Dan Goldstein's Articles

Slavoj Žižek speaks at Occupy Wall Street: Transcript

2012-01-28T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've got to admit I never heard of Slavoj Žižek before. But I love this speech. One of the great things about the Occupy Movement is that we are all talking to each other. We are talking but more importantly we are listening. And voices that have been out there talking about these issues can be heard.

Clearly there is a history behind this guy. He seems to understand the magnitude and difficulty of what we are doing. He encourages us to stay in it for the long haul. There is a difference between a protest, which is inherently powerless and a movement that owns its power and is serious about bringing about the society we want to live in.

Thanks to Sarahana for posting this transcript at

http://www.imposemagazine.com/bytes/slavoj-zizek-at-occupy-wall-street-transcript

Also see the Q&A transcript

Don't Fall In Love With Yourselves

Slavoj Žižek speaks at Occupy Wall Street

October 9, 2011

They are saying we are all losers, but the true losers are down there on Wall Street. They were bailed out by billions of our money. We are called socialists, but here there is always socialism for the rich. They say we don’t respect private property, but in the 2008 financial crash-down more hard-earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are the awakening from a dream that is turning into a nightmare.
We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scene from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath this ground. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street, "Hey, look down!"
In mid-April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV, films, and novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. These people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dreaming. Here, we don’t need a prohibition because the ruling system has even oppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism.
So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful, old joke from Communist times. A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends: “Let’s establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say. If it is written in red ink, it is false.” After a month, his friends get the first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: “Everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theatres show good films from the west. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.” This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom— war on terror and so on—falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here. You are giving all of us red ink.
There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember, carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after, when we will have to return to normal lives. Will there be any changes then? I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like “Oh. we were young and it was beautiful.” Remember that our basic message is “We are allowed to think about alternatives.” If the taboo is broken, we do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?

Remember. The problem is not corruption or greed. The problem is the system. It forces you to be corrupt. Beware not only of the enemies, but also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat, they will try to make this into a harmless, moral protest. A decaffienated protest. But the reason we are here is that we have had enough of a world where, to recycle Coke cans, to give a couple of dollars for charity, or to buy a Starbucks cappuccino where 1% goes to third world starving children is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture, after marriage agencies are now outsourcing our love life, we can see that for a long time, we allow our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back.

We are not Communists if Communism means a system which collapsed in 1990. Remember that today those Communists are the most efficient, ruthless Capitalists. In China today, we have Capitalism which is even more dynamic than your American Capitalism, but doesn’t need democracy. Which means when you criticize Capitalism, don’t allow yourself to be blackmailed that you are against democracy. The marriage between democracy and Capitalism is over. The change is possible.
What do we perceive today as possible? Just follow the media. On the one hand, in technology and sexuality, everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon, you can become immortal by biogenetics, you can have sex with animals or whatever, but look at the field of society and economy. There, almost everything is considered impossible. You want to raise taxes by little bit for the rich. They tell you it’s impossible. We lose competitivity. You want more money for health care, they tell you, "Impossible, this means totalitarian state." There’s something wrong in the world, where you are promised to be immortal but cannot spend a little bit more for healthcare. Maybe we need to set our priorities straight here. We don’t want higher standard of living. We want a better standard of living. The only sense in which we are Communists is that we care for the commons. The commons of nature. The commons of privatized by intellectual property. The commons of biogenetics. For this, and only for this, we should fight.
Communism failed absolutely, but the problems of the commons are here. They are telling you we are not American here. But the conservatives fundamentalists who claim they really are American have to be reminded of something: What is Christianity? It’s the holy spirit. What is the holy spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other, and who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense, the holy spirit is here now. And down there on Wall Street, there are pagans who are worshipping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostaligically remembering “What a nice time we had here.” Promise yourselves that this will not be the case. We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire. Thank you very much.

Tents

2011-11-17T07:53:00.001-08:00

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as wellas the poor, to sleep in the parks –Paraphrased from Anatole France

Police attacks on Occupy movements from Wall Street toOakland, Portland, Denver … have often been justified by the “need” to preventthe use of tents or shelters in public places. Of course, we know that the real reason is that the powersthat be don’t like the political and social views that are being expressed bythe Occupations.

We’ll get back to tents in a minute, because I find thispart of the story fascinating, but lets look at the other pretexts that havebeen used recently. FromPortland’s Mayor Sam Adams, to Oakland’s Jean Quan, to New York’s MichaelBloomberg, suddenly there is a great concern for the “health and welfare” ofthe protesters. Massive policeviolence, pepper spray, beatings and “less lethal” projectiles leveled atnon-violent people does not arouse the same level of concern, although it iswithout a doubt a far greater threat to “health and welfare” than anything thatgoes on in the camps.

So, what does go on in those camps that is so terrible? Some of the allegations are so far offbase that they are just silly. Forone thing, after two months of occupations all these cities suddenly have terribleproblems of crime, drug use and homelessness going on in the camps. Obviouslycaused by the Occupy movement(?) And did I mention this is a few days before large demonstrations plannedfor November 17 to mark two months of Occupy Wall Street? Jean Quan justified the attack onOccupy Oakland by citing a murder. Actually that murder had nothing to do withthe occupation and was not in the camp. The most that could be said is thatsomebody got killed near the camp. Unfortunately, people are killed prettyfrequently in Oakland. How does beating up a bunch of people that had nothingto do with it, arresting them – not the criminal - and throwingaway their possessions solve that problem?

Several cities justified their actions because homelesspeople were moving into the camps. “That’s not protest” they say, “It’s justdirty drug using homeless people taking the opportunity to move back intopublic spaces. We can’t allow that” Well, first of all having homeless people in the camps is a politicalact. The whole point of themovement is that a tiny minority has seized control over our economic andpolitical systems. They are enriching themselves and using the political systemto prevent any attempt to regulate or control their anti-social behavior. One of the results that we have beenseeing is that people are losing their jobs and their homes. They have nowhereto go. Homelessness is one of the symptoms of our problem. As is drug use (and make no mistake,alcohol is a drug). People are there to enrich themselves at the expense of thehopeless. But the government endsup criminalizing the victims because solving the problem would challenge theentrenched system that relies on being able to keep people poor, keep wagesdown and keep profits up for the 1%. If people overdose, it would have happened wherever they were. It is notbecause of the Occupy camps.

If those of us who have homes and some kind of jobs had toreally confront homelessness, we would want to change that system. And thatbrings us back to why homeless people can’t be allowed in the camps. They become visible when they come outof the hiding places they have been forced into by those who just don’t want usto think about it. And that is whythere are laws against tents and against sleeping in public parks. This doesnothing to solve the problem. It just forces people to sleep under bridges ordeep in the bushes. It makes them invisible, which is, of course, thepoint.

The authorities are using these same anti-tent oranti-camping ordinances against the Occupy Movement. And for the same reason.To make them invisible. To makethem go away. To keep them from challenging the system that makes some peoplehomeless, makes us all poorer (99% of us) and prevents the majority fromforming the more equitable society that most of us want to live in.

The movement can respond to the relatively rare crimes thatmay be committed in their neighborhood. When women were harassed at Occupy Wall Street they created a safe spacefor themselves and set up women only tents. In general this movement has beengood about policing themselves. We wouldn’t raze a suburban street becausethere was a crime committed there, and certainly not a gated community with thestately homes of the wealthy. Why then use that excuse to tear down Occupycamps? It has nothing to do with “health and welfare” and of course we all knowthat.

WTF Obama!

2011-07-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Obama endorsed the Gang of Six budget plan that would cut Social Security, raise taxes on the Middle Class and CUT taxes on the rich. Yes, I said CUT. Read about it anywhere but here is a nice summary from Democracy Now

I kind of lost my cool and sent this letter..

Dear President Obama, What the #$%^& is wrong with you? Do you think you were elected to cut taxes on the rich and cut programs for the rest of us? Think again. You promised change but the only change you are giving us is change for the worse.

Let me be clear. Social Security and Medicare are in fine shape. We do NOT need to cut there and the people will not accept cuts. We need more government spending to create jobs and get us out of the recession. We need to roll back tax cuts to the rich and make sure that profitable corporations do not use off shore tax havens and loopholes to wiggle out of their fair share of taxes. Taxes on the rich are already the lowest in the world. Make them pay their fair share.

The budget crisis is only a crisis because nobody is standing up to Republican blackmail.

THEY DO NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT JOBS OR THE ECONOMY. THEY WANT TO WRECK THE ECONOMY SO THEY CAN BLAME IT ON YOU AND WIN THE NEXT ELECTION. THEY ARE ANTI-AMERICAN AND IT IS YOUR JOB TO EXPOSE THEIR LIES AND RALLY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO A SANE POLICY. WE ARE WAITING.

GET OFF YOUR %$#$%%$ ASS AND GIVE THEM HELL. You would be popular again and you would be doing the right thing.

Debt as a moral issue

2011-07-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

... we’re actually at a very strange historical moment because they’ve managed to convince people around the world that debt is somehow something sacred. I mean, a debt is just a promise, right? It has no greater moral standard than any other promise that you would make. Yet, here we have people accepting that it’s perfectly reasonable to say well, we can’t possibly keep our promise to the public, politicians say, to give you health care because it’s absolutely unthinkable we could break our sacred promises to bankers to give them a certain percentage of interest every year. How did that become a convincing argument? It’s utterly odd if you think about in terms of any kind of principle of democracy. As I say, if you look at the history of world religions, of social movements what you find is for much of world history what is sacred is not debt, but the ability to make debt disappear to forgive it and that’s where concepts of redemption originally come from.

-David Graeber teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. He is the author of several books, his newest book–"Debt: The First 5,000 Years" (Melville House) comes out later this month.

The quote was from Democracy Now 7/1/11

Israel Attacks Non-violent activists

2011-06-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Secretary of State Clinton,

On January 28, 2011 you issued a strong statement to the Egyptian government urging it not to attack peaceful demonstrators, "We are deeply concerned about the use of violence by Egyptian police and security forces against protesters and we call on the Egyptian government to do everything in its power to restrain the security forces." (full text) I wrote you then thanking you for that statement. Today I am asking you to apply that same standard to Israel.

As you know, the Israeli government has threatened to violently attack the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, including the US Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope. As you also are very well aware, these are people committed to non-violent activism to aid Palestinians, especially in Gaza, to achieve basic human rights in the face of a punitive blockade. Israel's threats are credible because they have attacked previous boats, resulting in many unnecessary injuries and the deaths of nine people last year. Israel routinely violently attacks Palestinians engaged in non-violent protests with high velocity tear gas canisters, rubber coated bullets, clubs and live ammunition. Don't Palestinian democracy demonstrations deserve the same support as Egyptians or Libyans? Don't Americas traveling abroad deserve to be safe from unwarranted attack?

Just as the Egyptian, Libyan and Syrian governments spread lies about democracy demonstrators in order to justify attacking them, Israel is spreading lies about the flotilla. The flotilla carries no weapons and will not attack the Israeli soldiers who may well attack them. They are, I'll say it again, committed to non-violence. They are by no stretch of the imagination supporting terrorism. On the contrary, they and the many thousands of non-violent activists in Palestine are providing an alternative to violent resistance to the continued denial of basic human rights. They hope that non-violent means are more effective in convincing the world of the need for a just and equitable peace agreement. I hope that they are right. If Israel will respond there is now some hope for peace and justice.

Israel only undercuts it's own position and casts doubt on its desire for peace with the lies and unnecessary violence they have resorted to. The US should support peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians. We should call upon Israel to respect human rights, just as we call on Egypt, Libya, Syria and other governments to do the same.

cc: President Obama
Rep Norm Dicks
Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell

Tough Love for Israel

2011-05-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

This is my letter to the President and Congress about the need for a viable Palestinian state.

I hope that you support President Obama's statement that for the peace and security of Israel and Palestine, Palestinians must have a sovereign state with contiguous territory based on the 1967 borders with mutually agreed swaps.

Israel truly will never have peace until they are willing to end their occupation and support a viable Palestinian state. Unfortunately Netanyahu made it clear that Israel is not yet ready to accept the existence of such a state.

I hope that you will use the considerable influence the US has with Israel because of the billions of dollars in aid that we give to them every year. Israel needs help to find the way to peace, call it tough love if you will. Because of our close ties to Israel and because of the substantial aid we give them, the United States is in the best position to give them that help. We can do that by making it very clear that while we do support Israel, we will not continue our aid while they are on their present self-destructive course.

Please let me know what actions you will be taking to bring about a just settlement for both Israel and Palestine.

May 4 - Student mobilizations

2011-05-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

As it happens May 4 has been a significant date for several social justice movements led by students.

On May 4, 1919 a large demonstration in Beijing protested against the treatment of China in the Versailles treaty. The movement that this was a part of became known as the May 4 Movement. It was largely led by students who supported a broad liberalization of their society. They wanted to adopt western values of democracy and an end to the strict class divisions of traditional Chinese society. They supported literature in the vernacular language of the the people, rather than just being for the intellectual class. Politically they opposed foreign domination of China and thought that by adopting western values, China could become a self-reliant nation that could control its own destiny. This movement was very influential among intellectuals and students who later went on to reshape Chinese society.

On May 4, 1989 the democracy movement centered around Tienanmen Square in Beijing was building strength and marked the 70th anniversary of the May 4th Movement with a rally that brought out 100,000 people into Tienanmen Square. The Democracy Movement advocated an end to the domination of the Communist Party and the institution on democratic institutions and free speech. The movement paralleled similar movements in other Communist countries that led to the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In China, however, the movement was crushed when the military marched on Tienanmen Square on June 4, killing anywhere from several hundred to several thousand people.

On May 4, 1961 in the United States, the first of the Freedom Rides began. Students from around the country came to the South to challenge segregation of interstate transportation. They rode Greyhound and Trailways buses in groups of black and white people riding together and using the facilities at bus stations together in defiance of segregation laws. They were met with mob violence and eventually the governor of Alabama had to call out the National Guard to protect them and to forestall the use of federal troops. These rides were an important milestone for the Civil Rights movement and eventually forced the end of segregation in public transportation.

On May 4, 1970 four students at Kent State University were shot by the Ohio National Guard while protesting the Vietnam War following President Nixon's announcement that he was expanding the war into Cambodia. Their deaths and the death of two more students at Jackson State in Mississippi the night of May 14 sparked a nationwide student strike by as many as 4 millions students and mobilization against the war. Hundreds of universities closed down in the face of the protests. Many students were galvanized into action by the thought that "it could have been me". They were in danger if they were drafted to fight in Vietnam and now they were in danger if they stayed in school. They felt personally threatened and responded with renewed action against the war.

Obama’s Mission Accomplished Moment

2011-05-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Now is President Obama’s moment when he could declare that our mission to capture Osama Bin Laden has been accomplished and it is now time to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and let the people there negotiate a peace agreement. That is the message of an ex-Marine who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and came out to the White House Sunday night to urge us to Rethink Afghanistan.

It took 10 years but they finally killed Osama Bin Laden. Its being presented as a victory for our side but really, 10 years for the largest and most sophisticated military machine in the world backed by the largest and most sophisticated intelligence service in the world to track down and assassinate one man is more of an embarrassment than a great victory.

What should be more embarrassing is the fact in the past 10 years we have killed far more innocent people than al Qaeda did on September 11 and in the decade since then. And the wars we started on the pretext of seeking revenge have escalated the violence, escalated the suffering and lent credence to al Qaeda’s strategy of violence. When Bin Laden conceived of the attacks on September 11, he hoped to lure the United States into a war in Afghanistan that would destroy its empire. This was, after all, a strategy that played a major part in bringing down the Soviet Union. Bin Laden hit the jackpot. He got the US into not one but two wars, in Afghanistan AND Iraq. Of course, he didn’t care about the devastation these wars would cause. He thought that that devastation would further his cause. And he found an enemy in George W Bush who also thought that war would further his cause without concern for the innocent people caught on the battlefield who died by the hundreds of thousands and were driven from their homes by the millions.

When President Obama stood before the cameras May 1 and announced his victory, I thought of the day in 2003, 8 years to the day earlier, when President Bush flew out to an aircraft carrier to speak under the now famous “Mission Accomplished” banner. Bush’s mistake was that he wasn’t satisfied to declare victory with the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s regime. If he had been able to declare victory and leave Iraq at that moment, he might now be remembered as the man who liberated Iraq, rather than the one who brought devastation to it. It is impossible to say for sure how that historical moment would have played out but it doesn’t matter because what Bush, and when I say Bush I mean the whole neo-con ensemble he fronted for, really wanted was occupation and economic domination by his corporate buddies of that country. The rest of the Middle East and the rest of the world was to follow. President Obama promised change but by and large he has followed the same policies in regard to the wars.

I was shocked and embarrassed for my country by the behavior of the crowds I saw on TV Sunday night. It looked like their team had won the Super Bowl, down to the guy with no shirt and a can of beer and the chants of “USA USA USA!” When some people celebrated after September 11, it was shocking and outrageous to us. Now more people have been killed and I can only think about how people in other parts of the world are going to react to our reaction. It is bound to boost the standing of terrorists just as their power was being undercut by the nonviolent power of the Arab Awakening in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere.

Our President tells us that our act of revenge will now likely lead to acts of revenge against us. And we will no doubt exact revenge for them. This leads nowhere. War is not the answer.

If Obama had only followed through on that Change thing

2011-04-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

The Democrats are gearing up for the next election and so, I just got an email asking me what I think they should do to get ready. So, I thought I would tell them. Will they listen? I'm not too hopeful at this point. This is what I sent them.

The Democrats should pay attention to what the people, not just the donors, want. Polls show that we want an end to the wars and cuts to the bloated military budget. We want the rich to pay their share and corporations are included in that. They are paying the lowest income tax rate in many decades. We want to be able to count on Social Security, Medicare and other social programs. These are cost effective and benefit all Americans, contributing to a prosperous America.

President Obama was elected by a landslide of enthusiasm for "change". That was his slogan and people went for it big time. The trouble is that the Democrats didn't stand up and fight for change. Instead on issue after issue, they tried to compromise with Republicans who had no interest in compromise or solutions. All they want is to protect the rich, at the expense of the rest of us, and to make the Democrats look bad. Well, their strategy is working like a charm. We have lost faith that the Democrats even want to change anything, after watching them refuse to stand up for what the people of this country believe in.

I don't know if it is too late to turn things around for the party. You can't just count on the Republicans imploding. There is a movement for democracy in this country. A movement against scofflaw corporations and tax dodging rich people. A movement against cutting the most effective government programs. Do you really think it makes sense in the long run to cut education? What about Medical care for the poor and middle class. For gosh sakes, Medicare is the most cost effective healthcare system around. Don't cut it. Expand it. Healthcare costs will go down, budget deficits will go down, if we let Medicare expand to cover everybody. Why won't the Democrats go there? People would flock to your banner if they thought that's what you stood for, as they did in 2008. Instead you look more and more like another party of the rich, only not as committed to, well, anything.

What happened?

2010-11-03T23:50:00.000-07:00

The overwhelming reaction among some people I know to the election has been primordial despair. They flocked to Obama two years ago and allowed themselves to hope that the Bush Administration was a transitory phenomenon, an evil that could be overturned. Change was in the air and they dared to hope that the American political system had simply lost its way and could be reformed. After two years their hopes have been dashed, without the Democrats even really trying to roll back the damage done by the Republicans under Bush and Cheney, let alone move forward on the real reforms their supporters hoped for. The choice we faced this time around was between Democrats who will do nothing to help us and Republicans who will actively screw us. It seems Americans prefer an active agenda, even if it is wrong, to a passive one.

The general consensus is that anger at politics as usual in Washington fueled the Tea Party successes this year. There is no doubt that there is a deep and abiding anger at the grassroots on both the right and the left. In 2008 this anger fueled the Obama campaign bringing in the Democratic sweep of Congress on his coat tails. This year it brought in the Tea Party. However, it would be wrong for the Democrats to respond by trying to imitate Republican policies. Rather they should realize that they should have used their majority to push through the changes they promised in 2008. Even now, they can energize their base with a program of re-regulation, balancing the budget by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the rich and reducing the huge bite the wars take by ending them. They can put some muscle behind greenhouse gas reduction, alternative energy and environmental restoration, putting people to work in the process.

After the Obama victory, it was up to the Democrats to exert their newly found political muscle to enact a program that would justify their claim to be the party of change. Without concrete results to show for their efforts, they were vulnerable to being blamed for the problems they failed to solve. Problems that were caused by the Republican policies of the previous eight years. We are talking about 2 unpopular wars, a huge federal budget deficit, and the economic collapse that began in 2008, during the Bush Administration, and continues today. We are talking about massive federal bailouts of the Wall Street banks whose shady practices brought on the recession while their overpaid executives walked away with millions. All of this happened under the Republicans. Although the Democrats have given lip service to changing some of this, they have done almost nothing to change any of it and actively pursued some of the failed policies they were elected to change. So now the Republicans can come back and blame it all on the Democrats.

To be fair, the Republicans have pursued a relentless program of opposition to everything. Their strategy has been to paralyze the government and prevent any possibility of improvement in people’s lives so they can pin it all on the Democrats and win the next election. It was a sociopathic strategy but politically brilliant. And the Democratic response has been to repeatedly give in to Republican demands. They have moved steadily to the right to try to gain bi-partisan support. It was a fatal miscalculation because the Republicans never had any intention of compromising on anything.

The Democratic base of progressive voters feels abandoned. The debate on healthcare reform didn’t even allow their preference for single payer to be heard, let alone adopted. Obama has made a show of following George W Bush’s timetable for “withdrawing” from Iraq but even if he completes it, will leave a mercenary army of “contractors” even less accountable to anybody than the troops they replace. In Afghanistan, he proudly escalates the conflict without seeming to see that he is just adding fuel to the fire. The military budget continues to eat up half of our tax dollars. Bush may have started the bailouts but Obama continued them. And while Obama’s stimulus was a good idea, it wasn’t big enough to pull us out of the recession. Then he backed off.

But all is not lost. If the Democrats take this election as a wake up call, they can use the next two years to re-build their program and their base. Then they will have a chance to come back in 2012. But in order to do that they will have to convince people that they will follow through when they get the chance. Can they do it? Will they do it? I wouldn’t bet on it but I will be watching.

If they are going to Filibuster…Make ‘em really Filibuster

2010-02-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

Now with all this talk about the 60 votes needed to pass anything in the Senate, I got to thinking. It turns out that the Republicans' so-called filibuster of everything the Dems want isn't really a filibuster at all. The Majority Leader could refuse to put a "hold" on a bill and force the Republicans into a real stand up and talk filibuster with real political risks if they want to block it.

First of all I was surprised because we never heard about this when the Republicans were in control with fewer than 60 Senators, and the Democrats were in the minority. I couldn’t help but wonder why the Democrats didn’t avail themselves of this rule to block the many abuses of the Bush Administration. There wasn’t any filibuster to block the Patriot Act (oh sorry, the Dems voted for that one en masse.), or the war in Afghanistan (they liked that one too); Going to war in Iraq; funding the war year after year; massive tax cuts for the rich and huge defense budgets that produced record deficits. The Dems never filibustered Supreme Court nominations of Scalia, Roberts, Thomas or Alito even though it was obvious they would lead the court in the wrong direction. And they have, with, most recently, the decision that rolls back a century of campaign finance reform, allowing faceless corporations to flood the political landscape with cash.

So, the Democrats are to be faulted for not doing everything they could, but to be fair, the Republicans’ use of the filibuster is unprecedented. They are using it to stop the majority from doing anything at all and then blaming the Democrats for not getting anything done. This strategy may not make friends for Republicans but it does appear to be alienating the Democrats from ordinary voters. With only two political parties, a negative image of the Democrats helps the Republicans. Although I hate what they are doing, I have to admire their organization and party discipline. If the Democrats had the same determination and discipline to carry out the mandate conferred on them by the voters in 2006 and 2008, they could achieve wonders. At least they could if they wanted to. Unfortunately, it appears that they don’t want to. You can speculate why all night but the fact remains that if they haven’t exercised party discipline or used every tool available to get their program passed.

Now, back to the 60 vote rule. What this refers to is a long Senate tradition of not limiting debate. In the House of Representatives, there are strict limits on how long a member can speak on a particular item before it comes to a vote. Not so in the Senate. One Senator can hold up a vote for as long as they can talk day and night. That is a filibuster. However, Senate Rule 22, Part 2, allows 3/5 of the Senate, or 60 Senators, to overcome this tradition and limit the debate, so a bill can come to a vote. Over the years, filibusters have been relatively rare, most often to oppose Civil Rights legislation. Since a filibuster can only oppose, it is most effectively used to support the status quo. Thus it is essentially a conservative tool, and that is how it has most often been used. It is anti-democratic because it can be used to thwart the will of the majority, as is happening now.

It is difficult to pull off because it requires a lot of stamina to keep going. One person will eventually have to stop. A group could theoretically take turns and keep going but at a price. They very visibly paralyze the Senate, actually all of Congress because nothing gets done without the Senate. If you saw Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, you get the picture. The majority has to decide, if they can’t get the votes to stop it, how long they are willing to let everything stop. Eventually somebody gives.

But, this isn’t the way its been working. It turns out that since 1975, the Majority Leader has extended a courtesy to any Senator to put a “hold” on any bill or nomination. As long as the Senator continues the “hold” nothing happens with that bill. It gives any Senator the power to filibuster without having to actually keep talking and without blocking the rest of the Senate’s business.

Here is the Definition of a “hold” from the Senate website:

hold - An informal practice by which a Senator informs his or her floor leader that he or she does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration. The Majority Leader need not follow the Senator's wishes, but is on notice that the opposing Senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure.

Note that this is an informal process and “The Majority Leader need not follow the Senator's wishes”. This process is not part of Rule 22, or any other Rule of the Senate. It is entirely up to the Majority Leader. Senator Reid could wake up tomorrow and declare an end to the “hold”. He could bring up a Healthcare bill with Single Payer or a strong public option, the strongest bill that he could get 51 Senators to vote for, and bring it to a vote. Of course, the Republicans would still be able to filibuster it for real, (that is in the Senate Rules) and without 60 votes the filibuster could last for a while. However their game of blocking progress and then blaming the Democrats would be harder when the Republicans were forced to do their blocking in the glare of publicity.

