Dr. Andrew Bard Schmookler and Chairman John Lawrence
Ada Smith
Ada L. Smith (born in Amherst County, Virginia) served as a New York State Senator from 1989 to 2006. She represented the 10th Senate District, centered in the Jamaica, Queens section of New York City.
Ray Reed
Reporter From Lynchburg News and Advance
Mr. Reed was there primarily to meet and cover Dr. Andrew Bard Schmookler and his bid to unseat Bob Goodlatte. Ray Reed, Reporter News and Advance- Lynchburg is a member of the Virginia Press Association and the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association. Mr Reed is a well known and respected political and government affairs reporter.
All the County Democratic Committee's in the new 22nd Virginia Senate District are now involved in trying to convince Bert Dodson to seek the Democratic Senate Position. I've been to 3 county meetings in the last 10 days ( Amherst County, Campbell County and Lynchburg ) and we have decided to start a petition to try and persuade Mr. Dodson to pitch his hat in the ring. We will also attend other County Meetings to get and keep the effort going. Bert was in attendence at this meeting and Chairman John Lawrence asked Bert to say a few words to the crowd. We really need for Bert to be the first Senator in Virginia's new 22nd district so we will keep working on him to run.
Bert Dodson
Hard to See but thats Bert up in front of the crowd
Amherst Co. Chairman David Burford and Dr. Schmookler
Walter Fore
Steel Workers of America
Walter has been fighting for workers rights and standing up for the rights of all people for his entire adult life. It is an honor to have him associated with the Lynchburg Democratic Party. I remember Walter from the Central Virginia Labor Council when Silas Switcher was the president (and Julian Carper the Head of the State AFL-CIO) and we met at Steel Workers Hall by the Southern States Store just off Campbell avenue. (memories go way back) Good to see you again brother. You haven't lost an ounce of your youthful fire.
David Burford, Ada Smith, Russell Hill
Gerald Cheatham, Vice Chair of Lynchburg Dems is shown here helping set up the food tables. Gerald has attended the Amherst County Meetings and now that we are all in the new Virginia Senate District 22 we will be getting together more often.
Dr Schmookler's wife (center) April
Dr. Schmookler Challenges Goodlatte in the 6th District
Dr. Andrew Bard Schmookler, 65, is vying for the 6th District Democratic nomination in May to run against Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte in 2012.
Dr. Schmookler is a writer living in Shenandoah County ,two miles from West Virginia near Orkney Springs. He spends time writing a blog at nonsoblind.org. He is married with three children.
“I feel that what I’m fighting for is the soul of America. …It is a grave crisis this country now faces,” says Dr. Schmookler.
“I feel that what I’m fighting for is the soul of America. …It is a grave crisis this country now faces,” says Dr. Schmookler.
He is using friends for his campaign staff and admits that “There’s no way I’m going to match [the funds] that the incumbent can raise.” He’ll get his message out hoping to level the playing field and making “David’s slingshot a match for his [Goodlatte] Goliath’s sword.”
He said his campaign is “deeply committed to truthfulness” something he believes is lacking in politics today. He says he is not a generic Democrat. He has an “unusual and powerful message.”
“The country is acting like it is normal politics when forces that we’re not confronting actually are degrading it.” His campaign theme reflects his message – “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room – It is a crisis, an emergency.” Schmookler said he feels “duty bound to do everything that’s in my power to protect the country from going down the tubes.”
He plans to bring out Goodlatte’s untruths about telling constituents he’s on their side when he is not. Schmookler called Goodlatte “a loyal foot soldier of the Republican army.”
Schmookler is running as a Democrat because he believes that the “Democratic Party is the only thing that can possibly protect us from the destructive force that the Republican Party has become.”
When it comes to voter apathy there are two kinds said Schmookler. One just doesn’t care and the other feels that anything they do won’t matter. His job will be to make them understand that the current state of politics is robbing them and their children of a future. Others feel “a form of despair.” They need to rise up and demand a government with integrity. “We’ve seen that on the streets of Cairo [Egypt] and Madison [Wisconsin],” said Schmookler.
He studied as an undergraduate at Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude in Social Relations in 1967.
Schmookler went on to earn his doctorate in 1977 at the University of California at Berkeley and The Graduate Theological Union, in a program specially created to accommodate his comprehensive theory of human history.
In 1984, Dr. Schmookler was awarded the Erik H. Erikson Prize by the International Society for Political Psychology. And in 1985, he was selected by Esquire Magazine as “one of the men and women under forty who are changing the nation.” The International Biographical Centre (of Cambridge, England) selected him, in 1999, as one the “Outstanding People of the Twentieth Century”.
