Minutes of Gabbard Staff meeting with Constituents, 25 Aug 2017

Representative Tulsi Gabbard scheduled an open meeting for constituents to meet with her Kauai Outreach Liaison, Kaulana Finn, on 25 Aug at the Kauai Vets center.  The subjects covered were wide ranging but all attendees were supportive of the positions Representative Gabbard has taken.  Several of the attendees came because of the urging of an alliance of three Net Neutrality organizations.

An overall theme that was made clear at the beginning of the meeting was that all attendees did not think it right that monopolies, or near-monopolies should be permitted to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer billionaires.  The motto at Kauai Indivisible is, "We are All in this together", meaning that America does not exist solely for the benefit of the 1% (or a few Oligarchs).  It was recognized that not all Americans have the same skills, ambition, and wants, and that certainly hard work should be rewarded, but America must leave no one behind to satisfy the greed of a few.  Not an easy balance to achieve.

Network Neutrality 

• The internet would not exist if it were not for government investment.  (Ignoring the reason the government made that investment.)   If "Intellectual Property" is suppose to be patented and/or copyrighted in perpetuity, then those corporations that have benefited the most from development of applications that use the Internet (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.) should be paying a hefty use fee.  
• The purchase of Oceanic Time-Warner by Charter to form Spectrum is viewed with skepticism.  The flurry of "new" offers from Spectrum that promise better service at a cheaper price are confusing, but for those who took the time to make the comparison, it appeared that a customer who switched would receive significantly less service for a very small decrease in price.  (No one wanted the 500 channels of nothing that cable offers.  We were all resigned to the fact that the [F. A. Hayak] "free market" is not being allowed to operate putting the cable companies out of business.)
• KIUC needed to deploy smart meters to ensure the reliability of the Kauai electrical grid.  The rural nature of Kauai precluded the deployment of a fiber-optic network, but (for example) Lafayette, LA, utilities deployed a fiber-optic network that provides over three times the internet bandwidth provided by Kauai's Spectrum at the same cost.  And since the connection to the LUS (for example) network is merely an ethernet port not requiring a cable modem, it is much more reliable.  Allowing cable companies to continue their de facto monopoly over Internet access throughout the USA will severely harm adoption of new technology solely to benefit a few cable owners who already have more money than they can ever spend in their lives.  Where is the "free market" the neocons [Koch Brothers (neoliberals?)] claim so important?
• Google has adjusted its search algorithm which de-prioritizes news about "left-wing" issues.  Again, a de facto monopoly is allowed control of American Public Opinion.  How is a progressive candidate suppose to achieve a fair hearing when all of corporate America (which includes many Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer) is arrayed against these new ideas?
• Internet access should be free.  It was not discussed what the Internet usage fee assessed against coporations discussed above would be used for, but, after the fact, it seems free internet for every American Household would be a worthy goal, especially since this would support so many other goals (including income equality and infrastructure build-out).
• The Internet is being used to manipulate markets.  The book "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis makes it clear that the neoliberal catechism of a "Free Market" is a sham.  It is "free" solely in the sense that it allows near-criminal fraud to be perpetrated on the average American.  It is imperative that a transaction tax be promulgated.

Healthcare

• While the ACA (Obamacare) may have been the best a Congress controlled by corporatists could manage when it was first passed, it remains a give-away to the corporate Insurance Companies.  "Dollar-Bill McGuire", head of United Healthcare, became a billionaire by skimming off the top of the premiums paid -- sometimes because of a [Sarah Palin] "Death Panel", run by an insurance claims adjuster, that would deny care.
• Medicare Part E (for Everybody) is the -ONLY- solution for healthcare insurance in the USA.  The reasons should be obvious so they are not listed here.
• The US government funds much of the research for the development of new drugs.  It then turns this research over to private entities at no cost.  These "private entities" then charge astronomical prices without any reimbursement to the "commons" (the US government).  This must stop.  (Did we mention Joe Manchin's daughter?  With Democrats like him, who needs Republicans?)
• Healthcare must be free for anyone on American soil.
• Healthcare providers should remain independent of the government but well-regulated.  Unlike heath insurance, which is basically a mundane, rules-based process, an independent, entrepreneurial provider sector would provide innovation to raise standards of care more rapidly than the government acting alone might.  Still, this sector will need to be "well-regulated" with representatives of "the people" monitoring the process and insuring safety.

American Empire

• Support for Representative Gabbard's trip to Syria was unanimous.  It was recognized that the representative for HI-2 appears to be the only member of congress looking for a way out of the foreign diplomatic mess (war) Bush started, Obama continued and Trump does not understand.
• At least one participant stated that he voted "none of the above" (i.e. did not vote) for President in 2016 because of, among other things, Hillary Clinton's war-hawk nature.
• North Korea was completely destroyed by the USAF during the Korean War.  Some of those attacks (such as destruction of reservoir dams) should be declared [are?] war crimes.  North Korea has excellent reasons for developing their own Nuclear Weapon to deter American Aggression.  Why does America need to bully other countries?  What is gained by pretending such an impoverished entity, such as North Korea, is an existentialist threat to the United States?
• America has been involved in the overthrow of many Democratically Elected governments including Iran in 1953 (causing attendees to wonder why John McCain wants to "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran).  Marine Corps General Smedley Butler explained why in his 1935 book "War is a Racket".  Who benefits from the drone murders of children in Yemen?  That 1% which owns the Military-Industrial Complex.
• Today's sanctions against Venezuela (25 Aug) have nothing to do with protecting the people of Venezuela.  