Activists on both sides would be mobilized, which is good for our democracy. (Its always good when people break out of their political passivity) The next election might actually be decided by a spirited debate on the issues. Remember, the Democrats’ positions agree with the voters. The right is already mobilizing, so the Democrats had better find a way to mobilize their base or they could be in trouble. Progressives have become disaffected from Democratic leaders because they haven’t delivered on their campaign promise of Change. If the Dems stuck it out and passed a strong bill with a mobilized electorate behind them it could be even better than Obama’s promise of “Hope” in 2008. (and we would have a better healthcare system)

Granny D responds to the Supreme Court

2010-01-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

When Granny D was 90 she got a lot of attention as she traveled around the country promoting campaign finance reform. Well, she turns 100 on Sunday and she still says it all so well. Here is her response to the Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to spend all they want on our elections. Click on the headline to see the article on her blog.

Supreme Court sends Doris a Birthday Greeting

January 21, 2010 statement from Doris “Granny D” Haddock in response to the Supreme Court’s decision today to kill campaign finance reform.

Ten years ago, I walked from California to Washington, D.C. to help gather support for campaign finance reform. I used the novelty of my age (I was 90), to garner attention to the fact that our democracy, for which so many people have given their lives, is being subverted to the needs of wealthy interests, and that we must do something about it. I talked to thousands of people and gave hundreds of speeches and interviews, and, in every section of the nation, I was deeply moved by how heartsick Americans are by the current state of our politics.

Well, we got some reform bills passed, but things seem worse now than ever. Our good government reform groups are trying to staunch the flow of special-interest money into our political campaigns, but they are mostly whistling in a wind that has become a gale force of corrupting cash. Conditions are so bad that people now assume that nothing useful can pass Congress due to the vote-buying power of powerful financial interests. The health care reform debacle is but the most recent example.

The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for, and that tens of thousands of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted. So now, thanks to this Court, corporations can fund their candidates without limits and they can run mudslinging campaigns against everyone else, right up to and including election day.

The Supreme Court now opens the floodgates to usher in a new tsunami of corporate money into politics. If we are to retain our democracy, we must go a new direction until a more reasonable Supreme Court is in place. I would propose a one-two punch of the following nature:

A few states have adopted programs where candidates who agree to not accept special-interest donations receive, instead, advertising funds from their state. The programs work, and I would guess that they save their states more money than they cost by reducing corruption. Moving these reforms in the states has been very slow and difficult, but we must keep at it.

But we also need a new approach––something of a roundhouse punch. I would like to propose a flanking move that will help such reforms move faster: We need to dramatically expand the definition of what constitutes an illegal conflict of interest in politics.

If your brother-in-law has a road paving company, it is clear that you, as an elected official, must not vote to give him a contract, as you have a conflict of interest. Do you have any less of an ethical conflict if you are voting for that contract not because he is a brother-in-law, but because he is a major donor to your campaign? Should you ethically vote on health issues if health companies fund a large chunk of your campaign? The success of your campaign, after all, determines your future career and financial condition. You have a conflict.

Let us say, through the enactment of new laws, that a politician can no longer take any action, or arrange any action by another official, if the action, in the opinion of that legislative body’s civil service ethics officer, would cause special gain to a major donor of that official’s campaign. The details of such a program will be daunting, but we need to figure them out and get them into law.

Remarkably, many better corporations have an ethical review process to prevent their executives from making political contributions to officials who decide issues critical to that corporation. Should corporations have a higher standard than the United States Congress? And many state governments have tighter standards, too. Should not Congress be the flagship of our ethical standards? Where is the leadership to make this happen this year?

This kind of reform should also be pushed in the 14 states where citizens have full power to place proposed statutes on the ballot and enact them into law. About 70% of voters would go for a ballot measure to “toughen our conflict of interest law,” I estimate. In the scramble that would follow, either free campaign advertising would be required as a condition of every community’s contract with cable providers (long overdue), or else there would be a mad dash for public campaign financing programs on the model of Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut. Maybe both things would happen, which would be good.

I urge the large reform organizations to consider this strategy. They have never listened to me in the past, but they also have not gotten the job done and need to come alive or now get out of the way.

And to the Supreme Court, you force us to defend our democracy––a democracy of people and not corporations––by going in breathtaking new directions. And so we shall.

Doris “Granny D” Haddock

Dublin, New Hampshire

Socialized Medicine? I Wish!

2009-08-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

A majority of the American people support single payer healthcare, according to any number of polls. People want a better system and truly universal coverage. Yet Congress has refused to seriously talk about it. Why? I can only surmise that the insurance and pharmaceutical lobby is too powerful to allow that option. By that I mean that their money is corrupting the political process because the Democrats and Republicans alike are in their pocket. It is clear that the desire of a few mega-corporations to make huge profits overrules the need for all Americans to receive the health care they need.

Now it appears that even the small reforms that are left on the table are in danger because of disruptive behavior of right wing zealots. That just shows that compromise is no way to win this battle. Obama could rally millions behind him with real enthusiasm if he would advocate for Single Payer, the only meaningful reform. Instead he is losing momentum, as his plan gets weaker by the minute.

I am wondering why I should support a plan that accomplishes so little, other than insuring that we won’t have another chance at real change for decades, maybe not in my lifetime. On the other hand it really galls me that right wingers can torpedo any reform with intimidation tactics. I can guarantee you that if the left acted like that, the billy clubs would be out, the tear gas would be flying and people would be hauled off to jail, before they could say “corporate death panels”.

Make no mistake, everything the right wing is saying, untruthfully, about this plan is actually just what the insurance companies are doing now in the name of profits. Care is rationed in two ways. People who cannot afford insurance are denied care until they are in a life threatening situation and then they are relegated to a 2nd class system. Faceless insurance company bureaucrats deny care, often arbitrarily in order to save money. Anybody who has tried to argue with an insurance company knows that sinking feeling of being unable to break through the red tape to find somebody who is willing to listen and able to rectify an error. Anybody who has tried to read the small type in their policy and keep up with the ever changing restrictions on what care you can get will also understand. Socialized medicine? I wish it were true. What we have now is anti-social medicine.

Meanwhile budget cuts are decimating the government programs that we do have. Medicaid and state programs can’t meet the need. The political system is geared towards those with money, so programs to help the poor, however well meaning, tend to get cut when times get tough. Of course that is when they are needed most. And that is when the government starts acting like private insurance, restricting who can be on the program and how much they will pay providers.

Medicare is in better shape because it covers everybody over 65 and thus has a good political base of support. However it has been weakened in the last few years by bringing in private insurance companies, who take the “good risks” and leave the rest. The refusal to negotiate prices makes it impossible to control costs.

Isn’t it appalling that people are being forced into bankruptcy and losing their homes because they get sick? Even with insurance. Our current system is upside down. It will pay for the small stuff, but if you get seriously ill, the “insurance” leaves many with bills they cannot hope to pay for the percentage that the policy doesn’t cover. In the meantime, just paying the premiums is beyond reach for many.

Healthcare in the US is a scandal that should not be tolerated. By any measure of health, the US is in worse shape that any other industrialized country, and worse than some in the third world. And for that level of care, we pay more than any other country. The only people who benefit from this system are a few executives and shareholders of a few giant corporations, whose only interest is making money off of suffering people.

Congressman Norm Dicks just wrote me a letter pointing out that, “there are more than 46 million Americans who have no health insurance coverage at all, and another 14,000 who are losing coverage every day during the current economic crisis. The other discouraging aspect of this growing problem is the enormous amount of money that is spent on health care in our country - almost twice as much per capita than any other industrialized nation.’ These are truly alarming numbers. It is alarming that knowing these facts, Congress is looking like it won’t do anything that is going to solve the problem.

Physicians for a National Health Program FAQs

Demonstrators Disrupt Health Care Forums (AP 8/8/09)

Are Liberal Netroots Groups Helping Obama Fail? (Truthout 7/30/09)

Obama gives powerful drug lobby a seat at healthcare table (LA Times 8/4/09)

The Incredible Shrinking Health Care Reform (Norman Solomon 8/5/09)

Hamas’ Changing Position

2009-01-12T21:48:00.000-08:00

The following article by Phan Nguyen talks about what Hamas’ position really is, as opposed to what most of the news coverage, at least in the US, portrays. This is incredibly important in order to understand what the parties involved hope to achieve. After all, why should Hamas give up any negotiating points in the absence of any concessions from Israel?

Of course, what is needed right now is an immediate unconditional ceasefire and free access for humanitarian workers to alleviate the disaster area that Gaza has become.

The current attack on Gaza amounts to collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza. Israel says they want to dismantle Hamas but they guarantee increased hatred of Israel and, sad to say, increased terrorism.

Beyond that, most Israelis and most Palestinians would agree to a two state solution. The details are what has to be negotiated but the Israeli government appears to be in the grip of rejectionist hardliners and refuses to seriously negotiate. The main sticking point, of course, is the presence, and continuing expansion of, Jewish settlements in the West Bank. When the settlements were first established in the 1980s, many observers predicted that they would be a destabilizing influence that would make any solution much more difficult. This is exactly what has happened. The settlers have become a powerful political force in Israel. Naturally, having established themselves in the West Bank, they don’t want to move. But their presence breaks up Palestinian territory into an impossible patchwork of areas separated by Israeli settlements, roads connecting the settlements with each other and with Israel and now the so-called “Security Wall”. Many have compared this situation with the Bantustans created by the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The US involvement is another complicating factor. By uncritically supplying Israel with $3 billion per year in aid and weapons, the US government is actually standing in the way of a solution. On the other hand, if the US were to insist on serious negotiations, it could use the aid as leverage to strengthen moderate Israelis and push both sides to make the concessions necessary for a “durable” solution.

Hamas’ Changing Position
By Phan Nguyen

When discussing Hamas’ position towards Israel, it’s important to recognize that like any other group, Hamas is not static. It changes with the conditions on the ground and with popular sentiment.

It is ridiculous to continuously refer to the Hamas charter of 1988 in order to detemine Hamas’ stances in 2008.

In 1988, Israel did not accept a 2-state solution. In 1988, the US did not accept a 2-state solution. However, in 1988, the PLO was calling for a 2-state solution, but in 1988, the PLO was not considered a legitimate negotiating party. In 1988, there was no Oslo. In 1988, official IDF policy was to “break the bones” of Palestinian nonviolent demonstrators. In 1988, Israel was just beginning to learn that there really were Palestinians.

Since then, as it has become more apparent that Palestinians were willing to recognize Israel’s “right to exist” (whatever that means), the question has been modified from “Do you support Israel’s right to exist?” to “Do you support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state?” And if Palestinians concede to that (which will require accepting that Palestinians will always be second-class citizens in Israel, and there will be no acknowledgement of the Right to Return), then the question will probably change to something even more convoluted, like “Do you support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with a cherry on top?” Meanwhile, Israel will make no concessions, using the “right to exist” question as a requirement prior to any negotiations.
It is important to stress that the whole “right to exist” argument is a canard to avoid bilateral negotiations. Israel already exists, regardless of whether Hamas recognizes it. Hamas is incapable of destroying Israel. If you tally the number of rockets and mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, you will find that each rocket or mortar shell has a 0.2 to 0.3% chance of killing someone. At the rate in which Hamas and other militant groups been launching projectiles, it would take 1,925,000 years and 2,750,000,000 rockets and mortar shells to kill all the Jews in Israel. That’s assuming that Israel’s Jewish population doesn’t increase. And of course we would need to factor in the limited range of the projectiles, which would require Israel's non-growing Jewish population to all congregate in the western Negev by the year 1927008 CE, give or take a few years.*

In other words, this “right to exist” argument is a distraction from a possible practical solution to the conflict. It’s Israel’s way of saying, “I won’t negotiate with you until you agree to all my terms.” If that’s the case, what is there to negotiate?

“Right to exist” is an abstraction. Israel doesn’t even accept Israel’s own right to exist, since it can’t make up its mind where its territorial borders are. Just take a look at the path of the West Bank wall—they must have taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque or something. And look at Israeli maps and Israeli textbooks.

Israel and the US never recognized Hamas’ win in the 2006 Palestinian democratic elections, and have since then sought to undermine Hamas’ role as a governing authority by arming and training Fatah to defeat Hamas, by imposing a siege on the 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip, and now by waging a one-sided war against Hamas along with destroying Gaza’s civil infrastructure and population.

If they really want to “moderate” Hamas, they should give Hamas reasons to moderate.

We should not accept the parameters of discourse established by our opponents (AIPAC talking points, for example). If we were speaking their language, we wouldn’t be talking about peace and justice but engaging in mind-numbing sophistry. Most “pro-Israel” arguments are non sequiturs, and they need to be acknowledged as such. We will not negotiate with Hamas until they recognize that Pepsi is the choice of a new generation.

Okay, all that aside, if you’re still looking for proof that Hamas’ positions are a lot more nuanced and a lot more flexible than how its opponents want to portray it, you can find some info here:

But you know, there will always be some smartass who, after you give them mountains of incontrovertible evidence, will act like they didn’t hear a thing you said, and then quip, “But what about the Hamas charter?” – as if that’s some sort of zinger.

* (Forgive my quick and sloppy math)

Stop Israel's Attacks Against Palestinians

2008-12-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

Letter to my Senators and Representative, President-elect Obama and the US State Department in response to Israel's attacks on Gaza.

The US claims to favor a just settlement of the conflict between Palestinians and Israel. However, continuation of billions of dollars of uncritical US aid to Israel is counter-productive. Israel has repeatedly used our aid to launch attacks on Palestinians. The most generous interpretation of their actions is that they have a reckless disregard for civilian casualties. Hundreds have been killed by the bombing of Gaza, but perhaps worse is the effects of the blockade on the people who live there. I do not condone Hamas attacks but Israel's attacks are disproportionate to the provocation. Attacks on civilians are a violation of International Law and US law.

Hamas attacks are a response to the continued illegal occupation of their land and the daily violence the Palestinians experience.

Israel will never see peace unless they are willing to end the occupation, and allow the formation of a Palestinian state with a territory that is not broken up by Israeli settlements. The first step to peace has to be a real and immediate end to settlements and to the so called "security wall", which puts land and water supplies in the West Bank on the Israeli side. Many Israelis agree that their own security is not served by their government's militaristic policy.

I trust that the US will use the leverage we have with our substantial aid to help end the violence by persuading Israel to negotiate a just and lasting settlement.

Resources:

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
United for Peace and Justice Palestine/Israel Just Peace Campaign

Re: Your plan for Iraq

2008-12-06T20:34:00.000-08:00

Message sent to the Obama Transition at change.gov 12/6/08

Re: Your plan for Iraq

I would like to see our troops withdrawn from the streets immediately and brought home.

I am concerned that your plan to withdraw troops from Iraq doesn't go far enough. As you know, the presence of US troops is an obstacle to peace. The US lacks any clear mission and is basically one of many militias operating in Iraq. Insurgents will continue to receive support from Iraqis who, quite naturally, object to the foreign soldiers conducting missions, breaking down doors, taking prisoners and dropping bombs, with many innocent victims. Our presence is used to justify the violence that other militias use. We get the blame for that, as well.

Your idea of a residual force is a bad idea because it provides for continued US operations there and therefore will not ease the worries of Iraqis who overwhelming want the foreign troops out. Continuing operations will lead to continuing “collateral damage”, which will only weaken the ability of Iraqis to find reconciliation. You will find yourself in the position later on of being pressured to expand that force and we will be right back where we are now.

Likewise I object to your expansion of military action in Afghanistan. Now is a great time to expand diplomatic efforts instead. People around the world are looking to you to change the way that the US relates to the rest of the world. Elements of the Taliban are ready for negotiations. Lets encourage that trend and be ready to withdraw our troops and increase our reconstruction aid, using local contractors and international organizations to show that our goal is not domination but peace. This will undermine the hardliners.

We have to understand that the US cannot control the people of other countries. If they are not friendly to our government or corporations, I can't say I blame them. We need to earn their trust and we need to trust them. You talk a lot about diplomacy. It is crucial. I hope you don't forget it.

My advice to Obama

2008-11-13T20:14:00.000-08:00

President-elect Obama is asking us, the American people, to give him some input on what we would like to see in the next few years. He has set up a website for his transition:

President-Elect Obama Transition site- Share Your Vision http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision
Share your vision for what America can be, where President-Elect Obama should lead this country. Where should we start together?

I hope that lots of people take advantage of this opportunity to have our say. Here is what I sent in. There is lots more that could be said, and will be said, but this is a start.

1. We need to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars are draining our economy, killing and wounding thousands of our troops and antagonizing the people we are supposed to be helping. A better approach would be to put some of that money, a substantial amount, into building schools, clinics, housing and infrastructure that is desperately needed. Make the money available for the Iraqi and Afghani governments to spend on their own country. Use local contractors and local workers to get their economies going. Negotiate with all parties to end the fighting. Ordinary people will benefit and support for insurgents will wither.
2. We need universal healthcare here. Lets follow the lead of the rest of the industrialized world in order to insure that everybody gets the healthcare they need. Your plan falls short because it relies on the flawed private insurance system that is failing us now. Even people with insurance are hit with ever rising premiums, deductible and co-pays. Most bankruptcies are caused by healthcare bills, even for people with insurance. We need a single payer system similar to Canada’s.
3. We need to fight the deepening recession with programs to provide jobs for the unemployed, renegotiation of problem debt with predatory lenders held to account and forced to assume their share of the burden, a moratorium on foreclosures and re-regulation of financial markets. De-regulation is a failed experiment. There needs to be strong regulation, not just in the financial sector but everywhere, to moderate destructive boom and bust cycles and rein in shady operators who will inevitable step in to make big bucks at the expense of ordinary people if we let them.
4. We need to reverse the trend towards consolidation and monopoly that is inevitable under unregulated capitalism. Without strong anti-trust laws, big companies will buy out those less strong until we are left with nothing but monopolies and oligopolies. These giants will then be able to blackmail us, as we just saw, because they are “too big to be allowed to fail”. At that point there is no longer competition and corruption takes over. I am disturbed to see the government now using the recession as an excuse to encourage further consolidation of already monopolistic industries. Rather, we should be encouraging a diverse, competitive marketplace.
5. Combat the recession, free ourselves from foreign oil and slow down global warming by investing in alternative energy. Support research and development, commit to using alternative energy in government buildings and fleets and help individuals and businesses convert to more sustainable technologies.

A Mandate for Real Change

2008-11-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

Barrack Obama won the Presidential election in a landslide. That landslide was a mandate for the policies that Obama supported.

In his speech on Election Night, Barack Obama said, "This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change."

In the South Carolina Democratic primary debate (held on Martin Luther King Day), Obama said, "I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us. I think what he would call upon the American people to do is to hold us accountable...I believe change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up. Dr. King understood that.”

2008 Election: The First Step of a Movement?
By Joe Volk, Executive Secretary
November 6, 2008
http://www.fcnl.org/action/08peacevoter.htm

Historic Changes Have Not Come Easy

* British MP William Wilberforce didn’t volunteer to lead and win the anti-slavery law, he responded to a grassroots movement to translate protest into policy.
* Eloquent as he was, President Abraham Lincoln wasn’t an eager opponent of slavery, and the Civil War was not fought to free the slaves. That took a grassroots movement to translate protest into policy.
* As we "gray hairs" who watched the signing of the Voting Rights Act recall, President Lyndon Johnson, though he deserves credit, did not lead the way. That took a civil rights movement of people who gave everything they had, including sometimes their lives, so that our country would do the right thing.
* Barack Obama, as he himself acknowledged Tuesday night, didn’t win this election on his own. It took a movement to take him to the White House and to make history.

President-Elect Obama Transition site http://change.gov/
Share your vision for what America can be, where President-Elect Obama should lead this country. Where should we start together?

Obama won a resounding victory not just for his charismatic personality, but for his policies. His message of Change captured the mood of America in a single word. A slogan can mean many things to many people but he gave the voters an idea of where that change might happen. He championed Hope when many had just about lost hope after eight years of Bush’s attacks on the Constitution, failed policies and disastrous wars. Before that we had eight years of Clinton, whose tawdry affairs undermined respect for the Presidency, whose pro-corporate policies undermined ordinary Americans’ security and whose sanctions and attacks on Iraq killed hundreds of thousands and set the stage for Bush’s war. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans perfected attack politics and Democrats rolled over and played dead, refusing to hold them accountable.

But Obama didn’t just run against all this. He laid out a series of proposals during the campaign that would make up the change he stood for. First of all was his opposition to the war in Iraq. He opposed it from the start, which set him apart from his Democratic rivals for the nomination. He can be faulted for the details of his plan to end the war, which doesn’t go as far as most Americans would like, but there can be no doubt that they voted for peace, both in 2006 and in 2008.

Obama brought forward a plan for Universal Healthcare. Again, there can be questions about the details but it is the concept that is important. Congress will have to hammer out the details and Obama’s plan will undoubtedly be changed in the process. Polls indicate that most Americans favor a single payer system, similar to Canada’s.

Obama’s rhetoric in response to the economic collapse stressed the importance of helping the middle class, rather than just pouring money into Wall Street’s pockets. He did support the bailout plan but he also called for middle class tax cuts and rolling back Bush’s cuts for the rich. He urged greater governmental oversight and re-regulation of financial markets. He talked about the country as a community in which people used government policies to help each other. He said that those who were better off shouldn’t mind policies that “spread the wealth around” and helped those who were struggling.

The Republicans attacked him mercilessly for these proposals. They said that his modest proposal to draw down our forces in Iraq would throw away victory and help terrorists. They said that his economic policies were “class warfare” and they called him a socialist. These attacks didn’t resonate with the voters, who elected him nonetheless in a landslide. That landslide was a mandate for the policies that Obama advocated and a stinging rejection of the Republican attacks. The President-elect should take note and press forward with his program.

The Republicans ridiculed Obama for being a community organizer but it was precisely his realization that the way to win was by organizing a grassroots campaign that led to his victory. In this he dovetailed with Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean’s strategy. Dean developed his 50 state strategy of grassroots organizing everywhere, rather than just contesting swing states, in his 2004 Presidential campaign. Although that campaign was not successful it did develop a group of committed activists who were able to secure his election as DNC Chair. Their support also helped Obama win election to the Senate, as part of an effort to support progressive candidates across the country.

Of course, Obama also raised an unprecedented amount of money from corporate interests, who will hope for sympathetic treatment from his Administration in return. His proposals aim in the right direction but tend to fall short of public expectations. This sets up a political conflict at the heart of his Presidency. It could go either way. It would be easy for Obama to roll back some of the Bush excesses and return to Clinton era policies. His early appointments tend to point in that direction. On the other hand he has created a huge grassroots movement inflamed with the hope for real change. The question is whether that movement will persist after the election and whether it will be able to push him in a more progressive direction.

Franklin Roosevelt is reported to have told an activist who came to him with a proposal, “I agree with you. Now go out and make me do it.” There are indications that Obama is receptive to that kind of pressure. Time and again he has stressed that change does not happen from the top down, but from the bottom up. That is his community organizing experience speaking. He has even set up a transition website: http://change.gov/ where people can, among other things, “Share your vision for what America can be, where President-Elect Obama should lead this country. Where should we start together?” I find this a very hopeful sign. Even the “change.gov” URL speaks of using the government to help bring about change. And asking for grassroots input invites ordinary people to join the process and stay involved in setting policy. I hope that it is widely used. And I hope that the Obama Administration pays attention to the input they are getting from the bottom up.

My impression is that Obama does not feel strong enough to push through the kind of changes Americans want. After all, Congress is still more conservative than the voters and very much beholden to corporate money. He has said that he wants to be President of all the people and not get bogged down in partisanship. Given the history of Republican negativity, that will be a difficult task. Pressure from the voters on a large scale will strengthen his hand and push him towards real change. Activists can help by continuing their work on the issues of peace and justice. It will undoubtedly be frustrating if Obama moves too slowly or not far enough to deal with our problems but there is hope that after the last eight years of being shut out, there is a chance to influence policy. Activists should redouble their efforts, in order to push Obama and the Democratic Congress as far as possible.

This is a representation of the final paragraph in graphic form created at http://www.wordle.net/.

Beware of Election Fraud

2008-10-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

"I remember Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, and I am willing to take action in 2008 if the election is stolen again. I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 4th. I pledge to join nationwide pro-democracy protests starting on November 5th, either in my community, in key states where fraud occurred, or in Washington D.C.. I pledge: No More Stolen Elections!"

This pledge has been endorsed by a wide variety of activists including Jesse Jackson, Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin and many more. See their full statement at http://nomorestolenelections.org/call_to_action

I truly hope that this election will be conducted fairly and freely but there are reasons to be concerned. I hope that we all will insist that irregularities are investigated and resolved before we accept tainted results.

*David Swanson, of AfterDowningStreet.org urges action in the event of a stolen election. A McCain "Win" Will Be Theft, Resistance Is Planned
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/36993

*Check the Can I Vote website http://www.canivote.org/ for links to check on your status or register online. This site will link you to the information in your state. You can also check on the voter ID requirements in your state, so you can be sure to have the proper documents to vote when you go to the polls.

My first blog post was a piece I wrote in 2000 analyzing the Florida vote showing that Gore really did win. See Gore Wins http://dangoldstein.blogspot.com/2000/11/gore-wins.html and Blame Florida http://dangoldstein.blogspot.com/2000/11/blame-florida.html and that was before I knew the half of it. We now know that thousands of poor and black voters were kept from the polls improperly. BBC reporter and author Greg Palast has documented all of this extensively. See Greg Palast’s website http://www.gregpalast.com/ for details and to see how these abuses have been continued and expanded since then.

A “Miracle” for McCain?
As we come down to the end of this very long election, the polls show Obama pulling further ahead, with even leading Republicans, including Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley and many more, jumping onto the Obama bandwagon. Yet, John McCain said he can “he can “guarantee” a win on Nov. 4 in a squeaker victory that won’t be clear until late that night.” It would seem that McCain has either lost touch with reality or he knows something that that rest of us don’t about how the votes are going to be counted.

