Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for an all-out "no holds barred" War in California. There are so many issues on the table, and all of them have the potential of decimating the great state of California socially, educationally, economically, and the potential of turning our Great State of California from true-blue Democratic to radical right-wing neo-con Republican crimson blood-red. You are probably asking "Why should I be concerned, since I live in the Blue State of MA?" or some other state. Because . . .
If this special election works in California and any of these initiatives pass, ultimately working to turn California Red, the way California goes, so goes the nation. If this all out war effort works in the very Blue state of California, then they can easily turn any state in the nation Red.
Please get involved, educate yourself, check-out:
http://www.contestthevote.org/http://www.cta.org/CTA.htmI have included the following personal letter I helped write with input from others. Please feel free to use it, change it, or write your own and sent it directly by e-mail and snail mail to Arnold ASAP. If you have any friends and family in California, then please contact them and educate them about these initiatives and issues. Tell them not to sign any of them. Arnold is using this special November 2005 election fraudulently and trying to circumvent election law that will better protect the voter and the vote in 2006, and also wasting an enormous amount of taxpayer's dollars in the process of doing so.
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse after the fraudulent election of November 2004, it is getting way worse. Please God help us.
Here is the letter to Arnold:
To: The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone (916) 445-2841
Fax (916) 445-4633
email:
[email protected]Local Office: 1350 Front St., Suite 6054
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone (619) 525-4641
Fax (619) 525-4640
From:
Re: Campaign to Privatize Pension Plans for California State Employees
Date: 3-31-05
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:
I am writing to address the alarming misconceptions you are promoting in your campaign to privatize CalPERS and STRS. California’s PERS and STRS programs cost the state very little money; in fact, PERS costs the state nothing, and the STRS cost to the state is minimal. Your use of the conservative Clear Channel media conglomerate, specifically San Diego’s ultra-conservative talk radio host Roger Hedgecock’s promotion of your pension privatization campaign, would be fine if he told the truth --- but he doesn’t. During his call for people to attend your signature-gathering event on March 3, 2005 at the KOGO radio station, Hedgecock claimed that California’s teachers “are bleeding the state dry” of financial resources. Imagine a conservative who is a convicted criminal saying that in public, and not only that he was saying that in support of you.
This type of hate mongering is not just irresponsible, but simply not based in fact. I am calling on you, as the Governor of California, to act responsibly and honorably in your campaign. What sort of society do you encourage when California’s hard-working, modestly paid employees are set up as a cause of California’s economic woes? You employ a divide-and conquer strategy, encouraging Californians to tear each other down, rather than fostering a climate where people help each other.
Look around at your neighbors and their children. Ask each one of them to tell you about a teacher that has changed his or her life in some way. Come into a classroom sometime and see what it is that teachers create from little resources. Many of these classrooms are small communities of positive change. We need a talented teaching workforce, one that can count on a modest pension. Without this benefit, who will teach young Californians for increasingly low wages and the risk of not having an adequate pension for retirement? We do not get Social Security, even though most teachers have contributed to it in other careers prior to teaching.
What about the classified staff workers in our schools as well? What about California’s firefighters who risk their lives daily to protect society? In San Diego, in the aftermath of the 2003 fires, we know all too well of the heroism of these public servants. What about nurses, and police officers? How can you look directly in the eyes of these dedicated, hardworking people who have devoted their lives to the education, protection, and health of others and tell them that they are costing the state too much? If your proposed pension initiative succeeds, it will be the state that bleeds its teachers and other public employees dry.
I would ask you to take a hard look at your motives for privatization, conduct your campaign honestly, and consider these facts if you care about the future of California’s pubic sector workers and the health of California’s economy:
1) STRS and CalPERS cost to employers is competitive to other state pension plans, only slightly higher because of California’s high cost of living.
2) Highly skilled, mid-level employees can afford to work at lower, state wages since they can count on inflation-adjusted pension benefits that they won’t outlive. Thus, highly skilled public employees who might make more in the private sector continue working in the public sector, strengthening these occupations, and ultimately the state itself.