Education

• Betsy DeVos is destroying American Education
• Most Charter Schools are being established to encourage segregation.  (See Nancy MacLean's book referenced below.)
• All education through a BS degree should be free.
• Students seeking higher degrees should be paid for taking that action.
• America was scared when the Russians launched Sputnik.  WWII GIs demanded they be paid back for their service.  American education worked in the '50s.  Ever since, it has been down hill solely to promote the interests of the 1%

The Democratic Party of Hawaii

• The Party establishment betrayed Democratic voters when 8 of 10 Super-Delegates voted for Clinton even though 70% of the vote for the PPP (apparently some don't realize that this is the Hawaii Democratic Party primary) was for Sanders.
• The split in the DPH is enormous and it cannot be papered over by repeating how bad Trump is.  For whatever reason, many voters don't care about Trump if they can't depend on the DPH standing up for their issues.  In an absurd way, it is like Bob Dylan said, they want to drag you down into the hole that they're in.
• If the head of the LGBTQ caucus wants to promote the issues of that caucus, fine, in fact great.  But if Michael Golojuch wants to use his position to frustrate the "rest of us" and promote a corporatist agenda for DPH, then expect Democratic Voters to become "Former" Democratic voters.
• It cannot be over-stated that the complete incompetence of former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has severely impacted voters faith in the Democratic Party.  That incompetence forces one to question why she was ever appointed to that post and does not reflect well on the 2016 Democratic Nominee for President.
• Support for the JAMPAC lawsuit against the DNC was strongly felt.  Mazie Hirono's attempt to pivot on, and ignore, that question at her May town hall shows her to be a corporatist not a Democrat.
• Support for the Democratic Party on Kauai can best be described as "lethargic",  Perhaps the "fool me once, fool me twice..." cliche could explain it -- save for the fact that the truth is "fool me for 30 years".

The "Fight for $15"

• The minimum wage should be immediately raised to $15.
• There are some people incapable of performing a job at a $15 level -- what do we do about them?
• Al Franken explained in his book, "Giant of the Senate", that he is a Democrat because when the Democrats run the government, they provide the tools, help and "bootstraps" that make it possible to pull ones self out of grinding poverty.  A minimum wage of $15 by itself is not going to accomplish the job.

Other 

• GMO and Stem Cell research use more or less the same tools.  When G. W. Bush, because of his failure to understand science, launched his campaign against Stem Cell research he set back finding the cure for cancer by at least ten years.  Standing against GMO has a similar problem.  It is not the GMO that is the problem but what that GMO technology is used for in very narrowly defined situations.  As an example, the idea of putting the Bt gene into different plants to combat insect damage sounds like a good idea, until one realizes that now that gene is in the food being consumed and it may, in fact,  lead to an individual having "leaky gut".  One of the attendees said he had that symptom and went on to explain what it was.  The public must be educated on exactly what GMO really is.  On the other hand, better regulation of chemicals applied by farmers and households and governments is imperative.
• In every issue, American Billionaires have come to believe that because they are rich, they are smarter than everyone else.  They then use their accumulated wealth to pursue their vision of America without seeking any input from the "rest of us".  Over and over again, we see that the American Taxpayer finances research and invests in infrastructure that is then given away to an oligarch.  The myth of the "Free Market" insists that these billionaires can manage their huge investment, but in reality, they use their wealth solely to gain more wealth and more control over the American Economy.  President Carter showed that breaking up ATT lead to a tremendous spurt in economic activity that provided jobs and helped raise the living standards of all Americans.  When President Reagan reversed that process, the Oligarchy again began to accumulate more wealth to the detriment of the "rest of us".  The Oligarchy must be dismantled.

Summary

• America is being destroyed by neoliberalism.
• Nancy MacLean's book "Democracy in Chains" is an outstanding history of how America ended up in this position starting with the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision in the '50s.
• The wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East are solely for the benefit of the 1%, not the people who live on Kauai, or Hawaii or any American anywhere.
• Fascist or Socialist seems to be the Hobson Choice.  Hard work and innovation should be rewarded but at what point does this morph into an immoral quest of greed.  Those who cannot care for themselves should be taken care of.  Those who can take care of themselves should be provided every incentive to do do.  That's "incentive" which is a "positive" option, diametrically opposed to the Republican/Calvinist philosophy that if you're rich -- God Loves You; and if you're poor -- God Hates You.