Although most reports give Obama a comfortable margin a few articles like this one seem to be setting up the possibility of an election night miracle for McCain. (McCain guarantees victory (Yahoo 10/26/08) http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081026/pl_politico/14951;_ylt=AkooC78tXlIvKZ7khtDWozRh24cA)

Democracy Now! ran an interview with Nate Silver, who has been analyzing polling data. He notes that polls try to adjust their results in order to give more weight to likely voters. Depending on the assumptions they make, it can skew the results, producing variations in results from poll to poll. With many polls every day, new analysts may be tempted to cherry pick the polls that support the position they want to take. (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/23/the_spreadsheet_psychic_with_fivethreeeightcom_nate)

Voter Suppression

A key part of the Republican strategy has been to suppress the Democratic vote. States have become aggressive about purging the voter rolls, eliminating people who have moved or show up on often faulty lists of ineligible voters. Ideally, voters will be notified and allowed to appeal such decisions, but that does not always happen and even so, the burden of proof is on the voter to prove that they are eligible. Often the result is simply that the voter is discouraged from voting or casts a provisional ballot that may never be counted. Misinformation has been circulated on college campuses concerning student voter rights and in poor communities that falsely imply that voting with unpaid parking tickets or misdemeanor convictions could get you in trouble.

In many states there are now requirements to show ID at the polls. Although many types of ID may be accepted, including utility bills, driver’s license or other documents, voters may not be aware of the requirement and therefore could be denied the right to vote when they get to the polls. Those who vote by mail may be challenged if their signature appears different than when they registered. In these cases they are supposed to be given a provisional ballot, but again the burden of proof is on the voter and experience shows that many of these ballots are simply not counted.

Voter Registration drives are called into question. The most blatant example being McCain’s attacks on ACORN for alleged voter fraud. The so-called fraud consisted of a small percentage of the registrations that appeared to be invented out of thin air by lazy canvassers. This is inevitable with any large scale canvassing operation, whether it is a rightwing initiative or a voter registration drive. There is no evidence that anybody turns up to vote as “Mickey Mouse” or any of the other imaginary voters. ACORN has even cooperated with state authorities to investigate and correct these errors. Nonetheless, persistent Republican attacks have made it more difficult to conduct registration drives.

The good news is that it is easier than ever to make sure before election day that your voter registration is still valid. Everybody should do this. Check the Can I Vote website http://www.canivote.org/ for links to check on your status or register online. This site will link you to the information in your state. You can also check on the voter ID requirements in your state, so you can be sure to have the proper documents to vote when you go to the polls.

Election Day Challenges

Republicans are gearing up to aggressively challenge voters at the polls in Democratic neighborhoods, such as the plan to use lists of foreclosures to disqualify voters who have had to move. They also use address errors to disqualify voters they don’t like. Even if a challenge is factually inaccurate, the common response is to force them to use a provisional ballot and assume the burden of proving eligibility.

Voting Machines

After the 2000 election revealed problems with punchcard voting machines, the so-called Help America Vote Act, promoted even more unaccountable electronic voting machines. They eliminated the hanging chad problem by eliminating any paper record of the vote, thus making recounts impossible. These machines run on software that is kept secret, even from voting officials, but was shown to be vulnerable to vote tampering and prone to error. See Hacking Democracy (http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/synopsis.html)

In early voting in 2008 some voters have reported that the machines switched their vote from Obama to other candidates. Without a paper record, there is nothing they can do about it. Citizen pressure has forced some places to require a paper trail but there is little official interest in random audits to check the paper record against the electronic results. Without a verification process to certify the vote, even paper ballots do little good.

Border Patrol Checkpoints and the 4th Amendment

2008-09-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

I am concerned with the increasing levels of police surveillance and control in our society, as I outlined in The Sovietization of America (http://dangoldstein.blogspot.com/2008/09/sovietization-of-america.html) and Dick Cheney’s Bookshelf: 1984 (http://dangoldstein.blogspot.com/2007/11/dick-cheneys-bookshelf-1984.html). This is true on the borders with stepped up patrols and increased documentation required for getting into this country. Passports are now required on the Canadian border, which used to only require a drivers license. Visa requirements have been tightened up and visitors are routinely photographed and fingerprinted as they go through Customs. People have been added to "suspected terrorist lists" and no fly lists with no justification required or provided.. At the Republican Convention hundreds were rounded up in mass arrests that also targeted journalists who were trying to cover the demonstrations. The Bush Administration is working on making it easier for the police to conduct surveillance and infiltrate groups they don't like (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/36732prs20080912.html). That is why it is so disturbing to see this kind of increased police invasiveness right here in our neck of the woods.

I live in a quiet little corner of Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. We are not far from Canada; it’s just across the water. However, the border is 3-4 hours away by car, including a ferry ride. From the West End of the Peninsula, add another couple of hours to that drive. That is why I was surprised to find out that the US Border Patrol has been setting up highway checkpoints both on the western side of the Peninsula, on Highway 101 near the town of Forks, and on the eastern side, near the Hood Canal Bridge. Whatever its effectiveness or legality, it does slow traffic and inconvenience the vast majority of people who use the roads. It also gives this police agency an opportunity to detain and 'check up' on anybody. That is un-American.

Any other police agency is prohibited from stopping somebody or conducting a search without probable cause, or a reason to believe that that particular person is committing a crime. That is in the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment says:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Now it doesn't say anything about automobiles, but I think it is safe to say that they would have intended cars to be included if they had existed at the time. The police can't just pull you over and search your car for no reason. The Border Patrol thinks that its mission makes it exempt from that in certain circumstances. Since their mission is to patrol thousands of miles of borders in between official crossing points they believe that they can check anybody they find near the border to make sure they are not sneaking in illegally. Mike Bermudez, public affairs officer for the U.S. Border Patrol is quoted in the Port Townsend Leader (http://www.ptleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=21763&TM=83414.87) as saying that Federal law allows them to conduct checkpoints within a "reasonable distance" of the border, which he says has been established as 100 miles. I could point out that the distance from Forks to the border by car is almost 200 miles, but then they would point out that the border is actually in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and it is "only" 56 miles from Forks to the ferry to Vancouver Island. Of course they are supposed to be patrolling between official crossings, which leads us to the conclusion that they are worried about illegal aliens sneaking across the border from Canada by boat, getting into cars and driving down to the checkpoints. Now I do believe that rumrunners used that route during Prohibition but I don't think it has been a problem since.

It turns out that, as far as I can tell not one of the people arrested for suspected immigration violations are accused of crossing the border from Canada. They are accused of crossing the Mexican border illegally. In fact when asked about racial profiling at the checkpoint, according to the same article, "Bermudez said it's a matter of demographics and the reality is that "a larger percentage of people who are in the country illegally are Mexican."". But this raises a serious question. It seems that the Border Patrol is using the proximity of the Canadian border (and it is not even that close) to patrol the Mexican Border, which is, what? 1500 miles away? There is no way that is a "reasonable distance". It is a ridiculous assumption. What they are really doing is looking for people who are already in this country. That is a far cry from preventing people from slipping across the border.

The Peninsula Daily News reports that one of the raids caught a recent graduate, with honors, of Fork High School, who has been in this country since infancy, along with another local student (http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20080831/NEWS/808310309), sparking a protest demonstration that attracted 60 people. Whether or not you believe that it serves the national interest to deport them, I don't understand how apprehending them in Washington state years after they came here has anything to do with patrolling the border.

And as a previous article in The Leader (http://www.ptleader.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=21662&SectionID=36&SubSectionID=55&S=1) points out, at least some of the people actually arrested were allegedly illegal immigrants illegally harvesting salal, which grows in the National Forest, is in much demand by florists but requires a permit. In order to protect the forests from over harvesting, permits are limited and only available by lottery. So, part of their motivation might be to protect the National Forest. If so, they are way off base. They can't just ignore the 4th Amendment in order to protect the environment. It is also a damned inefficient way to do it.

The checkpoints are also an opportunity to nab people who have outstanding warrants. In fact, some of the people stopped were arrested on warrants that were unrelated to the border or immigration or anything that the Border Patrol is supposed to be doing.

Well what is wrong with grabbing people that they come across if there is a warrant out on them? Here is the scenario. The Border Patrol sets up a checkpoint that forces every car that comes by to slow down to a crawl so they can peer into the car. If they see something "suspicious", like maybe brown skin, they make it stop for further questioning, asking who you are and what you are doing. They ask for identification. Then they take the opportunity to run a check for warrants. All of this is without any probable cause that anybody has done anything wrong. As I mentioned, nobody else is allowed to do this. The only reason the Border Control can get away with it is that they say they need to be able to nab people as they are sneaking across the border. But that is not what they are doing with these checkpoints.

One image we all have of a police state is that they can stop you anytime and demand to inspect “your papers”. These checkpoints are one more step in that direction.

The Sovietization of America

2008-09-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

I remember reading about the old Soviet Union. How protesters would show up in Red Square and get hauled away by the police just for being there. How the official press only carried the official story and how anybody with a different viewpoint had to pass literature from hand to hand. I remember reading about the Gulags. And I never thought that I would see the day when America would start to look like that.

But it does. Are we as bad as the Soviets were? Well, I guess it depends who you are. If you are in Guantanamo or one of the other secret prisons maintained by the US intelligence services, possibly tortured and held indefinitely without trial, you might find it hard to tell the difference. If the federal government is spying on you because you exercised your First Amendment rights, you might wonder. Or if you are a non-violent demonstrator violently attacked by the police, what are you supposed to think? If you are a journalist detained to keep you from covering a story, you might be justified in making a comparison. On the other hand if you keep quiet and do as you are told, you will probably be OK, but then the same could be said of the Soviet Union. Seriously, I know that things aren't as bad here, now, as they were over there, back then, but it seems more a matter of degree than anything else.

These abuses are not isolated instances. They happen with startling frequency all over the country. It is not just a few bad cops taking off their identification and suppressing dissent; there is a pattern of systematic abuse. And I don't think it is a coincidence that police in riot gear no longer wear any identification. Without a way to identify them, they can't be held accountable.

Now you may say that this is nothing new. Police have been busy breaking up union meetings and arresting "subversives" for years. The Nixon Administration brought phony conspiracy charges against activists. They infiltrated, spied on and actively tried to destroy opponents with programs such as Cointelpro. Japanese Americans were interned in violation of their Constitutional rights during WWII. Conscientious Objectors to war have been, and still are, imprisoned for their beliefs. During the McCarthy era, witchhunts against so called "Communist Front organizations" were rampant. So, no, it isn't new. It is sad and it is infuriating.

More Links:

Attacks on the media:

Amy Goodman & Two Democracy Now! Producers Arrested at RNC Protest (9/2/08 Democracy Now)
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/2/amy_goodman_two_democracy_now_producers

I-Witness Video Members Detained En Masse by St.Paul, Minnesota Police in Advance of the 2008 Republican National Convention
http://iwitnessvideo.info/blog/108.html

Videographer Joe Le Sac's video of his own detention for documenting a demonstration in Tacoma, WA. Joe was also arrested at the Republican Convention in St Paul for the same "crime".
"Film is Not a Crime"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMDW4Fszj2U&feature=user

Government surveillance of protesters and "pre-emptive detentions".

Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis (salon.com)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/index.html

Federal government involved in raids on protesters (salon.com)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/

Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power (salon.com)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/07/23/new_churchcomm/index.html
This article talks about widespread and systematic government spying on Americans.

ACLU page on Unchecked Government Surveillance
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/

Police Spied on Activists In Md. (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/17/ST2008071702080.html

Police Violence against demonstrators

Police use Pepper Spray at point blank range against Port Militarization Reisitance demonstrators blocking the street in Olympia, WA. Note the total non-violence even in response the the police brutality. After the assault began, onlookers did use some "bad" language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgi5ESpueX8

Testimony to Olympia WA City Council on police violence against protesters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTKHrNGPRiI

As Democratic Convention Kicks Off, Massive Security Presence Clamps Down on Dissent in Denver
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/26/as_democratic_convention_kicks_off_massive

Denver Police Arrest 91, Fire Pepper Spray & Pepper Balls at Protesters
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/26/denver_police_arrest_91_fire_pepper

Critical Mass Bicyclist Assaulted by NYPD (youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ
Do I need to mention that the bicyclist was then arrested for assault on an officer? This is standard procedure. The police generally justify their unprovoked attacks by arresting the victim.
without video like this they often get away with it.

Democracy Now! interview with video activist and archivist Eileen Clancy about the Critical Mass incident and why the city is subpoenaing her organization, I-Witness Video, for hundreds of protest videos shot during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/1/i_witness_video_nypd_officer_caught

Police Violence Shocks Activists, Others at Port of Oakland Protest
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0407-07.htm

Have Taser, Will Torture, by Pierre Tristam
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10120

Overkill: The Latest Trend in Policing (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/03/AR2006020302389_pf.html

Testimony of Police Brutality Across the Nation
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pshell/gammage/testimonies/testimonies.html

And For a little history

We now know about the details of the Cointelpro program from the 60s and 70s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cointelpro

However, you can bet that this sort of thing still goes on. We don't usually find out about these things until after the fact. Then we are supposed to rest assured that it just happened in the bad old days, not now. A few years later, another scandal reveals a bit more, but again we get the same old spin. It never goes away, just sometimes it gets more blatant, like it is now.

War Profiteers!

2008-03-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

Opening Title:

A war profiteer is any person or organization that improperly profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term has strong negative connotations.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_profiteering)

Opening Scene: A street in Haditha, Iraq. A Marine patrol rolls down the street. Marines sweat in heavy body armor as they nervously scan the area. People on the street eye the patrol suspiciously. 80 percent of Iraqis want the US to leave because they think that the occupation is making the security situation worse. Suddenly, a bomb in the road explodes. A passing humvee is disabled by the blast. One soldier lies dead. The Marines leap from their vehicles, guns at the ready. One spots a car nearby with “military age men”. Thinking they might be insurgents, he fires and kills 4 or 5 men. Local people later say they were students in a taxi, just trying to get home. Others storm into nearby houses, with grenades and guns blazing. If there had ever been insurgents there, they were gone now, leaving as many as 24 dead civilians; men, women and children. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003053985_haditha11.html)

The scene shifts: The Chevron Board of Directors celebrates $18.7 billion in profits in 2007, up from $17.14 billion in 2006. Before she joined the Bush Administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat at this table, in fact she even had a oil tanker named after her (it has since been renamed the Altair Voyager). The directors note that rival ExxonMobil is doing even better, with a record setting $40.6 billion profit for the year. (http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/la-fi-oil2feb02,1,5140747.story) Chevron CEO David O’Reilly has no complaints. Executive compensation is complicated but his 2006 salary of $1.6 million was just the beginning. He earned far more from stock options, incentives and other benefits, coming to about $30 million for the year. (http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSN1921329020070319)

Oil company profits have soared as worldwide oil prices have climbed. When the war in Iraq got underway in 2003 oil prices climbed sharply from $25 a barrel to over $100 today. (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/AOMC/Overview.html) Gas prices in the US are now approaching a record $4 a gallon. Pundits may argue over whether the Iraq War was begun in order to seize control of the world’s third largest oil reserves for American companies, but the fact remains that they have been the big winners so far, as instability in the area has contributed to rising prices and profits. That is without the Iraqi Oil law, which would allow western oil companies to lock in very favorable terms for decades to come. Last I heard, the oil law has been stalled in the Iraqi parliament despite heavy pressure from the US to pass it as one of the “benchmarks” of progress. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/blood-and-oil-how-the-west-will-profit-from-iraqs-most-precious-commodity-431119.html) Although the law has been promoted in the United States as a means to share oil revenue between regions, and supported by most Democratic and Republican politicians, most Iraqis see it as a giveaway of Iraq’s wealth.

The scene shifts: A refugee camp in Syria. Thousands of people arrive everyday, hoping to find a respite from inescapable violence at home. They have narrowly escaped death or fled after death threats because they were Sunni, or Shiite, or worked with the Americans, or were in Saddam Hussein’s army, or they had enough money to be worthwhile kidnapping for ransom, or they are haunted by ethnic cleansing back home that will make it impossible for them to return to their homes, or friends and family have been killed. Conditions here are better than in Iraq, but there aren’t enough resources to take care of them. In some of the camps, people live in squalid, crowded conditions without clean water or electricity. (http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/58769/?page=1)
2 million Iraqis have fled the country and 2.2 million more are refugees within Iraq, out of a total population of 25 million. (http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html) Syria alone has over a million. Lebanon, Jordan, Iran and other countries account for the rest. Host countries receive little outside help and are stretched thin trying to help.

The scene shifts: Vice President Dick Cheney opens his Halliburton deferred compensation check. Although he claims to have severed his ties with the company, he holds Halliburton stock and stock options and receives deferred compensation dating to his days as CEO. When he was Defense Secretary under the first President Bush, he hired Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to study the feasibility of outsourcing military support services to private corporations. When they recommended privatization, Cheney awarded them the contract. After he left government service, Cheney was named Halliburton’s CEO, serving there until he returned to government service as Vice President. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/politics/main575356.shtml) At the beginning of the Iraq War, Halliburton was awarded no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq’s oil industry and Kellogg Brown and Root provides support services for US bases there, despite scandals involving millions of dollars of overcharges and underperformance.

The scene shifts: Nissour Square in Baghdad. A convoy protected by private security contractor Blackwater drives into the square and opens fire. 17 civilians are killed. Eyewitnesses say that there was no provocation and that the gunfire was indiscriminate. (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/12/14/blackwater/) Private security companies like Blackwater are not part of the military, are not bound by military rules of engagement and are not answerable to military discipline. They are not covered by US law because they operate outside the US. The thing is, they are also not subject to Iraqi law, thanks to an Order issued by Paul Bremer before turning over sovereignty to the Iraqi government in 2004. The 100 Orders he issued (http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/#Orders) remain in effect as the basis of Iraqi law. They remake Iraq in the Neo-Cons image, as a free market haven for multi-national corporations. Bremer Order 17 exempts foreign contractors from Iraqi legal process. All in all there are 180,000 private contractors in Iraq, most of them doing work that used to be the responsibility of the military.

For providing security services worldwide in the State Department’s Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS(is that pronounced whoops?)) program, the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater over $320 million in just two years. That’s not bad, especially considering that the original agreement was $230 million over 5 years. (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/scahill) Blackwater is a privately held company, so executive earnings are hard to come by, but over the years, Blackwater Chairman, Erik Prince, has given over $230,000 to Republican candidates, $5,000 to the Green Party and nothing to Democrats. (http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Erik_Prince.php)

Vice President Cheney has always been upbeat about the war. He says that things are going great. Many in the anti-war movement put this down to propaganda and an unwillingness to admit error, but I wonder if he really is sincere in this belief. If you believe, as he seems to, that what’s good for giant corporations is good for America, then the suffering of Iraqi people, and US troops, is irrelevant, as long as the corporations are doing well. By that standard, the war is indeed a big success.

Closing scene: January 17, 1961: Outgoing President and former WWII 5 Star General Dwight D Eisenhower gives his farewell address:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”

(http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html)

In my dreams: Angry citizenry rises up brandishing pitchforks. Profiteers are tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

The End

Sticking with Kucinich

2008-02-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Congressman Dennis Kucinich dropped out of the Democratic race for President last month. But that doesn't mean that his campaign is dead. I'm sticking with him going into the caucus here in Washington on February 9, and the primary February 19, and there are plenty of others who will also be voting for him in primaries and caucuses. In fact, supporting him is more important than ever. In my town, lawn signs for Kucinich outnumber all other candidates. Ron Paul has some and I have seen one Obama sign.

Conventional Wisdom, this week, is that the Democratic Race for President is down to Obama and Clinton and we had better choose one or the other because it will be all over soon. With many of us voting in primaries or caucuses this week, we are told that the only way to have a say in the matter is to jump on one of their bandwagons. I disagree. I think it is more important to influence the policies that the winning candidate and the party will campaign on and enact if they are elected.

In those terms, I don't see much difference in substance between the two of them. Sure Obama radiates charisma and talks of change but he seems awfully vague when it comes to specifics. Likewise Clinton has shown herself to be malleable when it comes to policy positions, drifting left and right depending on where the political advantage lies at any moment. They both fall short when they criticize aspects of the war but repeatedly vote to fund it; and in their support for NAFTA and the WTO. The funny thing is that they run counter to public opinion on both of these issues. Perhaps this is a case of the political donor class having more clout than the rest of us. Kucinich, on the other hand, represents my views very well. He favors a quick and total withdrawal from Iraq and an end to free trade agreements that send jobs overseas to countries that allow exploitation of workers and degradation of the environment for the profit of megacorporations.

I know, its a lost cause, it has always been a lost cause, but I'm not just interested in backing a winner. I want to send a message to the politicians. I may be deluded but I think that a lot of people agree with me. This country is in bad shape. We all know that. The Bush regime has screwed things up so badly that the country is desperate for an alternative. That is why the motto of the month is "Change".

Danny Westneat, writing in the Seattle Times put it succinctly, "More than any I can remember, this year's presidential race seems less about issues or actual governing than it is a mass cry for help."

So lets look at the situation. In Washington, all the Democratic delegates are chosen through caucuses. There is also a primary, but it doesn't actual determine anything, except maybe the mood of the voters. In the precinct caucuses, people divide into groups for each candidate. If there are enough Kucinich supporters there they can elect one or more delegates. Then everybody gets a chance to persuade each other to switch sides in order to achieve the best outcome possible. Any Kucinich delegates will carry a strong message of support for the issues that he has been talking about to the County Conventions, where the same process will repeat to send delegates to the State and then the National Conventions. If the race is really decided at the Convention, then Kucinich delegates may be able to use their leverage to promote their issues. In any case, support for Kucinich at all levels will be seen as support for a strong, populist, progressive stance.

The same reasoning holds for the primary. A vote for Kucinich is a vote for his positions. I fear for a Democratic party that skirts the issues the way that it has been doing. They run the risk of angering voters who put them in power in 2006 with a mandate to end the war and repudiate the Bush administration's policies. In that they have been inexplicable timid. Who could blame the voters for either turning to a so called straight shooter like McCain, or just staying home in disgust. With the country up in arms against Bush, this election is the Democrats to win, or lose.

Impeachment Resolution

2008-02-03T15:21:00.000-08:00

Whereas President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have violated their oath of office to protect the Constitution, violating the rights and liberties of the American people and;

Whereas they have violated Federal laws against warrantless wiretapping and torture and;

Whereas they have violated International laws against waging wars of aggression, targeting civilians and mistreatment of prisoners and;

Whereas they have shown their contempt for Congress and the democratic process by refusing to cooperate with Congressional Investigations and;

Whereas a Congressional failure to respond to these abuses sets a precedent that future Presidents will rely on to take similar actions to the detriment of our liberty, security and democracy;

Therefore be it resolved that Congress ought to Impeach President Bush and Cheney and;

That in order to facilitate that process we urge the House Judiciary Committee to begin Impeachment Hearings immediately and;

That we urge our Congressional Representatives to use their influence to get impeachment hearing started and;

That we support HJM 4027 and SJM 8016 in the Washington Legislature, which ask Congress to begin the impeachment process and urge its quick passage.

Submitted by Dan Goldstein 2/9/08

End the Occupation of Iraq Resolution

2008-02-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

Whereas President George W Bush led us into war in Iraq under false pretenses, asserting an imminent danger from Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism, which did not, in fact exist;

Whereas terrorists such as Al Qaeda hope to inflame passions against the United States and are benefiting through increased recruitment and support as a direct result of the destruction and suffering caused by the war, thus increasing the threat of terrorism;

Whereas hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and injured and millions displaced;

Whereas close to 4,000 US troops have been killed and additional thousands injured;

Whereas the occupation is not moving Iraq towards democracy and stability but into a cycle of violence and counter violence in which American troops are opposed by a large majority of Iraqis;

Whereas the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being spent on the war increases the US budget deficit, harms the economy and diverts funds from beneficial purposes and

Whereas the United States lacks the moral authority and the trust of the people of Iraq necessary to participate in the process of restoring normality to Iraq;

Therefore be it resolved that we urge the United States government to immediately implement a plan to:

•End the Occupation of Iraq;
•Withdraw all American troops and contractors from Iraq;
•Support international efforts for national reconciliation in Iraq;
•Provide US funding for reconciliation and reconstruction efforts by the Iraqis and international agencies.

Be it further resolved that until the administration initiates such a plan, we urge Congress to refuse to provide any more funding for the war.

Submitted by Dan Goldstein 2/9/08

Global Warming Resolution

2008-02-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Global Warming

Whereas Global Warming is causing the melting of polar ice caps, rising sea levels, degradation of agricultural areas, and increased number and severity of storms, among other negative effects, all of which have a potentially devastating impact on our health, safety and wellbeing and;

Whereas the emission of greenhouse gases contribute to global warming and;

Whereas the use of fossil fuels is the major contributor to the production of greenhouse gases and;

Whereas the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has not been ratified by the United States and;

Whereas individuals, companies and governments at all levels can take meaningful action to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gases;

Therefore be it resolved that The United States should ratify the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming and take immediate action to meet the goals set forth in that treaty and;

Individuals, companies and all levels of our government should implement policies to move towards a sustainable energy policy, relying on renewable energy sources and a reduction in resource use.

Submitted by Dan Goldstein 2/9/08

What Do The Voters Want?

2008-01-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to ignore the 2008 Presidential election since 2004. I kept muttering to myself that presidential politics is just a huge distraction from the big issues we should be working on, like ending the war and universal healthcare. But at this point, ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away. In fact, the nominees will probably be decided within the next few weeks. Or it might take a little longer. In any case, your state will be voting sooner or later, and with everybody scrambling for early primaries, it will probably be sooner. So I guess it is time to think about it.

I am more interested in actual results than in rhetoric. There is plenty of rhetoric to go around. My number one problem is believing that the candidates will do what they say. Breaking campaign promises is as American as waving the flag and making them vague enough that the candidate can deny actually breaking them is even more so.

In 2006 the voters swept the Democrats into their first Congressional majority since 1994 on the basis of they weren’t President Bush. Specifically, every post election poll cited a desire to end the war. During the past year, constituents have been pressuring their Representatives and Senators to take a stronger position against the war. In response, Democrats have stepped up their criticism of the President and have proposed linking war funding to a withdrawal plan. However, they have consistently backed down in the face of Republican opposition.

