We've decided to use Facebook as our new social media tool, so this blog probably won't be updated in the future.  Just go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/nationwarasota/ to see our recent activity. As you can see, that web address contains "warasota' instead of "sarasota." Use it as shown. I'm told one can't correct the original typo in the web address.

Cheers!

Tom Walker
nationtalk@gmail.com

Welcome to all. We are working on making this our central location for news and posts by all of our members. We invite you all to contribute your ideas, articles, emails and the like. If you think it will be pertinent and interesting to the group, we'd love to see it.

If you want to become a contributor to our blog, contact Tom Walker (tom@watsonwalker.com) or Jerry Zezas (jzezas@hotmail.com) and we will give you access.

The meeting today was a great success.  We had over sixty people.  The next meeting of this extended group will be in three months, but our regular first and third Thursday and first Monday meetings will continue.  The idea here is to build a coalition of groups and people to fix some of the probems noted today about the economy, the military, health, the environment, and our democracy.

Double-click on the photos to make them larger.

Congratulations to our leader Joe on his 100th birthday!

We're meeting at a different location on January 3rd, 2013.  For just this one date our "first Thursday" meeting will be at 10am at the Herald Tribune building - in their meeting room - at 1741 Main Street in Sarasota, rather than at the library.  We are calling the meeting "OBAMA WON - NOW WHAT?"

We'll discuss the economy, the military, the environment, health and our political system.  Join us to help determine a strategy for progressives in Obama's second term.

The first Thursday meeting in JULY (July 5, 2012 at 10am, downtown Selby Library) will feature Gene Jones of the Florida Veterans for Common Sense.  That group's site is 

http://floridaveteransforcommonsense.org/cs/

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The first Monday meeting (July 2 at 6pm in the downtown Bradenton Library) will be about IRAN. I'll talk about my trip there last year and we'll discuss this complex problem.

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The August first Thursday meeting (August 2 at 10am, downtown Selby Library) will have Wade Matthews speaking about proposed Florida constitutional amendment #8.  He is the VP of the Sarasota-Manatee chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  This is the amendment wording:

Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution providing that no individual or entity may be denied, on the basis of religious identity or belief, governmental benefits, funding, or other support, except as required by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and deleting the prohibition against using revenues from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.

See http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Florida_Religious_Freedom,_Amendment_8_(2012)

In June we had as a guest Sonia Fuentes who gave an excellent talk entitled "The Problems That Remain - Continuing Issues in Women's RIghts."  Sonia is a long-time advocate and organizer in this field, and her website is 
erraticimpact.com/fuentes.

Catching up

Since I last posted, we've started having an additional meeting in Bradenton, this time in the evening, at 6pm.  It's on the first Monday of each month at the downtown Bradenton library, second floor.  


On May 7 in Bradenton we heard from Adam Trebrugge.  He has filed to run against Jim Boyd for the Florida House of Representatives, District 71.  


On June 4 in Bradenton we'll have Henry Raines and Robyn Davis from the Henry Raines morning talk show, 1490AM.


On May 3rd on Sarasota we heard from Jim Delgado, a local attorney, who spoke about detention and immigration.  Jim started as a public defender and is still an advocate for the Latin and farmworker communities.  


On June 7th, at 10am in Sarasota, the speaker will be Sonia Fuentes who will talk about the history and future of women's rights.  

Joe's speech

This speech was given by Joe Newman November 28th, 2011 to the Manatee Democrats.  It's worth reading.

My name is Joe Newman and just to get this information behind us let me tell you that if I make it for another 50 days I will be 99 years old.   And I say that only to be able to tell you that I pulled a Democrat lever in a voting booth before many of you were even born.  And because I was raised in a family where politics was the main topic of conversation I feel right at home talking politics during the dinner hour.   One of my fondest memories dates back to a night in November 1948, sitting with my boss and listening to election reports on the radio, drinking toasts

and shouting “to hell with Dewey.” 

