Baitball Blogger
Baitball Blogger's JournalWhat the Florida Democrats are doing wrong.
Reposted from the Florida group.
I know there are progressives in Florida who are as frustrated as I am. Because we can't find new blood that can bridge all the differences in Florida, we keep defaulting to the past. Well, I can't address how to capture all the different kind of voters, but I do have this to add, regarding the loss of the South Florida vote:
I once took a class titled, People of the Carribean and latin American culture. (Or something along those lines.) What the Anglo-oriented, old boy Florida Dems needed to do, and failed to do, was to reach out to academics like the teacher who taught that class, and ask them a simple question: Do you believe that the socialism that occurred in Latin America, can happen here? They will tell you no because the socio-political factors are different. And they will tell you no because the main reason that socialism got out of hand in Latin America was because there was a 10-90 split in resources. Ten percent of the people (Really, more like 1%) had all the wealth and resources, and everyone else was dirt poor. No middle class, like we have here. Just dirt poor.
So, when a military-minded socialist would show up it was easy to capture the support of the people because they were destitute and desperate. I mean, third world desperate. Not what we have in America. Toppling over the wealthy families, who were in the minority, was not difficult. It didn't take much. And, yes, the countries were disrupted quickly; and yes, those that made it through have a nasty story to tell.
That is not likely to happen here in America. We have a middle class. Though I don't know for how long because Republican policies are taking us closer to a 1% - 99% split. And because we have first world views on what constitutes poverty. Because of that, we might get toppled over in a similar, but not the same manner. And De Santis is representing that take over.
The old guard Florida Dems need help and as a voter, I am giving permission to anyone outside this State with ideas to come in and tell them that their time is over and they need to start listening. They can start by getting more latino and latina representation in their party.
There are still pitfalls to worry about, even with their help. Latin Americans who enjoyed that top 10% wealth in their countries know the benefit of living in a country where everyone is hungry and poor. They get cheap labor, which allows them to hold onto more of their money and status. THOSE people will tend to be Republicans.
I always find it galling that Anglo, conservative Americans don't fully understand the world they're pushing us towards. By interfering with education and creating financial hardship on people, they are driving us closer to the very situation that everyone wants to avoid. They really don't see the world they're creating by keeping the hourly wage low, for example. They see themselves always in that top 10%, and if they find themselves struggling, it is always someone else's fault. Never do they look inward to see how they're adding to the equation.
What Republicans won't tell you aloud, but it's their Achille's Heel.
It's this: They don't like other people's children. Specifically, they don't want to spend a penny of their money on the public services and infra-structure required to raise a new generation of children. And local red governments don't want young adults in their cities, either, because of the fear in the rise of juvenile crime.
The only ones who want to build public schools are the good buddy developers who will receive federal and state money to make it worth their time. It's about the government money. It always is to Republicans. So, in Florida we watch helplessly as public school teachers and public school programs get throttled. It's constant harassment attacking them with mean-spirited Republican-style regulation. It's obvious that the goal is to end public school, so Tallahassee politicians can send tax dollars to private religious schools. They're on a destroy mission and aren't thinking of the countless number of young children raised in struggling homes, who will drop out of school, because they can't learn in a hostile school environment.
And, the best for last. That pesky juvenile crime rate that is associated with the young. That's a real boogey man in the suburbs. There is nothing worse to a Republican white suburban woman, than the fear of a young black person traipsing in the neighborhood, day or night. It's such a fear in the suburbs that the young can be zoned out of white islands, like they did in my City and like they did in the Villages. Forced to accept high density housing, my City found a work around by zoning the buildings for Seniors only. On another part of the City there is affordable high density homes built across from a new school that advertises itself as a "classical Christian school." When it was first approved in the nineties (or maybe early century), the word was that the housing was meant for families that would attend the private school. Can they even do that legally? Look to the Supreme Court for guidance on that one.
In sum, Republicans haven't thought this one out. I was a child of the sixties. I remember we were here in great numbers, and the one thing conservative parents could count on, was that we did not respect their way of life. They were hypocrites, hokey. In a world with social media, there will be no limit to the shit we're going to hear about what goes on in their religious households.