Most of the Democratic candidates for President have followed a similar pattern of behavior. All of the candidates who are in Congress, except Dennis Kucinich, voted to authorize the war and have voted to continue funding it (Barak Obama wasn’t in Congress in 2002 when the war was authorized but since he was elected to the Senate, he has voted for the funding.) To be fair, most of them have also made opposition to the war important parts of their campaigns. But again, they tend to hedge when pressed for specifics. They may say they want withdrawal, but further questioning reveals that they will leave some troops in Iraq, or ready to go back at a moments notice, to deal with “terrorism”. NEWS FLASH! That is actually continuing the occupation with inadequate troop levels. It’s the worst of both worlds.

The number one message to emerge from Iowa in both the Democratic and Republican caucuses was “Change”. That slogan brought Obama victory, along with the perception that among the Democratic candidates, he was the furthest removed from Washington politics as usual. Huckabee’s Republican victory appears to run along the same lines.

So, in the 5 days between Iowa and New Hampshire, every candidate in both parties incorporated the word “Change” into their campaign. The news media reported the new slogans at face value, with hardly a comment on the opportunism this change in rhetoric represented.

Hillary Clinton parlayed this new attitude, and a misty eyed moment, into a narrow victory in New Hampshire, earning her the “comeback” label. Expectations change so fast it makes my head spin. Before Iowa, she had been expected to win New Hampshire handily and to have the nomination all but wrapped up. For five days after Iowa, Obama was in the same position.

And, just as I had feared, all this horse race talk has pretty much driven the issues off the table. How are we who care about the issues going to get them back? I think that we have to fight the trend and concentrate on fighting for the end of the war, and the other issues we care about. One way to do that and still participate in the Presidential campaign is to support Dennis Kucinich. Rep. Kucinich has been consistently marginalized in the media and has consequently not gotten a lot of votes so far. However, he is the one candidate who is clear on the issues, and clearly progressive. He is for bringing all of our troops home, now. He is for truly universal healthcare. And he introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Cheney. As a result of these stands and disgust with the waffling of the other candidates, Kucinich has placed first in a string of straw polls among progressives. The list includes Democracy for America, a spin-off of Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, Progressive Democrats of America, and The Nation magazine. He also won the Washington State Democratic Party straw poll.

The way I figure it, the more votes Kucinich gets, the more likely it will be that the other candidates will start to pay more attention to the issues in response. I may earn demerits with Kucinich loyalists, but I don’t expect him to win, no matter how much his positions agree with the stated opinions of the majority of the voters. I just hope that supporting him will help promote the issues I believe in. Besides, I just don’t see any other viable candidates that I can trust to stand up for me.

I happen to live in Washington, whose caucuses are coming up on February 9. We will have a primary too, but the Democrats will ignore those results in choosing delegates and rely on the caucus results. Republicans will use the primary to choose some delegates. I happen to like caucuses because they allow activists like me more influence than in a primary. With fewer people turning out, caucus results show who is more effective in organizing on a grassroots level, which can be crucial in the general election. Of course, primaries show the effectiveness in reaching the general voters, which is also important.

The other reason I like caucuses is that they escape the one vote, winner take all mentality that pervades the rest of our election system. If your candidate doesn’t have the votes to get a delegate, you can switch to a second choice who does. This allows you to vote for who you really like the first time around. That is why I like instant runoff voting and other systems that allow you to rank your choices, rather than having to vote strategically for a second choice, because you think they will do better.

I am going into the caucus for Kucinich. I am also bringing some resolutions for consideration to highlight my focus on the issues. I think that my precinct will be able to send a Kucinich delegate to the county convention, but if not, then I can choose which other candidate will be almost as good. The same goes for the county, state and national conventions. I would rather have a Kucinich supporter there pushing for the most progressive candidate possible and for the best platform we can get.

The voters want change, but will they get it? I am reminded of a story about FDR. Somebody came to the President asking him to take some action. Roosevelt agreed that it would be a good thing, but added, “I’d like to see that happen but now you have to make me do it. That is the reality of politics.”

We will get change if we make the politicians do it.

The Farmer's Market Paradigm

2007-12-31T23:01:00.000-08:00

Bill McKibben sees Farmers’ Markets as the wave of the future. In his new book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, he lays out a vision of a world that is at once radically different and comfortingly familiar. He sees local communities as the antidote to modern industrial society. Not that everything about our society is bad, but we have gone about as far down the road to growth as we are going to get.

He points out that when you are struggling just to get by, more is better. People who don’t have these things will work hard to get enough food, clean water, and education. However, when you already have enough to get along comfortably, more stuff doesn’t really do much for you. On the other hand, as we have accumulated bigger houses and private cars and televisions, we have lost contact with the people around us. We are rich in things but poor in community. In fact, America is the center of what McKibben calls hyper-individualism. The American Dream is to make it by your own efforts. Our mythology is awash in rags to riches stories of people who have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. On the other hand, unlike other industrialized countries, many of us, with insurance or not, struggle to get decent healthcare, just to take one example.

Its not that he is against individualism, its just that he thinks that the ways that economists measure progress miss the point. GNP keeps going up but not everything that goes into that measurement is good for us and not everything that is good for us is measured.

When neighbors get together for a harvest feast from their community garden, it doesn’t contribute much to the GNP because they are not spending money. It may contribute a lot to their quality of life, though, as they enjoy the benefits of friendship and good health from working in the garden and eating healthy food together.

GNP doesn’t distinguish between useful growth and growth in pollution and wastefulness. A cancer patient contributes a lot to the economy as expensive medical treatments eat away their savings and the cancer eats away their life. We don’t have a commonly accepted measure for health and happiness, although some people are working on it.

People need both enough wealth to be comfortable and enough community to be happy. If the balance tips too much one way or the other we feel the effects of the imbalance. Not to romanticize poverty, those who are both poor and alone are the worst off. Nor is this book about America alone. He travels to China, India and Europe to see how these scenarios play out there.

At the same time, the Cult of More is leading us down the road to ecological disaster, oil will run out and global warming is a reality that will force us into new paths whether we like it or not. If the undeveloped world were to follow our lead, and they are doing exactly that, with China leading the way, the collapse will come all the sooner.

This is where Farmers’ Markets come in. We can’t afford to continue to waste precious fossil fuels trucking our food thousands of miles. Luckily, we don’t need too. Local food supplies have fed humanity throughout most of our history. We can do it again. The local food movement is centered in Farmer’s Markets everywhere. People are discovering that not only can they support their local economy and get delicious healthy food but they are finding the process ever so much more enjoyable. People are ten times as likely to talk to their neighbors at a Farmers’ Market than at the supermarket. And the money they spend will stay in the area to contribute to the local economy.

People are coming to realize that there are more important things than getting the lowest price. The best price may be the one that supports the local economy. Furthermore, modern small scale organic farming turns out to be more productive per acre than agri-business. Agri-business achieves its economies of scale by getting rid of the farmers, making money for distant owners in the process. If you are serious about feeding hungry people, teach them to farm their own land. Or make community gardens. Wherever we are, we can find land, and even small plots can grow food that can help make us more independent in our own communities and can strengthen the human connections that make our communities strong at the same time.

In my own community, on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, The Farmers’ Market has teamed up with the local Food Co-op, the Land Trust and the State University Extension to encourage local organic farming. The university teaches classes on farming and entrepreneurship. The land trust protects farmland with conservation easements. And the farmers’ market and the co-op provide a market for the produce. The co-op prominently labels local products and highlights the farmers who grow the food.

Of course there is more to life than food. Deep Economy also talks about renewable power, community radio and lots more. Get on down to your local independent bookstore for a copy. Or do like I did and get it from the library. And when you are done, pass it on.

Democrats – Use your Power

2007-12-22T22:11:00.001-08:00

Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership say that impeachment is “off the table”. They say that it would distract them from passing all this great new legislation. Despite almost a year in the majority, they have not gotten much done. They blame Bush for vetoes and Republican Senators for filibustering. Guess what? The Republicans are still in charge of the agenda.

Everybody talks about this mysterious 60 votes needed to pass anything in the Senate “for procedural reasons”. What they mean is that the Democrats allow the Republicans to obstruct any bill they want without a fight. The significance of the 60 votes is that they need that many to force an end to debate.

The filibuster is a proud Senate tradition that allows a determined minority to continue debating an issue endlessly to prevent it from coming to a vote. Jimmy Stewart played a Senator in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” who uses a filibuster to break the power of the political bosses. But he paid a price for it. In order to keep his filibuster going, he had to keep talking day and night. It was tough work.

Democrats don’t explain why they didn’t use the filibuster when they were in the minority and they don’t explain why they give in so easily to filibusters now. After all, they could force the Republicans to actually debate around the clock until they give up in exhaustion. Even if they do win some, this strategy would put Republicans on the defensive and show them up for the obstructionists they are. That doesn’t go over well at the polls. At the very least it would make them pay a price for their behavior. The Republicans didn’t hesitate when the balance of power tipped the other way.

As it is the Bush Administration is bragging about how they are still moving their agenda, while Democrats in Congress get the blame for doing nothing. The press is still buying his spin ( See this AP Story: 2007 is ending on a high note for the president.)

“…What began as a troubling year for Bush, facing a new, energetic Democratic Congress, ended in triumph for the president as frustrated Democrats nursed their losses. Democrats failed in their No. 1 objective to stop the war in Iraq and bowed to Bush and his veto threats on tax policies, energy legislation, children's health insurance and general spending.”

Triumph? You have got to be kidding. Bush is still in disgrace with the voters. Just look at the polls. But the AP is right up there peddling his line. Just take a look at the next paragraph in the same story to see their source for this so called triumph.

“After months of bitter fights, Bush said the year was ending on a high note.”

You have to watch out when the Administration, echoed by Republicans and right wing pundits, spins this hard. The press amplifies the spin so much that it can make you dizzy.

To hear them talk we are winning the (expletive deleted) war in Iraq. We are even starting to bring the troops home, they say. No matter that troop levels are going down a little for now because they were pushed up to a level that the military simply can’t sustain for long. The “surge” was always explained as a temporary increase. Well, its getting to be time for the levels to go back to where they were before the surge. Personally, I’ll be surprised if they get all the way back to the pre-surge level but in any case, nobody is talking about getting out. Don’t worry, we’ll be there for years.

The infamous Move-On “Petraeus Betray Us” ad may have been an easy target for the pro-war crowd but if anybody got past the headline, it did talk about how the Petraeus Report on the war seriously misrepresented the situation. It is this misrepresentation that the Republicans are depending on when they say how great things are in Iraq.

The Republican spin machine has been crowing that the polls show even less support for Congress than for the President. However, what they don’t tell us is that the reason people are mad at Congress is that Congress is not standing up to the President strongly enough. Democratic support has eroded among anti-war voters as it has become clear that Congress is not going to do anything to end the war. And if Congressional Democrats get low marks, Republicans poll even lower.

The Democrats are suffering politically because they are refusing to confront the issues that the voters care about most, the war and impeachment. People don’t just disapprove of the President’s policies, they are hopping mad. With a large majority against the war, Americans just don’t understand why nobody in power will do anything to end it. After all, that is the mandate the voters gave Democrats with their 2006 victory. And they are furious that the Constitution is being shredded in front of their eyes with Congress just sitting there, or even worse, collaborating.

Pelosi’s strategy of ignoring the elephant in the room isn’t working. The Republicans with their mini-filibusters and Bush with his veto have so demoralized the Democrats that they just give in on issue after issue with a whimper.

I truly fear for the Democrats in next year’s election. With Bush dragging down the Republicans it should be a slam dunk. But the Democrats seem to be on the verge of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Left wing voters may just stay home in disgust and the middle of the roaders may decide that at least the Republicans stand for something.

With that prospect, Speaker Pelosi, why not try standing up to Bush for a change? Impeachment hearings could go a long way towards mobilizing the country and putting the President on the defensive.

Give it a try.

Impeach ‘em Both!

2007-12-07T18:52:00.000-08:00

It does no good to impeach Bush; that just leaves us with Dick Cheney as President (scary thought!). And it does no good to impeach Cheney; that still leaves Bush. Our only hope is to impeach them both together.

I recently participated in a Port Townsend TV show about impeachment. If you’re on cable in Port Townsend look for it on Channel 97. The show is called Future Tense, hosted by Pat Perreault. The beginning of this article is what I said on the show.

According to the Constitution Congress can impeach the “President, Vice President and other Civil officers” (including judges) for “Treason, Bribery and High Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

It is designed to be a mechanism for Congress to restrain the power of the President and remove them from office if they abuse that power. They wanted to distinguish our President from a king, who was not restrained by anything.

Impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment and requires a majority vote in the House of Representatives. Then the Senate holds a trial with conviction requiring a 2/3 majority.

Andrew Johnson was the first President to be impeached, in 1868. At that point he had less than a year left in his term. When Congress passed a law restraining his power, he defied it, and within 8 days was impeached by the House of Representatives. 2 ½ months later the trial was over, with the Senate 1 vote short of the 2/3 needed for conviction.

The only other President to actually be impeached was Bill Clinton, for the Monica Lewinski affair. He was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Although he was impeached in the House, there were not nearly enough votes in the Senate to convict him. However the impeachment did weaken his presidency.

President Nixon wasn’t actually impeached because he resigned after the House Judiciary Committee sent Articles of Impeachment to the House floor. However his case is closest to the situation we have today.
He was charged with Obstruction of Justice, Abuse of Power and Contempt of Congress. Sound familiar?

When I first started carrying an impeachment petition on my college campus, nobody thought that there was a chance that Nixon would be impeached, let alone convicted. But the further the process went, the more information came out about what he had done, and the more he resisted Congress, the more public opinion, and more importantly, Congressional opinion turned against him. He finally resigned after Senate Republicans told him that he was sure to be impeached and convicted.

The charges against Nixon included making false statements to investigators, withholding evidence, abuse of power, using federal agencies, to harass and spy on anti-war activists and others on his “enemies list”. (This surveillance led to the passage of the FISA law that Bush violated with his warrantless wiretapping program.)

Nixon was charged with Contempt of Congress for refusing to provide information requested during the impeachment hearings and refusing to comply with Congressional subpoenas.

He also corrupted the political process with a forerunner of Karl Rove’s tactics in what came to be known as “dirty tricks”. Among other things, he instituted a smear campaign against Edmund Muskie, who he thought would be the strongest Democratic Candidate for President in 1972, and ended up knocking him out of the race.

Additional charges related to the “secret war” in Cambodia were discussed in the Judiciary Committee but did not end up being included in the Articles of Impeachment.

And that brings us to George W Bush and Dick Cheney.

The Kucinich impeachment resolution in the House Judiciary Committee only applies to Cheney. As I explained above, that just won’t work. Cheney doesn’t really have power based on being Vice President. The duties of the VP are almost non-existent…breaking the occasional tie vote in the Senate and waiting for the President to die, or get impeached, in which case he becomes President. No, his crimes are in devising policies that break the law and violate the Constitution. He could go right on doing that from behind the scenes even if he did get impeached. Nothing would change.

However, there is nothing to stop the Judiciary Committee from adding Bush to the Impeachment Articles once their hearings show how both of them worked together. They head up the conspiracy that has been systematically shredding the Constitution. Bush has the power of the Presidency and Cheney has been the leader in defining their policies from the war in Iraq to secret surveillance to torturing prisoners to torturing the language to avoid calling it torture. They are an effective team, I’ll give you that.

The Kucinich resolution accuses them of lying about the reasons to go to war in Iraq and the reasons they want to go to war in Iran but that only scratches the surface. Both Nixon and Clinton were accused of lying to cover up their misdeeds in their Articles of Impeachment. Bush and Cheney’s lies, on the other hand, are responsible for a war that has killed and injured thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. They have also endangered our own security and done serious damage to the US military. Of course, Congress went along, when they should have known better, but that does not lessen the guilt of the President and VP.

The war itself is a violation on international laws against wars of aggression, targeting of civilians, torture and the mistreatment of prisoners.

They also violated specific US laws against domestic surveillance and against torture. As I mentioned above, the FISA law was passed to prevent exactly the kind of warrantless wiretapping that Bush ordered. He violated that law and used secrecy as a cover to prevent Congress and the American people from finding out about it. US law also prohibits torture. Bush and Cheney ordered prisoners to be tortured and then denied that that’s what they were doing. As if saying that it wasn’t torture made it any less tortuous.

They violated the Constitution in more ways than I can count. By calling prisoners “enemy combatants” and hiding them in secret prisons on US military bases outside of the US and in third countries, they pretend that they are not regular prisoners and not prisoners of war. They seek to dehumanize them and deny them any rights at all. The Constitution does not make these distinctions. It does not guarantee rights contingent on the whim of the President. It does guarantee Due Process of Law, Habeas Corpus and prohibits Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Period.

They assert powers for the President that don’t exist in the Constitution, or are granted to other branches of government. Signing statements openly declare that portions of laws will not be obeyed. Remember, that is what got Andrew Johnson impeached. Nixon was accused of Contempt of Congress. Bush and Cheney are certainly guilty of that. You would think that Congress would be upset about this, and about their refusal to provide information to Congress. Harriet Miers and other in the administration ignored Congressional subpoenas regarding the US Attorney firings. The Justice Department then declared that they would not enforce Contempt of Congress actions.

Of course, there is the corruption involved in giving huge no bid contracts to their cronies at Halliburton, Bechtel, oil companies and other close associates of the President and Vice President. Worse, there has been little oversight of these contracts. Billions of dollars have been misspent or have simply disappeared. Billions more went missing when they shipped planeloads of cash to Iraq and handed out bundles without any apparent accounting of where it went. How much of that went to buy weapons to use against American troops? Of course the weapons they are buying with that money could be those American weapons given to the Iraqi government that have also disappeared.

Failure to impeach can have serious consequences. Bush and Cheney are establishing all sorts of precedents for giving the President expanded power. If this power grab is left unchallenged, then future Presidents, Democratic and Republican, will be all too happy to hold on to that power. If Congress won’t challenge it now, there is no chance that they ever will.

This is how we lose our freedom, not with a bang but a whimper.

Dick Cheney’s Bookshelf: 1984

2007-11-23T18:22:00.000-08:00

George Orwell wrote 1984 as a cautionary tale about the dangers of totalitarianism. Dick Cheney seems to think it is a How To manual.

Last year I wrote about Karl Rove’s bookshelf, how he might have used Machiavelli to advantage in managing the political landscape. I also wrote about how the administration might have learned something from Machiavelli when they were contemplating invading Iraq.

Cheney violated most of Machiavelli’s rules, and has not done well, if his objective was a stable and friendly Iraq. It is not clear to me that that is his objective, especially since he warned of the dangers of occupation way back in 1994. If his purpose was the enrichment of his friends at Haliburton and the Oil Companies, he is succeeding very well. Perhaps that is why he is always so upbeat about it all. But I digress.

Dick may have found 1984 more appealing. In any case, he has been working at remaking our society along the principles that Orwell set out. In fact, Cheney may be concerned because the project is, at this point, 23 years behind schedule and far from finished.

First of all, you may be wondering why I am picking on Dick Cheney. After all, he is just the Vice President. Isn’t George Bush the one with power? Well, Bush may have the power in theory but all the evidence is that it is Cheney that drives the ideological buggy in this administration. After all, Cheney has long been a leader of the Neo-Cons. He took a major part in writing The Project for a New American Century that laid the foundation for Bush Administration policies. The evidence is that Cheney and the Neo-Cons picked Bush as their front man and put him in power. Besides, I just can’t see Bush sitting up nights studying Orwell for clues on how to take over the world. That’s more up Cheney’s line. But, as I said, I digress.

Big Brother is Watching You

The most striking feature of the society portrayed in 1984 is the unrelenting surveillance by the government. People understand that their every move and utterance may be monitored. This is no secret. Telescreens are everywhere and it is impossible to escape the posters that proclaim “Big Brother is Watching You”. People have learned to accept it, even to take comfort that the government will protect them from, well, terrorists, if you will.

Cheney has taken that to heart with the warrantless wiretapping and datamining program that has finally succeeded in being able to monitor every phone conversation and every email with far more efficiency than Orwell ever imagined, thanks to modern computer technology (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html). Furthermore, there are persistent rumors that the government has the technology to listen in on phones (landlines and cellphones), even when they are turned off. It is true if you believe Fox News. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDwy5DCzD8A). If such wiretapping is done with a secret warrant it is perfectly legal, but Cheney does not seem to believe that a warrant is necessary in terrorism cases.

Endless War

Orwell understood that there is nothing like war to increase support for the government. And the best kind of war is far away, so you can show it on TV in a heroic sort of way and you don’t have to suffer the consequences of war at home. Any dissent can be branded as unpatriotic, even treasonous. This administration jumped to tell people to “Watch what you say”. “Support the Troops” comes to mean “Support the War” and “Support the Government”. The enemy is portrayed as pure evil, therefore the government must be pure good and above any criticism.

And if war is good, then a war without end is ideal. Cheney knows this and has not been shy to talk about “The Long War” against terrorism. Today the war is in Iraq and Afghanistan but it could just as well be anywhere. That is why Cheney keeps tensions high with Iran, North Korea, and Syria. He is ready to spring into action against any foe. In 1984 and today, there is no danger of peace breaking out.

There has to be an enemy to channel anger and cement support for the government that is going to protect us from that enemy. In 1984, the evil enemy was represented by Emmanuel Goldstein (no relation) and anonymous hordes of enemy soldiers. Today Cheney started with Osama Bin Laden, moved on to Saddam Hussein and now seems to have settled on anonymous hordes of terrorists. The arbitrary nature of these enemies is highlighted by the question in 1984 of whether Goldstein was a real person or was simply invented by the government in order to have an enemy to hate, which is never resolved. I don’t doubt that Bin Laden exists but it is possible that he hasn’t been captured because it is better to have him at large, and more threatening, in order to maintain a state of fear in our own population.

Indefinite Detention

The Thought Police could show up at any moment to haul you away and hold you incommunicado for as long as they like, in 1984. If Dick Cheney thinks you are a terrorist, he can do the same to you. Guantanamo is the poster child for these prisons but there are secret prisons around the world that operate under the same principle. Furthermore, the CIA has been known to kidnap people, in a process known as rendition, and fly them to prison and torture in other countries. If they make a mistake, they won’t admit it. Innocent people will toe the line better if they are afraid of arbitrary arrests.

Torture

In 1984, torture is employed to break down the prisoner’s individuality and will to resist. Techniques are primarily psychological, including sensory deprivation, and prey on the prisoner’s fears to make them betray their humanity. The primary purpose is to take away any possibility of hope.

Dick Cheney has adopted this model and implemented it wholesale. The main difference is that he has to deny that it is torture. This semantic difference shows that the public is not yet sufficiently indoctrinated. However, the confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General, despite his refusal to admit that torture is torture, shows that we are making "progress" in this area.

Doublespeak

The ability to say one thing and mean the exact opposite. The No Child Left Behind Act systematically leaves poor children behind by withholding funds from schools that are failing through lack of funds. The Blue Skies initiative rewrites regulations to allow more air pollution. The PATRIOT Act eviscerates the Constitution. Need I go on?

We are at war with Eurasia … We have always been at war with Eastasia

Of course, this administration is an expert at rewriting history to meet the needs of the moment. Bush puts these changes across really well. The prime example is the justification for war in Iraq. They went seamlessly from WMDs to establishing democracy to fighting terrorists. It doesn’t matter that there were no WMDs, there is no democracy there and Al Queda wasn’t there at all until we opened up a space for them. Just like in 1984 the media doesn’t seem to notice the changes and reports the latest justification with a straight face. Unfortunately for Cheney, he doesn’t yet have anybody in the Ministry of Truth who can send inconvenient history down the memory hole to oblivion.

The Proles

The proles were the underclass, who exist below the notice of the government. But they do serve a purpose. It is necessary to have a lower class to do the unpaid work of society. Somebody has to do the unskilled, low paying jobs that keep things going. However, since these jobs don’t require much intellectual capacity, the government consciously kept this class uneducated, so they won’t realize how they are being exploited. As Orwell put it, “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

Poor people are similarly ignored today. Additionally in today’s world, people are reluctant to rebel because they are afraid of falling out of the middle class into the lower class. Cheney doesn’t want the government involved in helping out the poor. He would prefer to let them fend for themselves. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated this with a vengeance. FEMA no longer saw its purpose as helping disaster victims, especially if they were poor. Poor communities were damaged by the hurricane but wiped out by a government that placed obstacles in the way of rebuilding because they clearly hoped that those poor people would just go away.

The Neo-Cons believe that rich people deserve to be rich and poor people deserve to be poor. That is why their policies overwhelmingly favor the rich and hurt the poor. The hope is that people will come to believe that the way things are is the only way they could be. That is why Cheney cries about “class warfare” every time somebody criticizes his pro-rich people policies. “Class Warfare” is actually a throwback to Cold War era red-baiting and seems somewhat out of date today. He is just trying to shut down any opposition with a scary sounding label. He doesn’t actually oppose class warfare; he just wants his side (the rich) to win.

I could go on but you get the idea. It is actually kind of spooky how closely the Administration is mirroring techniques outlined in Orwell’s masterpiece.

Hmm… maybe Cheney really does think it is a How To Book.

Port Militarization Resistance: Stopping the War by Stopping the Shipments

2007-11-15T23:50:00.000-08:00

Washington State’s quiet little capitol city of Olympia has become the center of a new movement to oppose the war by taking real, not symbolic action against it. The Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) movement is explicitly non-violent but anything but passive.

For the last 10 days, protestors have tried to stop the passage of military equipment through the Port of Olympia. They have succeeded in stopping the shipments for over 12 hours twice. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVASp4CGh94). They realize that actions like this in Olympia alone will not end the war, but they hope to inspire others across the country to take similar actions. The cost to Olympia both to its image and to its pocketbook may prevent that port from being used again by the military. And because PMR has also protested at other ports, it does make it more difficult for the US government to prosecute this illegal and immoral war.

The demonstrators have persisted despite vicious police attacks. Police have repeatedly attacked nonviolent demonstrators with clubs and pepper spray. Many people report police spraying pepper spray directly into people’s eyes at short range. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgi5ESpueX8&feature=related). I don’t know what the police motivation it, but it seems to be to discourage people from exercising their first amendment rights by inflicting gratuitous pain. It is now not just a story about the war in Iraq but also about the loss of democratic rights here at home.

