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Hi Friend, The campaign had a busy weekend. The POLITICAL highlight of the weekend was meeting Congressman John Garamendi in Yuba City (Garamendi's old district included Yuba City, before shifting south with redistricting). ? But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about "good trouble."? ? I know that I can come across as "too patriotic" - to the point of sounding nationalistic - to some readers (I know, because I read the replies). But I am not blind to America's history. "My country, right or wrong" is NOT "My country, always right". A good politician should know his or her history, lest they repeat it.?? ? This weekend I attended the Butte County NAACP Annual Gala in Oroville. The African American community in the United States has always been - and continues to be - under-served by the American government and under-represented in American politics. It's shameful. The NAACP was founded in 1909 to fight racism. Over 100 years later, its job is not yet done.? ? That is not to say that the NAACP has failed the African American community. It was instrumental in desegregating schools (back when the Supreme Court wasn't full of partisan right-wing hacks like today) and pushing for the Civil Rights Act. No, it is America that has failed.? ? America also failed the Japanese-American community during World War II. On Saturday morning, I attended the ceremony memorializing the Arboga Relocation Center in southern Yuba County. It was in converted migrant labor camps like these that a generation of Japanese Americans (many of them citizens) were collected before being sent to internment camps. We must never let that kind of race-based collective punishment happen again. ? I'll close by reminding you that we face an historic election this Fall. On one side, we have the Democratic Party, which recognizes that America is not perfect, but that wants us to be better. On the other, we have a Republican Party that wants to drag us back to the past, to "make us great again". In the not-so-distant past, the American treatment of African-Americans and Japanese-American was far from "great". ? Thanks for all your support, please vote. ? Max ? |
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