Here is the text of a proposed ad that Dr. Schmookler spoke of during his presentation.
You can go to his website and let him know what you think. Does it work, does it need changes to have maximum effect. This is your campaign and your thoughts and ideas are important. Please share your thoughts. www.nonesoblind.org
Here's the ad
WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT A POLITICAL PARTY IF IT TAKES THE POSITION,
“MEET OUR DEMANDS OR WE’LL HURT AMERICA”?
That’s the position the Republicans took last December.
The Republicans (including Bob Goodlatte) said, “Extend the tax cuts for the very rich, or we’ll see to it that the taxes go up for EVERY American.” They knew that was bad for the country, because they said so: an across the board tax hike could derail our fragile economic recovery.
But they threatened to do it anyway.
“MEET OUR DEMANDS OR WE’LL HURT AMERICA”?
That’s the position the Republicans took last December.
The Republicans (including Bob Goodlatte) said, “Extend the tax cuts for the very rich, or we’ll see to it that the taxes go up for EVERY American.” They knew that was bad for the country, because they said so: an across the board tax hike could derail our fragile economic recovery.
But they threatened to do it anyway.
And then, this spring, once again the Republicans took the country hostage.
The Republicans (including Bob Goodlatte) said, “Give us the spending cuts we demand, or we’ll shut down the government.”
They knew that a government shutdown would disrupt the lives of millions of Americans. Americans didn’t like it when there was a government shutdown in the 1990s. A government shutdown is bad for the country.
But the Republicans threatened to do it anyway.
And right now, the Republicans are taking America hostage again. The Republicans (including Bob Goodlatte) are threatening to refuse to raise the debt limit unless their demands are met.
They know that it would be bad –really, really bad– for the country.
The Republicans (including Bob Goodlatte) said, “Give us the spending cuts we demand, or we’ll shut down the government.”
They knew that a government shutdown would disrupt the lives of millions of Americans. Americans didn’t like it when there was a government shutdown in the 1990s. A government shutdown is bad for the country.
But the Republicans threatened to do it anyway.
And right now, the Republicans are taking America hostage again. The Republicans (including Bob Goodlatte) are threatening to refuse to raise the debt limit unless their demands are met.
They know that it would be bad –really, really bad– for the country.
That’s why both parties have always, until now, worked together to raise the debt ceiling so that the country can pay its bills.
That’s why the Congress raised it seven times, without a partisan battle, while George W. Bush was president.
That’s why many people say it could bring on an economic crisis even worse than the one in 2008 America and the world are still trying to recover from. That’s why even the U.S. Chamber of Congress is pleading for the Republicans not to play politics with the threat to put the United States into default for the first time in its history.
But the Republicans are threatening to do it anyway.
Has any political party ever acted like this in our 220 year history? I don’t think so.
THAT’S NOT THE AMERICAN WAY!
Threatening to hurt the country –taking the public good hostage– is a violation of America’s ideals for how our democracy should work.But the Republicans are threatening to do it anyway.
Has any political party ever acted like this in our 220 year history? I don’t think so.
THAT’S NOT THE AMERICAN WAY!
Send Bob Goodlatte and the Republican Party a message. Tell them you want them to uphold America’s political ideals, or you’ll find people who will!
ACVDN Bottom Line
Todays Republican party is a distortion of what it used to be. Republicans were once decent people who wanted the same dreams for the future that Democrats have, good educations for our children, social security, medicare, womens health care, early childhood education, health care for all our citizens and retirements with dignity. For the Republicans those days are long gone. With the "I Like Ike" era of the late fifties it started to die for republicans. Today any decency the republicans once had is completely gone. Republicans want to do away with anything that poor and working people have and to trim back on benefits of the middle class and to direct any savings to the upper two percent of wage earners and big business. Republicans have become wild dogs roaming the streets of the American dream attacking anything they encounter. Republicans must be stopped, defeated, diminished in power for the America that is the envy of the world to survive. For those who still label themselves as republican the time is now to distance yourself from the failing GOP. As long as you empower republicans they will continue to steal from you and give to the wealthy and big business. Republicans are the masters of the reverse Robin Hood.
Schmookler is an author, speaker, and radio talk-show host. He says America is stalled because both parties have not learned to work together.
Congressman Goodlatte refused to comment on Schmookler's announcement, saying the election is too far away to start responding to potential challengers. Goodlattes normal way of dealing with problems is to close his eyes and hope they go away. When Bob opens his eyes Dr. Andrew Bard Schmookler will still be there. People who know Dr. Andy as folks who have trouble with his last name sometimes call him tell me he is a pit bull when he tackles problems. Dr Andy won't let go until he has the desired solution. When he is our Congressman inVirginia's 6th District he will work just that hard for you, count on it.