In these videos, protestors talk about the police brutality at a meeting organized by City Council Member TJ Johnson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTKHrNGPRiI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqbTSy2YPRA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvyeIbLAybI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U_wHJns7p8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcKXUchvVo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s70olUeM6YQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VczOR1yhC7w

The PMR movement has grown out of efforts of a community coalition composed of students from The Evergreen State College and other community activists opposed to the use of The Port of Olympia, at the southern end of Puget Sound, to fight an immoral war that violates international law. In their own words, “Locally, since the military shipments through Olympia's port began in 2004, the community has fully employed a broad spectrum of democracy's tools - including letter-writing and petitioning public officials in open forums - to oppose the occupation of Iraq and the Port of Olympia profiting from it in any way. In large numbers, we have asked the Port Commissioners to withdraw support for the war and stop shipments to Iraq. Yet, just as the war, the killing, and corporate war-profiteering continue, so do the military shipments through Olympia .” (http://www.olywip.org/site/page/article/2006/06/02.html)

As their statement of purpose says, “Port Militarization Resistance is organized to end our community’s complicity in the illegal occupation of Iraq by stopping the U.S. Military’s use of the Port of Olympia.“

In the spring of 2006, the Army decided to use the Port of Olympia to ship equipment to support the deployment of a Stryker Brigade to Iraq from Fort Lewis. When the shipment occurred in May 2006, it was met with demonstrations continuing for days as the Stryker vehicles and other equipment were driven through Olympia and loaded onto the ship. 37 people were arrested but after a year of efforts to convict them, the case against them was shown to be so weak that the remaining charges were dismissed in June 2007. See the Olympia paper, Works in Progress for all the details (http://www.olywip.org/site/page/article/2007/07/01.html).

In a related action, in September 2006, 400 people marched peacefully on Indian Island, near Port Townsend, WA, the major West Coast base shipping munitions to Iraq. 37 were arrested there in a peaceful act of civil disobedience. These charges were also dismissed after the defendants spent months in court. This action was partly inspired by the PMR actions in Olympia but it was organized by different people. What it had in common was to focus on the fact that our communities are directly linked to the war by the shipments of war equipment, munitions and supplies.

In March 2007, the Army had another Stryker Brigade ready to ship out of Fort Lewis. Perhaps in an effort to avoid another round of demonstrations, they chose to use the Port of Tacoma this time. If that was indeed their intention, it didn’t work. This time the Olympia activists joined Tacoma activists and others from throughout Western Washington in another round of demonstrations. For over a week, the protests continued on a daily basis. The Army brought in the shipment in the middle of the night and Tacoma brought in a huge contingent of riot police, outnumbering the demonstrators and at times resorting to what appeared to be random violence and arrests. They used teargas and rubber bullets repeatedly against the spirited but non-violent crowds. You Tube videos of the police violence actually helped bring out more protesters. In this video, police tear gassed nonviolent demonstrators without warning (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhUaUuG1sM). At one point police even started arresting people just for carrying a backpack or water bottles. The only reason for this that I can think of is that some people had started to bring water and vinegar to wash out the eyes of people who had been gassed.

By now the story wasn’t just about protesting the war, it was about riot cops running riot. Now I know that this is nothing new. At the Port Townsend Film Festival, I got a chance to see the new movie “Chicago 10”, which shows graphically the police attacks on anti-war demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Convention. (It is scheduled for theatrical release in 2008.) And need I mention the police overreaction to the WTO protests in Seattle? Seattle was sued by mistreated demonstrators and it is costing them plenty. Olympia and Tacoma protestors certainly have grounds for similar suits.

Some people have critized PMRs tactics. Activist Phan Nguyen replies, “I have never stopped a war. I don’t know how it is done… If someone has a better idea, don’t just tell us what to do. Show us how it’s done. ” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hsDZHg71g).

Have Taser, will torture....

2007-09-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about Tasers and the way they are being misused. Now somebody has taken the words out of my mouth. Check out this artilcle.

Have Taser, will torture - and call it a 'safe alternative'

by Pierre Tristam | Sep 25 2007 - 9:40am |

It's a morbid game. I Google "Taser," click on the tab that brings up the latest news articles featuring the word, and scroll through the insanity. It never fails. Every search produces case after case of sadism posing as policing.

Here's Friday's crop. In California, cops Tasered a 15-year-old autistic child who left his treatment center and was supposedly going to hurt himself by running into traffic (after walking 15 miles without a hitch). "If that were your son, would you want him Tasered or hit by a car?" a sheriff's spokesman said. If that were my son, I'd want you to stop traffic. Isn't that what cops can do with one hand raised and the other behind their back? Also in California on Friday, a cop Tasered a high school student to break up a fight.

In Warren, Ohio, an officer Tasered a woman because she was being unruly in his cruiser after an arrest. She slipped out of the cruiser to escape the shocks. He Tasered her again until he knocked her unconscious. She was in handcuffs the whole time. In Ocala, four officers are being investigated for Tasering a man who refused to drop his Quran. And, of course, nine days ago at the University of Florida, Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old student who got long-winded with his questions to Sen. John Kerry during a public forum, was shoved away from the mike by campus police, pushed to the ground, pinned there by six officers (every cop wants a piece of the action) and Tasered. Then he was told he was inciting a riot. If ever there was a case of cops inciting a riot, and deserving one, this was it. Still, they call this a "safe alternative."

But the stun gun, the single most savage addition to police arsenals since the back-alley interrogation, has done the opposite of its intended purpose. Rather than lowering the level of violence necessary to subdue dangerous individuals, the stun-gun has lowered the threshold of excusable police violence by making the use of brutal force seem protective. Briefly shocking someone, the story goes, is better than shooting him. But before that choice between two brutalities, there was a choice between brutality and reason -- between Rambo with a shield and good policing. A cop who'd never dream of unholstering a firearm against a lout or a big-mouthed student isn't hesitating to unholster the stun gun and use it repeatedly under the guise of restoring control.

What a convenient perversion of reality: A 5-second torture session, often repeated many times, often unnecessary, overwhelmingly directed at nonviolent individuals, is called "improving safety." For whom? Earlier this year the Houston Chronicle analyzed the Houston Police Department's use of Tasers since they were introduced two years ago to that same crock fanfare -- "to reduce deadly police shootings." Since then, the paper found, "officers have shot, wounded and killed as many people as before the widespread use of the stun guns." Houston officers used their Tasers more than 1,000 times in the past two years, "but in 95 percent of those cases they were not used to defuse situations in which suspects wielded weapons and deadly force clearly would have been justified."

Tasers, in other words, are instruments of punishment, not safety. They're enabling cops to be executioners rather than law enforcers, not just metaphorically. (By CBS News' count, 70 people have died after being Tasered, including 10 in August. An Amnesty International report had tallied up 70 deaths between 2001 and 2004 alone.)

I was reading a story the other day about Nalini Ghuman, the Welsh music professor who, after teaching 10 years at a university in California, was suddenly barred from re-entering the country 13 months ago and offered a choice: jail or a plane back to Britain. She went back. What struck me about her time in an isolation cell at San Francisco airport is her immediate transformation into an assumed criminal. When this 34-year-old academic was groped, body-searched and interrogated, she was "warned that if she moved," as The New York Times described it, "she would be considered to be attacking her armed female searcher."

How familiar the warning. It's what police agencies down to their school contingents call protocol. The moment a cop appears on the scene and metes out orders, not following them can mean an immediate charge of resisting or battery if you so much as graze the cop's ego. Judging from public comments responding to incidents like the one at the University of Florida, that's what people want from their cops -- uncompromising control. In a cop's presence, your job is to conform, submit, accept that you're guilty until proven otherwise. It's not brutality. It's protocol.
_______

Fact Sheet on USS Ohio

2007-04-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

The USS Ohio was originally commissioned in 1981, as the first of the Ohio class nuclear submarines, carrying the Trident nuclear missile system. Both the missiles and the submarines are commonly known as Tridents.

When the Ohio was deployed in 1982 to the then new Trident base in Bangor, Washington, on the Hood Canal, it was greeted by protests. Among other actions, a flotilla of boats met the Ohio at Port Townsend as it entered Admiralty Inlet on its way in to Bangor. The Bangor base has been the subject of anti-nuclear protests for 30 years, from the construction of the base to the present. For the past several years demonstrators have nonviolently attempted to block the main gate three times each year: on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Martin Luther King’s birthday and on Mother’s Day. The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (www.gzcenter.org) has more information.

The Ohio and three other Trident submarines were scheduled to be retired in 2002. However, they were converted from the SSBN (Submersible Ship Ballistic missile Nuclear powered) configuration into SSGN (Submersible Ship Guided missile Nuclear powered). The Ohio has been on active duty as a SSGN since 2006. As a nuclear powered submarine it is capable of continuous operations for unlimited periods.

The Trident SSGNs, including the Ohio are capable of carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile). The Tomahawks have a range of 1500 miles and are capable of carrying either nuclear or conventional warheads, although the Navy says that they are not currently deploying the nuclear warheads. The submarines are also able to launch a mini-sub and Navy SEALS commando squads through a modified launch tube. These capabilities make the Trident SSGN submarines ideal vehicles for launching a surprise attack or secret commando raids. They can lie hidden just offshore of whatever country they choose to target and launch their attacks without warning. If the Administration wanted to launch a surprise nuclear attack, they might well choose to use a submarine launched cruise missile that could fly under the radar from an undetected source and hit their target without warning. Such an attack would be extremely dangerous because it could provoke a response either against the US or against another country mistakenly suspected of launching the attack. Futhermore, since it is impossible to tell if a cruise missile is armed with a nuclear or conventional warhead while it is in flight there are endless possibilities for a conventional missile to be mistaken for a nuclear one.
Submarines are used for this kind of mission, because, unlike other kinds of forces, they are largely invisible. Covert missions are used to carry out policies without the knowledge or consent of the American people.
(http://dangoldstein.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html)

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_submarine):
The Ohio class submarines were specifically designed for extended deterrence patrols. Each submarine is complemented by two crews, Blue and Gold, with each crew operating on a 100-day interval. To decrease the time in port for crew turnover and replenishment, three large logistics hatches are fitted to provide large diameter resupply and repair openings. These hatches allow sailors to rapidly transfer supply pallets, equipment replacement modules and machinery components, significantly reducing the time required for replenishment and maintenance. The class design allows the vessel to operate for 15+ years between overhauls. The ships are purported to be as stealthy at 20 knots (their cruising speed) as previous subs were at a dead crawl of 6 knots, although exact information remains classified.

The Ohio has just returned from Hawaii, where they practiced a “forward crew swap” in which they complete the transfer from one crew to the other without returning to their home base in Bangor. This is the first forward crew swap in 20 years. The plan is to make these crew swaps in Guam, so the Ohio can remain at sea longer, only returning to Bangor about once a year.

According to the Navy: (http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=27392)
While the gold crew is in Hawaii for this crew swap, they will be going through a qualification process, testing the crew’s and the submarines ability to conduct different types of special operations forces (SOF) operations.

The cruise missiles will be loaded at Naval Magazine Indian Island, near Port Townsend.
Indian Island is the largest munitions depot on the West Coast, supplying weapons for Iraq and operations in the Pacific Ocean.

Recent protests at Indian Island include a weekly vigil outside the gates and a demonstration on September 23, 2006, when 500 people marched on the base and 37 were arrested. Their charges were reduced from a misdemeanor Disorderly Conduct, carrying a maximum penalty of 6 months in jail, to an infraction Pedestrian on Roadway, carrying a penalty of $76. The case has not yet been decided with a hearing scheduled May 29 in Jefferson County District Court on a motion to dismiss the charges.

For more information: Liz Rivera Goldstein 360-379-9094 liz@teenpeace.org

The Protest That Never Shows Up?

2007-01-21T23:27:00.000-08:00

I confess, I am baffled by Danny Westneat’s Sunday column in the Seattle Times, “The Protest That Never Shows Up”. The column claims that the antiwar movement has petered out. This is based on dwindling attendance at the Green Lake vigil, which continued every week for over 4 years. However, he cites, and then ignores several signs of a very active and successful peace movement.

As he says, nearly 70% of the American people now oppose this war. This opposition is generally credited with the Democratic victory in November, based on opinion polls asking voters the reasons behind their votes. Congress is now in the middle of a vigorous debate, not on whether to oppose the Bush policy, but how best to oppose it. And, as Mr. Westneat mentions, there will be a massive protest in Washington, DC next weekend.

If this isn’t a peace movement, what is? Maybe he needs more evidence. Westneat’s article is on the front of the Local News section. On page B2, opposite the obituaries, there is an article about the Citizen’s Hearing on the Legality of the Iraq War, attended by hundreds of people in Tacoma this weekend. Two days of testimony laid out the legal case against the war. Lt. Ehren Watada won’t be able to present the reasons he believes the war is illegal, and thus the order he disobeyed to deploy to Iraq was unlawful, at his Court Martial. Lt. Watada is far from the only military resister, although the consequences for actions such as his in the military can be severe. He faces 6 years in prison for his stand. It is notable that a majority of the military now believe that the troops should come home.

Part of the reason for Westneat’s attitude may be the lack of coverage of antiwar activity. He quotes one person saying, “the press wouldn’t report it even if its the biggest protest in the history of the world.” That is one reason more people are looking to alternative sources for news. Past demonstrations have received very little coverage. What coverage there has been in the mainstream media, including the Seattle Times, tends to bury the coverage, dismiss them as marginal and understate the numbers of people involved.

The Times didn’t mention it, so far as I can tell, but there will also be a march in Seattle, and lots of other communities on January 27. And in DC, they will follow up with constituent visits to every Congressional office to continue the lobbying against the war. The Voters Pledge for Peace committed voters to vote only for antiwar candidates. The Declaration of Peace campaign lobbied Congress to end the war leading up to civil disobedience in September in communities across the country. Here in Western Washington, Bellingham activists were arrested in Representative Rick Larsen’s office. This was part of the pressure that caused Larsen to change his position. He now advocates, “unconditional partial withdrawal of U.S. military from Iraq.” Near Port Townsend, 500 people marched on the Indian Island Naval Base, which ships many of the munitions used in Iraq, and 37 were arrested. They hope to put the war on trial at their trial. On Saturday, at Town Hall in Seattle international law expert, John Burroughs spoke in support of defendants charged with civil disobedience at the Bangor Trident nuclear submarine base. Those demonstrations by the Ground Zero Center have continued on a regular basis since the base construction began 30 years ago.

Organizations such as United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, Move On, Democracy for America, Working Assets, and many others are mounting sophisticated E-mail campaigns against the war. That is another part of the reason Congress is now considering taking action. As Mr. Westneat says, “On paper, this war’s a mistake and the troops should start coming home.” They should. Unfortunately, those in power have yet to be convinced. The President is obstinate and even Democrats in Congress are still reluctant to take real action. The antiwar movement is now working hard to convince them that we need to bring the troops home, now.

Taking Nuremberg Seriously

2006-08-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

The Nuremberg Principles say that you can’t defend yourself from war crimes charges by saying that you were just following orders. Each individual has to make sure that they are not committing war crimes, or they can be held accountable, as the Nazi’s were after WWII and as Slobodan Milosevic and others have been in recent years.

The first four Principles lay this out very clearly:

Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

All of this is taught to US soldiers as part of their basic training and is incorporated into military law. Recently some soldiers are taking this seriously. Confronted by a war that certainly appears to violate prohibitions against ill treatment of prisoners, unnecessary killing of civilians and wanton destruction of cities or towns, they are starting to refuse to fight. Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused orders to Iraq, in a speech to the Veterans for Peace Convention in Seattle said, “to stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.” He goes on to say, “The oath we take swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people. Enlisting in the military does not relinquish one's right to seek the truth - neither does it excuse one from rational thought nor the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. "I was only following orders" is never an excuse.”

Kevin Benderman, now serving time in the Fort Lewis brig because his Conscientious Objector claim was refused, wrote ”As I went through the process which led to my decision to refuse deployment to Iraq for the second time, I was torn between thoughts of abandoning the soldiers that I serve with, or following my conscience, which tells me: war is the ultimate in destruction and waste of humanity.”

The military makes provision for soldiers who, like Kevin Benderman, come to the belief that all war is wrong. They can apply for CO status and, if it is approved receive discharges. However, it is a difficult process and, as Sgt. Benderman can attest, the application may be turned down. If that happens, there are few options for someone whose conscience says not to fight. Sgt. Benderman was sentenced to 15 months in prison for his refusal.

Other soldiers, including Lt. Watada, come to the conclusion that the war in Iraq is wrong, even though they cannot in good conscience say that they oppose all wars. For them, the military has no recourse. Soldiers can’t pick and choose which orders to obey. Discipline demands that they be ready to go where they are sent. Lt. Watada, having concluded that the war in Iraq is illegal, expressed his willingness to fight in Afghanistan or anywhere else he was needed. The Army could have chosen a less confrontational course and posted him where he was willing to go, but perhaps they feared having to negotiate with each soldier. They know that, given a choice, there are plenty of GIs who would prefer to stay away from Iraq. They don’t want to make that choice easy.

Thousands have simply walked away. Over 200 are estimated to be in Canada, remembering that during the Vietnam war, thousands of war resisters were given refuge in Canada. Today the situation is not so clear cut. The first applications for refugee status were denied by the current Conservative government, but the appeals process is ongoing, so it is unclear what, ultimately, will be the result. The Canadian War Resisters Support Campaign hopes that ultimately resisters will be allowed to stay.

One of the things that helped end the Vietnam War was a large antiwar movement within the military. The new film, “Sir, No Sir” documents that movement and hopes to encourage antiwar GIs today to take action.

Of course, it is not just up to the soldiers. All Americans are being called to take more vigorous action against the war. For them too, the Nuremberg Principles require action against it. Antinuclear protesters from the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action at the Bangor, WA Trident submarine base carried copies of the Principles as justification for blocking the entrance to the base.

Voters For Peace ask all voters to take the following pledge: "I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign." And voters are taking this seriously, as Joe Leiberman can attest.

By signing The Declaration of Peace citizens commit themselves to take action to end the war. Some will lobby Congress, some will march and some will commit themselves to nonviolent civil disobedience if Congress does not act by September 21, 2006 to set a timetable for withdrawing the troops. After that date people will take action in their communities and in Washington DC to increase the pressure on Congress to end the war. We have already seen pro-war Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Washington’s Maria Cantwell, who are up for reelection, starting to modify their rhetoric in response to an electoral base that is increasingly critical of the war. If citizens follow up on their frustration with visible actions against the war and a determination to make the war their top issue in the voting booth, then politicians may respond. If not they may find themselves out of office.

Lt. Watada ended his speech with these words, “Many have said this about the World Trade Towers, "Never Again." I agree. Never again will we allow those who threaten our way of life to reign free - be they terrorists or elected officials. The time to fight back is now - the time to stand up and be counted is today.”

Karl Rove’s Bookcase: Machiavelli and Iraq

2006-08-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Last week I talked about how Karl Rove might find Machiavelli useful in his job of winning elections. However, on reading The Prince, I was struck by his foreign policy advice, which this Administration might do well to heed. While Rove would have to stretch a little to apply these lessons to domestic political races, Machiavelli writes at length about how to conquer and occupy other countries. Since the Bush Administration is heavily into the conquering business; Afghanistan, Iraq ... and since it isn’t going very well, perhaps they could use some advice.

I have to stress here that Machiavelli takes a very self-centered approach to the whole subject. He is not concerned with the morality of what he is doing, or how the people being conquered suffer. He doesn’t even discuss why one might want to engage in a conquest of another country. His only concern is how to do it effectively. For this the Bush Administration ought to love him, because they have their agenda and all they want to do is put it into effect. The plan was to take over Iraq, and if a lot of people suffer and die in the process, it doesn’t matter because the overall goal is “worthy”. However, they don’t even seem to understand the process well enough to do it well.

In The Prince, Machiavelli talks about the different ways to rule a country that has been conquered. The worst is to maintain an army of occupation, “But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends much more, having to consume on the garrison all the income from the state so that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are exasperated, because the whole state is injured; through the shifting of the garrison up and down all become acquainted with hardship, and all become hostile, and they are enemies who, whilst beaten on their own ground are yet able to do hurt. For every reason, therefore, such guards are as useless as a colony is useful.” He goes on to say that discontented subjects will flock to the banner of a leader who professes to free them from the occupying state.

All of this, of course, has direct relevance to Iraq. The military campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime was easy, given the overwhelming superiority of forces. Much of the Iraqi army simply melted away into the population, rather than confront the American tanks head on. However the US then proceeded to try to rule Iraq with an army of occupation. This is where they ran into trouble for two reasons. One, the quality of life had been degraded for most people there. This started with the bombing campaign of the first war that targeted the civilian infrastructure of power plants, sewage treatment and water purification plants and continued with a decade of sanctions that crippled the country economically. The invasion of 2003 once again put many of these same plants out of commission, leaving most people with very limited access to clean water and electricity, even compared to the sanctions period. Economic opportunities are also extremely limited due to the continued fighting. As Machiavelli had predicted, the growing number of people who were discontented with the state of affairs have come to blame the occupying forces for their troubles. They have thus tended to rally around those who are willing to stand up to the Americans. This fuels the resistance in a spiral of violence, response and revenge that has only gotten worse as it becomes clear that there is no end in sight.

Machiavelli supposes two kinds of state which you might want to conquer. One has a strong central ruler, who controls the whole of the state apparatus. This kind of state can be difficult to conquer because it is united, well organized and strong. However, once you do succeed, it is easy to take over the top post in government and control the rest, more or less as the previous ruler had. The daily life for most people doesn’t change, so they have little reason to resist. In the other case, there are many power centers that are independent of the central authority. It is easy to manipulate these conflicts to pit one against the other, thus dividing and conquering. However, the occupation is much more difficult because these same rivalries tend to make some support you and some oppose you, so whatever you do there is bound to be opposition.

Iraq was more the first type under the Baath Party. The sheer superiority of forces guaranteed a quick victory but the US made a fatal error. Rather than preserving the government as it was, simply supplying a new ruler more compliant to American wishes, they destroyed the whole government apparatus, creating a power vacuum that came to be filled by Iraqi nationalist resistance fighters, Islamic fundamentalists and Kurdish nationalists. The Kurds are willing to go along with the Americans as long as their goal of greater Kurdish autonomy is realized. The Americans accept this, even though it requires finessing Turkey’s opposition to Kurdish nationalism, which they have been brutally fighting, with US support, for years in Turkey. The other power centers have not been dealt with as successfully. The inability of the US to supply normal governmental services turns people to the resistance, in one form or another, as an alternative.

Machiavelli’s conclusion is that in this situation the occupying power will be driven out sooner or later. Furthermore, their position at home is weakened by the strain of the continuing war. Their popularity is down and the upcoming elections will likely weaken, if not break, the Republicans’ hold on all three branches of government. For this reason, Karl Rove might wish that he had lent Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney his copy of The Prince before they got themselves into such a mess.

PS

Most Democrats have been gleefully engaging in this kind of analysis that criticizes the Administration for mishandling the war, and God knows they have, while staying away from the more basic question of why we are there in the first place. At one extreme is Joe Leiberman, who went so far in supporting the whole enterprise that he lost his primary and abandoned the Democratic Party. But others, such as New York’s Hillary Clinton and Washington’s Maria Cantwell, who are both up for re-election, are trying to have it both ways. They are fast to criticize the administration, with Clinton, seeing the handwriting on the wall after Leiberman’s loss, calling for Rumsfeld to resign, but slow to question the legitimacy of the war or present any meaningful alternative to the President’s “stay the course” policy. A professed desire to bring the troops home at some unspecified time in the future after the Iraqi government has control of the situation is not a policy. It is a pipe dream. Anti-war voters (and a majority now oppose the war) are losing patience with these fence straddlers. It remains to be seen how this will all play out in November. Whatever happens here, the prognosis is bleak and getting bleaker in Iraq.

Karl Rove’s Bookcase: Machiavelli

2006-08-06T00:08:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that Karl Rove keeps a copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince on his office bookshelf. I have been wondering what Mr. Rove might get out of the work of a 16th Century Italian political observer. Now it is true that Machiavelli is mostly loved and hated by those who have never actually read any of his writings and it is possible that Rove cultivates this story as a way of building a myth of himself as a ruthless and masterful political operative. On the other hand, Machiavelli’s observations often ring true in a way that could well resonate with a strategist who values winning above all.

The Prince is above all about power. It is dedicated to Lorenzo Medici, the grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, in the hopes of gaining favor with the Prince. He outlines a strategy for success that deliberately flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Rather Machiavelli draws on examples from his contemporary society and history to elaborate on a politics of practicality. It is really very simple. A Prince has power. A Prince wants to hold onto power by whatever means he can. In 15th and 16th C Italy Machiavelli paints a picture of a number of rulers jockeying for position, conquering their neighbors, making alliances, being overthrown. The question is how to thrive in this atmosphere.

For Karl Rove, the first question is how that political landscape relates to contemporary America. Rove isn’t concerned with conquering other states with military power, as Machiavelli was. His Prince is the Candidate and the power he seeks to maintain is the political office. His Candidate enlarges his power by running for higher office, rather than actually conquering his neighbors. As an aside it must be noted that this administration does engage in conquering and occupying foreign lands but not generally in accordance with Machiavelli’s advice and not under the direction of Karl Rove, except as it relates to the American political landscape. In fact, it is possible that Cheney and Rumsfeld might have avoided some of the pitfalls they stumbled into in Iraq through study of The Prince.

The first point that would appeal to Karl Rove is that you have to rely on your own strength. Although it is tempting to find an ally that will supply the troops needed for a campaign, that will ultimately put you at your ally’s mercy. If you have your own power base, you need not fear that your troops will turn against you. Rove has had great success in cultivating the religious right as a strong base that can be counted on to turn out and fight for him when needed. He has, consequently been able to defeat opponents with a less committed base.

