Title: DEMOCRATIC WOMEN\’S COUNCIL OF THE CONEJO VALLEY
Location: Mandevilla Restaurant,Westlake Village
Description: Brunch with Hannah-Beth Jackson
Start Time: 10 A,M.
Date: 09-07-18
End Time: 12 Noon

Title: DEMOCRATIC WOMEN\’S COUNCIL OF THE CONEJO VALLEY
Location: Mandevilla Restaurant,Westlake Village
Description: Brunch with Hannah-Beth Jackson
Start Time: 10 A,M.
Date: 09-07-18
End Time: 12 Noon

The Democratic Club of the Conejo Valley will meet at the Thousand Oaks Library on Wednesday July 8 at 6:30 P.M.  Speaker for the evening isSteve Greenburg, former political cartoonist for the Ventura County Star.  He will discuss the current issues with his own slant.  Charity for the month is Manna.  Items will be collected at the meeting.  The public is always welcome.  The library is located at 1401 Janss Road in Thousand Oaks.

Land Grab of Veteran’s Administration Property in Brentwood?
from Carmen Ramirez
Steve and Carolyn Crandall will give us information about their efforts to organize a protest planned on August 16, 2009 at the VA site in Brentwood. They’ll tell us about the Vet’s Administration allowing a nearby homeowner’s association to pick up 16 acres of VA land without paying for it! Can this be true? Please come with your questions; let’s find out what is going on.

Immigration Reform and Your Community
from Gloria Romero
Beatriz Garcia, organizer with CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy) in Oxnard will make a presentation at the July Good Club meeting about why our country needs Immigration Reform. Beatriz is an experienced organizer, raised in Oxnard, schooled at Stanford University, she has done organizing work in San Diego and now Oxnard and Ventura County; she was trained by the same community organization which trained Barack Obama in Chicago.
She’ll explain why it is economically and morally essential that Immigration Reform be enacted by the federal government soon, so that the workers and their families in our community can come out of the shadows into sunlight. Come with your questions and concerns.

Land Grab of Veteran’s Administration Property in Brentwood?
from Carmen Ramirez
Steve and Carolyn Crandall will give us information about their efforts to organize a protest planned on August 16, 2009 at the VA site in Brentwood. They’ll tell us about the Vet’s Administration allowing a nearby homeowner’s association to pick up 16 acres of VA land without paying for it! Can this be true? Please come with your questions; let’s find out what is going on.

Immigration Reform and Your Community
from Gloria Romero
Beatriz Garcia, organizer with CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy) in Oxnard will make a presentation at the July Good Club meeting about why our country needs Immigration Reform. Beatriz is an experienced organizer, raised in Oxnard, schooled at Stanford University, she has done organizing work in San Diego and now Oxnard and Ventura County; she was trained by the same community organization which trained Barack Obama in Chicago.
She’ll explain why it is economically and morally essential that Immigration Reform be enacted by the federal government soon, so that the workers and their families in our community can come out of the shadows into sunlight. Come with your questions and concerns.

Governor Schwarzenegger is casting his lot with the Republican minority in the legislature which is primarily responsible for the failure of the legislature to produce a viable budget. True, our staggering deficit does represent an accumulation of spending greater than revenue collection, and some of that spending, the burgeoning prison bill, for example, is certainly misdirected, but most of the deficit now undermining our credit and credibility comes from the success of the minority party repressing equitable revenue collection for several decades. The governor got his office by promising to hold the vehicle license fee at recession levels, thereby creating much of the current shortfall. The Republican minority in the legislature has wielded the veto given by the two thirds rule to keep taxes on the most lucrative sectors of the economy—real estate, financial services, and corporations, especially oil companies, low, shifting the burden onto individual personal income taxpayers and sales taxes. Their low taxes contributed to the housing bubble and subsidized an infrastructure increasingly dependent on shrinking supplies of oil and stubbornly resistant to adapting to menacing climate change. Extraction of rainy day funds from sunshine sectors was denied.
Both the governor and Republican legislators claim a mandate against any increase in taxes from the May 19 election, but neither election analysis nor public opinion assessments substantiates their claims. Long-term remedy lay not exclusively in spending cuts but in overcoming application of the two thirds rule. Continued tyranny by this highly disciplined minority will continue to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of winners taking all, depriving the rest of the broad incentives needed by the capitalist system it claims to represent. Instead, its “gusher up” policies disguised as “trickle down” have led to systemic breakdown, in which most who expect to win lose, and to destruction, not the “creative destruction” touted by its ideologists. Regenerative creativity has to come from policies based on experience, not ideological fantasy. Crisis may bring opportunity but institutionalized stalemate does not. Heaping blame on the boxed-in majority in the legislature produces more stalemate, not creative change. It merely serves to perpetuate the tyranny of the minority, results of whose ascendancy have now come home to roost.

