On Wednesday, July 14th at 6:00 pm at the Ramona library, the Ramona Forum will present two video’s on the events that led to the country’s financial disaster and the urgent need for Financial Reform. The first video will highlight  Professor Black of Michigan University  and the second  Felix Salmon of Reuters.
The video’s will be followed by an informal discussion led by Ramona’s resident author Ralph Cates and the Forum’s economic expert Ron Zambreno in which the audience are invited to participate.
All are welcome and admission is free.

This announcement has also been published in Our Town section of Ramona Sentinel

So much for a preamble!

What has been happening with Ramona Forum?  With inauguration of President Obama in January 2009, there was a general feeling of accomplishment among Forum members.  There was a lull in public visibility and activity.  We plunged into gardening as part of our general philosophy about sustainability.  We did a report on PEACE GARDEN in October 2009 followed by a short winter progress report in January 2010.  We did limited Sunday demonstration.  Letter writing was a major project.

OUR LETTER WRITING EFFORTS:

We plunged into a deliberate attempt to influence public opinion through letter writing.  As Ramonans, we concentrated our effort on the pages of Ramona Sentinel, and occasionally on the pages of North County Times.

The issues that attracted our members are

• healthcare reform,
• continuing war in Afghanistan,
• Tea Party groups’ rightist ideological stands,
• immigration reform
• civility in political dialog:
• barter system

Here is a list of letters/commentaries that were published:

Dave’s letter to North County Times dealt with use of troops within USA.  In support of our causes, notable letters from other than forum members were from James McNamara and J. Garcia.  Our heartfelt thanks to them.

In our limited demonstrations on Sundays, some of us wanted to challenge the values of the fellow Ramonans with posters like:

• Did you have enough of war?
• Greed is evil,
  organized corporate greed is anti-national
• How much profit is good profit?
• Because the healthcare reform costs
  do we let the uninsured die without treatment
• War will not make us safe
  Middle East Peace might

DAVE’S COUP on DUNCAN HUNTER Jr.

Our president, Dave Patterson, recently staged a sort of coup on Duncan Hunter Jr.  In a Tea Party meeting in Ramona, he asked Representative Hunter Jr. whether the natural born (in USA) children of (one or more) parents of illegal immigrants are entitled to US citizenship.  The obvious reference was to the Amendment #14.  The answer (in the link watch and listen from 2 min on)  from Hunter Jr. was “NO”, which he later tried to explain by saying that he wanted to change the Constitution to deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants.  One of us wrote a long commentary, which we are posting under ‘Special Commentary/Editorial’ on our ‘Pages’ section of our website.  Listen to Dave Patterson’s original video posted on You Tube, which was later picked by the Turkey Democrats.  There were almost 100, 000 total ‘hits’.

PEACE GARDEN

We devoted a lot of our energy in making the Peace Garden a success. With the knowledge and experience we gained last year, we planned a better garden for this year.   A frame was built to protect vegetables from rabbits and squirrels. (January 2010 Report) Inside the frame, we planted winter vegetables like spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, peas, onions, garlic and similar vegetables.  Straw bale enclosure advocate was Rose.  

(Nancy by Rose’s straw bale garden, with potatoes, cilantro, lettuce and spinach)

We are now into the summer vegetables. Tomatoes, beans, eggplants, and peppers, both sweet and hot ones, are in the plans. Some are already in the ground.

Gathering by the Garden Side

Forum members love to gather by the garden side. (watch)  Usually we meet , work, discuss—often animated!— different topics, listen to invited speakers, eat, drink, socialize (watch) and sing (watch and listen to this parody!).  We  meet once a month, usually last Saturday of the month, by Garden side.

Meeting dates and times are circulated among Forum members through e-mail.  If you are not a Forum member, or just want to know about our activities, please use our ‘contact us’ form to become a member by letting us know about you and your e-mail.  There is no membership requirement other than your commitment to progressive causes.

WEDNESDAYS — SPECIAL EVENTS AND REGULAR MEETINGS

This year, as part of Our Second Wednesday Special Event Nights,  we showed two documentaries:

• Ceasar Chavez
• Capitalism: A Love Story (by Michael Moore)

We meet (most) Wednesdays for our regular meetings.  Besides organizational affairs, we have visitors to discuss issues or to listen to them.