Machiavelli didn’t think that virtue was its own reward. He did think that it was well for rulers to be thought virtuous but if there was a conflict between virtue and success, “He need not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity.” As an example, he cites Hannibal, whose success in maintaining order in his heterogeneous army is attributed to “his inhuman cruelty, which, with his boundless valor, made him revered and terrible in the sight of his soldiers, but without that cruelty, his other virtues were not sufficient to produce this effect.”

Karl Rove’s campaign strategy often seeks victory by undermining the reputation of his opponent, often through the use of half truths or surrogates as we saw in the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry. Although voters say that they are turned off by these negative attacks, they can be effective, especially if the attacks appear to come from a third party and not the campaign itself. This preserves the appearance of virtue in the candidate while allowing the attacks to damage the opponent, Rove’s specialty. As Machiavelli says, “ It is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.”

In all things, Machiavelli holds that it is possible to be overcome by a less virtuous and more ruthless opponent. The appearance of weakness that comes of an unwillingness to violate common decency can lead to a breakdown of order that in the end leads to more suffering that could have been avoided by a little judicious betrayal, lies or viciousness that would have avoided large scale lawlessness. It is easy to see Karl Rove, and indeed the whole administration taking heart from this lesson.

Perhaps the final lesson is that when Machiavelli presented his ideas to Medici, he was spurned. He had to satisfy himself with the role of analyst, rather than be the king maker he aspired to. He might have done a better job selling his services by following his own advice and not being quite so direct. It may have been his blunt amoral approach that turned off his potential benefactor. Rove may have been wise to start with Bush at the beginning of his career, when he didn’t have to explain his philosophy in so many words. He could simply use these techniques successfully to push a compliant candidate up the political ladder, rising with him to the top.

Gaza, Beirut and Fallujah

2006-07-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

First read Robert Fisk’s report from Beirut. Then you can read my article below.

The Israeli attack on Lebanon and Gaza, is out of proportion to the kidnapping that precipitated it by orders of magnitude. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes and live in fear of death under the most primitive conditions due to the systematic destruction of the civilian infrastructure.

This is punishment of innocent people, while leaving the guilty largely unharmed. In fact, volunteers will now flock to fight the Israeli invaders, both in Lebanon and against civilians in Israel. This invasion is a disaster for Israel, which is in much more danger now than before. The worst case scenario involves a war that encompasses the whole of the Middle East and Pakistani nuclear weapons. The best case, years of attacks and reprisals that will kill, wound, displace and terrorize innocent people both inside and outside of Israel. As usual it will be innocent people who happen to be born Palestinian who will bear the brunt of the suffering.

In addition, since the US supplies Israel with its weapons, and billions of dollars in aid, many now blame the United States, as well as Israel for the suffering that is being inflicted. In fact, attacks in Iraq are sharply up, according to Friday's newspaper.

Because of the aid we give them, the US is perhaps the only country that can hope to persuade Israel to change its course. The immediate need is for a ceasefire. In the long term, the only solution is a withdrawal of Israeli settlements so that there can be a Palestinian State with secure borders, internal communication and freedom of movement. In return there needs to be a recognition of Israel and a willingness to live in peace.

However, Israel has it backwards when they demand that all Palestinians make all the concessions before even talking about what Israel can do. Likewise the Administration has it backwards when it declares that they will stay in Iraq until there is peace. We have seen that road leads nowhere. Ending the occupations goes a long way towards establishing the conditions needed for peace to flourish.

President Bush has urged a two state solution for Israel and Palestine, we need to follow up on that declaration with real action to achieve it.

We need to pressure Israel to stop the invasion.

We can call on Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire but we have no influence with them and the destruction is overwhelmingly caused by Israel.

We need to end the occupation of Iraq. The longer we stay there, the worse it gets for everybody.

Of course, it is unlikely that the current Administration in Washington, DC will do anything. In fact, they have speeded up delivery of weapons to Israel. They seem to have adopted Israel’s foreign policy as their own, despite its utter lack of success. Most people in the Middle East see a clear link between the US occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

There are differences, of course. There is some truth to Israel’s claims that it is acting in self-defense, while US policy in Iraq is wholly driven by lies. And there is no powerful constituency in the United States that seeks to push Iraqis out of their own country and settle Americans there instead, as the Israeli settler movement does in the West Bank.

Still, the tactics are remarkably the same. All men “of military age” are treated as enemies. Women and children are hardly to be trusted either. Heavily armed troops kick down doors and search people’s homes at will. Houses are destroyed. Checkpoints control the movement of people as they go about their business. The economy is destroyed. Unemployment is very high. and when things get bad, whole cities are attacked, be it Fallujah, Gaza or Beirut, for the actions of a few, who usually manage to slip away.

At best, the occupying armies appear to be blind to the existence of civilians as they go about their business of attempting to bomb out a resistance that grows in strength with every martyr. At worst, it is a systematic punishment of a whole people for voting for Hamas, or being unable to do anything about Hezbollah’s occasional attacks, or for wanting the US troops to go home. It is immoral because it punishes the wrong people and it won’t work, if the objective is peace. Almost 40 years of occupation in Palestine shows that.

Suzanne Swift - Sexual Abuse in the Military

2006-07-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Suzanne Swift’s 22nd birthday. She is the soldier who refused to go back to Iraq with her unit and was arrested last month at her home in Eugene, Oregon. That’s three Fort Lewis, Washington soldiers who have refused to go, for three different reasons. Kevin Benderman came to believe that all war is wrong and filed for Conscientious Objector status, which was denied. He is now serving time in the Fort Lewis brig. Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to go because the Iraq war violates international law and the Geneva Conventions both in its inception and in the way it is being prosecuted, is awaiting court martial.

Suzanne Swift is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and could not bring herself to go back to Iraq with the same unit where she had been sexually harassed and a victim of what they call “command rape”. That is where your commanding officer coerces you into having sex.

The relationship between a ordinary soldier and her Sergeant is inherently unequal. Any boss-subordinate relationship is unequal, which is why most companies have policies against dating in that situation. If a romance develops, then one of the parties involved has to quit, or at least transfer to another department. There is just too much temptation for abuse of the situation. A boss can easily give special favors, promotions, or overlook poor work if their judgment is clouded by romance. On the other hand, an unscrupulous boss can promise favorable treatment in exchange for sex and has considerable power to punish a subordinate who refuses, or when the romance goes bad. People have been fired for refusing to put out. Even if there are no special favors or punishments there is often a perception that there is. That perception hurts morale and can be coercive in itself. That is why companies have policies against sexual harassment and set up a mechanism outside of the regular hierarchy for reporting and investigating abuses.

In the military, and especially in a combat zone, the same problems exist, only to an extreme level. The military isn’t just a job, its your whole life. Your commander has tremendous power to reward or punish you. In a combat zone, it can mean endangering your life by getting the worst assignments. Spc. Swift refused two sergeants who propositioned her but was coerced into sex with a third. She said, “They treat you like a dog if you refuse and it’s worse if you agree.”

The military has a policy against harassment, but it is not always enforced. Swift did report the harassment but nothing happened, except that things got worse for her, as she was singled out for humiliating treatment and continued demands for sex.

The Pentagon's Joint Task Force on Sexual Abuse in 2004 found widespread abuse in the military, which is not a surprise to women who have served. Estimates are that as many as 2/3 of women, and almost 1/3 of the men in the service are victims of sexual harassment, much of which goes unreported because the military response is often to further harass the victim, rather than punish the perpetrator. As Colleen Mussolino, co-founder of Women Veterans of America (WVA), an advocacy group for women veterans, was quoted as saying about her experience after being raped in "Female Soldiers Treated Lower Than Dirt", by Rose Aguilar, "I was taken by the criminal investigation team and treated like a prisoner of war for six weeks with threats. I finally signed a paper promising that I wouldn't prosecute.” Some female soldiers in Iraq were so worried about being assaulted going to the latrines at night that they wouldn't drink water late in the day and subsequently died of dehydration, according to Col. Janis Karpinski. Perpetrators usually face no consequences, or are simply transferred to another base.

Swift’s mother, Sara Rich, who is leading the fight to protect her daughter, is calling for implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations, an investigation of Swift’s abuse, prosecution of the guilty parties and an honorable discharge. Since this case has received publicity, the Army has started an investigation. It remains to be seen how far it will go but Rich hopes that continued public support for her daughter will force the Army to treat this seriously. It was with this in mind that she celebrated Suzanne’s birthday with a rally, support banners on I-5 and a press conference at the entrance to Fort Lewis.

This isn’t really an anti-war issue and I don’t know what Suzanne Swift thinks, although Sara Rich is against the war and a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) and most, if not all, the supporters who turned up at Fort Lewis were anti-war. People who believe that the war is necessary should be outraged at this abuse of soldiers who are risking their lives on our behalf. It undermines the effectiveness of the war effort. In a situation where everything depends on the mutual trust and unit cohesion necessary to be successful in their mission, this kind of abuse of authority can be deadly. It undermines respect for authority and drives away potential recruits.

The War Resisters League(WRL) in a pamphlet entitled “Battered by the Military” states, “Violence against women is not only an accepted part of military culture but an integral component in the training that desensitizes soldiers to violence and killing.” They go on to say, “If you think the military is an option, before enlisting ... Ask yourself whether you want to be part of a system that causes physical, emotional and psychological trauma to both women and men.”

Here is another article that goes a little deeper

Why Soldiers Rape
Culture of misogyny, illegal occupation, fuel sexual violence in military

Additional resources:

GI Rights Hotline 1-800-394-9544

The Miles Foundation is a private, non-profit organization providing comprehensive services to victims of violence associated with the military

STAMP Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel 1-866-879-2568

Think Locally, Act Globally

2006-07-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

One of the themes of the World Peace Forum (WPF), held in Vancouver, British Columbia last month, which I had the pleasure to attend, was the importance to cities of taking action for World Peace. Cities must respond to the needs of their citizens. One of those primary needs is the need to live in peace.

Vancouver was one of 62 cities designated as Peace Messenger Cities by the UN General Assembly in 1986 for its efforts to spread a Culture of Peace within its boundaries. It was in that spirit that the city organized the WPF. They made a special effort to include representatives from other Peace Messenger Cities and Mayors for Peace.

It is easy to see why the Mayor of Hiroshima is the President of Mayors for Peace, or why Mayor Winstanley Johnson of Freetown, Sierra Leone sees peace as a prerequisite for running a city, as he copes with the aftermath of civil war. Both of those cities have experienced the disruption, devastation and suffering to their people caused by war. The UN makes this case in CITIES - THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO A CULTURE OF PEACE.

Many city officials believe that they are supposed to pay attention to local problems and ignore everything that happens outside the city limits. In practice, however, you have to work with other cities, counties and governmental agencies to solve regional problems. Most cities wouldn’t hesitate to lobby for laws and regulations on the state level that affect the city. They will even go to the National government for funds for an important local project.

At a time when local governments are having a hard time finding money for maintaining their infrastructure and providing services for their citizens, military spending can be seen as a huge diversion of funds.

Worldwide, military spending reaches $1 trillion a year, about half of it by the United States. President Eisenhower said, that every dollar spent on the military "signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." In more concrete terms the National Priorities Project documents the cost of war to local communities and shows other choices that could be made. For instance, taxpayers in California will pay $40.6 billion for the war in Iraq. For that same amount they could have had 631,955 Elementary School Teachers or built 4,421 new Elementary Schools, or provided healthcare to 16,850,732 people.

At the WPF we heard Jennifer Hostermann, Mayor of Pleasanton, California talk about how her city is affected by its location near the Lawrence Livermore Lab, which is a major research center for nuclear weapons. She realizes that in a nuclear war, her city would be right next door to one of the first targets of incoming warheads. In that she is not alone. Many of us in the United States are close to a military base that is sure to be targeted in the event of a war. Of course, cities will also be targets and the effects of nuclear war will be global so all of us are at risk. It is easy to forget, but Russian and American missiles are still ready for launch, despite the end of the Cold War almost 2 decades ago. She also feels a responsibility for the people who live in her city. That responsibility doesn’t end when the potholes are filled but extends to representing their interests at a state, national and global level.

Many cities, recognizing the detrimental effects to their residents of the war in Iraq have passed resolutions in opposition. Some feel that since they took an oath to uphold the Constitution, they are bound to oppose an unconsitutional war. Likewise, cities in the US, Britain and elsewhere have declared themselves Nuclear Free Zones. These declarations added momentum to the antinuclear movement that in the 1980s led to a significant slowing of the arms race. In an extension of this movement, national governments in the South Pacific, Latin America and Africa have declared Nuclear Free Zones that have had a real effect in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.

With the big powers becoming more belligerent, a new arms race is on. It is time for people to act in their cities and communities, where the government is still accessible to ordinary people, to demand an end to the squandering of lives and money on war.

War Crimes in Gaza

2006-07-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

Outrage can only go so far. These days it seems that everybody is outraged over something. The result is a kind of a moral numbness. A weariness that makes it hard to look at the dark side of humanity that seems so much in evidence today. People are especially unwilling to confront issues concerning war. Something about war arouses primitive instincts that call us to lay aside normal standards of decent and moral behavior as we rally to the defense of our group. The military harnesses these feelings to turn ordinary decent men and women into killers. That is what war is all about. The question is where to draw the line.

International law now attempts to distinguish behaviors that are acceptable and unacceptable in warfare. This is not an easy task because war in any form is opposed to peacetime morality. At best, warfare involves the deliberate murder of opposing soldiers. There is a recognition that civilians will inevitably be victims as they are caught in the crossfire, driven from their homes, witness traumatic events and be unable to live normal lives. However, we now condemn deliberate targeting of civilians. The principle is that hostilities should be confined to armies fighting each other.

In World War II the Nazis clearly overstepped these bounds in a number of ways. The genocide against Jews, Gypsies and others was the worst abuse. The death camps could only exist by denying the humanity of these people. We respond by saying “Never Again shall we allow this to happen to anybody.”

The Nazis were also condemned for their brutal occupation of the countries they conquered. They held the entire community responsible for any attack on their troops. They would respond by holding government officials and other prominent people hostage. Sometimes they would be executed in response to attacks by the resistance. In other cases, the whole community would be punished by withholding necessities of life.

After the war, the Nuremberg trials and the Geneva Conventions outlawed these practices as war crimes. They declared that deliberate targeting of civilians would not be tolerated and that reprisals should be proportionate to the “offense” and should be confined to the guilty parties and not innocent people.

Last week’s attacks in Gaza and indeed Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in general appears to violate these principles. At the same time it can be said that Palestinian terrorists violate these principles when they bomb Israeli civilians. It would be a mistake, however, to equally condemn both sides. The degree of violence and power is clearly unequal. Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. The establishment of settlements there violate the principle that military occupation should be temporary and that civilians should not be displaced. It is the settlements that make a political solution impossible. In order to maintain the settlements, Palestinian territory has to be fractured into a myriad of little enclaves that have no economic or political cohesion.

In response to the kidnapping of one soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, Israel launched an attack on Gaza that clearly holds not only the Hamas led government but the entire population responsible. They bombed the power plant that provides power to most of Gaza, leaving people without electricity and water, which depends on pumps. They have also prevented food and other supplies from getting into Gaza, bombed government offices and taken much of the Palestinian Cabinet prisoner. Israel says that all this is to exert “pressure” on those holding Cpl. Shalit to release him.

It is hard to see this attack as anything other than collective punishment on the entire civilian population and the holding of government officials as hostages, which are exactly the type of war crimes that the Nuremberg Trials and the Geneva Conventions condemned when they were practiced by the Nazis. Of course, Shalit was kidnapped in response to Israeli attacks which were responses to attacks by Palestinian groups.... It seems ironic that the Israeli government seems to be more outraged by the one action that had a military, rather than a civilian target and thus did not violate the “rules of war”.

The current crisis represents an escalation in their tactics but is not essentially different than the policy they have been pursuing in the Palestinian territories in general. Free travel between different parts of the West Bank is not allowed. Periodic blockades and numerous check points give the military complete control over whether people can go to work or school. and whether food an other necessities of life are available. People’s homes are demolished if the military thinks that somebody there, or a relative of somebody there is a “terrorist”. There is no way to challenge such a decision.

The US is quick to condemn Hamas for their refusal to recognize Israel but slow to condemn Israel, who we support with $3 billion in aid a year, for their part in perpetuating the violence and preventing a solution. It will do no good for Hamas to change their stance if the reality of life for Palestinians does not improve. What does the Israeli government think is going to happen if they continue to pursue this course? Palestinians who see no prospect of a settlement they can live with turned to Hamas in the last election. Desperation leads to desperate measures. I can only see a continuation of the cycle of violence in which the unequal power will lead to unequal suffering but suffering nonetheless on both sides. It will be impossible to prevent terrorists from attacking and Israel will never be able to live in peace. Likewise anti-American feeling will continue to increase because of our support for these brutal Israeli policies, with tragic consequences.

The only solution is for Israel to adhere to the Geneva Conventions and move towards an end to the occupation. Palestinians will have no reason to seek peace unless they see a prospect for a return to normal life and self determination. Israel must commit to a policy of peace, justice and self-determination and the US must adopt a policy of “tough love” to get them on track and keep them on track.

Close Guantanamo?

2006-06-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

When three prisoners at Guantanamo Bay committed suicide last week it focused attention once again on this top secret prison. The US military has identified the three men as Ali Abdullah Ahmed of Yemen, and Saudis Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi al-Utaybi and Yassar Talal al-Zahrani. Since 2002 the United States has used Guantanamo to hold prisoners in the “war on terror” because it exists in a kind of a legal limbo that, according to the Administration, puts it outside of any legal oversight.

The US established the Guantanamo Bay base during the Spanish American war over 100 years ago. That war “liberated” Cuba from Spanish colonial rule, while firmly establishing an American presence, including extended periods of American military occupation and the establishment of a dictatorship friendly to American business interests. The original lease for the Guantanamo base was signed in 1903 under terms established by the Platt Amendment, which set the terms for ending the US military occupation. In 1934, the lease was rewritten with the provision that it could not be changed or canceled without the agreement of both the US and Cuban governments, or until the US abandoned the base. In other words, the US can maintain a base in Cuba, even against the wishes of the Cuban government and since the revolution in 1959, this has been the situation. Cuba contests the legality of the lease, refuses to cash the checks the US dutifully sends it, and demands that the US leave but recognizes that they don’t have the ability to force the question.

The Bush Administration finds this situation very convenient. They claim that because Guantanamo is outside the US, that US laws and the Constitution do not apply there and since Cuba does not recognize the American presence, they have no oversight either. This is quite different than US military bases elsewhere in the world, which are subject to agreements with the host countries that have to be periodically renewed. This gives them some leverage. Furthermore, the Administration claims that the Geneva Conventions and the international laws of war do not apply because the prisoners aren’t technically soldiers in an established army. Rather they are relegated to the status of “enemy combatants” who have neither the rights accorded to Prisoners of War, or to civilians. Logically this position doesn’t make much sense. Either we are fighting a war, or we aren’t. If we are fighting a war, then our enemies must be recognized as fighting a war as well, and should be treated as enemy soldiers under international and military law, and as POWs when they are captured. If we aren’t, then prisoners should be brought to trial under the criminal justice system.

The “Enemy Combatant” label is a convenient fiction that is maintained to allow the government carte blanche in their treatment of these prisoners. They want to be able to hold people indefinitely with no standards of treatment and no accountability to anybody. Guantanamo is actually the most public of these prisons. Others exist in Afghanistan and Iraq, including Bagram Airbase and Abu Graihb. Add to those the CIA prisons reported to have been established in secret locations around the world. Apparently the Eastern European locations were closed after their cover was blown. And in a process known as rendition, prisoners are secretly transported to other countries, apparently so they can be tortured without any restrictions that might appl under American custody.

Although they don’t like the word, torture is central to what goes on in all of these secret prisons. Interrogation techniques employ a sophisticated combination of physical and psychological techniques to break them down. The military claims that it is necessary to obtain information. The classic argument is that torture would be justified in order to prevent an imminent terrorist attack. I assume that if that ever happened it would have been trumpeted as a major victory. In fact, studies have shown that torture is remarkably ineffective. Prisoners will either resist despite extreme pain or break down and say anything they think the torturer wants to hear, neither of which is useful. Psychological methods, such as isolation, sensory deprivation and humiliation aimed at breaking down personal identity and resistance have been developed by the CIA and are being put to widespread use now.

The continuing resistance of prisoners at Guantanamo calls these techniques into question, even on the grounds of effectiveness, to say nothing of morality or the effects on world opinion of America or the treatment of Americans who are held as prisoners or hostages.

The suicides are a matter of great concern to the military, not out of concern for the prisoners, but because of the effect on public opinion. Amazingly the military considers itself the victim here. This is made clear by the statement of Navy Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, who said, "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare aimed at us here at Guantanamo, We have men here who are committed jihadists. They are dangerous men and they will do anything they can to advance their cause." (From the Department of Defense defenselink website story Three Guantanamo Bay Detainees Die of Apparent Suicide.)

There is plenty in the conditions of their confinement that could lead to suicide as the only way out. They are at the complete mercy of their captors with no prospect of ever being released, looking forward to the rest of their lives spent under conditions of physical and psychological abuse. Their only avenue of protest has been hunger strikes, which have been combatted by tying the prisoners down and forcing feeding tubes down their throat. It may also be true that the suicides are a last ditch attempt to sacrifice a hopeless existence on the chance that it will attract enough attention to improve conditions for their fellow prisoners.

The new film, “The Road to Guantanamo” documents these conditions, while telling the story of three British Muslims captured in Afghanistan and held for two years at Guantanamo before being released with no formal accusations or charges ever being leveled.

Clearly the veil of secrecy is ever so slowly being pulled aside, leading to pressure to close the prison. At the same time, the publicity and court decisions giving a little bit of access to lawyers and requiring some legal process for prisoners are a hindrance to the policy of total isolation that the Administration thinks is necessary both for successful interrogations and to minimize political criticism. It might actually serve their purposes better to close Guantanamo and use other secret prisons, even more removed from public view instead.

Haditha, War Crimes and an Act of Conscience

2006-06-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Lets start with First Lt Ehren Watada, who this week announced that he will refuse deployment to Iraq. He feels impelled to take this action, which puts him on the line for court martial and a substantial prison term, because he believes that “the war in Iraq is not only morally wrong but a horrible breach of American law.” Lt. Watada joins a number of other soldiers, sailors and marines who cannot in good conscience participate in the war.

Each individual who has taken this position has acted for their own unique reasons. Lt. Watada is notable because he is the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment. He hasn’t claimed Conscientious Objector (CO) status because he does believe that some wars are justified. In fact, he joined the Army in 2003, when the war was already under way.
However, he has come to realize that the reality of this war is very different from the story that he believed when he signed up. The government told him that the war was about weapons of mass destruction and fighting terrorism. It turns out that the weapons were imaginary and that Iraq posed no threat to the United States. Furthermore is is clear that the Bush Administration knew this very well and deliberately lied to the American people and to the world. They sent our troops into harms way on false pretenses in furtherance of a secret agenda.

The war at its inception was a violation of international law, the UN Charter, and US law because it was not sanctioned by the UN and was not undertaken in self defense.

The war in its conduct is a violation of all of the above as well as the Army’s Law of Land Warfare because of the indiscriminate killing of civilians, collective punishment in Fallujah and elsewhere and torture and mistreatment of prisoners.

Given this new understanding of the war, Lt. Watada could not in good conscience participate. In his words, “My oath of office is to protect and defend America’s laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath.” He informed his superiors and asked to be assigned to duties not directly connected to the war, or to resign from the Army. The Army has refused these requests and intends to prosecute him if he refuses deployment to Iraq.

The Haditha “massacre” offers some insight into why people have been talking more and more about war crimes. This was just one incident during three years of war but it is hardly unique. Haditha is a city in Al Anbar province about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad. It is the site of the largest hydroelectric dam in the country, which gives it strategic importance. It has been the site of several attacks against Iraqi officials and police and American troops.

Initial reports from the Marines stated that a roadside bomb killed one American and 15 civilians in November 2005. In February 2006, a video of the bodies of the civilians showed that they had been shot in their homes. Eyewitnesses reported that after the American was killed, Marines stormed nearby houses and killed men, women and children indiscriminately. The story only made it to the mainstream press in the US a few weeks ago, leading to investigations and possible prosecution of the troops involved. The thing that was most shocking to Americans was the possibility that our troops had deliberately murdered civilians. Congressman John Murtha, a former Marine said that the episode might prove to be America’s darkest hour in Iraq. “This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people. And we’re set back every time something like this happens.”

Today’s Washington Post offers an account of the events that day by one of the Marines involved. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich told his story through his attorney in an attempt to show that his actions were consistent with military rules of engagement in Iraq and to defend himself against possible criminal charges.

He says that they did not set out to kill civilians. However, they shot first and asked questions later. “Marines noticed a white, unmarked car full of ‘military aged men’ lingering near the bomb scene. When Marines ordered the men to stop, they ran; ...it was standard operating procedure at the time for the Marines to shoot suspicious people fleeing a bombing, and the Marines opened fire. ... Iraqis .. said the vehicle was a taxi carrying a group of students to their homes and that the driver tried to back away from the site, fleeing in fear. ... AK-47 shots rang out from homes on the south side of the road. ... A corporal with the unit leaned over to Wuterich and said he saw the shots coming from a specific house ... A four-man team of Marines, including Wuterich, kicked in the door and found a series of empty rooms, noticing quickly that there was one room with a closed door and people rustling behind it ... They kicked in that door, tossed a fragmentation grenade into the room, and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and smoke, killing several people ...The Marine who fired the rounds ... had experience clearing numerous houses on a deployment in Fallujah, where Marines had aggressive rules of engagement.” Noting that there were only civilians in the room, they figured that the insurgents had slipped out the back door, so they charged into another house with the same tactics and the same results. Altogether, 15 - 24 civilians were killed, including children as young as 2 years old. It does not appear that any actual insurgents were killed.

