With the possible exception of L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction novelist who founded Scientology, it's not often that a writer gets the opportunity to test their own theories in the real world. But Norman Solomon seems intent on creating that opportunity for himself.

 

In his mass-market paperback, “Power of Babble: The Politician's Dictionary of Buzzwords and Doubletalk for Every Occasion,” published in 1992, Solomon advised, “Don't shy away from timeworn doubletalk, any more than you would avoid bullets in a gun because others just like them have been used before. It's true that the wrong cliché, ill-chosen and poorly aimed, can shoot you in the foot. But the right one will find its mark: the voter.”

 

In March, Solomon began a campaign apparently intended to scare seniors, create division in the Democratic Party and discredit Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, for not signing a pledge which only 25 of the 535 members of the 113th Congress chose to lend their name. He claimed that Huffman was throwing seniors under the bus.

 

The truth is that Huffman, who defeated Solomon in the June primary election last year, was one of the first members of Congress to make clear his strong support for protecting Social Security and his opposition to the chained CPI that is included in President Barack Obama's budget proposal. In fact, Huffman had already signed a letter along with a majority of the House Democratic Caucus — more than 100 signers — stating their unequivocal and specific opposition to any cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits, including chained CPI.

 

Solomon's “pledge” is a ruse. During his campaign, Huffman made a promise to voters that he would not engage in politics based on any “Norquist-style” pledges. But Solomon knows that. That's why he continues to babble even though his original approach has been proven false by Huffman's steadfast leadership to maintain the integrity of earned benefits such as Social Security.

 

Perhaps that is why, in a recent opinion piece (“Promise not to cut is nothing like tax pledge,” Close to Home, April 10) Soloman resorts to “double speak.” He appears to be taking credit for the fact that Huffman is opposing the cuts proposed by the president; even though he never signed a pledge to do what he was already doing.

 

Confused? That's the point of “double speak.” It is a technique intended to confuse and to frighten.

 

Claiming someone wants to cut Social Security is a “hot button” issue. When the claim is untrue, it's a lie.

 

Claiming credit for pressuring a member of Congress to take a stand that he or she had already taken in public and numerous times is doubletalk of the worst kind.

 

At some point, enough is enough. As chairmen for the Marin and Sonoma County Democratic parties, we feel it is necessary to call this kind of destructive babble what it is and to make clear that this type of rhetoric, designed to divide Democrats and to scare senior citizens, has no place in local politics.

Paul Cohen is chairman of the Marin County Democratic Party.  

WHEREAS, hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as “fracking,” is a technique that injects water, sand, and toxic chemicals at high pressure deep into the ground, often traveling horizontally, to extract oil or gas from shale or other dense rock; and

 

WHEREAS, fracking uses large amounts of water, thus reducing its availability for agriculture and other public use; uses chemicals that can contaminate the water supply and can cause cancer; creates wastewater that can bring deep earth contaminants to the surface; releases methane gas that exacerbates climate change and pollutes the air with asthma-causing smog; can induce earthquakes; and continues our dependence on fossil fuels; and

 

WHEREAS, fracking is currently exempt from regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act and is not yet regulated in California, and as a result the chemicals are treated as trade secrets and the location of fracked wells is not made public.

 

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Sonoma County Democratic Party supports an immediate moratorium on fracking with such a moratorium to remain in place until (a) legislation, ordinances, and regulations are put in place that guarantee public health and safety, and address the impacts of climate change; (b) immediate testing and disclosure of all sites currently being fracked or that have been fracked in the past; and c) substitution of renewable energy wherever feasible; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Sonoma County Democratic Party send a copy of this resolution to the Governor of the State of California, United States Senators representing California, Members of Congress representing any part of Sonoma County, members of the state senate and state assembly representing any part of Sonoma County, and all members of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, asking them to take action.

Resolution adopted by the Sonoma County Democratic Party on March 12, 2013  

WHEREAS, the California Democratic Party, which has a long and proud history of standing up for the rights of all people, has taken an official stand against Proposition 8, which denies marriage equality to same-sex couples; and

WHEREAS, California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris, Speaker of the Assembly John A. Perez, and many other prominent Democratic elected officials have made their opposition to the discriminatory law quite clear; and

WHEREAS, the U.S. Supreme Court has received and will hear eloquent arguments as to why this discriminatory law is unconstitutional and must be overruled.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, the Sonoma County Democratic Party is united and speaks with one voice as it calls on the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize the validity of the plaintiffs’ arguments seeking to overturn Proposition 8 in order to guarantee full equality under the law for same-sex couples; and

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this resolution by the Sonoma County Democratic Party be widely publicized by the Party and its officers.

