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Northeast Democratic Club PO Box 50672 Los Angeles, CA 90050-0672 (323)225-0501 E-mail: info@northeastdemocrats.org Meetings: Every third Wednesday of the Month El Arco Iris, 5684 York Ave Los Angeles 7:00pm
Board Members
Bill Rumble
President Liberty Mesa 1st Vice Presdent Carmela Gomes 2nd Vice President Ana Mascarenas 3rd Vice President Paul Habib Recording Secretary Mark Gonzalez Treasurer Dick Price & Sharon Kyle Corresponding Secretary/Newsletter Editors Mary Garripoli Past President | Welcome to the Northeast Democratic Club of Los Angeles! The NEDC serves Democrats in Northeast Los Angeles, including the communities of Cypress Park, Eagle Rock, El Sereno, Glassell Park, Highland Park, Hermon, Lincoln Heights, Montecito Heights, Monterey Hills, Mt. Washington, and others. Our Award-Winning Club  My wife, Carol, and I returned from the recent California Democratic Party convention via Highway 1. We ate dinner in Carmel and spent the night in Big Sur. Right outside of Pacific Grove, we passed the Asilomar Conference Grounds.For more than half a century, Californians have met here. In sheer historical significance, however, the most important meeting of all was held in 1953. State Senator George Miller, Jr., whom author Ethan Rarick called “…a gruff but brilliant political strategist…” invited Democratic Party leaders and activists to a conference entitled “What’s Wrong with the Democratic Party in California?” Democrats were incredibly frustrated. Only one Democrat had been elected governor in the previous half century. All but one state-wide office was held by Republicans. The cross-filing system, a radical, open primary system, resulted in numerous Republicans defeating Democrats in our own primary elections. Despite the formation of dozens of Stevenson Clubs in 1952, GOP presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower had carried California handily. The conferees were adamant that Republican voters’ discipline and the weakness of formal party structures were responsible for the GOP’s dominance of California politics. They resolved to break the Republican stranglehold. They created the California Democratic Council, a state-wide umbrella organization which would spearhead the formation of Democratic clubs throughout the state. Read the rest ...   Northeast Democratic Club Endorsements  At its March meeting held this past Wednesday, the Northeast Democratic Club unanimously endorsed by voice vote unopposed candidates serving our immediate area:US House of Representatives—District 31: Congressman Xavier Becerra State Senate, District 21: Former Assembly Member Carol Liu Assembly, District 44: Assembly Member Anthony Portantino Assembly. District 45: Assembly Member Kevin DeLeón We also endorsed the following candidates by secret ballot, with the endorsed candidates needing 60% of the votes to win endorsement: Assembly, District 46: John Perez Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, District 2: State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas Judge of the Superior Court, Office 69: Havey Silberman Judge of the Superior Court, Office 95: Patricia Nieto We deeply appreciate the time and energy of the candidates who debated and answered Club member questions: Carol Liu, John Perez, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Bernard Parks, Harvey Silberman, Cynthia Loo, Thomas Robinson, Patricia Nieto, and Lance Winters. Next month’s meeting returns to El Arco Restaurant after our enjoyable visit to La Casa Blue and may feature additional endorsement debates. Read the rest ... Year Six  by Mary Lyon19 March 2008 The woman stammered. She obviously knew she was still on the air and had to maintain her composure. But it was clear to anyone's ear that she was having a difficult time. Her voice clouded with emotion as she struggled to tell the talk show host and his audience of her story, as a mom whose son was in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. She hadn't heard from him in weeks. She had just written him an email - "Son, I haven't heard from you in a long time. Are you okay?" And amazingly, she was able to get through that recounting without crying. I had a harder time. And hey, I have no horse in this race. I AM a mom, however, so in one respect, I have thousands of horses and other beloveds in it. Almost four thousand of them returning to me in long neatly-wrapped, patriotically-covered boxes (because, as we all know but still aren't allowed to see) the wrapping paper on these boxes is always an American flag. We do know that the wrapping paper eventually gets folded up in the finest military precision and handed to the grieving survivor - usually a widow or a mother - as a consolation prize. A party favor to take away from the big event. A lovely parting gift. I'm sure the frantic mom on the radio was terrified at the prospect of being one of those graveside mourners. Wowee - she'd have a