Meeting dates and times are circulated among Forum members through e-mail.  Second Wednesday Special Events are also announced in ‘Our Town’ section of Ramona Sentinel.   If you are not a Forum member, or just want to know about our activities, please use our ‘contact us’ form to become a member by letting us know about you and your e-mail.  There is no membership requirement other than your commitment to progressive causes.

FOR THOSE WHO MISSED THE FEATURE ON US (RAMONA FORUM, THAT IS!) IN NORTH COUNTY TIMES, HERE IS THE LINK

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/ramona/article_48d5b5a5-5836-58ab-959e-a08a0dcc6c18.html

Here are few issues:

• Thoughts of many—if not majority—of Americans and their support of issues defy concept of human rights, social justice and fairness to all, Americans and beyond.  Progressives, read ‘A look At The Year 2009’ and join the dialog.
• Health care reform bill has not been passed yet.
• Financial Reform regulating Banking, Insurance, and other financial industries has been diluted to the point of no reform, at best reform on the fringes.  There is no bill yet.
• Ambivalence of Americans on Energy issues still lingers.
• Unemployment is high.  “Shovel ready” initiatives are still slow.  Small business loan is tangled up with financial reform quagmire.
• Human Rights to all Americans are still denied.
• More Americans support war in Afghanistan.
• Powerful bankers, insurance companies, oil companies, and the like have formed unofficial cartels and are challenging the people’s wishes.

The issues are as grim as it was in 2009 and during Bush era as well.

The Public Option is as elusive as ever, most likely it will not be in the final version.  The health insurance companies may still be out of reach of SEC.  Senate does not want Anti-trust Law provisions extended to the health insurance companies.  Senator Max Baucus took six months to try for Republican participation in Health reform, which eventually produced no Republican participation.  And the President, the majority leader, and the Democratic caucus looked on, but Baucus was not asked to stop trying even after six weeks!

Real Financial Reform regulating Banking, Insurance and other financial institutions has evaporated because all—okay, almost all— the members of the Congress are beneficiaries of these financial institutions.  When the bill will come out of the reconciliation, if the current trend continues, there could be reform only at the fringes, cosmetic that is.  The financial institutions will remain as big as ever.  The cliché will remain the same: they are too big to let them fail; otherwise they will bring the country down!  In the meantime, the banks are doing everything other than what they are supposed to do—LOANING money to small businesses and the public.  Homeowners were hoodwinked, in the first place, to take a loan they cannot pay (I am not absolving the homeowners of there responsibility, but it is much more than that) and then they are not being helped with a reasonable way out.

There is enough reason to start a Public (Federal) Bank network.  And a Public Health Insurance company network.

Energy situation still remain the same.  We, the drivers, conserve only marginally—we do not slow down, we do not do planned, consolidated driving, and we are still after bigger cars and trucks! Progressives, read ‘A look At The Year 2009’ and join the dialog.

Human rights to Homosexuals and other groups are still denied.  Imposition of one’s values over others is still acceptable.

War will not keep us safe.  Peace in Middle East might take the lifeblood out of the Jihadi movement and terrorist activities, and create a favorable attitude towards America and Americans, which might make us safer.

Our expectation from President Obama is real change, not on the fringes.

.

• On November 3, 2009, another gay rights issue (aka human rights issue) lost another referendum in the country, in Maine, for the thirty-first (31^st) time.  New York and New Jersey made the setback number 32 and 33.
• On November 7, 2009, thirty-nine (39) blue dog (“dogs”) Democrats voted against the health reform bill because of their opposition to the public option provision.
• It is reported that another twenty (20) “dogs”, who are opposed to both public option and abortion, would have voted against the same bill—defeating it— had it not been for an earlier passage of an all-encompassing anti-abortion amendment.
• Beyond the Health Reform noise, silently but surely, Financial Reform has already been watered down .
• Threat of terrorist activities has not diminished.   Country is in favor of expanding the war In Afghanistan.
• Fox cable channel—commentaries/opinions presented as news—continues to be the most watched cable news channel.

What are the significance of all these?  Here is one view.