Resolution adopted by the Sonoma County Democratic Party on March 12, 2013  

WHEREAS, the U.S. government has set a dangerous precedent as it continues to conduct drone strikes on people in countries with whom America is not at war, the majority being “signature strikes,” where drone operators fire upon groups of men whose identities are unknown to them, but are deemed targets based on vaguely defined suspicious behavior or “signatures,” including being a male of “military age,” while also utilizing the practice of “double taps,” where rescuers of victims of initial strikes are killed; and

WHEREAS, the constant overhead presence of U.S. drones engenders hatred and the desire for revenge among the communities under attack by injecting terror into the daily lives of ordinary civilians beyond death and physical injury, including undermining cultural practices associated with funerals, weddings, everyday community activities and the lives of children, many who are so traumatized they cannot go to school, and are unable to eat, sleep, play, socialize, or function normally, the experience amounting to a form of physiological torture and collective punishment, all the while making the world and even our nation less safe; and

WHEREAS, the ratio of civilian to “high-level” target deaths has raised serious concern, as independent studies of total casualties reveal that only an estimated 2% are those who are considered “high-level,” and that anywhere from 36-50 civilians to 1 “militant” are killed, giving credence to a study which found that 74% of Pakistanis considered the U.S. an enemy and fitting within a growing consensus that extrajudicial assassinations by weaponized drones violate U.S. and international law.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Sonoma County Democratic Party stands in opposition to the use of drones as described herein and urges that our policies be structured within the framework of international law, Constitutional checks and balances, transparency; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we call upon the Congressional delegation and the White House to conduct a fundamental re-evaluation and overhaul of current practices by reforming the policies authorizing the use of American military force along with reinstituting Congressional authority and oversight with regard to war-making powers.

WHEREAS, almost every government in the world has agreed that any warming above a 2°C (3.6°F) rise would be unsafe, we have already raised the temperature 0.8°C; and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected, a third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic; and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, consequences of inaction will result in devastating floods and drought; and

WHEREAS, scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees, while proven coal, oil, and gas reserves equals about 2,795 gigatons of CO2, or five times the amount we can release to maintain 2 degrees of warming; and

WHEREAS, California’s institutions of higher education and pension funds should encourage only those investments that allow students and retirees to live healthy lives without the impact of a warming planet; and thus campaigns to divest from fossil fuels have begun at campuses within both the University of California and California State University systems.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Sonoma County Democratic Party calls upon the University of California and California State University endowments; and CALPERS, CALSTRS; and Sonoma County Employees Retirement Account pension funds to immediately stop new investments in fossil fuel companies, to take steps to divest all holdings from the top 200 fossil fuel companies as determined by the Carbon Tracker list within five years; and to release updates available to the public, detailing progress made toward full divestment; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Sonoma County Democratic Party send a copy of this resolution to the Governor of the State of California, Board of Regents of the University of California, Chancellor of the California State University system, United States Senators representing California, Members of Congress representing any part of Sonoma County, members of the state senate and state assembly representing any part of Sonoma County; and all members of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, asking support for divestment from fossil fuels.

WHEREAS, California Democrats believe that health care is a human right and not a privilege and that meaningful access to such care is essential, and Democrats therefore “support the full funding of community clinics and health centers that serve low-income and homeless populations;” and

WHEREAS, in the spring of 2013, the California state government intends to reduce Medi-Cal repayment rates to Hospital District Part Skilled Nursing Facilities (DP/SNF) based on rates in effect in 2008 and to recoup funds for claims with dates of service beginning June 1, 2011, and these intended cuts and retroactive repayment recovery are not sustainable by district hospitals and therefore those hospitals may be forced to eliminate local access to these critical services; and

WHEREAS, if these reductions and recoupment occur, they will cause (1) a devastating decrease in repayments of up to 30% for many facilities; (2) many District Hospitals to shift beds and/or close entire units; (3) many Medi-Cal beneficiaries to be transferred to other skilled nursing facilities, often significantly outside of their community, resulting in disruption in the continuity of care; (4) patients to be distant from their support networks of family and friends; and (5) DP/SNF closures which may result in significant economic disruption and hardship to the communities in which the DP/SNFs are located due to loss of jobs and related income.   

 

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Sonoma County Democratic Party opposes these rate reductions to the Medi-Cal program that will decrease access to care and disproportionately harm the most vulnerable among us, and encourages Democratic state legislators to introduce legislation to overturn such cuts and to provide even greater funding for rural hospitals.

Resolution adopted by the Sonoma County Democratic Party on March 12, 2013  

WHEREAS, Proposition 13 is fundamentally unfair and allows corporations to exploit loopholes to avoid paying property taxes and has shifted the tax burden to everyday homeowners and working families; and

WHEREAS, loss of revenue from corporate property taxes has lead to an increase in regressive taxes and fees that hurt the most vulnerable Californians; and

WHEREAS, closing the corporate loophole would generate desperately needed revenue for education and public safety.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Sonoma County Democratic Party supports requiring corporate properties to be reassessed annually; and

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Sonoma County Democratic Party will communicate this position to Democratic elected officials and delegates to the California Democratic Party Convention.

Resolution adopted by the Sonoma County Democratic Party on March 12, 2013    

WHEREAS, citizens and taxpayers of Sonoma County rely on the County to provide essential services to residents of Sonoma County, including road maintenance and services to veterans, seniors, the poor, children and the disabled, and

WHEREAS, under the guise of economic distress, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has for a number of years been reducing the number of employees who provide direct services without a corresponding cut in non-direct service-providing management employees, and     

WHEREAS, Sonoma County is currently in negotiations with SEIU Local 1021, the union representing the largest number of county employees.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, we call upon the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to right the imbalance in the ratio between management staff and direct service providing staff, which would help fund services to the community; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, we call upon the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to swiftly resolve their negotiations with SEIU Local 1021 in a mutually agreeable and beneficial way so that services to the community can continue to be provided in an uninterrupted fashion.     

Resolution adopted by the Sonoma County Democratic Party on February 12, 2013