January 3, 2008

On the day of the Iowa Caucuses, PDA betrayed its membership by telling them to go against the wishes of approximately 3/4 of PDA's membership and to support a candidates 3/4 of its members opposed in their poll.  PDA has been collecting donations for years, claiming to be for peace and against corporate rule.

Today, in a mass emailing, PDA told members to support a candidate who took American into the war with Iraq.  That email directly attacked the candidate who won the PDA Presidential poll.  Why?  The answer to that may be in who made the biggest contributions to PDA.  Some members feel that, since the wishes of the members don't matter at all to PDA, PDA should refund their money.

The candidate backed by PDA in today's email, whom this report will not honor by naming, was given the nod by the Bilderberg Group in 2004, even getting the applause of Republican Ralph Reed.  The Bilderberg Group has been widely credited with supporting a corporate-run world where the governments do as the corporations dictate. That candidate has received millions from predatory lending foreclosures (including in New Orleans), oil, tobacco and war.  That candidate convinced the Senate Democrats to back the war in 2002 and was the strongest advocate for the war among all Democrats running this year.  That candidate also led the fight to get the Senate to support USA-PATRIOT.  That candidate has a health care plan that would give the money to insurance companies while expanding the problems noted in "Sicko."  The candidate's actions have violated most or all of PDA's claimed values.

This year, the PDA membership overwhelmingly backed Dennis Kucinich in 46 out of 50 states.  Dennis Kucinich has called on all Iowa Caucus-goers to vote for him first in the Iowa Caucus.  If they are not allowed to vote for him, he has asked them to caucus with the Obama supporters, in Iowa only.  This is a wise move.  Obama did not vote for the war.  Obama's record is a far cry from the liberal anti-war record of Dennis Kucinich.  However, Obama is more anti-war and closer to the PDA priorities than the candidate PDA is trying to convince members to support in Iowa.  Only Kucinich fully matches the priorities PDA represented itself as supporting.

Did PDA mislead people into joining and contributing by setting out a set of priorities that it did not plan honor with its Iowa recommendation?  Did PDA intend to ignore the poll results and push a pro-corporate candidate who got America into the war - regardless of the priorities and the polls?  Was this false pretenses when it came to collecting contributions from PDA members?

This is the world set up by voting-aged Americans, where organizations pretend to be altruistic and then pull a bait and switch with their donors' money.  It is important for everyone to check out organizations, carefully, to make sure that they honor their values.

Copyright ©2008 by the Creative Youth News Team.  All rights reserved.

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