residuals, and not just keep up with cost of living increases but to exceed them.
The continuing strength of union labor is a crucial component in the fight to protect and expand worker’s rights, including the right to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages.
California’s battle should also remain a fight against becoming a “right to work” state, and anything that weakens our union labor efforts in the process.
In 1965, the United States took an important step towards universal health care by passing the Medicare program into law. Guaranteeing comprehensive health benefits for Americans over 65has proven to be enormously successful and popular.
Now is the time to improve and expand Medicare for all.
Right now, the United States is the only major nation in the world that does not provide health care for every man, woman and child as a right. We spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other major country, yet our health outcomes in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality and disease prevention are not nearly as good.
Last year, 1 in 4 Americans skipped needed medical care because they could not afford it. It is simply unacceptable that thousands of people die each year because they do not have health insurance and do not get to a doctor on time.
A single-payer system would provide comprehensive, cost-effective health care for every person in America. People would no longer have to choose between a myriad of complicated private insurance plans, which may not cover their needs, or be forced on to a plan that is prohibitively expensive because of the lack of alternatives.
Government would be able to negotiate drug prices. The solution to this health care crisis is to guarantee health care as a right through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system.
America’s promise has always included the support of people in their search for a better life and the freedom this country has granted to those it has welcomed to its shores. It has inspired generations across the globe to reach for possibilities in a quest for what’s attainable, not the other way around, by vitriol and venom against our better traits and long standing character.
“Poisoning the blood of our country” is a shameful, destructive, and abject failure of humanity to those who’d utter such evil nonsense. It is purely and entirely disqualifying.
This language only serves to give license or permission to be the worst example of themselves, and contradicts everything for which America has always stood. THIS language has poisoned our country!
For decades, Republicans and Democrats alike have treated the border like a political football. It is career gamesmanship and must be seen as unacceptable anywhere it exists.
We demand solutions not stunts in the way we reform our immigration system. Increasing investment in border security, smart technology, and more personnel to process growing number of immigrants will encourage bi-partisan success rather than benefitting from the other side’s failure. No one wins this way.
Guaranteeing and providing pathways to citizenship allows a legal way to fill labor shortages in key California industries like agriculture, oil and gas, and manufacturing and meets the needs of families, our communities and economy.
Congress needs coalitions, collaboration and compromise to fix our border crisis, even if tied to other geo-political concerns like Ukraine and Taiwan in vigilance to the delicate balance imposed by Russia and China respectively.
American success is not a partisan issue!
Last but certainly not least in significance, urgency or its ever-changing circumstances, the plight of homelessness is made complicated by the difficulties in defining it, as much as in prescribing solutions.
It is a topic that encompasses many aspects, from the economy to healthcare, wages and jobs.
Increases in minimum wage, livable wages and the topic of Universal Basic Income seem to all have a part in the discussion of responsible solutions.
California makes up nearly 50% of the entire U.S. homeless population while making up only 12% of the population. 170,000 unhoused people live here with 2/3 of them experiencing mental health symptoms.
Just paying the rent will not help them either, when not enough affordable permanent housing is available, in the first place, not to mention complexities of mental healthcare and drug related difficulties obscuring simpler solutions.
California has, in recent years, suffered devastating wildfire seasons and, of course, the COVID pandemic. Both put extra pressure on housing. 84% of Californians say they think homelessness is a “very serious problem.”
A total of $20.6 billion has been allocated through 2024 to combat homelessness. Nearly $4 billion went to local governments to spend on anti-homelessness initiatives. $3.7 billion went to a program called Project Homekey, which also funds local governments, but specifically to buy properties like motels and commercial buildings to turn into permanent, affordable housing.
With the need of 2.5 million more homes, the state does have a plan to build them all by 2030.
In Los Angeles, the epicenter of the homeless crisis, the issue dominated the mayoral race last year and, Karen Bass, declared a state of emergency on homelessness on her very first day in office. She launched a program called Inside Safe, to clear street encampments.
Some politicians might be more interested in the window dressing of removing people off the street, into shelters or a motel, rather than actually into permanent housing.
The 2023-2024 city budget includes $250 million for Inside Safe. $110 million will be used to pay for temporary motels. $21 million will be used for permanent housing.
Los Angeles can follow suit, by implementing drug testing and treatment as a prerequisite for receiving services. Like San Francisco is essentially doing by adopting a more conservative, holistic approach to homelessness – it is one that balances compassion with accountability.
Many cities around the United States with significant homeless populations also have large numbers of low-income renters, people of color and immigrants. This is the predicament of a failure of American society and maybe apathy and atrophy envisioning solutions as a whole.
Women and children account for 34% of the unhoused population, while Black families disproportionately represent 43% of the unhoused.
This is why the National Coalition for the Homeless and the Justice Action Mobilization Network are launching an unprecedented national grassroots campaign to end homelessness, long-term unemployment, and poverty. The Bring America Home Now Campaign calls for dramatically expanding federal funding for affordable housing, living-wage jobs, and comprehensive social services.
The campaign will promote progressive initiatives that have become part of the mainstream conversation and would apply to all Americans, such as single-payer universal health insurance and a universal livable income indexed to the cost of housing.
Homelessness in America is the most visible sign that we have prioritized giving tax breaks to the rich and have accepted gross income inequality between rich and poor.
This all goes against our better nature, and warrants attention to address at levels we all know at our core, to end homelessness in the richest state and country in the world.
If I could just call for a ceasefire and an end to the devastation and annihilation we see in Gaza right now, I would. But, along with every other issue detailed here, it’s far from as simple as that.
Without any doubt, America must repeatedly clarify our commitment to democratic values at home and abroad, prioritizing diplomacy and working with our allies to avoid military conflict around the world.
This also applies especially to Ukraine and Taiwan, and how the dynamics directly involve our tenuous relationships with China and Russia.
As impossible as a two state solution seems to be in Israel, why is that we don’t hear anything like “A one globe” solution instead?
I suppose that sounds naïve. But I don’t want to lose sight of this. Have we given up? Have we admitted defeat in the bigger picture? Have we grown incapable of envisioning a more utopian world, even in the slightest bit?
I hope not.
If this is disqualifying in any way to me, so be it.
As intractable and intricate a predicament this has always seemed to be, I still cannot accept that religions are what make vicious dogmas out of a quest for empathy and understanding.
The only thing that does this in a similar way, making enemies of our fellow earthlings, is money.
Maybe our future, with technology’s most promising outcome, will help advance our plight.
Unfortunately, the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act’s amendment to cut military spending by 10% failed, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the military-industrial complex, while neglecting healthcare, education, housing and “the boiling planet,” as Bernie Sanders put it.
Will we continue spending trillions on wars half way around the world, or provide decent jobs to millions of unemployed Americans at home? Will we continue to spend more on nuclear weapons than childcare and healthcare for Americans in need?
I’ll close for now by saying, I’d like to think of something like, “a wide awakening” in the near future, that truly and forever resets humankind’s course for the better on this planet.
Until then…
“Sanity is possible. Wisdom is possible. Love and compassion and gratitude are possible. It is possible to render one’s thoughts about the past and future so that the beauty of the present shines through.”
(Sam Harris- Making Sense)