Schmookler's website, www.nonesoblind.org , says he is a Harvard grad and the author of prize-winning book The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution.
In the American political realm, a battle now that must be fought if we are to meet this historical challenge successfully. The way to fight and win this battle is by talking about "The Elephant in the Room."
The idea of "the elephant in the room" identifies two problems: the elephant, and the fact that people act and talk as if it were not there.
The "elephant" in our American room is the unprecedentedly destructive force that has arisen on the political right. We can see how this "elephant" is damaging everything in America that it touches. Taking power away from this destructive force is Job One for us Americans, because until that job is done, none of our other jobs can get done right.
In a democracy, the only way a force like this can gain power is by deceiving the people about its true nature. The way to defeat this destructive force, therefore, is to expose it for what it really is so that, discredited in the eyes of the American people, it loses its support.
Yet both the national media, and our national Democratic leaders, act as if these are normal times in American politics, refusing to confront this unprecedented force.
Both sides of our political divide have their defects, but they are complementary, not symmetrical: one insists on making a fight of everything, even when there's no need, while the other shrinks from the fight, even when it is absolutely necessary.
Meanwhile, the battle goes badly--lies continue to be rewarded, power continues to go to the force that has taken over the Republican Party, the nation's good structures continue to be degraded, and the power and wealth continue to flow from the American people to the already very rich and powerful.
If it's clear that the force to turn things around will not come from the players at the center stage, that leaves one possible source in the American body politic: a rising up of the American people.
If I'm right that this crisis represents as serious a threat to America's traditional values as was the fight against fascism abroad in World War II, for which so many sacrificed so much, we should ask ourselves what effort we as citizens today should be prepared to make to meet the present challenge.
The theme "Let's Talk About THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM!" provides the key to forming a social movement for that
purpose--for that theme is at once a call to battle, the weapon of choice, and a strategy to bring pressure to bear on the core of American power.
Show Down at the Not OK Corral
What These Showdowns Reveal by Andy Schmookler
Americans will soon witness the third major political showdown in six months. It’s worth examining this pattern, because it shows what is seriously sick in our body politic.
First came the impasse last December over the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Democrats wanted to extend those cuts for the first quarter of a million dollars of a family’s income; Republicans wanted to extend them all the way to the last dollar earned by billionaires.
Republicans threatened to prevent ANY of the tax cuts from being extended unless they got their way. President Obama and the Democrats gave in. The whole package of tax cuts was extended.
Several things are worth pointing out:
What the Republicans were threatening to do would have hurt the nation, and their words show they knew that. The economic recovery remained weak, and an across-the-board tax increase (if no action were taken) would have set back a fragile recovery.
Threatening to hurt the nation if one’s demands are not met is not how Americans have traditionally conducted their politics. This is a violation of our nation’s political ideals even if the demands are good.
But these demands were not good. Of all the ways of adding to the national debt, giving money to the very rich was the least effective way of helping the economy get back on its feet. The Republican plan had the additional defect of further widening the gulf between the richest and the rest in America after a decade when the richest made progress while 90 percent of American families lost ground.
Polls showed the public supported the Democrats’ position. It was a political battle that the Democrats could have won. Yet they capitulated. After the deal, President Obama said, “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. … In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.”
Obama gave in early in the process — before any crisis forced Americans to confront what was at stake and where their interests lay. Republicans paid no political price for bad behavior. Obama showed them that blackmail pays.
No surprise that when the next major issue arose this spring – the need to pass a budget for the year already underway– Republicans turned to blackmail again. This time they threatened to shut down the government. Again, their policy demands (for various budget cuts) were bad for the country: The Congressional Budget Office indicates that those budget cuts could cost the economy 400,000 more jobs. The Republicans also struck at programs like Food Stamps that help the most vulnerable at a time of great hardship for millions of families.
Again, the public supported the Democrats’ priorities. And again, Obama and the Democrats caved early to Republican demands, preventing a government shutdown which, though regrettable, would have highlighted the Republicans’ reprehensible tactics.
Again, the Republicans paid no political price. Indeed, they were rewarded for conduct that assaults the political customs that have made America a well-functioning democracy for most of its two-plus centuries.
This sets the stage for the next showdown—over raising the debt ceiling. Again, the Republicans are threatening to damage the country. Knowledgeable people say inaction could derail the world economy and do lasting damage to the “good faith and credit” of the United States.
Amherst County Virginia Democratic News
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