This is a preventable disaster and someone should bring it to their attention. Right now they're too busy laughing it up because they think we have to accept the word of the five liars on the Supreme Court. I say we keep hitting them with the cost expectation for their decision. The Congress has to justify the costs for the programs they bring to the floor, so why doesn't someone do the cost analysis for Alito's folly, so we all get to know what we're getting into.
I still can't get it out of my head that Clarence Thomas said that stare decisis doesn't matter.
You know what? I think he and Ginni were the leakers of the Alito document and Clarence is now doubling-down by marginalizing the importance of the Supreme Court's long tradition. This is the kind of bullshit strategy that sovereigntist are known for. He is just as bad as they are, though I believe the source of his problem is his wife.
The man lives with a woman who is involved with extreme right-wing radical troublemakers and activists. She has rubbed off on him and radicalized him. Look at the trail of evidence: He was the lone dissenting vote when the Supreme Court voted to allow text messages connected to January 6th investigation to be released to the plaintiff in the case. Included in those messages were texts from Ginni Thomas that implicated her involvement further. It was a case where he should have recused himself.
Red flags everywhere. My money is on Clarence and Ginni Thomas.
I honestly believe we have pro-insurrectionists on the Court and we should all be in shock.
Don't you all miss the years when he wouldn't say a word?
Why I think the conservative judges screwed up their moment.
The desire to flip Supreme Court decisions was in the works as early as the nineties. I know, because I was taking Legal Study classes at the turn of the century and one of the teachers exposed her political leanings one day by pointing out that some of the decisions on the books were not unanimous decisions. She made it clear that because of this, cases could eventually be flipped. But, of course, it was going to be a slow process because of stare decisis. Stare decisis, you see was the one thing that kept the Supreme Court's estimable position in the eyes of the country.
At the same time we were also studying Anthony Scalia's decisions and we learned about his strict constructionist, or stict textualist way of interpreting the law. It seemed so hokey. To me, he came across as an outlier. If the Left made a mistake, it was not challenging his method when it had the chance. It seemed to fail in reasoning, and indeed, some of the stupid conclusions that he spearheaded, like providing way too much protection for police with their stop and frisks and the like, were the very cause of racial unrest and protests. In simple terms, the world that Scalia tried to provide for conservatives was unsustainable. It was so grossly unfair that we all came together when Black Americans took a stand. Slowly, changes are being made to the police force to address the overreaches that the Scalia court tried to create.
Now we're dealing with another conservative overreach with Alito and the four other justices who are trying to end Roe v. Wade. You see, no matter what happens next, this Alito case will be temporary because of how this all came together. They jumped the gun. Not only did they defy precedent, but their legal standing is weak. And for that we should thank the leaker for giving us time to see these flaws.
In the end, if twenty years ago it was said that cases that did not carry unanimous opinions were vulnerable to change in the future, what does that tell you about this court case that was decided by five conservative judges, most who were appointed by presidents who did not win by popular vote and all, who lied in their Senate confirmations when it came down to their support for precedent regarding Roe v. Wade?
We should continue to lead with our outrage, but do not despair. The Alito case will not stand the test of time, because it is garbage in, garbage out.
How Florida loses lawsuits. A cautionary tale.
Anyone who has read my journal knows that I was living in a Central Florida city when a huge land scandal took place in the nineties. Because of what I learned from researching public records, I got a sneak preview of the future. I read how the elected officials gave special access to a local Rotary Club, and even required the City Manager to get a membership, so he could have weekly contact with the elevated, known locals in our community. I saw how this kind of access would affect the small private development I lived in, because our small community was suddenly populated by Rotary Club members from that particular franchise.
It was quite an education. What I learned was that Florida's way of networking between public agencies and select private individuals and organizations, has been eroding the rights of the many for quite a while. These backwater channels create a segregation of power that pushes the public out of decision-making; and it has taken us to where we are today, dealing with an autocratic governor. The steps that gave us De Santis has a history.
