This reply to Jeanne Massey on IRV contains matters relevant to both Minneapolis and national issues and it is impossibe to delete he national issues without mutilating the letter. However, a reply concentrating more on Minneapolis issues would point out that is was under the DFL that Minneapolis pursued its policy of giving welfare to the rich and Robin Hood in reverse by subsidizing luxury housing, large subsidies to private companies' developments -- one hundred million to Target Center alone -- and posh sports stadiums. And to make the issue of police brutality of more general interest than just to the Gay community (or bluntly, even to people who don't care about Gays but might be interested in police brutality's impact on other groups), it was under an overwhelmingly DFL administration that police brutality continued against all groups and the jury is still out on whether Rybak and McManus can get the problem under control. Robert Halfhill Loring Park
I have received your personal email asking to talk with me about IRV. I support IRV for elections to office. However your post is unclear whether the IRV you want to discuss is about election to public office or internal elections within the DFL for party endorsement for public office. I am a strong Green Party member and believe that the trap of supporting Democrats as the lesser evil is responsible for the steady rightward drift of our political climate. If you declare that your strategy is to support the Democrats as the lesser evil, they are free to become more evil in the knowledge that you don't have anywhere else to go. This gives the Republicans room to become even more evil which gives the Democrats room to become even more evil which... Locally, the Gay community's supporting the Democrats as the lesser evil brought us the election of the allegedly SUPER LIBERAL Donald Fraser under whom police arrests and brutality against Gays was WORSE THAN IT HAD BEEN UNDER STENVIG! Nationally, I like to say that is was a good thing that Bush, Sr. or Robert Dole didn't defeat Bill Clinton because if they had, THEY WOULD HAVE ENDED WELFARE AS WE KNOW IT! Clinton, who had promised to admit those Haitian boat people who were infected with HIV to the U.S. where they could receive medical treatment reneged on this promise and ACT-UP had to picket and demonstrate against him for month before he admitted them. As I said in a phone call to his office, if any of the HIV positive Haitian refugees died while they were without medical care, Clinton would be as rsponsible for their death as he would be if he had stuck the knife in them himself. Clinton also reneged on his promise to end discrimination against Gays in the milita ry and gave us "don't ask, don't tell" which led to a dramatic increase in Gays being thrown out of the military. So on that one issue, he was the greater evil to Bush, Sr. and Robert Dole! (All mentions of "Gay" should be taken to mean "Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals. Transgender and Intersexed people;" I am trying to save space and time.) ACT-UP had to demonstrate against Al Gore because, even as Vice President, he was the leading figure in pressuring South Africa and other third world countries not to manufacture the far cheaper generic equivalent of AIDS drugs instead of paying the inflated prices charged by the major pharmaceutical companies. And most antiwar activists, because the habitual practice of supporting Democrats as the lesser evil caused them to assume that Kerry was against the Iraq war, supported Kerry even though he said that he would have been for invading Iraq even if he had known there were no WMD's there and that he would INCREASE the number of U.S. troops in Iraq "if the generals asked for them." So if your post is about obtaining IRV for general public elections, I am interested. If it is about internal DFL elections, I am not interested. Robert Halfhill [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com http://www.thepen.us/e-fraud.html REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