front-row seat, too. My heart could only sob for her in her nightmarish uncertainty. But you won't see much of this examined in the media, even while talking heads are talking about it on this Iraq War anniversary day. The war coverage, and its true cost, have been thoughtfully sanitized for your protection. And it's still going on that way, even while public opposition to the war has grown substantially. I can remember seeing exactly ONE such funeral. It was early-on. Maybe somebody at the TV station or the parent network hadn't gotten the memo yet. Read the rest ... Our Joshua  by Mary Lyon18 March 2008 "I may not get there with you..." So said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., once upon a time, talking about a figurative Promised Land that he himself would indeed never reach. It was a Moses reference, with the Promised Land in this case being the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave - in its most perfect form, evolved, open, transcendent, every inch the land of opportunity for ALL - not just those well-heeled, well-positioned, or exclusively white-skinned. It was a portrait of a Promised Land that he envisioned for everyone in the dream he had for America. Moses never made the transition to the Biblical Promised Land with his people. It was left to Joshua to lead the Israelites there. Perhaps we in early 21st-Century America have our own latter-day Joshua, finally? Or at least the hint of one? I suspect the younger ones among us will someday point to the Philadelphia speech of Barack Obama as their latter-day version of the "I Have a Dream" speech. This will have become a watershed moment that signifies a leap forward. It will render all those yammering empty-heads, fear-mongers, and hatred-hawks - who insist on obsessing on selected clips of Pastor Wright in full-eruption mode - suddenly passe, so yesterday, so last century or more, so pitiful, small, and small-minded. It's as though they can't make the leap. Their feet, like their minds, are fixed and fixated, embedded in a sociological concrete, leaving them unable to rise to the next level. They'll forever be philosophical groundlings, as though evolution did not allow them to transcend their lizard phase and sprout wings or sailing skins. We all certainly could go there and wallow in that, Obama said. And the Swiftboat 2.0 crowd surely will. But if they insist on embracing the past, the old, the stale, the obsolete, the increasingly irrelevant, fine. Let them. And let's leave them there, where they're sadly comfortable. The rest of us need not join them. There were many reasons why I loved Barack Obama's speech about "a more perfect union." Read the rest ... The Winter Soldier Returns  by Dick Price8 March 2008 In 1971, a group of veterans—current Massachusetts Senator John Kerry prominent among them—staged a protest called “Winter Soldier” that helped end the Vietnam War but that also unfairly saddled the Democrats with a “soft on defense” label that dogged the Party for decades. Today, a new generation of antiwar veterans similarly hopes to help end the Iraq War with its own Winter Soldier protest. But with “Certified War Hero” John McCain heading the Republican presidential ticket, the question already arises whether Democrats will once again suffer at the polls for years to come for ending another unjust, unwise, and immoral war. In his first-time political campaign for a city council post in a suburb south of Los Angeles, Iraq War veteran Tim Goodrich (pictured) might help answer that question. Read the rest ... Keep Your Eyes on the Prize  by Bill Rumble8 March 2008 Remember February 5, 2008? A spirited contest for the Democratic nomination for president resulted in a record turnout of voters in the California presidential primary. Hillary Clinton won a majority of those voters. But exit polls revealed that a large majority of California Democrats were pleased about the choice they had between Clinton and her opponent, Senator Barack Obama, and would happily vote for either one in the November general election. How things have changed since then! Exit polls taken in the states of Texas and Ohio after the primaries of March 4 find that only 40% of those Democrats who strongly support either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama are certain that they will support the opposing candidate if she or he should win the party’s nomination. Why the stunning turnaround? Read the rest ... Northeast Democratic Club's March Meeting  Join Northeast DemocratsMarch Endorsement Meeting Wednesday, March 19, 7 p.m. La Casa Blue 5930 York Boulevard, Los Angeles (Highland Park) Note the location for this meeting only! Candidate panel session and endorsements planned for State Senate District 21; Assembly Districts 44, 45, and 46; Supervisor District 2; and Superior Court Judges for Offices 82, 94, and 95. Blind, and with Vision  Mary Lyon13 March 2008 Can we clone David Paterson? Granted, most of the country is only