There are a number of aspects of this report that are deeply disturbing. The Geneva Conventions require troops to minimize civilian casualties. This conduct displays a reckless disregard for civilian life. Troops assume that anybody they encounter is likely to be an enemy and act accordingly. This is especially true of men of “military age”. During the siege of Fallujah, women and children were allowed to leave the city as American troops prepared to attack but men were not. The assumption was that all men were suspected insurgents. There have been numerous reports from American troops that they respond to any attack with indiscriminate fire in that direction, regardless of who might be caught in the crossfire. Air attacks cause the most civilian casualties. The very first “official” bombing of the war, attempting to kill Saddam Hussein, instead killed a small child. Thousands of civilians have been killed and wounded by American troops who cannot or will not tell the difference between fighters and bystanders. Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist covering Iraq, documents many other similar events in his article, Countless My Lai Massacres in Iraq.

Other violations of international law, constituting war crimes, include the use of white phosphorus bombs in Fallujah, attacks on ambulances, preventing people from receiving medical care, and the widespread torture of prisoners. There are also indications that the American supported Iraqi police or militias are involved in rounding up, torturing and killing people. This may be related to the Salvador Option, as outline in this January 2005 Newsweek article.

Lt. Watada is responding to this systematic violation of international law by taking a principled and courageous stand. It is the highest form of patriotism to defend the Constitution, the rule of law and morality when the government seems to have abandoned it.

Controlling the Net

2006-06-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

Check out last week’s discussion of Net Neutrality

When the internet burst on the scene in the 90s it was a classic demonstration of free market economics as companies big and small, new and well established, competed like crazy for their share of cyberspace. It was the most competition the American economy has seen in years.

The same thing happened in the political sphere. And the combination of e-mail and websites made the net a great organizing tool. Advocacy groups get people signed up for e-mail lists that deliver action plans direct to your desktop. Websites give more information and people are urged to pass along these messages to their friends and get them involved too. Bloggers and alternative media sites can deliver a very focused message. Grassroots democracy got a real shot in the arm. These tools are being used by all political viewpoints. It has fostered a competitive marketplace of ideas that is available for anybody to search out.

I didn’t even mention the purely social aspects of the net, which are huge and all sorts of information (true and not so true) that people share over the net in a way that we couldn’t even imagine a decade or two ago. Plenty of people are finding ways to make money facilitating that as well. Plenty of others are just using it for all that it is worth.

Now that we have it, there is a feeling that this is the only way that things could have turned out. The internet as a force of nature. Actually, it was designed to be a structure that is free and open...the information superhighway that would allow anybody to go anywhere they want to go. The idea was to facilitate precisely the kind of competition and innovation we have seen. It succeeded beyond anybody's wildest dreams precisely because of that openness and lack of centralized control.

The internet could have been set up differently, as a more centralized way for companies to deliver content to consumers. Then it might have ended up more like cable TV for instance. Now, cable as a model isn’t terrible. It just doesn’t offer the innovation and flexibility and democracy that we get from an open internet.

China presents an interesting example of more centralized control over the net. They are trying to use their government control over internet portals to limit political opposition. In this case they try to filter out politically objectionable sites, much as filters here try to block spam or porn. Their idea of objectionable isn’t written down anywhere but encompasses discussions of Tibetan independence, Falun Gong, the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, and the BBC.

Western companies have come under criticism for helping China control the net in this way. They argue that the tools they provide are basically the same as firewalls and filters that any large network needs. They aren’t responsible for what the Chinese government does with these tools. In any case they figure it is the price they pay for doing business in China. The Chinese market is growing rapidly as they move rapidly into the digital age. China has more people online than any other country except the United States.

In addition to sophisticated filtering, China has established a principle that any website or access provider is responsible for monitoring the content they make available. A crackdown a few years ago closed a number of internet cafes and installed sophisticated filters in others that block 500,000 sites and report people to the police who attempt to access them. This is much more effective than having government officials try to monitor everything. Providers will tend to err on the side of caution to avoid being shut down or even prosecuted. It is difficult to maintain this level of control and some people just put up sites that they know will be shut down in the hope that they will attract an audience in the interim. Still, Amnesty International has documented 33 people who have been imprisoned for using the internet to circulate or download information. Amnesty also reports that China “aims to use advanced information and communication technology to strengthen police control in China and a massive surveillance database system will reportedly provide access to records of every citizen.”

Similar efforts in the US haven’t gotten very far, yet. Schools and libraries routinely restrict access to sites they think are objectionable. Pornography is the usual target but I have heard rumors that schools are restricting access to blogs in general as well. Apparently they think it is a waste of time for students who are supposed to be studying. There have also been attempts, unsuccessful so far, to hold providers here responsible for objectionable content on their servers, which sparked accusations of suppression of free speech. And of course the NSA has been analyzing internet activity as part of their “war against terrorism”. The FBI asked Service Providers to maintain records of everybody’s activity on the net for two years so they can track every site you visited and the searches you made and who you email.

Here corporate telecommunications companies control the portals and without net neutrality there is nothing to stop them from exercising the same kinds of control as the Chinese. The difference would be in the types of sites they don’t like. Right now they are asserting the right to restrict high speed access to companies that pay for the privilege. They could decide to block anti-corporate sites or sites they think are unpatriotic. It’s downright un-American.

Here is a petition to help persuade Congress to preserve Net Neutrality.

Hand Over Control of the Internet to Who??

2006-05-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

The great thing about the Internet is that it makes it really easy for everybody to freak out about the same thing at the same time...and
feel like they are thinking for themselves rather than just being told the official story. The thing about the internet is that everybody tells you what to think. There are a million contradictory versions of the story out there all at once. At the same time it is really easy to get tuned into a particular point of view to get your own personal party line. So if you want somebody to tell you what to think, you can find somebody that you learn to trust because they usually tell you exactly what you want to hear. Then when they come up with a new issue, you can just follow blindly along. Isn’t it great?

Actually, I do think it is great. The free and open nature of the net allows you to find other people who share your views, whether you want to persuade others, be persuaded yourself or just hang out. It doesn’t matter whether you have a political cause or a commercial cause. Both have flourished in recent years. Lots of companies are making money online, either through selling stuff to people or by selling advertising on popular sites. Lots of people are enjoying the diversity of products available, time and gas saved and good prices by buying online.

The thing everybody is freaking out about right now...One of the things everybody is freaking out about right now is Net Neutrality. The big telecom companies that control the backbone of the net want to give preferential treatment to sites that pay extra for the privilege. They think that since they own the wires everybody has to use, they should have the right to decide who gets to use them and on what terms. This runs contrary to a general principle that a common carrier should allow everybody to use their network on a equal basis. They get paid for providing this service but they can’t favor one content provider over another. If they were to be allowed to do so, it would be easy for them to use what amounts to monopoly power to promote their own sites or other big business sites that can pay extra at the expense of the rest of us.

Congress is working on a major revision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. As part of this revision some Senators and Representatives have written legislation to preserve Net Neutrality. A Coalition of big telecom companies are lobbying hard against it. They have even confused the issue by claiming that Net Neutrality would impose government control over the net and change its essential character. You can check out their website, which includes a cute little cartoon, if you want to see what they are saying. It is worth noting that among their major sponsors are AT&T and BellSouth, who didn’t seem to care so much about the abuses of big government when they ignored privacy laws and released customer call records to the NSA. This is not about the government controlling the internet, it is about whether we want to give that power to a handful of monopolistic telecoms.

Thirty years ago, AT&T was broken up into smaller companies because it exercised monopolistic control over the telephone system. Under the competition that resulted the industry has prospered as never before and the telephone system has developed into what is now the telecom industry, encompassing not only local and long distance phone service but cell phones, the internet and cable as well. Curiously, despite the obvious benefits they have derived from this competition the industry is undergoing a wave of mergers that seems intent on recreating monopoly control by just a few huge telecoms. For most Americans access to phone service, cable TV and the net is controlled by just one or two big telecoms.

In this atmosphere, the threat is not government enforcing neutrality but monopolists enforcing control based on dollars and/or political opinions. Already AOL has blocked e-mail that refers to a site critical of their plan to charge e-mailers for preferential treatment. This plan would bypass spam filters to deliver e-mail from companies that pay a fee direct to members’ inboxes. Those who don’t pay would risk having their mail labeled as spam or relegated to a 2nd tier system. The Save the Internet Coalition has documented a number of similar instances of corporate control. Plus they have their own collection of cute videos.

This is a really interesting coalition that brings together a range of consumer organizations, civic action groups and internet businesses to lobby for Internet Neutrality. Although the telecoms try to make it sound like it is just big companies like Microsoft and Google looking for a free ride, the coalition includes groups from all sides of the political spectrum from the Christian Coalition to Move-On Civic Action, Gun Owners of America, Craig Newmark (of Craig’s List) and Consumer’s Union. Some of these groups never thought they would agree on anything, but the internet is such a powerful communications tool for all of them that they have joined together to preserve their ability to use it. Companies that benefit from the innovation and opportunity of an open net and would rather not pay telecoms extra fees are also on board. The real economic beneficiaries of net neutrality are the small undercapitalized startups who have a great idea. If the telecoms have their way they could be priced out of the marketplace before they even start, which would be fine with the monopolists but not so good for the rest of us.

Here is a petition to help persuade Congress to preserve Net Neutrality.

Tune in next week for more on controlling the net

Gas Prices

2006-05-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

$3.00 a gallon for gas? Outrageous! Unthinkable! Who do we blame? It’s the Oil Companies! It’s taxes! It’s Hurricane Katrina! It’s global warming! It’s the war! It’s those @#$% arabs! It’s those @#$% Texans! It’s that @#$% Texan in the White House! It’s Peak Oil! It’s our consumerist society! It’s the worst problem we have ever faced! It’s not a problem! $3.00 a gallon? I wish it was $3.00 a gallon!

Seriously now, why are prices high and is that a bad thing? Well, first off, high compared to what? Compared to past prices in the US, prices are high but our friends in Europe are laughing their heads off at our present discomfort. They have “enjoyed” prices this high and higher for years. In fact even now, prices in Europe are almost double what we pay here. That is because of higher taxes there that not only raise money for government services but help shape public policy to reduce oil consumption. Cars are more efficient. Public transportation is better. Cities are designed so that people don’t need to go as far to work or shop as they do here. In fact, while some argue for a reduction in gas taxes to bring US prices down, a better case could be made for higher taxes, especially if the proceeds were used to increase efficiency and develop alternative energy sources that could help us make the transition away from oil.

In general, oil prices do not just reflect production costs. Of course, production costs are rising as cheaper sources are used up and replaced by more expensive sources. It should be obvious that cheaper, easier to get at oil is the first to be used. Eventually that gets used up and oil companies dig a little deeper and spend a little more to find new supplies. At some point it gets so expensive that other energy sources become cheaper and people switch over to them. People talking about Peak Oil are saying that we are reaching that point now. They say that we can look forward to declining production and increasing prices from here on out. Since our society is built around cheap oil we had better find a way to deal with this or we will face major problems.

In the long run, this is true. Right now, however, there are other factors that have a bigger influence on the current price spike. Oil prices are set by a kind of auction system with prices going as high as buyers are willing to pay. Contract prices are generally pegged to prices on commodity markets that work like the stock market. People decide what they will pay depending on whether they think prices will go up or down. People are speculating not only on current prices but on future prices as well. Disruptions, or the threat of disruptions will lead people to believe that prices will go up and therefore they are willing to pay more and so prices do go up. Lower supply and higher demand also drives prices up.

A similar system determines prices of refined gasoline, with a difference. The difference is that the major oil companies control the distribution system from refinery to gas station. Independent distributors are in a weaker position because they have to buy from the oil companies. We have seen Big Oil setting refinery prices high and taking a larger profit there while taking a smaller profit, or even a loss, at their own gas stations, undercutting the independents at the pump.

When refinery capacity is reduced, prices go up. This is what happened after Hurricane Katrina. But there have been reductions in capacity for other reasons as well. If a refinery goes down for maintenance it doesn’t have much effect but if several go down at once it can force prices up. I can’t help but be reminded of the electricity “crisis” of a few years ago during which so many power plants went out of service for routine maintenance that there was a serious shortage and prices went through the roof, leading to accusations of price manipulation and collusion. For many of us, that was the first, but not the last, we heard of Enron.

It is worth noting that some oil producing countries sell gas to their own citizens at very low prices. Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq under Saddam all have (had) prices well under $1.00/gallon. When Iraq was forced to switch to world market prices, it was a major problem for the economy and made life even more difficult for ordinary people trying to live a normal life.

The big winners from high prices are the big oil companies. Looking back over the past few years we see that every time there is a price spike, there is a corresponding profit spike. While higher prices can be a stimulus to a transition to other sources, quick price spikes are very harmful to consumers and to the economy. What it amounts to is a massive transfer of wealth from the rest of us to the oil companies.

Though not many people are willing to talk about it, this amounts to oil companies enriching themselves at the expense of human misery. Profiteering has always happened but it used to be condemned by society. When the war in Iraq started, oil prices reflected this insecurity in supply by rising sharply. The same thing happened after Hurricane Katrina. So, we saw people dying, others having a hard time making ends meet because of higher prices and a few oil company executives with millions of extra dollars in the bank. Is it surprising that they are nervous about trying to explain this to Congress?

Youth Activism

2006-05-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

May 14, 2006

I don't know how many times I have been in a meeting with a bunch of people like me - Old People - Well, wait a minute not too old, maybe I should say middle aged. Anyway the point is that somebody is sure to pipe up and say, "Where are all the young people?", meaning, "Why aren't they here at our meeting and why aren't they demonstrating like we demonstrated when we were young?" Well, its a bum rap.

First of all, when I was young I know that sitting though long meetings with a bunch of old people was not my idea of fun, or very productive of anything. I tended to stay on campus and do my protesting with other students. That is who I knew and was comfortable with. I even remember a saying, "Don't trust anybody over 30". So I'm not surprised to see students today doing the same thing.

So, what's with the youth movement today? For starters check out Wiretap, which is full of stories of youth organizing. Just now I took a look and found articles on racial profiling, Log Cabin Republicans, the Army's use of video games in their recruiting, Youth involvement in the Save Dafur campaign, and Youth Activists of Austin (YAA!), who not only get my award for best acronym (the exclamation point makes all the difference) but are doing a great job organizing high school students for counter recruiting and in support of immigrant rights.

Of course, student walk-outs helped to spark the immigrant rights movement with thousands of students walking out to protest punitive laws and discrimination, and millions of people taking to the streets. Part of their inspiration were the Chicano walk-outs in 1968, which were dramatized in the HBO film Walkout.

Students also played an important role in the Save Darfur campaign. Students organized on many campuses and helped turn out people for the big rally in Washington DC on April 30. (see this article at www.alternet.org/wiretap/35848/) The April 30 rally in Seattle was largely organized by students, who marched to the Federal Building where they staged a die-in to dramatize the dire conditions in Darfur.

The Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) brings together students from college campuses across the country. They held regional conferences last month in New York, Chicago and San Francisco focused on "Turning Antiwar Sentiment into Antiwar Action". CAN's website explains, "Campus Antiwar Network is the largest and leading independent, democratic, grassroots network of students opposing the occupation of Iraq and military recruiters in our schools at campuses all over the country. ...Our goal is to unite all antiwar students on colleges and high schools alike to democratically build a broad antiwar and counter-recruitment movement to help bring the troops home now." They provide a clearinghouse for students to report on what is happening on their campuses and mobilize support when it is needed. The Midwest conference included admission to a concert afterwards.

Counter recruiting has been the biggest issue on campuses recently. The military recruiters have been especially intrusive at High Schools where they roam the halls at will, when the school administration will allow them to, bombarding students with their sales pitch for a military "career". They will also call students at home repeatedly. Students have responded by leafletting, debating the recruiters, and urging their fellow students to "opt out" of having their names released to the military. The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to give out student names and addresses to the military but it also allows students or parents to opt out of having their names released. Unfortunately schools often overlook this part of the law unless there is concerted pressure on them.

Last summer Oregon and Washington students attended a camp designed to give them organizing skills. Organized by the Ruckus Society and the Teen Peace Project (founded by my wife, Liz Rivera Goldstein), the camp used two biodiesel buses to bring in mostly high school activists for workshops on counter recruiting organizing skills. This was the first of a series of Not Your Soldier Camps organized by Ruckus in cooperation with local and national activist groups. The Ruckus Society has long been organizing training camps for mostly young activists on a variety of issues. They have just come out with a new Flash animation called "Punk Ass Crusade". It's packed with mind-bending images and an hot new song from The Coup. It is featured on the Not Your Soldier website. You can even download the song as a ringtone for your cellphone.

College campuses have recently seen an increase in recruiting as the military struggles to meet their enlistment goals. Colleges are now seeing increased counter recruiting efforts as well. Last year students at Seattle Central Community College chased recruiters off campus in a well publicized action that has been repeated across the country. High School and college students staged a walk-out in several cities last November to protest recruiting abuses. Over 1,000 rallied in downtown Seattle. Seattle voters are now being asked to sign a city wide College Not Combat initiative to restrict recruiters. Although Federal law requires that the military have equal access with colleges and employers, there is a lot that local authorities can do to rein them in and prevent the abuses that are all too common. This initiative is based on a successful San Francisco initiative.

The Tent State protests link cuts in education funding to resources wasted on the war. To quote their statement of purpose: "Tent State University (TSU) is a national movement that believes education is a right, not a privilege. Hence, TSU opposes tuition hikes, cuts in public funding, and wasteful wars abroad. Tent State, locally, creates an educational alternative where students, faculty, staff, and community can come together, work together, learn together, and practice democracy together. TSU challenges the undemocratic elements of our universities and our society."

Tent State started at Rutgers, where they set up an encampment at which students can attend alternative classes,workshops and teach-ins, but about 20 other campuses have followed their lead and held similar encampments. Relationships with university officials have varied. Some faculty have been very supportive but administrators don't always feel comfortable with these encampments springing up without asking permission, especially since some of the criticism is aimed at the university itself.

At UC Santa Cruz last year the Chancellor called the cops to prevent students from camping out at the entrance to the campus during a Tent State protest. The police attacked these non-violent protesters with clubs and taser-guns and purposely applied force to pressure points in their necks until some passed out. Other injuries included dislocated shoulders and many bruises. 20 were arrested.

Student activists do no have an easy time these days. There have been several instances of students who have been arrested and/or subjected to often arbitrary university disciplinary proceedings for protesting.

For instance, there is an article on the CAN website about the SFSU 10, asking for letters of support. When San Francisco State students stood up to protest military recruiters on campus, police physically (and none too gently) took them out of the building and banned them from campus. Since some of the students lived or worked on campus they became instantly homeless or unemployed. All this with no recourse, except at the discretion of the university administration.

Young people are doing great work everyday on their campuses and off. They combine activism, socializing and music to make organizing fun and effective. They are making a difference and the rest of us can help out by paying attention and giving them our support when they need it.

As We Go Marching, Marching

2006-05-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

Wow! Last weekend was pretty extraordinary. Americans turned out in large numbers, very large actually, to voice their opinions on three different issues. These are not all in agreement, although there is some overlap of interest. What ties them all together is a resurgence of citizen activism.

On Saturday, April 29, hundreds of thousands marched for “Peace, Justice and Democracy” in New York. It was initiated by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, National Organization for Women, Friends of the Earth, U.S. Labor Against the War, Climate Crisis Coalition, People's Hurricane Relief Fund, National Youth and Student Peace Coalition and Veterans For Peace. The UFPJ web site for the march says, “All these diverse groups (are) joining together in a unified call to bring the troops home from Iraq now, reverse our government's priorities, and turn our country around.” Opposition to the the war in Iraq, and the threatened attack on Iran, was the primary focus, along with a broad condemnation of Bush Administration policies.

Refreshingly, the march didn’t end with a long, boring rally, but rather with a “Peace and Justice Fair” with 19 tents featuring information, entertainment, food and opportunities to get involved with participating groups in their ongoing work. This is the work that will make the big difference in changing our policies. Most Americans already oppose the war but that alone is not enough to end it. Marches can be incredibly energizing and can demonstrate the strength of a movement but it will take lots of day to day work on a local level to convince Congress that they should change course - or to elect a better Congress.

On the next day, The Save Darfur Coalition staged a large rally in Washington, DC and thousands of people attended supporting rallies around the country. Almost 100,000 people at the Washington Monument listened to speakers ranging from politicians, including Sen. Barack Obama, celebrities (George Clooney and Manute Bol) and Sudanese refugees.

On Friday, 5 Congress members were arrested in a sit-in at the Sudanese Embassy to bring attention to this issue.

Once again, as in Bosnia, Jewish groups led the call for action to stop genocide. Remembering the Holocaust, these groups take the cry, “Never Again” to apply not just to Jews, but to the whole world. Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel stressed this point as he joined the call for international peacekeeping action to stop the killing. "Silence helps the killer, never his victims," Wiesel said. "Darfur today is the capital of the world's human suffering. Darfur deserves to live." Christian and Muslim groups, and Human Rights organizations also joined the call. Students on many campuses have been working on Darfur for some time now. In Seattle, for instance, the demonstration downtown was organized by High School and college students.

Then, on Monday, immigrants marched in huge numbers everywhere. This movement has been able to turn out unprecedented number of people repeatedly over the last couple of months. They have immediately changed the debate over immigration. Before the marches started, new punitive measures against immigrants had passed the House and were headed to the Senate. That bill died with a million people in the streets of LA on March 25. The May 1st “Day without Immigrants” was designed to hammer home the point and try to make sure that the final bill is slanted more towards amnesty and less towards punishment.

The marches included people of all ages. from infants to seniors. Homemade signs abounded, as did American flags. The mood was joyful, at least at the march I attended in Seattle. They were determined to be visible and to show that they had political clout. Indeed any organization that can pull off dozens of huge marches across the country on the same day, has to be taken very seriously. Leaders talked about the need to follow up with voter registration and more involvement in the political process. It was very refreshing to see people that had been marginalized in our society realize the power they could have.

These three movements that all chose the same weekend to march are quite different from each other. Some people will agree with all of them, but others will not. Intervention in Darfur may or may not be embraced by those who want to get out of Iraq, probably depending on what form the intervention takes. There is certain to be skepticism about the ability of military power to solve the problem. At the same time, some who insist on action to Save Darfur are also in favor of saving Iraq militarily. In both instances there are many who know what they don’t want but aren’t so sure what will work. The immigration issue cuts across US political divisions in yet another way. The proliferation of US flags and protestations of patriotism evident at the immigration marches suggest that these activists are not interested in challenging the power structure on issues other than immigration. They will have their hands full building a coalition to achieve those goals.

What they all have in common is the belief that it is the right, perhaps the duty, of us all to make our voices heard. Our country professes to have a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”. We don’t always live up to those ideals. In fact, citizen activists are the most frustrated people I know because it is so hard to get the powers that be to acknowledge the concerns of ordinary people, much less do something about them. The unequal ways that money, and the power that goes with it in our country, is distributed make it difficult to have an effect. The antidote to this is persistent broad based citizen activism. We are seeing these movements arise in Nepal, Ukraine, Bolivia and elsewhere in the world. It is refreshing to see more of it here too.

Si Se Puede

2006-04-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

Si Se Puede (Yes We Can) brings back memories of my summer working for the United Farm Workers as a volunteer on the Lettuce Boycott. I was excited to be able to participate in an historic moment. Poor working people were organizing for decent wages and working conditions with pride in who they were, where they came from and where they were going. Si Se Puede meant Yes we can have a union. Yes we can earn a living wage. Yes we can have safe working conditions. Yes we can be Mexican, or Filipino, or whoever we are and proud of it!

When immigrants and their supporters march again on May 1st, it will be the continuation of quite an extraordinary movement. Organizing in opposition to HR 4437, immigrants turned out in record numbers. The Sensenbrenner Bill would have cracked down on illegal immigrants, increasing penalties for them and for anybody who helped them and threatening mass deportations, Over 100,000 marched on March 10 in Chicago, according to police estimates. The official estimate for the March 25 march in Los Angeles was 500,000 but organizers say well over a million people were there. Meanwhile students were staging walkouts from schools across the country. On April 10th, thousands of people demonstrated in each of dozens of cities. 50,000 people rallied in Salt Lake City, 150,000 in San Diego, 500,000 in Dallas. The breadth of the movement across the country was unprecedented in their ability to turn out huge crowds in so many different places at once. In many places it was the largest demonstration to be held there at any time, for any cause. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org) is fond of saying that together these “constitute the largest demonstrations in the history of this country, not just on immigration but on any issue”.

One of the purposes of the marches is to make immigrants visible. All too often they blend into the background doing the hard, dirty work that America depends on them to do. When they marched in such numbers, they were noticed and when they missed work or school their absence was felt. Their point is that immigrants are a vital part of this country, as they always have been.

After some of the earlier marches, participants were criticized for carrying Mexican flags. This kind of criticism strikes me as being willful misinterpretation by people more interested in finding a reason to denigrate the movement than to understand it. I see the use of Mexican symbols and flags as an indication of pride in who they are. Nobody says that the Irish should forgo the wearing of the green on St. Patrick's Day in favor of red, white and blue. Mexicans in the US are often discriminated against. Why not counter that with strong positive images of proud Mexicans? Remember this is an immigrants movement. They can contribute not only their labor but their culture to the American melting pot. This is no different from anybody else who has come before. Nonetheless, US flags were all over the place April 10.

The marches were largely organized in the Latino community, using Spanish language broadcasters and person to person organizing to get people to turn out. After the first few marches, other immigrant groups increased their participation as well. Students played an important role with their school walkouts and youth rallies. Now an attempt is being made to bring in other sympathetic people to march with immigrants on May 1, including some labor unions. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

May 1st is being billed as “A day without immigrants”. Some organizers are calling for people to not work, not go to school, not shop, not watch TV or use the internet. The idea is to create a gap in the economic fabric of this country that will demonstrate just how many immigrants there are and how much they contribute to the economy. Others are a little more cautious. People shouldn’t lose there jobs, they point out. They also are afraid that people will take offense at a boycott, just as some did with the flags. The media has been playing up the split but it seems to me that it is more a matter of emphasis and language than any real difference in policy.

The immediate goal is to stop the Sensenbrenner Bill and to pass an amnesty law. The Senate was ready to pass an amnesty bill after the LA march but mysterious procedural disagreements stopped it, perhaps in order to allow the enthusiasm to die down a little. The worst parts of Sensenbrenner appear to be dead but there will doubtless be attempts by its supporters to bring as much of it into the compromise package as possible. It will be interesting to see how much amnesty and how much crackdown end up in the package.