1. The country as a whole is not there yet to embrace a progressive position in human equality, dignity, and rights.  The progressive position is gaining ground, ever so slowly.  It is a slow, painfully slow,  process.
2. Members of the Congress are reluctant to proceed with regulating Banking, Insurance and Pharmaceutical industries.  Most of the members are beneficieries from these industries.  And there is no public outcry!  They are not even asking how much profit is good profit for big corporations.
3. Members of the Congress and the President are reluctant to make hard political decisions to curb terrorist activities.
4. If the constituencies of the “dogs” are added to the constituencies held by the Republicans, the conservatives have a clear majority of the congressional constituencies in the country. The voting on health care reform bill indicates a total count of fifty-nine (59) “dogs” as opposed to an earlier count of fifty-seven (57).
5. These  “dogs” have often said that if they vote for a bill that contains public option, their re-election will be endangered.  They are afraid!  That is the extent of their dedication to public good.  Their vote then would be against the health insurance companies, and, by extrapolation, for “socialism”!  Most likely they would vote for other progressive issues too.  Nevertheless this means the same thing as in #2: If the constituencies of the “dogs” are added to the constituencies held by the Republicans, the conservatives have a clear majority of the congressional constituencies in the country.

To some, the above conclusions may seem somewhat far-fetched, but these are not far from the realities that exist in the nation now.  Is there any lesson in all these for the progressives, let alone Democrats?

Lesson One: While we are reacting to the symptoms like health care reform, energy, Afghanistan war, global-warming, human rights issues and the like, progressives should not ignore emphasis on fundamentals.

Lesson Two: Whether we like it or not, many—most likely, a majority—are unwilling to review their ideas, views or belief systems.  Call it inertia, conservatism, or whatever you like it exists more or less in all of us.  And some do need to take a hard look and question about things that affects our lives, collectively speaking:

• Profit vs. Greed
• Corporate greed is anti-national as compared to personal greed.
• Free enterprise vs. monopoly.
• Monopoly and cartel of monopolists.
• Think yourself vs. allow others to think for you
• Life is not a multiple choice
• National interest vs. personal interest
• The essentials of American life — electric energy, water, gasoline, and health care.
• How much profit is good profit?
• Is it ethical and moral to profit on American health?
• Is it ethical to profit on American essentials?
• The inter-dependency, not just inter-connectivity, of employment (jobs), energy, education, environment, and health care.
• Patriotism and ultra-nationalism.
• Extra-Electoral tactics to overthrow elected bodies is anti-democratic.
• Does novel means good?
• Can convenience be like the apple in Eden?
• Reluctance to ask for source of media assertions (information)
• Reluctance or Inability to correlate things
• Reluctance to review their ideas, views or belief systems
• What is socialism?

Progressives can help to shake off this inertia.

Lesson Three: Accept the reality that exists in the country, and work from there to make the country a real progressive democratic one.  We are not there yet!  Work with people we have, not the people we could have had.  Progressives need simultaneous action both on symptoms and on fundamentals.  A sustained education for life is the key.  Entrenched ideas, be it from culture, tradition or sustained corporate propaganda, are hard to eradicate.  Ideas that originate from one’s value system are even harder to change.  Nevertheless, it is a slow process.  Yet, it has to be undertaken.  The old cliché: you have to start sometime!  And sustain.  For progressives, the time is now.

All these are entrenched ideas through generations— cultural, traditional and ideas acquired from sustained corporate propaganda over the decades.  Ideas that originate from one’s value system are even harder to change.  These hard to eradicate ideas are against humanity, human rights and are plainly contradictory to the point of irrationality. Examples are all over the world—world population is being tormented by religious intolerance, which is really a human right issue as intolerance of personal belief of someone else; civil rights act in USA has not eradicated racism; not so long ago, women were burnt as witches; in some cultures, human sacrifices were practiced routinely; women are still subjugated today in many cultures; and greed has been proclaimed and accepted as a natural instinct by some religious groups and conveniently promoted by corporate culture as well!  These practices and ideas have changed—or are changing—for the better in some areas, unfortunately too slowly. .  We wish the change could be faster.  Nevertheless, we cannot leave it for spontaneity.

Progressives need to work relentlessly to address this issue, not just the offshoots of this issue. This is not just an idea—or yet another idea—, it is about progress of civilization—the advancement of human dignity, human right and social justice. Progressives cannot shy away from the task.

Read below about our counter demonstration to the ‘tea party’. And pictures.

Peace Garden efforts enter a new phase too.  As the cooler temperatures set in, planting for winter garden will start soon.  Planning for summer garden is getting full attention among our garden enthusiasts headed by Cathy Sellers.   Ron is busy with his tractor and other heavy equipments.

