So there I was, minding my own business reading about how Trump was trashing the GOP brand and Josh Duggar getting another own goal with the Ashley Madison fiasco, when I saw a post from Genius at Wrok suggesting a way out of the morass we currently find ourselves in regard to the GOP majority in the House of Representatives. GaW was asking for volunteers to ryun in what he called a Cambridge-style runoff election to a very important sounding council: The High and Mighty Daily Kos Ruling Council. To my mind, any elected position where the first word in the title is "High" sounds like great fun, so I decided to become a candidate! Follow me over the orange Squiggle of Satan to hear more about my platform...
Now GaW asked for some qualifications, so I'll get those out of the way right now (full disclosure - I copied this list from Clio2's comment in the diary):
Presidential Pref: Bernie
R0x or s0x: Neither
Shaun King: Supports - keep doing what you're doing Shaun!
Manning, Assange, Snowden: Supporter
Political: Democrat/progressive. Volunteered for Kerry, Elizabeth Warren, Obama.
Hair-on-fire issue: Climate change - I sell solar power systems (kosmail me if you're in New England!)
Next few: General drift toward totalitarianism - several related aspects, including police/racial violence, prison-industrial complex, vote suppression, Citizens United, general militarization, regulatory capure, mass surveillance. Women's rights (51% of everybody)! GLBT rights. (Shamelessly copied from Clio2 - I agree, thanks Clio!)
Beatles, Stones, Kinks, or Who: Yes, but of those bands, I've only ever seen the Stones
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts - Spirit of America! We voted for McGovern over Nixon, so PPPPFFFFTTTTT!!!!!
Personal: White, male, Connecticut-born of FDR Democratic parents who loved John Kennedy - first real memory as a child is the day he was shot; hetero with many LGBT friends, including a niece who was my nephew for the first 22 years of her life; political consciousness first raised by Watergate, I used to run home from school to watch Sam Ervin's committee hearings; atheist and proud of it; right-handed, but only due to nuns beating the left handedness out of me when I was 5; allergic to Republicans and religious hypocrites (but I repeat myself)
Professional background: Software engineering, Renewable Energy (Solar), Management, Local Access Cable TV (My show is called "All Politics Is Local)
DKos groups(some are defunct):
Massachusetts Kosmopolitans
New England Kossacks
Shut Down the NRA
Repeal or Amend the Second Amendment (RASA)
KrazyKossack Online Store
Firearms Law and Policy
AKORN - Anti-Kochs Organizing for Reform NOW!
The KETI Program
Hobbies: My Cable TV show
Miscellaneous: Great voice for voice-overs, and I give a great interview, many guests have said so after taping my show.
So my platform will borrow from Bob Johnson's work - back in 2011, in the heady days of DK4, he posted an absolutely awesome diary pitting the RFTT people against the RFTB trolls: RFTB trolls ruining RFTT diaries. The points raised therein are certainly applicable to today's Sanders/Clinton primary wars, so I felt this was as good a time as any to raise awareness of that post, please go give it a quick read. And then, to get into the meat of my platform, I'd like to introduce two new warring factions: the good guys, who STTTFTB and the absolutely horrible trolls who STTTFTT. Who are these factions you ask?
Have you ever noticed, late at night, as you're getting ready for bed, as you reach for your toothpaste and all you want is to get a little bit onto your toothbrush, but you can't, because the last person to use the toothpaste got theirs out by squeezing the tube at the top? That person is a troll who Squeezes The Toothpaste Tube From The Top, while good guys like myself Squeeze The Toothpaste Tube From The Bottom!
The selfish behavior of the STTTFTT person now requires you to squeeze the tube several times from the bottom, in order to push the toothpaste back to the top - bathroom tyranny like this will not stand if I'm elected to the HMDKRC! My first official act will be to pass legislation requiring toothpaste manufactures to invent a new dispensing method for their product, one in which everyone can get their toothpaste with just one squeeze - who's with me??!!??
And that, in a nutshell (and I do mean nutshell) is my platform - vote for me, and I'll do my level best to end the tyranny of the STTTFTT trolls - and the RFTB trolls as well, that's just wrong...