By Allen Dirrim, GOOD Club President

Governor Schwarzenegger is casting his lot with the Republican minority in the legislature which is primarily responsible for the failure of the legislature to produce a viable budget. True, our staggering deficit does represent an accumulation of spending greater than revenue collection, and some of that spending, the burgeoning prison bill, for example, is certainly misdirected, but most of the deficit now undermining our credit and credibility comes from the success of the minority party repressing equitable revenue collection for several decades. The governor got his office by promising to hold the vehicle license fee at recession levels, thereby creating much of the current shortfall. The Republican minority in the legislature has wielded the veto given by the two thirds rule to keep taxes on the most lucrative sectors of the economy—real estate, financial services, and corporations, especially oil companies, low, shifting the burden onto individual personal income taxpayers and sales taxes. Their low taxes contributed to the housing bubble and subsidized an infrastructure increasingly dependent on shrinking supplies of oil and stubbornly resistant to adapting to menacing climate change. Extraction of rainy day funds from sunshine sectors was denied.
Both the governor and Republican legislators claim a mandate against any increase in taxes from the May 19 election, but neither election analysis nor public opinion assessments substantiates their claims. Long-term remedy lay not exclusively in spending cuts but in overcoming application of the two thirds rule. Continued tyranny by this highly disciplined minority will continue to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of winners taking all, depriving the rest of the broad incentives needed by the capitalist system it claims to represent. Instead, its “gusher up” policies disguised as “trickle down” have led to systemic breakdown, in which most who expect to win lose, and to destruction, not the “creative destruction” touted by its ideologists. Regenerative creativity has to come from policies based on experience, not ideological fantasy. Crisis may bring opportunity but institutionalized stalemate does not. Heaping blame on the boxed-in majority in the legislature produces more stalemate, not creative change. It merely serves to perpetuate the tyranny of the minority, results of whose ascendancy have now come home to roost.

By Allen Dirrim, GOOD Club President

Our speaker will be animator and cartoonist Steve Greenberg.  Mr. Greenberg has contributed to the  Ventura County Star and has written and animated an environmental book entitled “Fine-Tooning the Planet” that he will have for purchase and signing.

We also welcome Bernie Rosander from Organizing for America to dialogue with us about Obama’s healthcare package. 

This month we will collect canned, boxed and fresh foods for Manna, the local foodbank. 

We will also discuss general club business, upcoming events and welcome new members.  Please join us.

John Krist, Ventura County Farm Bureau CEO, will speak on “From Beets to Berries: Agriculture’s Role in the History, Culture and Economy of Ventura County” to the Democratic Club of Camarillo, Thursday, July 2nd at 7PM.  Food guides will be available and there will be a book signing.

Mr. Krist is an award winning journalist and wrote a popular column for the Ventura County Star for many years.  He has published two books, and a yearlong series, “Farming on the Edge”,  about Ventura County agriculture.  He has written many commentaries on land-use, natural resources and environmental issues. The Farm Bureau of Ventura County is an independent, non-partisan organization which advocates for the agricultural industry and supports the vitality and long-term success of agriculture in Ventura County.

Also slated to speak at the meeting are Dr. Kristofer Young of Ojai who will tell of his efforts to support local farmers and eat only food grown within 100 miles of Ojai for all of 2009; Eileen Mannion who will update the club on the progress of the Camarillo Community Garden; and Phil McGrath of McGrath Family Farms who will share his vision for local agriculture.

The club meets in the Orchid Building, located on Camarillo Springs Road at the SB exit from the 101 Freeway.  For information about the meeting please call Sue Boloorchi at 805/469-3749.

In California, smoking related costs total more than $15 billion each year. Nationwide, smoking-caused health care costs total $10.28 per pack sold in the U.S.  Shouldn’t smokers pay for the resulting cost to society?

Cigarette taxes could not only ease the enormous economic burden to existing public health programs that treat tobacco related illnesses, but with the current budget deficit, Governor Swarzenegger has announced a series of cuts that would hit children and families hardest – perhaps leaving California alone as the only state without a safety net for women and children.

For every $1 added to the tobacco tax, we could raise $1 billion in revenue. This increase could be enough to keep healthy families afloat and offset a large amount of cuts to education.  Since California’s tobacco tax has not increased in more than a decade, and 75 percent of Californians support higher tobacco taxes, now is the time to increase the cost of cigarettes to protect our kids, their education, and their health.

Excerpted, in part, from a June 23 Calitics article by Tom Torlakson