So, I'll try to get to the main points to make this short, or as short as possible. Back in the nineties there was a huge effort to dismantle land development regulations. It was mostly pushed by sovereigntists and/or libertarians. But where the talk from sovereigntist ends and ordinary crass Republicans begins is a blurry line. And that line disappeared when community leaders in my city began to look around for a way to stop a developer from building in the PUD they lived in. That's when they began to listen to a sovereigntist lawyer/ex-judge/ex-city attorney, who tried to convince the homeowners that the only way to get control of their PUD, was to walk away from it. Just like that. As if that's how easy it is to vacate a legal contract.
At the time, there was a move in this state to abolish the Dept. of Community Affairs. (DCA). It was a move supported by Republicans. That would mean, put an end to the State's oversight agency that ensured that cities followed good practices with growth management. That was a time where irony and hypocrisy became a daily staple around here. All those toxic leaders, many who were retired officers, talking tough about being anti-government regulation and in the next minute they were running to City Hall when their backyards flooded after heavy rains. It was like the dopes couldn't put two and two together.
Back to their fight with the developer. I'll cut to the chase. The deveoper sued the City and its attorneys, but his lawsuit was chockful of names to lay the groundwork to prove that a conspiracy stretched into the community. The City's first move was to hire an attorney from a law firm that was a political heavy-weight in the county and known to lean Republican. About four months later the lawyer would share the results of the legal research. She determined that the City's strongest position was that the developer had not yet filed the necessary paperwork. In other words, he could not proceed with his developments because of a process that was outlined in the PUD, as well as two other regulatory land laws. They all required special City and/or State applications and permits, as well as other time-consuming paperwork.
So, the much awaited legal opinion heard in this city, where talk of deregulation was king, was that their best bet to stop the developer from building his properties was outlined in regulatory documents.
I swear, I barely made it through the nineties with my sanity intact.
The developer was a lawyer himself. He deposed many people and could prove many things; like he claimed that he didn't find any local developer who was required to follow any of the procedures that the City now required him to do. But, that wasn't even his strongest card.
IMO, he could have leveled this city if he had followed through with a two-step legal lawsuit, that would have concluded with a jury trial. But he stopped after the first lawsuit when the judged ruled in his favor based on estoppel. Which meant that the City was stopped from preventing him from building his developments.
To explain that that judgement, one thing needs to be explained. Basically, the developer had sued the City two or three previous times before and from those early lawsuits, he had won a settlement or two and was allowed to build single family homes instead of the condominiums that were marked on the original PUD. Frankly, I believe it was more than a fair arrangement. But like I said earlier, I got a sneak preview of the future. I saw how easy it was to inflame all this toxic masculinity, along with their female counterparts, and when they're intoxicated with their own anger, there is no room for reason or logic.
But, why it all comes up now is because of what is happening between De Santis and Disney. You see, how estoppel was determined was based on one line from one of those earlier settlement agreements, which were, in fact, contracts. In one of those contracts it is clearly stated that if the developer had to file paperwork, the city would do it. Let that sink in. The City Attorney had to know that line was in that contract/settlement agreement, and yet allowed the emotional circus parade to proceed. They do this kind of nonsense all the time.
And I suspect that in the paperwork that hatched Reedy Creek, I bet there is something similar to give Disney some kind of assurance, that if they have full control of the district, sovereignty in fact, that it's some kind of vested right that the Republican State Congress can't touch and they know it.
Is Ron De Santis moving towards political "purification" in Florida?
We are in a new era where racism is overt. Racism IS the Republican platform. Out in the open. De Santis is so sure of himself, that his talk is getting more hostile, calling for people to fight Liberals. He's not just talking about our politics. He's talking about us. Why shouldn't we feel threatened?
Everywhere you look in Florida, there are areas where you can find Anglo preference in our communities. These are in your typical suburban areas, which we called white flight districts. It's just accepted that white homeowners fled to the suburbs to get out of the urban areas and away from minorities. I know it's like that all over the U.S., but as far as I can tell, no one really looks too hard to study how these communities remain Anglo-dominant. And, I don't see why it isn't discussed more often, because I find the methods so blatant as to be offensive.