starting to get to know New York's incoming governor, but perhaps that's an indication of just how desperate these times are. At least for Democrats. Everywhere else, it's a mess. The campaign that started out on such positive, lofty notes, and an entire stage-ful of mature, statesmanlike candidates offering confidence, hope, and a better way of solving the country's problems and leading America away from Wrong-Track Republican policies has devolved into a pie-fight worthy of the Three Stooges. It's not just Obama versus Clinton, either. We have a former vice presidential hopeful with her entire leg inserted in her mouth while defiantly ripping the scabs off slowly-healing wounds left over from generations of discrimination. Then, there are the squabbling party leaders in Florida and Michigan who insist they have a right to get back into the game after they willfully spit in the eyes of the referees, tore up the rule book, and stomped off the field months ago. Read the rest ... They Impeach Democrats, Don’t They?  Mary Lyon12 March 2008 There are double standards and then there are double standards. One of the latest ones is as obvious as a punch in the nose. Geraldine Ferraro’s comments about Barack Obama - how he wouldn’t be where he is now if he weren’t black - are painfully obvious. Ouch. Their undercurrent is a raw nerve in the American psyche. It’s been one of the most talked-about stories of Mississippi Primary Day. All over the place, from radio to TV to the net and back again. But that’s just it. At least it’s being talked about. We’re openly gnashing our teeth and rending our garments and everyone understands, and understands why. Racism, the expression of it, and the miscommunication about it, is broadly acknowledged for its gravity as a painful problem across the country. Call it P.C., call it whatever. At least it’s out there on the table and openly dissected, recognized as the most glaring shortcoming we collectively still just haven’t quite gotten over. But we have evolved as a society to the extent that we’re speaking about it in all company, polite or not. On the other hand, there’s another double standard that remains stuck in the back of the bus. No one wants to look at it, speak of it, deal with it in any way, or recognize it as a serious skeleton of injustice in our closets. It’s the matter of impeachment, specifically impeaching Republicans. It seems we just don’t dare go there. Granted, it’s a relatively recent imbalance compared to many generations of gnawing race issues, but its obviously lopsided inequality is still well worth noting. Read the rest ... Assistant Majority Leader Kevin de León Proudly Announces Carol Jacques as Woman of the Year  Assistant Majority Leader Kevin de León is proud to announce his choice for the California State Legislature “Woman of the Year”, Carol Jacques.The California State Assembly hosts the Woman of the Year ceremony annually to recognize outstanding women who have made significant contributions to communities across California. Once an uprooted resident, “Una desterrada” of Chavez Ravine, Carol is now a powerful community voice for Los Angeles. Carol retired from Los Angeles County, in 2002, after 33 years of service. At retirement, she was the head of the Civil Service Advocacy Unit of the Probation Department. During her Career with the county, Carol was a founding member and co-chair of the Los Angeles County Health Alliance, a Founding member and the first elected woman president of Los Angeles County Chicano Employees’ Association. Carol was a former president and is the current Vice President of the city of Los Angeles’ El Pueblo Historic Monument Board of Commissioners. The 44-acre Historic site is the home to the world-famous Olvera Street, several museums and over 10,000 historical artifacts that attract over two million visitors a year. Carol is also a member of the Advisory Board of the East LA Community Corporation, a group that advocates for affordable housing. Her community involvement also includes being the Curator of the “Wish You Were Here” art show at the Bamboo Lane Gallery, in China Town as well the “Los Angels 2000” Latino Art Show presented at the Olvera Street Art Gallery for the Democratic Party National Convention of 2000. She's been a Board Member for the Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council, President of the Mount Washington Association and past chair and member of the board of directors of the Art in the Park program in Los Angeles. Carol resides in the Los Angeles community of Mount Washington with her husband Bill Rumble. She has three adult children. “It is a great honor to announce Carol Jacques as my choice for the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year. Carol is a stellar and inspiring individual who has been a true voice for our community and I am proud to name her Woman of the Year,” Assemblyman de León said. Read the rest ... |
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