    Why am I writing?   Because I am also the chairperson for the Nation Discussion Group of Bradenton/Sarasota, a group of liberal thinkers who meet monthly to discuss political issues, - and we are concerned.    When the Nation magazine, from which we take our name, was first published in 1865, one of the stated objectives in its prospectus was;  “the maintenance and diffusion of true democratic principles in society and government, and the advocacy of whatever in legislation or in manners seems likely to promote a more equal distribution of the fruits of progress and civilization.”    We are concerned, not only with the way the election might go but also with the way the country is going

     We too are victims of the dysfunction.   We have seen the poll numbers as you have, and - we worry.    We know that many of us, the Nations Group and others like us, contribute to that worry.   Many of us feel that compromise has been offered too readily and concession too often and yes promises unfulfilled.   I, for one, was among those who teared up  when Obama spoke at Grant Park on election night, I tear up now when I think of the principles that have perished.   We will not vote Republican, but must we vote Democrat just from fear?   Can we recover the fervor we felt in 2008?   President Obama wrote a book titled the Audacity of Hope.   In my dictionary audacity can also mean bold.    So we hope that the Democrat Party will be audacious and bold in this coming campaign.    And our fervor return.

    In the same week, my congressman, Vern Buchanan, voted (1) to extend the Bush tax cuts, thus saying it is morally bad to tax the wealthy, and (2) a couple of days later, voted to oppose the Obama health care plan.   Thus saying it is morally OK to let millions of Americans be without health care.   That is not our moral position, and I hope not yours.   If not every American is entitled to health care then pray tell me who among us has the right to decide who goes without.   Pleas, let no Democrat claim that right.  We believe in Medicare for every American, and the Bush tax cuts should not have been, and should not now be extended.

   I am going to use a few truisms.  The first is:  The true character of a society is measured, not by the height of its buildings or the riches accumulated by its wealthy, but by the concern it demonstrates for its vulnerable.    And its vulnerable are not just it’s physical or mentally handicapped.  The vulnerable include the unemployed, those with homes under foreclosure, and those with low income as well as the millions already in abject poverty.    You have heard that for millions Social Security income is their only income.    It is obscene for Democrats to even consider reductions in their Social Security Payment or their Medicare. Committee,.

     The second truism is “Government is a tool that society uses to manage its conduct and economy.  It needs to be as large as it needs to me  to do the things that a government needs to do.  No bigger and certainly no smaller.   As our constitution states;  it is to promote the general welfare as well as provide for the general defense,    And this defense should include, in addition to an adequate military; clean water, pure air, safe products and safe, regulated banking and investments.  The Glass-Steagal Act should be reinstated.   And speaking of the military, for years we have been told that it is vital to our economic and physical well being to sacrifice one-fifth of all we make and own to manufacture and maintain that machinery of destruction.   Isn’t it proper and possible in these times of economic distress to question the need for that great a sacrifice?

        Another truism is:  We no longer make a living:  we need to make money in order to buy a living.   Thus jobs become essential and if our free market system is not providing jobs then perhaps government should become the employer of last resort.   Reinstate a WPA or CCC or something like it.   Roosevelt is still revered for the New Deal.

     My final truism is that “The free market system is a tool that a government uses to generate wealth, to provide employment and enable it to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.   It is not true that government is a tool for the free market system to use to enable it, the free market system, to manage society for the purpose of accumulating wealth for itself.”

  But you have seen the numbers.   We now have a society in which income and money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of  a few,  and that concentration of income and wealth threatens our democracy, not the Democrat party, but our democracy.   Let us note that one of the key threats is that the concentration is increasing.    We are told that solving our problem will require difficult decisions.   So I suggest that one of those difficult decisions will be to temper that increasing concentration.   We, the Nation Group argue that a fair circulation of wealth is not only a moral imperative but an economic imperative.   It would increase and help maintain demand; and demand is essential to the retention or creation of jobs.    It would be a plus for the economy,  the people and our government.   I know that this thought, a redistribution of wealth will be labeled Socialist, but we must be bold, audacious and make difficult choices.

   The outgrowth of the concentration of wealth is the deterioration of our political process.   Lobbying has its place, but when lobbyist use money instead of reason to capture Congressmen and Senators, the interests of the entire nation are cast aside in favor of the rich.   We recommend: prohibiting past representatives and their staffs from serving as lobbyists, and the public financing of elections

    In closing let me say that we must be honest with ourselves and ask from ourselves what we ask from others.   I am on Medicare.   I send  $3,000 a year to a company that pays 20% of my medical bills.   But I only pay $1,200 a year to the government and they pay 80%.   Even at my age I can see an incongruity.    Isn’t there some sense of decency which says that upon my death, if I can leave a bundle of money for the health of my heirs that I also leave some for the health of my country?    An inheritance tax is not an evil and the government should reinstate it.

    So, the Nation Discussion Group asks and hopes that the Democrat Party will not limit themselves to just being anti republican but will reach out and speak out, boldly for those principles and policies that will make us a better nation and better people.