The attempt at "purification" is not new. It's been going on for some time and happens in all quarters. For example, sometime in the nineties I called a Christian private school that was just opening to see what they had to offer. I never got past the recording. It said, "If you're calling for the tickets for the Oliver North event, blah, blah, blah." You see, I think that was an intentional totem to scare off undesirable prospects for their school. These kind of discouraging, passive aggressive communications are everywhere.
And now I see De Santis bringing it to a new level. The hostile language and evil intentions that he's pushing is intentionally meant to scare off those who are not aligned with conservative politics.
My county is kind of interesting. I have seen both a Hindu Temple and a Muslim school or church permitted. Pretty impressive structures. But it also includes a Classical Christian school which was initially promoted as a Christian community. Multi-family buildings are constructed around the school, and I'm not sure if it's even legal that they can promote only Christian tenants, but that's how it was understood back in the nineties when it was still in concept form. I wonder what would happen if the Hindu and the Muslim community attempted to do the same thing?
In addition, my city was forced to accept projects with multi-family dwellings, probably because of the land scandal that took place in the nineties where some pretty heinous things occurred to disrupt a developer's vested rights. Frankly, before things got out of hand, his compromise with the city was fair, IMO. But, it appears to me that it was far more lucrative for way too many of the backwater boys and gals to throw this city into chaos. Their interference would cost everyone.
Yet, the City has been very clever, making many of the multi-family dwellings they had to approve, age specific. Over 55, Senior Apartments. That means that the City doesn't have to worry about "unruly", young kids. The price tag for these apartments are not on the low end, which means that they are not affordable to many. And, homes that are not affordable generally means that few minorities will be moving in.
See, there's two methods that zoning laws were used to effectively screen out people that look like me. The fact that De Santis is now taking it a step further, by openly scaring off people that don't fit into his political beliefs is very concerning. I just don't understand how this doesn't end with a huge Civil Rights lawsuit. Florida could use a very loud, public court case to expose their discriminatory methods. Just don't expect the local lawyers to help in the effort. They're a big part of the problem.
A lesson from the Brits.
I live in a community that went down the rabbit hole in the nineties. Logic and rationale were checked at the door because neither had a place in a community that used a backroom society to pull the strings. It was a time when we had two leaders running our HOA. The "properly" elected president, and the good ole boy with direct connections to the backroom culture and the city. Access is everything in these kind of communities.
I can tell you from experience, that having two different societies working side by side is a losing proposition. If you don't have the law willing to stand up and stop the nonsense it's like living with parasites. The damage the good buddies create hiding under the cover of the nether world, is enduring. And it will continue to get worse, unless society wakes up and uses the arm of the law to stop them. And don't bring up lawyers. The shock troops in the community will gaslight you by spouting out legal tomes you know they don't believe like "He's a lawyer. He won't break his legal code by lying to us." My experiences suggest otherwise.
So, point is, I never quite understood how to deal with these gaslighters. I would hold up documents and tell them what I was reading, and they would respond in the same manner. Someone would say something incredibly stupid, and the room would respond by either laughing at me, or mocking me. Then, things would always get worse. We would go deeper down the rabbit hole, because the good buddies and their supporters were convinced that the community was hampered from taking action. Inaction from us was a sign to continue pilfering the community goodwill.
This happened in the nineties. And now, we're all in the same boat with the Republicans. I know it would have been helpful if there was something I could have said that would have awaken the decent people in the community. But then, I tell myself, it wouldn't have changed anything in my case. Most that did figure it out, moved out.
But, as the years have slipped by I've listened for those comments that might have made a difference. And the only thing I've heard that sounds like a line in the sand was being drawn to differentiate truly heinous and unacceptable behavior from rational expectations, came from across the pond.
That was when Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, responded to Boris Johnson's claims that he didn't know he was at a party, boozing it up during a Covid lockdown, with the comment: “so ridiculous that it is actually offensive to the British public.”
"...actually offensive to the British public." As if the British public takes a lot of abuse, but this one thing is beyond even expecting them to take in.
