Three such concerns the well-heeled and wealthy would like to forget about in the democratic process are:
Here in Roseau County the way these people operate has been demonstrated time and time again.
Peace.
Healthcare.
Jobs.
What do they do to exclude working people?
They tell their buddies about meetings while excluding others whose ideas and opinions they don't like.
They announce times, dates and places for required meetings then move the meetings, telling only those they can count on to vote their way--- a great way to get "unanimity."
They hold conventions where they refuse to allow issues of importance to working people to be discussed; then they require exhorbitant fees for "banquets" where they put forward their real agenda aimed at "giving working people the shaft."
They use the "nominating process" to assure only the candidates they want to run get in office while claiming the candidates of this rigged nominating process are the only "real" candidates of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and candidates that run in "nominating primary elections" where voters have the chance to select candidates are some-how rogue candidates unworthy of support.
Many people come to the Precinct Cacuses and once there see, find out and experience just how they are being manipulated out of the decision-making process when it comes to solving their addressing their concerns and their problems.
By the time most people get done with being jerked around by these manipulators and control freaks like Brian Melendez and those like him who have vested interests in maintaining the profit flow of those they represent but never declare their conflicts of interest--- for Melendez, the law firm he is employed by, Faeger & Benson, where Melendez makes a six-fugure salary plus bonuses working for major corporations and for the Indian Gaming Industry--- this conflict of interest becomes apparent when ever improved wages and working conditions are discussed or when the rights of people of color and entire communities of people of color who have been victimized by gencuries of genocide and now "benevolent neglect" like Native American Indian people who, like all working people are completely frozen out of the political decision-making process.
Well, by the time people see what happens at the precinct caucus level most people are too discouraged to go on in the political process any further--- in fact, so many Minnesotans have seen for themselves, with their own eyes the manipulation and control over time--- they have no respect for the candidates whose names appear on the primary ballots so they don't even make the trip to the primaries any more unless they see the appearance of a "rogue" or "maverick" candidate appear on the ballot.
Those people still bothering to vote in General Elections anymore, are for the most part, people who have never seen how undemocratic the entire political process is and their ideas have been influenced by the slick advertising agencies hired to "sell" candidates to voters portraying them as the greatest thing since pre-sliced bread.
In fact, it is the present "nominating conventions" which are instruments befitting an old Finnish feudal lord with a vested interest in keeping his serfs in their place that should be abolished in favor of the more democratic primary elections where all voters are eligible to vote to nominate the candidate of their choice.
All restrictive "petitions" and filing fees to run for political office should be eliminated. Collecting 25 signatures should be all that is required for anything less than a statewide race, while one-hundred signatures should be plenty for a state-wide race.
Why should independent candidates going into a primary election be forced to compete unfairly with a well-oiled (read fully funded) political machine which turns out maybe 30 to 70 of their crooked and corrupt friends with a vested interest in maintaining profits to choose candidates of their liking while independents are forced to file rediculous nubers of signatures on petitions and pay filing fees?
A pefect example of the way this manipulation takes place can be seen by the way the extremely wealthy John McCarthy of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association maintains control of the Beltrami County DFL with his hirelings befitting all the methods employed by any organized crime family in America... and this is what passes in Minnesota for democracy these days.
One only need meet the candidates selected through this corrupt and undemocratic process; people like John Persell who once you talk to the guy wonder if he knows any better than to tie his shoe laces together--- from shoe-to-shoe, or if his wife has to lace and tie his shoes in the morning and double knot them to make sure they don't come untied... such are the utter fools this undemocratic process of these rigged "nominating conventions" produce together with thoroughly racist and corrupt individuals like State Senator Mary Olson whose most loyal friends are John McCarthy and racist "community planners" like Brita Albrecht whose concerns for the creation of the concept for the Bemidji Regional Event Center included evey single thing from will the walkways be close enough to the lake to whether these walk-ways will be ashphalt or concrete to what kind of shrubbery will line these walk-ways to the artwork at the entrance-way to the decor inside the BREC to what kind of vendors will be allowed to profit from public tax-dollars to what color the seats will be to how people will be shuttled between the BREC to local smoke-filled casinos employing workers at povery wages without any rights--- but, Rita Albrecht and the Bemidji City Council who hired her, then fired her (when she was exposed as a racist) after it became apparent she had intentionally omitted an affirmative action policy required by law for hiring the people to plan, build, manage, staff and maintain the BREC--- thus assuring, once again, that Native American Indians would be excluded from the process and left without the jobs to which they are entitled by law, affirmative action law: Executive Order #112246.
One has to wonder how these politicians and their string pullers like John McCarthy and the corrupt Michael Meuers whose racist wife also sits on the racist white Bemidji City Council then have the audacity to go to Native American Indians for votes--- and money--- for candidates like stupid fools like John Persell whose claim to fame is that he managed to stumble through a hitch in the military and racists like Mary Olson and Brita Sailer who make a pilgramage into in Indian Country to get their campaign contributions and stump for the votes they need to win in this "swing vote district" at election time while ignoring the racist unemployment and poverty.
For a while here and there working people and the racially oppressed could make a break through and bust through a door here or there in the Minnesota DFL; but, not anymore.
Now it is only a question of time and organization before working people of all races come together in Minnesota to bolt the MNDFL which fails and refuses to respond to the concerns, needs and problems of the people who have no choice but to create a political party which will stand for peace, healthcare and jobs which no working woman or man can live a decent life without.
Until such a political formation takes shape we should encourage as many challenges inside the DFL and outside of it through independent campaigns based around the concerns and needs of working people and solving the problems of the working class.
If a candidate can not stand for peace; they should not receive our money or our help in any way; let them do their own phone-banking and walk the neigborhoods.
No peace; no votes.The time has come to tell the likes of Brian Melendez and John McCarthy to take their warmongering, racist candidates and go to hell.
No real healthcare reform; no votes.
No jobs with enforcement of affirmative action; no votes.
End the machine manipulated "Nominating Conventions;" not Precinct Night in Minnesota.