3) The biggest financial blow to state pension funds actually came from such corporate scandals as Enron, World Com, and Tyco, not from other factors. Don’t blame corrupt corporate mismanagement on public employees. And you want state employees to privately invest in these risky corporations?
More specifically, the facts about the Defined Benefit Plan and Defined Contribution Plan need to be clarified. The chance that retired state employees take with Defined Benefit plans requiring public assistance is less than those participating in a Defined Contribution plan. If new state employees are required to have a Defined Contribution plan, they will no longer pay into the previous benefit plan, thus severely undercutting retirees their promised pensions, increasing the cost to other public services. Workers are protected from radical shifts in the market as Defined Benefit plans are managed to offset investment risk since it is pooled across the entire plan, rather than each investor bearing personal risk. In short, there are many more real benefits in maintaining CalPERS and STRS than in requiring state employees to switch to Defined Contribution plans. Your plan seems all too familiar and similar to the ill-conceived proposed privatization of Social Security by President Bush. What an absolute mistake, and the American people know it. We are all smarter than Bush and you think.
If your proposed initiative passes, the immediate cost to retirees will be devastating, and the ultimate cost to California’s stability will be irreparable. It seems your intention in this plan is to help big business and Wall Street at the expense of honest, hard-working public sector employees. Be honest, be a real man and tell Californians what they are agreeing to if they sign your petition to put this initiative on the ballot. You are also playing the same name game that President Bush is, by calling initiatives by “nice sounding innocent names”, when the reality is really the exact opposite. This is a dishonest practice and a deception of the public. Do not depict public employees of this state as parasites. There is nothing farther from the truth.
I’m going to be honest and get personal with you. I didn’t vote for you to be Governor, nor would I ever. You are a champion body builder and a Hollywood action film actor --- no less and no more. You portrayed yourself to be someone you are not. You made promises to the public that I don’t think you ever intended to keep. You lied and misrepresented yourself. And now as we see, you haven’t kept any promises, but have reneged on many. In fact you are now fighting the very public and good citizens of this great state that you promised to work for. You are all about special interests. You have raised more special interest monies that any other Governor in the history of California, during the same amount of time that you have been in office. You have also been gone “away” out of state from your duties as Governor for over 20% of your time in office so far. This is a dismal attendance record. You have adopted the hard-core, right-wing, neo-con talking points and agenda, which can’t be further from the heart of the American people. It seems you are no more than a Bush puppet, bent on the destruction of all that we hold sacred in the United States and in California.
Furthermore, prove to me you are the rightfully elected Governor. You were elected on Diebold computerized voting machines that left no Voter Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB) that can be used to validate the results of the election in a recount. There was no paper trail to audit. Nothing. How do we know you were not fraudulently elected? We don’t. Prove to me you are the people’s choice for Governor. I seriously doubt it. All I can say is what you are doing as Governor of California will ultimately be your undoing --- politically and in the entertainment world. I see you calling for this special election in November and wasting millions of our tax-payer dollars because you know at this time we do not have VVPBs, and you see it as the only opportunity to pass your corrupt and dishonest agenda by swindling the people of California before their vote can be verified by laws that are supposed to protect the voters and our votes from fraud that will come into being in 2006.
I will not allow any Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in my house --- never again. This is sad, since I used to enjoy your movies, but not anymore. I guess it is because I now understand the hero on the screen is really a two faced ultra right-wing neo-con monster. I was hoping that your wife Maria, who comes from the beloved Democratic Kennedy family, would have had a moderating effect on you and maybe, just maybe, you might come to your senses and really truly one day understand what it is to be a true leader for the people. I see now that will never happen. What a fantasy that was. I will never vote for you, and everyone I can tell I will tell them the same --- do not vote for Arnold or his initiatives and this is why . . .
Sincerely,
California High School Physics Teacher
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