We need that kind of talk. We need someone to draw a line in the sand to show just how irrational and unacceptable the Republicans are. And I say this knowing there are people in the Republican party that would rather die, than wake up to see what they're doing to this country. And as good Americans, we just have to let them. It's the one thing that our inaction is good for.
But, for the others, a light might come on. So, here is to the wordsmiths out there. Find a way to find the high ground.
Time to reconsider those school vouchers for private schools!
Oh, man. Did they step in it. If they really believe that "Helping kids of color to feel they belong, has a negative effect on white, Christian, or conservative kids," then they stepped in it.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017686664
Those vouchers were given out to children in public schools, who felt they would get a better education in private school. But, what kind of education is the tax payer paying for? I think I can answer that.
Back in 1980, the school I went to only had 2% minority students. My tuition was entirely paid by my parents, but my experience was that which you would expect from a college in that era that was predominantly white. I knew what my role was, without anyone telling me. The academic education, of course, was important. But I knew it was also my job to assimilate to THEIR norms and social practices. And it was tougher than I would admit to myself, because there was no one to grade me on my progress.
Reflecting back, however, I am in a better position to appraise my situation. I can now see that on a social level, I was struggling. Something always felt off. I never felt that the social experiences I had in school were geared to help me reach my full potential as a minority student. I never felt fully integrated and it was only decades later that I realized, that, though we all appeared to get along, it was because we never crossed a line that would put us in an uncomfortable situation. Essentially, we never exchanged ideas or information on a cultural level. At least, not in a productive way. A few did compliment me on my English speaking skills, but, I don't see how anyone would have seen that as anything but insulting.
Ten to fifteen years after I graduated, I began to feel like something was changing in this country. It was the nineties and the conversations with the conservative side of the family began to grow dark. I know what Meghan Markle went through because I had the same dilemma in the nineties when conservative-mania began to take over and I heard right-wing talking points for the first time. I stopped attending the family get togethers, but didn't step in the way of my children and husband going without me. A few years later, they stopped attended too.
I also had conservative friends at this time, because that happened to be the circles we were in. Between work and college friends, there weren't many progressives who openly admitted their politics or shared their views. This was back when "Liberal" was a word that many were distancing themselves from.
In my generation, we learned to get along by not talking about political views. At most, when the elections would come by, someone might let it slip how they voted. But then we would go back to work and it never came up again until the next election. In other words, all through my forties, I never lived around people who had a good background when it came to respecting people who were different than they were.
And then came Trump.
Trump would change everything. He exploited this huge void in America's education. I suddenly felt that those friends who were too conservative to even reach out to understand my point of view; or worse, thought I was "crazy," were too toxic to be around. I finally had a breakthrough when someone said, "No one thinks like that." And I thought to myself, it all makes sense now. All along I had been surrounded by conservative white people and it dawned on me, of course they would say that. I have a minority perspective and it is something that they have refused to take seriously my entire life! In fact, they have tried to dismiss it, denounce it, deny it for as long as I have lived. For the same reason they're doing it to CRT.
So in sum, you want federal money? Then, teach the truth about our country. At least the next generation will understand each other's history and roots. And maybe they will have a chance to have meaningful conversations.
Can you believe it took this long to state the obvious?
We just made it through an era where conservative white men were allowed to profusely lie and fabricate facts to incite and divide people. We were living in a world of alternate facts, and it took this long for a Court to reach the decision that they will be held accountable for the things they said.
When are we going to accept that "military service" is a sacred cow in this country?
Here's what's wrong with that: It is too often abused. Military men and women, especially officers, should be role models for integrity and honesty in their civilian lives. If they can't do that, and rely on this "Get out of jail" card, our communities begin to degrade because so many backwater organizations use them as front men to stop people from looking too hard into their local overreaches. I know, because at every step of this community's bad decision-making, there were Captains, Colonels etc, at the helm of leadership. And it's not like you could ignore it, because they would wear their titles even on stationary that was meant to relay HOA business.
At least one of them exposed how they expected you to behave: He was a Captain in the military. And, "In the military no one ever questioned me." He was offended because he was representing his in-laws in the sale of their house, and he expected everything to go without any hard questions.
It's time for this sacred cow to be put down.
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