Peace Garden report and pictures appears below the counter demonstration report.

We have a sample slide show page. Check it out, please.  If you like the format, we will continue to have photos of our activities in this format on a regular basis.

We will discontinue our Home Page sections on ‘Weekly Activities’ and ‘Special Events’.  Most of our Forum family members prefer to gather these information from our e-mails.  However, special events will be announced in this monthly ‘bulletin’.   Weekly regular activities are now listed under ‘About Us’ page.

You can leave your comments without any prior registration.  However, you will have to leave your name and e-mail.  The last step is to prevent frivolous spam-like comments from you-know-who-s.

Dear Friends:

This is an appeal to Forum Family members with a big preamble.  This is also a letter of explanation that we believe we owe to our Forum Family members.

Last Saturday members of the Ramon Forum demonstrated on the Streets of Ramona to counter the local Tea Party demonstration that was frankly racist, and anti Obama.

We called ourselves the “Mad Hatters Tea Party” and our strategy was to display signs that would expose the ridiculous consequences of abolishing everything that the Tea baggers described as socialism.  We facetiously condemned such institutions as:

•       UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

•       VETERANS’ HEALTH CARE

•       MEDICARE

•       MEDICAID

•       AID TO VERY POOR FAMILIES

•       FIRE SERVICE

•       SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

•       FHA

•       POLICE

•       NATIONAL GUARD

•       MILITARY

•       FOREIGN SERVICE.

While we possessed an abundance of enthusiasm and dedication, our posters were somewhat lacking in coordination and planning, and to some of our supporters we even conveyed the mistaken impression that we were “selling out” and to few others that we were even a right wing fringe of the tea baggers themselves.  Nothing of course could be further from the truth—we just put on a satirical demonstration designed to show how far out the right has gone.  We used signs that parroted the extreme ideas, like ‘Close the Socialist VA’ and ‘End Medicare’.

Please be advised that we have not capitulated to the fear mongering right.

Although our message should have been more carefully thought out, we did capture the attention of passers bye— we cannot know how effective we were in the end, but we did try and we were there standing our ground—and that was no mean feat considering we were only 8 (10 at the peak) against a crowd of about 200.

Some of our memberships think that satire is not the best approach when dealing with important subjects like the health care, and this may be true.  However, had we stood there with our standard signs we would have been seen only by those that were looking for us—the choir of liberals in town.  As we faced a large disparity in numbers we needed novel and innovative ideas to get through to those who are just attracted to some catchy slogans without putting any thoughts to them—it is a situation that we encounter on many other occasions.

We see each of these demonstrations as one learning experience too and we assure you that our next action will be well coordinated.  We did learn that satire is a very difficult media with which to convey a serious message.

The appeal

Having said all of these, we would like to make an internal point of our own.  Good ideas need lots of input, and for that we need you participating as much as you can.  Please come and be part of the change we are attempting to make in Ramona.

This letter was composed by Dave, Ron and dutta.  We received a number of e-mails about the counter demonstration on September 12.  There was some confusion.  So, we thought we should have a pow-wow among ourselves.

THE PRESIDENT’S REPORT ON OUR COUNTER DEMONSTRATION ON SEPTEMBER 12

Today the Ramona Forum stood across the street in an attempt to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Tea Party gang.  There were about 200 Tea Party folks and 8 of us.  We called our demonstration the Mad Hatters Tea Party and Ron Selkovitch wore the fun hat.

Most of our signs were facetious, end socialism, end VA, close the library, close the police station, end Medicare, government option health care is socialist plot…..etc.

One lady yelled out the window “Why you want to close the library?”  I answered, “Because it’s a socialist program”, and she responded, oh yea, that’s right!  Generally I think people weren’t reading the signs, just thinking that we were with the larger group across the street.  The cops did look surprised when I pulled out the close the police stations, and one kid asked me who would fight crime if we did closed the police stations?  I told him to ask the nuts across the street!

We had one lady stop by to sign our petition to end socialism.  It was a pledge to end welfare, medical, emergency room use by the uninsured and illegal aliens, Medicare, social security, VA, police library and many more including CalTrans.  She declared that she couldn’t sign it, and we told her we wouldn’t either!  Needless to say, we didn’t have a single signer!

