The longer I am here, the more thankful I am for Daily Kos and the more progressive I become. Usually people do not know how much longer they will be alive. So, just in case, I wanted to express my gratitude to Daily Kos and my fellow Kossacks and then I wanted to share what I believe in since you never know what could happen. First, I need to say thank you to those who have believed in me and helped me and kept me alive with food and medication ! I cannot believe your kindness, compassion, and generosity ! I want to leave a record here of how thankful I am to all of you ! I also want to express how grateful I am to have had the privilege of knowing my best Pal Mighty Little Fluffy the Great ! She is greater than I am and I know that much !! She has been my friend and pal for many years ! We have had the best times together ! I know that is just due to how great she is, but I have been fortunate enough to enjoy her company ! She is so sweet and compassionate, social and lifts me up when I am down ! She is super smart and intuitive and is just the Greatest ! I love her more than I could ever express ! In case anything happens, I have made arrangements for a fellow Kossack to care for her !
I first landed on Daily Kos about 14 years ago in 2005 while I was earning my master’s degree in mathematics . My first concerns that led me away from being a fundamentalist and a super conservative theonomist dispensational Republican were social / racial justice and climate change. It was obvious even back then that the climate was changing, the Earth was warming. Carbon dioxide is a heat trapping gas. That has been known for a hundred years. We can show that in reproducible experiments. Denying that humans are responsible for it not only is contrary to science and scientific knowledge, but also leads to the belief that we humans cannot fight it. The good news about global warming being caused by humans is that this means it is conceivable that we could do something to stop it. If we are not causing it, then we probably cannot do anything to significantly stop it or slow it down. This is approaching fatalism. If we are not causing it, then we very well may not know what worsens it and what could stop it from worsening it. The scientific consensus was and remains that we worsen climate change when we put more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If the scientific consensus is wrong, then we do not know what the primary driver is in global warming. That means we are ignorant of the cause and ignorance of the cause must lead ultimately to fatalism (apart from a belief in pure dumb luck). The trend in the median temperature of the Earth was and is clear: it is rising. This also produces warmer water and that leads to stronger storms. So, if humans are not causing global warming, we still know that the median temperature of the Earth is rising. We simply would not know the cause, nor would we know how to stop it. That would lead to hopelessness.
I have always, at least in principle, felt strongly about fighting racial injustice, injustice against people of color, especially African Americans with their history of being enslaved in this country and Hispanics with how poorly we have treated them in this country. My major for my master’s degree was mathematics, but my minor was education. I saw the disparity in the educational outcomes between white people and people of color. I saw two primary ways to explain it and one is bigoted and unacceptable. The first way to explain it was consistent with our poor bigoted history of racism in this country. It was buttressed by historical truth and present social injustice. The second way to explain it was to say that it was due to intrinsic, inherent inferiority of people of color. That explanation is ignorant, bigoted, and impossible to accept for any decent human being. In addition to the sorry history of racial discrimination like Bombingham and the four little girls killed and Selma and Jim Crow and 3/5, we have current facts and truth like the fact that you are half as likely to have a teacher teaching the subject that they majored in if you are a student of color in the inner city contrasted with white children, like the fact that ten times as much money is invested in each student for white students as students of color, like the dilapidated condition of inner city schools and the turnover, like the fact that there are as many African Americans in prison as graduated from a four year university, like the gap between SAT scores for white students and students of color, like the disparity in health insurance for families of color that have students vs health insurance for families of white students (which is highly correlated to student achievement), like how much more likely people of color are to get the death penalty for the same crime than white people, like the disparity in the difference of sentences for white people and people of color for the same crime, like how many more times people of color are pulled for marijuana possession or use despite the fact that both white people and people of color use at the same rate, like the difference in life expectancy, like the difference in wages, like the difference in unemployment rate and on and on it goes, these are just off the top of my head. That injustice needs to be fought and corrected and made right. Yet, we find that the republican party runs campaigns on racism and tries to impose racist policies. They try to take away the franchise and take away the power of one voter, one vote. They try to make it more difficult for people of color to vote. Despite all of the current evidence of structural discrimination (again housing ownership, small business ownership, ..) , the republicans and their republican supreme court (despite only winning a majority of the popular vote once in the last 24 years, they have appointed 5 of the 9 supreme court justices ) are weakening the remedies for discrimination. Furthermore, the very undemocratic nature of our elections hurts people of color. Every branch is hurt. I already mentioned the Supreme Court and the electoral college vs the popular for determining who holds the office of the president, but there are two US senators from California and from Idaho (how stupid is that) and gerrymandering affects the US House of Representatives. Strict voter id laws affect all races. This is absolutely insane. It is why there is such a huge difference between what policies most American voters want and what policies we have in place.
This led me to Daily Kos and becoming a member and becoming a Democrat. I am opposed to Hyde . I support a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions period. Not ifs, no ands, no buts, nothing. Period. That is extremely important to me. I support the Green New Deal. I support unions and the Employee Free Choice Act because i know that when unions are strong, the middle class is strong. I support Medicare for All (ie Single Payer) because at the end of the day, private insurance is motivated to make as large a profit as they can. I oppose the death penalty because of how bigoted it is in its application. I oppose the electoral college because it is undemocratic. I support some way of making the Supreme Court at least more balanced. I support cancelling all student debt. I support Family Leave. I support Free four year university because that will help our economy in the long run. I support expunging all individual use drug records and setting free those in jail for that reason. I support legalizing marijuana. I support a better way of helping those in substance abuse treatment. I support a ban of magazines of ten or more bullets. I support a ban on assault weapons. I support Senator Warren’s two pennies wealth tax on every dollar in assets over fifty million dollars. I support a real ubi that is not an either / or . I support impeachment fully of course and went to Tom Steyer’s impeachment a long time ago and have never wavered. I oppose private prisons. I support universal pre k. I support what is called “amnesty” , legalization of all of those who are here without documentation unless they have committed a serious felony. I support protecting DACA. I support a path to citizenship. I support a strong investment in HBCUs. I support marriage equality. I support restoration of voting rights for previous felons. I support $15/hr living wage everywhere. I support a federal jobs guarantee like AOC spoke of last night. I support making housing much more affordable. I stand with Julian Castro and BETO on immigration. I support a Marshall Plan for South America. I oppose Brexit.
I think it is very likely (especially after Bernie’s health issue) that Senator Warren wins the nomination. If she wins the nomination, I believe she will beat Trump, but it will be close because the rest of the electorate is not as liberal as I am or she is. Others might win easier, but they would not be as good a president because they are not as liberal as she is. After she and Senator Harris, then there is a serious gap in my enthusiasm. However, following them would be Secretary Castro, Representative O’Rourke and Senator Booker and then Senator Klobuchar. Senator Klobuchar might have the easiest time winning because of her Upper Midwest ties and because she is more moderate (so she might win more moderates and independents). However, Secretary Castro would do well because of his ties to the Hispanic community. Senator Booker is a great speaker and he could draw out a strong African American turnout. Beto has had a big following and draws young people out. Mayor Pete is young and might be able to manufacture turnout . I do not know that head to head polls about the general election are that predictive this far out from even the first primary.
I just wanted to say THANK YOU to so very many of you who have supported me and encouraged me and helped me !! I need to also express my thankfulness for this community and this website ! I wanted to do this and share how much I love my Mighty Little Fluffy the Great just in case something happened to me !!