Jackson County Democratic Committee

It has been amazing watching the bills emerging from Jefferson City this week: A bill to repeal the state’s Minimum Wage Law, a bill to overturn Proposition B, and contentious hearings on Right to Work legislation in Missouri.

It is important to note that 2 of these proposals are a direct reversal of the voters. Both minimum wage and Proposition B were voted and approved by the voters. The hearings on so called right to work legislation echoes the gutting of workers’ rights all over the Midwest.

Friends it is important to realize that now is not the time to be attacking the middle class, now is the time to strengthen the middle class.

It began with Air Traffic Controllers in 1981, and systematically the Conservative establishment has spent the last 30 years driving a wedge between middle and upper class Americans. They should be ashamed of themselves. This is a case of class warfare pure and simple, and as an organized party we had better start talking about it.

I hear complaints from Democrats all of the time about “messaging” and “party discipline”, and “why isn’t the party doing this or that”.

We are the party. You are the party. What are you doing? Are you talking to your neighbors? Are you calling into the local radio shows and engaging them? Do you write letters to the editor of the newspapers? Do you vote in every election? These are all critical questions, and the responsibility for standing up for our values is a shared one.

In Jackson County we stand firmly with our brothers and sisters in the Labor Movement, our values are shared. The assault on Collective Bargaining in this country is disgusting. The fact that Americans seem willing to let outside forces control their collective destiny, is depressing. But we can do something about it. You can do something about it. We must all do our part, all of us. Will you join with the Jackson County Democrats in standing for the Middle Class?

Please call the Leadership of the House and Senate and tell them to “Stop Their Attacks on Missouri Families”.

Last night at the primary watch party, Congressman Cleaver reminded everyone that while primaries can leave people within the party bruised, bloodied, and irritated that we needed to “de-irritate” and focus on the tough but important races we have November.

It was worth repeating.

In the next couple of weeks, we will outline the competitive general races in Jackson County and how you can get involved.

Since the early days of the Bush mal-administration, I have been an active Democrat. I have fought to get bestial Republicans out of local office. You know the type: folks who grandstand in the state house about the evils of women in the workplace, or rail against the NEA, or plot to kill Social Security. Folks who get on the house floor and refer to the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression,” utter morons who can only get elected by tapping in to their constituents’ fears and prejudices.

I have given Democrats money that I earned doing Mr. Fix-it jobs on the side, and even dug into the limited household budget, because getting Republicans away from the levers of power was as important as paying the mortgage. My wife burned up her beloved laptop doing data-entry for the Obama campaign, and I have worn out a few pairs of shoes knocking doors for some excellent local candidates.

And in Novemeber 2008, after a long day working as an election judge at my local polling place, all the effort seemed to have paid off. We had a president with brains, we had the federal legislature, we were making progress on the state level. But now it’s early 2010.

Every time I look up, I read about Democrats turning tail because Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin or Eric Cantor or some other Wee-Publican said something harsh about us. I have seen my party allow the debate over keeping people alive in our clinics and hospitals get taken over by gun-toting thugs who get their marching orders from Grover Norquist and the insurance industry. I have seen our leaders hesitate to use our courts to prosecute terrorists–just as George Bush did!–because the propogandists at Fox and their associated far-right noise machine have screamed “weak on terror!” I have seen a pageant queen with the intellectual capacity of a flea call our party everything from socialist to fascist and become a media darling instead of a political pariah. I have seen the President I put so much hope in take a year to realize that the other party has no goal other than to bring him and his party down, no matter the shambles they make of the nation in the process.

I have almost seen enough.

If you want to keep me knocking doors, giving my hard-earned money, help run local campaigns, here’s what I need to see now:

Every time a Republican says “Democrat Party,” get in his face and make him call us by our right name: We are the DemocratIC Party, for God’s sake, because we believe in democratIC principles. It seems like a small thing, but if you can’t fight back on the little stuff like that, why should we think you can win a fight over health care or keeping Social Security. The Weepubs won’t give us respect until we force it from them.

Act like you don’t care about re-election. Our founders did not intend for you to stay in office forever, sucking on the public teat. Get in there, win the issues for the people you represent, and if you get sent back to the private sector for doing the right thing, so be it. But I tell you this: the more you prevaricate and triangulate, dodge and weave simply because you want to hold on to your office, the more likely it is that you will lose your position to the other party. People do not vote for spineless candidates. Stand up on two feet like a human being and fight for your principles, not your office. The reality is that you will hold your seat longer if you govern like every term is your last.

Never think you have an election in the bag. Let Massachussetts be a lesson burned into your brain. Work like hell to connect with your constituents every cycle.

Forget compromise. The modern Republican party has moved so far to the right that the by-gone, relatively sane GOP is effectively dead. It has been transformed into a party of tin-foil-hat religious zealots who beleive in bizarre conspiracy theories. It is not a party that you can any longer govern with co-operatively. Deal with it accordingly.

There are many other things activists want to see, but these are major areas of aggravation for me. I will stick to my guns and fight for you, this year. If you are a Democratic office holder, take this as a warning from one of the folks who love you: I have almost seen enough. And I am not the only one.

Andy Pickard
Jackson County Democratic Committeeman
Brookings Township
Raytown, Missouri