We did encounter a couple of people that knew what we were up to, but generally the passers by honked and we waved our close the VA and library signs gleefully.  I was having blast, but my friend Dutta thought we were wasting our time.

[Editor's note: dutta thought that our satirical message was getting lost, misinterpreted, or wasted.  Since then we received communications that indicated a mixed reception—some were elated, some were skeptical—which prompted the letter above.]

About that time a heckler from the other side started yelling that she was not Obama’s slave and a bunch of other crazy stuff about being responsible.  I kept yelling to hell with the poor, and close the VA, but to no avail.  So I pulled out my big guns, a giant sign that declared “MY GUNS, MY GOD, MY TAXES”, which brought a big cheer from across the street.  Later while I was being interviewed by the local paper, some guy came over and asked me what the difference was between the White House and the Wild Animal Park?  His answer was a racist slur, of course, so I asked if he was one of those racist people that hate Obama because he’s black?  He of course denied that and declared that he would have voted for Condoliza Rice or Colin Powell had they run.  After asking why he would vote for known liars, he left.  I think the journalist took a few notes.

Generally we had a blast and turned a few people away from the tea party idea with our message.  Bit by bit we will marginalize these nuts, as they should be.

Now, an outsider’s look at our demonstration from East County Magazine

HEALTH CARE REFORM AND BEYOND

We promoted all our causes, especially Health Care Reform, through our booth in Ramona Fair 2009.

Ramona Forum is currently actively promoting a Health Care Reform that contains a Public Option, especially for uninsured and underinsured Americans. Ideally, we would like to have a Single Payer System similar to what exist in different forms in Canada, Sweden, U.K., and several other industrialized countries, although they are much less affluent compared to United States. However, even a Public Option has become a struggle.

Falsehoods

Ramona Forum is appalled about things people believe, which are blatant lies—commentaries presented as facts—that are easily refuted from factual documents or video records. It is worse than what were going around during last general election. A few examples are in order:

· The draft House bill on health care promotes euthanasia.

· The Bill removes all private insurance companies, and incorporates and installs only the public option.

The House bills are far from perfect, but that is not the issue. The Senate bills are worse. The issue here is that anybody can check the document, as large as they may be, and find out about the false claims a group of people are making.

Our Dave Patterson has written a letter to Ramona Sentinel. We publish the letter on our member essay page.  link

[The following is a commentary by dutta; you are encouraged to participate.]

Baffling

That brings another baffling issue. It seems a group of people are deliberately promoting falsehoods and, unfortunately, a good number of Americans are willing to believe them, without any kind of verification. Whatever happened to the Reagan doctrine that was proposed during cold war about Soviet Russia: ”Trust but verify”? On the other hand, what we, the progressives, are saying are not getting any foothold; it is the same when we are pointing out the falsehoods. Of course, without the vast cash flow from the health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and big broadcasting networks, the progressives have a comparatively feeble voice. Yet, it seems some group of people want to believe something, rather than inquire about them. The country is most likely conservative, but that should not promote blind following, ugliness in political discourse, or denying the constitutional rights of others. And choking of other voices as it is going around the country now. As the President said, “We need to talk to each other, not talk over each other.”  Another political factor is complicating the health care issue — the rightist political agenda of somehow embarrassing or defeating President Obama that they could not do at the general election in 2008.  

Hypothesis

Some say it is the brain that makes us entrenched in our position. Is it? Human Brain is a dynamic entity, not a static one. It changes with the experiences it encounters through our senses.

Or, is it the generational brainwash carried out—by choice—by some groups of people with power and money? Nobody is born liberal or conservative, they get there! There is no gene for being liberal or conservative! Nobody is born with bigotry and prejudice. Yet they become parts of belief system of some through perpetual promotions through generations—Generational Bigotry and Prejudice. Nobody is born with an attitude of ignorance rather growing up begins with newer and newer learning from experiences. The doctrine that being gullible and impressionable is human nature is not acceptable.

Or is it the a priori definitism of religious faith, which is also generational?

What killed the curiosity or the inquiring mind?

It may take generations to reverse the process.

Ramona Forum is involved with a number of issues, namely:

•Health Care •Peace Garden  •The War
•Energy • Environment  •Economy
•Human Rights Issues •Employment

We are now actively pursuing the following: Public Awareness,  Peace Garden,  Anti-War,  and Sexual Orientation issues.

Contact us