In the long term, this is a civil rights movement that looks to end the pervasive prejudice and discrimination against immigrants, especially in the post 9/11 world. These are people that believe in the American dream and want to be a part of it. When they say Si Se Puede, they mean Yes we can contribute to this country. Yes we can have pride in this country and Yes we can be proud of our own heritage as well.

Can A Person by Illegal?

2006-04-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

A selection from The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, which is is graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands.

We are, after all, all immigrants or descended from immigrants. Even Native Americans, who have been here 10-15,000 years came to America only after their ancestors had lived millions of years in Africa and Asia. There is a kind of hierarchy of immigrants, with more recent arrivals disdained by those who came before and people of color discriminated against by whites. After the Indians came the English, less than 400 years ago. Africans started arriving soon after that, albeit unwillingly. The slave trade ended in 1808, so most African Americans can claim over 200 years working to build this country. There were several waves of immigration from different parts of Europe during the 19th Century. Chinese workers were brought over starting in the last half of the 1800s to build the railroads and pick our crops. Irish and other Europeans did the same work in the East. They were joined in the 20th Century by other Asians, Latinos and more.

These are the people that built this country. Mostly they came because they thought that they would be better off here than wherever they came from. Many came because they had friends or family here. Sometimes they were recruited to come here with promises of plentiful work and high wages. What they ended up with were the worst jobs, backbreaking work that barely paid enough for survival.

Todays immigrants come for the same reasons and they are encouraged to come for the same reasons. Official policy is to limit immigration but too many people profit from this source of cheap labor to effectively stop it. The so-called "illegals" attract most of the attention but they are basically in the same situation as other groups. The difference, of course, is that they are vulnerable in a way that others aren't. Last week's detention of 1200 undocumented workers, who are now slated for deportation, demonstrates this point very clearly. For once, some of the company managers who hired them will face charges but usually employers profit from a cheap labor force too scared to complain, with very few penalties.

The United States has always been of two minds about immigration. On the on hand there is an understanding that this is a country of immigrants. We talk about the melting pot, where people start out with distinct ethnicities but after a generation or two melt together into a distinctly American culture. Some people prefer to think of a stewpot in which people keep their ethnic identity while assimilating into American culture but the basic idea is the same. On the other hand there has always been a resistance to immigrants. People worry that cheap labor will lower wages but there is also resistance to differences in language and culture. This is not a little thing. Over most of human history, ethnic groups did not mix much and when they did, all too often it has been at the point of a sword. We form national bonds based on a common history and a common culture. We have learned to trust our neighbors and distrust strangers.

Restrictions on immigration grew out of anti-immigrant movements like the "Know Nothings" of the 19th Century but they didn't really take hold until we started seeing significant non-white immigration. Laws were passed beginning in the 1920s to attempt to maintain the ethnic identity of the US by establishing quotas for immigration pegged to the proportion of each nationality already here, favoring Europeans heavily. In fact, since quotas were based on the 1890 census, they also worked to exclude Italians and other southern European and Eastern Europeans, who mostly arrived after that date. It should be noted that today's undesirable immigrant may be favored tomorrow. There were also restrictive laws against Chinese and other Asians.

Actually, class proves to be a much more accurate measure of who is welcomed and who is not. Poor people are usually scorned but it is the poor people who provide that low wage labor pool that is so useful for employers. Public policy is weighted against poor people but this is precisely the group that has the most to gain by coming here and that is most in demand. This is where "illegal" immigration comes from. People have shown infinite ingenuity in overcoming obstacles to get across the border. Once here, they fill an important economic niche. However, since they are by necessity in hiding from the authorities, they are vulnerable to exploitation and do not receive the wages and safety conditions that are supposed to be standard here. Complaints can result in a call to the INS and deportation. This creates a labor force that cannot help but undermine worker safety and minimum wage laws for everybody. A case could be made for eliminating these status violations, legalize everybody, enforce the labor laws and eliminate this kind of exploitation.

The other solution is to stop illegal immigration by fortifying the borders and crack down on employers who hire illegals. This has actually been the official policy but it has not been effectively enforced. Groups like the Minutemen say that if we stepped up enforcement we could achieve those goals and protect American culture and jobs from these invaders. They say we could also prevent drugs and terrorists from coming into the country. Perhaps we could, with a Berlin Wall thousands of miles long and a huge military presence patrolling it. We would have to ask if the benefits outweighed the cost.

Nonetheless, this approach has a lot of support and the Sensenbrenner Bill, HR 4437, which embodies this approach passed the House of Representatives. The current wave of protest was in reaction to this legislation coming to the Senate. The bill would make undocumented workers and anybody helping them felons.

Another way to look at it would be to ask what is going on in Mexico, for example, that drives people to make the long arduous journey to the US and put up with the poor pay, bad conditions, discrimination, often separation from their families and the constant threat of deportation. Everybody's story is different but many simply have no better options at home. NAFTA was supposed to help the Mexican economy and encourage companies to create jobs there. Indeed many factories sprang up just across the border, with low wages, often unsafe conditions and poor environmental records. However, now many of those jobs have moved to China where the atmosphere is even more "business friendly". Meanwhile US agribusiness is now exporting food to Mexico cheaper than small farmers there can grow it, causing them to lose their livelihoods and look for opportunities in the north.

The world is shrinking in the modern age. You can travel to any part of the globe in just a few hours. Radio, television and the internet can bring pictures and stories instantly around the world. In this climate, national distinctions are bound to break down. "Free Trade" Movements such as NAFTA and the WTO recognize this but they only give freedom to money. At the same time they restrict the freedom of people to make regulations that regulate business for the common good. and to look for work wherever the jobs may be.

We should be moving towards a world in which people can move freely around the world in a community of nations. It should be a world in which people can live a good life and have good jobs, not just in a few rich countries but everywhere. In a world in which everybody enjoys economic as well as political freedom and justice, we will all be happier and more secure. It may not be easy to get there but at the least, we should head in that direction.

From Bangor to Iran - The Threat of Nuclear Weapons

2006-04-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

Last August I was one of 19 protesters arrested at the gates of the Trident Submarine Base in Bangor, Washington. The protest, sponsored by Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, was intended to call attention to the nuclear weapons based here on the scenic Hood Canal. The Cold War may be over but these Cold War weapons still set sail from here to cruise the world's oceans, ready to inflict unimaginable destruction on the world. Each one of the 9 nuclear armed submarines based here carries 24 missiles. Each missile carries 6-8 nuclear warheads. Another group of 5 Tridents is based on the East Coast. A Seattle Times article says, "scientists believe a single Trident submarine could destroy all life on Earth".

For the past 30 years, the Ground Zero Center has maintained their protest against this horror with a peace park on property they own just down the street from the main gate. On Martin Luther King's birthday, Mother's Day and the anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, people can be counted on to block the entrance to the base and risk arrest. In the late 90s three successive groups of protesters were acquitted in Kitsap County courts and prosecutors had declined to press charges since February 2000.

We chose to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings by calling attention to these all too real weapons of mass destruction in our own backyard. This time 4 of the 19 arrested were brought to trial on charges of Failure to Disperse. This charge requires that the action creates a "substantial risk" of injury to persons or to property. The trial on April 10-12, ended in a mistrial when the jury of 6 found itself split 3-3. Those voting to acquit were apparently convinced by testimony showing the great concern for safety that went into the planning for this action and all the Ground Zero actions. The government had tried to exclude all mention of why we were there, the destructive power of nuclear weapons and international law but the 4 on trial were able to speak about their deeply held beliefs about the threat of nuclear weapons and the Trident submarines. After failing to convict protesters for the fourth time in a row, county prosecutors have to decide whether to retry these four, select another group from the 15 still uncharged in the August 2005 protest or the 17 arrested January 16, 2006, or save their time and money for more important things.

The Bush administration has informed us that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, which could threaten us, or Israel. There isn't actually any evidence that this is so, just repeated assertions. Of course we have heard this story before with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction. There was nothing that Saddam Hussein could say to deny it, since any denial was just taken as proof that he was lying. Iran finds itself in a similar situation today when they assert that they want nuclear power but not weapons. They can hardly be blamed for resisting intrusive inspections when they have heard Scott Ritter and others explain how inspections, even under UN auspices, in Iraq were used as cover for US spies to plan bombing campaigns and even back a coup attempt. Bush denies leaks from his administration that he is contemplating an attack on suspected nuclear sites with the statement that he is pursuing diplomatic solutions so he won't have to use force. This can hardly be reassuring to a regime that Bush wants to change. On the other hand, the Iranian government seems to delight in defying the US and probably finds these threats useful as they rally Iranians to defend their country. Internal opposition appears to have quieted down recently. Who knows, maybe they are coming to the conclusion that they should have a secret nuclear program because an actual bomb is apparently the only thing that will stop the US administration from "preemptive" attacks any time they think they will get some political advantage out of it.

Perhaps the leaks about attacks on Iran are no accident but are intended to plant the idea of an attack in the American public's mind. Just as with Iraq, repeated assertions are intended to convince people of its inevitability, and to cement the idea of Iranian nuclear weapons into the American mind. They may have leaked and quickly denied the nuclear plan just to make a "conventional" attack more palatable.

The United States is in a very weak position when it comes to opposing nuclear proliferation. They have by far the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, any one bomb being capable of destruction on a scale almost beyond imagining. They have never given up the option of being the first to use nuclear weapons. They are the only country that has ever used them. They tacitly support Israel's nuclear weapons, despite its destabilizing effect on the Middle East. They support the wide use of nuclear power, which can be a stepping stone to acquire weapons, if a country decides to go that route. They are developing a new generation of "smaller" weapons that will be more likely to actually be used. And they have done nothing to live up to their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. While the treaty prohibits non-nuclear countries from developing them, it also requires countries that already have them to move towards abolition.

The Ground Zero Actions call attention to the necessity for all countries to renounce the use of nuclear weapons, including the United States. It is discouraging that political leaders of both of the major political parties refuse to even discuss this issue but public opinion is firmly against the first use of nuclear weapons and would like to see fewer of them. Perhaps that is why juries won't convict Ground Zero protesters.

The Union of Concerned Scientists discuss many of these issues in their back grounder U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Dangerous and Counterproductive.

Aaron Dixon and the Green Party Promote True Democracy

2006-04-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

"I believe that American combat troops should come home from Iraq in 2006 - not the distant future as President Bush does. Furthermore, I believe we must set a May 15th deadline for the Iraqis to form an effective unity government. And, if the Iraqi politicians choose to ignore that deadline, then I believe things will only get worse and we will have no choice but to withdraw immediately."
-John Kerry April 7, 2006

Yesterday morning I logged on to my computer to find an email from John Kerry calling for withdrawal from Iraq and asking me to support him. My first thought was that the statement, as far as it goes, is pretty good. He should get some credit for coming around to this position, finally. After all, Kerry supported the war in the beginning. He voted for it, even though tens of thousands of his constituents were begging him not to. In the three and a half years since then, he has always taken the course that he thought was politically expedient. He refused to make Iraq an issue during his presidential campaign, accusing Bush of mismanaging the war but never questioning whether we should be there and never advocating for withdrawal. He accepted the support of thousands of anti-war volunteers who donated unprecedented amounts of time and money in the hope of defeating Bush but he wouldn't take their advice. Along with most of the Democratic Party, he made a disastrous miscalculation. They thought that they could have it both ways. They took the anti-war vote for granted, figuring that progressives had no where else to turn. Then they tried to attract Republican voters by taking positions only slightly different from the Republican party line. The Flip Flop attack worked because there is some truth to it. The result has been loss after loss for the Democrats, who are seen as not standing for anything.
Kerry has finally decided that he should support withdrawal from Iraq. He must have read the polls that show plummeting support for an obviously failed policy. You can hardly blame people for reacting skeptically.

Yesterday evening I attended Aaron Dixon's Green Party campaign kickoff event . Dixon is running for the seat currently occupied by one term Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell. Cantwell recently said that she does not regret her vote to authorize the war and would vote for it again, even knowing what she knows today. She sees no need for an exit strategy. At a recent anti-war demonstration I saw a sign calling on her to have some backbone but that is not her problem. She is standing up for what she believes. She is just wrong. I am focusing on the war here but there are a host of issues ranging from the WTO to her refusal to filibuster Samuel Alito, tax cuts for the rich... the list goes on. Once again Democrats are taking the progressive vote for granted but this time they may not get it. The Green Party and Dixon's campaign are based on the premise that we should vote for what we really believe. As long as we settle for a lesser evil, we will have no chance to make the kind of changes that this country so desperately needs. As Aram Falsafi, a Seattle Green Party leader, says on the Dixon campaign site, " Even if your ultimate goal is to convert the Democratic Party into a genuine alternative to the current ruling cabal, we urge you to stick to your principles and refuse to support a candidate with as horrible a track record as Maria Cantwell -- whatever the polls show on election day. A large-scale abandonment of Cantwell -- not to mention the other seven pro-war Democratic senators up for reelection this year -- will send a clear message for 2008: the antiwar movement will not be taken for granted."

What I saw at the Dixon event was a crowd that was desperate for some real democracy. With all the rhetoric that has been flying around about freedom and democracy in Iraq, it is especially depressing to see what passes for political debate in this country. Most people's concerns are simply not addressed. At the very least the Green Party offers a platform to discuss alternatives to the policies of what some of the speakers at last night's event called our present one party system. To quote Aaron Dixon on his website, " The majority of Republicans and high-ranking Democratic politicians, including the incumbent, have again and again ignored the desires and the best interests of the American people. We need and should have more than just a two-party system. We need diverse voices that will truly work for the interests and well-being of Americans, as well as the world community. We need 3, 4, 5 ... 9 viable national parties that all have an equal chance to win any public office. That will be the indication that we have a true democracy."

This is a strategy to look to the long term. Too often we have sacrificed what we really want, what this country really needs, in the hope of staving off the next outrage. All too often, we have failed on both counts. The Green Party says that it is more important to build a party that can speak out now and eventually be strong enough to have a real effect on policy. Now we have been down the third party path before and it has never come to anything yet but the Green Party has shown some staying power across the country, although success has been scattered and actual influence small. Unlike previous third party efforts, however, the Green Party's positions resonate with a large number of Americans who are increasingly disillusioned with the two big parties. They can also draw inspiration from the European Greens, who have been able to gain some power.

The Aaron Dixon campaign looks like a smart move to expand the Green Party's environmental base to include a strong stand against the war and in support of poor people. Dixon has made opposition to the war a central plank in his campaign. He proudly talks about his efforts to help and empower people through his work with the Black Panther Party and other community programs. The Black Panthers' Free Breakfast Program that gave thousands children a healthy start to their day, their Free Medical Clinics and other programs filled some of the gaps in our society's safety nets. Today's safety net is badly frayed and voices of ordinary Americans are heard even less today than they were back then. The poor are getting poorer even as the rich are getting richer. There is a huge movement for a humane immigration policy with a million people marching in Los Angeles and thousands in many other cities around the country. The war in Iraq is killing our young, destroying Iraq, hurting our reputation and damaging our security. Sustainable energy is a necessity if we are to avoid a Global Warming disaster. If the Green Party can actually pull together people concerned with all of these issues into a lasting coalition they may just have something.

Why We Fight

2006-03-25T13:30:00.000-08:00

Why We Fight - A film by Eugene Jarecki
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

This film features an unlikely hero in President Eisenhower. Jarecki starts with the 1961 farewell address in which the Military-Industrial Complex is first described and comes back to it periodically throughout. It is a noteworthy speech that has helped many of us understand how the self interest of defense contractors and the needs of a large standing army end up driving our foreign policy towards military responses over and over again.

Eisenhower was, of course, a career military man, who led the most powerful army in the history of the world to victory in World War II. He felt that war was absolutely necessary to defeat the Nazis. His statement opposing the military Industrial complex was insightful but was delivered as he gave up power and had no effect on policy. Reportedly he was frustrated by the inability of even the President of the United States to stop the trend towards the militarization of our society.

Looking at our history since WWII, we see a vast increase in American Military Power and a concomitant rise of the military contractor. The contractor was needed to supply a large standing army. The army was needed because we weren’t really at peace but engaged in an armed standoff with the Soviet Union, the Cold War. Now, a Cold War has a lot in common with a hot one. There is an almost unquestioning acceptance of the assumption that the enemy wants to annihilate us. Naturally, in those circumstances no expense is too great so we can be sure that we are the strongest one on the block. We have to be, so we can deter an attack and prevail if it comes to open hostility.

With a large permanent military establishment, the role of the military contractor also changes. Where war production had been organized to respond to a crisis, now it is a way of life. Whole companies now exist entirely for the purpose of supplying the military. So, instead of having a motivation of helping the country through a crisis, they are motivated by profit, which is simply how capitalism works.

War profiteering used to be a dirty word. Harry Truman made his reputation in the Senate investigating companies that made undue profits at the expense of the war effort in WWII. Whether they were overcharging or producing defective products, people were outraged. The right to make a reasonable profit was not questioned, but the idea that somebody would take advantage of a national crisis for their own benefit was seen as almost treasonable. Of course, profiteering is hardly new. It has reared its head over and over again and has been denounced whenever it is uncovered. However, now there seems to be a lot less concern that defense contractors are unduly profiting at the public expense.

The problem is that in order to increase profits, companies have learned to influence the decision makers, not just in the Pentagon, but also in Congress, to spend more on “defense”. New weapons systems may or may not serve a real military purpose but they serve a very profitable purpose for the companies. They are also very useful for our Representatives in Congress, who can campaign back home by bringing jobs into the district. The film cites the B1 bomber, which has components made it every state of the union. That gives it a whole lot of political clout. Defense is the best pork there is. Defense contractors are also big contributors to political campaigns. This makes politicians less likely to challenge these companies and more likely to buy off on expensive new weapons systems.

In a time of war, and we have been on a continual war footing ever since WWII, no expense is too great for the defense of our country. If budget cuts have to be made, other programs suffer, not defense. If they can’t find anything else to cut, no matter, we’ll go into debt. US military spending is at an all time high and dwarfs that of any other country. In fact, we outspend the rest of the world combined. At the same time, our debt ceiling has just been raised to a mind boggling $9 trillion, approximately $30,000 per person. That would put a family of 4 on the hook for $120,000. But not to worry, we will only pay the interest on that. The burden of paying off the principal will fall on our children and grandchildren.

With such an emphasis on the military, there has also developed a willingness to use military force to try out all these new weapons systems we paid so much for. The same forces that lead us to keep building them also impel us to use them, at least partly to justify the expense of building them. This isn’t the primary reason we go to war but since policy makers have already committed themselves to the notion that new weapons systems equals national defense, it is a contributing factor. The Gulf War was touted as an opportunity to battle test a whole new generation of weapons. Much was made of so called “smart” bombs with pinpoint accuracy, although civilian casualties were not reduced nearly to the extent that was initially reported. Depleted uranium shells proved very effective in penetrating armored vehicles, although the long term toxicity to both Iraqis and our own military has not been officially acknowledged.

We fight overtly and covertly to maintain our position as a superpower and to support our “national interest”, however that is defined. To a large extent that is spelled O-I-L. In Iran, the CIA overthrew a democratically elected government in 1953 that wanted a greater share of Iranian oil profits, and greater control over Iranian oil resources, to stay in Iran, rather than simply benefit western oil companies. The brutally repressive government of the Shah was so hated that radical fundamentalists were able to use that anger to seize control of the government in 1979. Now the US was so worried that Iran had become a hostile oil power that they supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq and even encouraged him to go to war against Iran. When he used chemical weapons the US administration looked the other way. In 2003 these weapons would be used as a pretext for invading Iraq, even though they had been destroyed a decade earlier.

Since the end of the Iranian war, Hussein had consolidated his power and was distancing himself from the US as part of his attempt to become more of a leader of all the Arab people, not just Iraq. Another part was his support of Palestinian rights and a greater opposition to Israel. In 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, there was a fear that it could threaten Saudi Arabia as well. The end of the Cold War was increasing pressure to reduce US military spending. Military hawks were looking for an opportunity to overcome the so called “Vietnam Syndrome”, or the aversion of the American public to go to war following the disastrous Vietnam war. All of these forces came together in the Gulf War and continue to shape US military policy today.

These policies are not the property of one political party or the other. Over the past 60 years both Democrats and Republicans have presided over the rise of the Military Industrial Complex and have profited from it. One could easily expect that a film that lays out the tremendously powerful forces that lead us to an ever more militarized society would be demoralizing to the peace movement. But in the conversation after the film in the packed theater where I saw it, people seemed grateful to see somebody talking about these issues openly and were inspired to renew their commitment to change.

The Longer We Stay, The Worse It Gets

2006-03-09T20:44:00.000-08:00

After 3 years of war in Iraq, it is abundantly clear that the occupation is actually making the situation worse. Last fall the British commissioned a poll that showed that 82% of Iraqis want our troops to leave. A recent poll of US soldiers there shows that over 70% think we should leave. Why? because they know that our presence is not helping.

The level of violence continues to increase. There are more attacks and reprisals every day, Amnesty International and others have documented continuing torture in American and Iraq government prisons. Death squads kill with impunity. Ordinary people are scared to go out on the streets due to the general lack of security. Basic services such as clean water and electricity are in very short supply. Promises of reconstruction remain mostly unfulfilled. Most people there blame the Americans.

Extremists are using the anger most people there feel at the mess to increase their own power. Ethnic Cleansing and Civil War are looking more and more likely. Rumsfeld says that the US would stay out of a civil way but it is hard to see how that would be possible.

In short, the first thing we need to do to improve the situation in Iraq is to leave. This will lower the level of tension and cut off support for the insurgency by removing their best recruiting tool, occupying Americans. Only then can the conditions for a settlement between all the parties be created.

Tridents at Indian Island

2006-02-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

I live in Port Townsend, Washington, near the Indian Island Naval Magazine, the largest munitions depot on the West Coast. Many of the munitions headed for Iraq are loaded here. Not much further away is the Trident Submarine Base in Bangor, WA. Up until now, the Tridents have been exclusively a platform for nuclear missiles. The Navy is now retrofitting some of them to be able to launch cruise missiles, with either conventional high explosives or nuclear warheads. The conventional weapons will be loaded here at Indian Island. After years of refusing to discuss where nuclear weapons are stored, the Navy has said that nuclear weapons will not be loaded at Indian Island. This statement is apparently in response to local protests against the base.

The rest of this article originally appeared as a letter to the Editor in the Jefferson County Leader.

Bringing Trident submarines to Indian Island will not significantly change anything there. It will continue to be the major port used for shipping weapons from the West Coast. It is, however, a disturbing indication of the way our military will be used in the coming years. The Tridents that will be coming here are being refitted to carry cruise missiles, which are capable of carrying either conventional warheads or tactical nuclear weapons. The idea is to allow the submarine to creep up near any coast in the world and launch missiles that could reach their target within minutes. They are also rigged to put ashore commando units, in secret, anywhere they want. Submarines are used for this kind of mission, because, unlike other kinds of forces, they are largely invisible. Covert missions are used to carry out policies without the knowledge or consent of the American people.

The Administration has asserted the right to attack anybody, anytime, anywhere in the name of the "War on Terror". These subs are just the tool they need to do that. Judging by their record so far, most of those missiles will be hitting innocent people who are unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. These attacks will only fuel anti-American feelings.

Even worse, Bush clearly would like to be able use "limited" nuclear weapons in some situations. A nuclear warhead on a cruise missile launched from a Trident without warning only a few minutes from its target would be both devastating and destabilizing. How can we expect other countries to refrain from developing or using nuclear weapons when we keep a huge arsenal of our own and assert our right to bomb anybody we choose?

Root Out the Evil

2005-07-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

In Kathleen Parker’s Sunday (7/17/05) column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “Modern Muslims must root out the evil”, Ms. Parker asserts that “moderate Muslims must be unrelenting in eliminating - not just condemning - Islam’s bad actors.” If that is so, then it also follows that Americans must be unrelenting in eliminating our own bad actors. Of course, our bad actors don’t support suicide bombers. They don’t have to because they have airplanes to drop the bombs, but the civilians are just as dead and their friends and families are just as grief-stricken. Whether they were killed by a stray bomb, or by a scared American soldier pulling the trigger a little too quickly at a checkpoint, or indeed by punitive sanctions during the 90s that never hurt Saddam Hussein but denied food, medicine and safe drinking water to the Iraqi population, far more innocent people have been killed by the US government than by terrorists.

You may argue that this is war and different standards apply. If so it is a war that was never declared. Congressional authorization was based on deliberate lies by an Administration that was determined, as the Downing Street Memo tells us, to make the intelligence fit the predetermined policy. The President’s justification for the war has changed with the political climate. Whether he is fighting to eliminate WMDs or to bring democracy to the Middle East or to “fight the terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them here”, it doesn’t hold water.

If the US is fighting a war, then it follows that its enemies are also fighting a war. Al Quaida issued a declaration of war against the United States several years ago and they refer to their attacks as military operations. I don’t have any special insight into their thoughts but perhaps they see their attacks as similar to, on a much smaller scale, the strategic bombing of English, German and Japanese cities in WWII by all sides. In that case, civilians were seen as participants because of their support for their government’s war effort and the hope was that civilian casualties would undermine that support.

According to this morning’s paper, 1,763 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Thousands more have been injured and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and injured. The occupation is widely hated and is used as a justification for continued insurgent attacks. The situation continues to deteriorate. Those who hope for a civil war are winning the battle. One can’t help but think that the American occupation is making things worse. Surely there must be an alternative but George Bush’s insistence that he cannot possibly have been wrong in any way stands in the way of finding a way out. Most Americans agree that the war was a mistake. Many have come to the conclusion that the road to peace starts with American withdrawal. That will undercut the appeal of the insurgency and open the door to negotiation among Iraqis. Perhaps peacekeepers can be recruited from other Arab countries as a transitional measure. One thing is certain. It is time to bring our troops home.

Those of us who believe this have an obligation not just to condemn this war but to act to end it. Letters and phone calls to our Senators and Congressional Representatives may prod them to action. Talking to our friends and writing letters to the editor can get more people involved. Join an organization working for peace. Demonstrate.
Go to Washington, DC for the September 24-26 massive mobilization against the war.

Bring the Troops Home.

Same Day Voter Registration Can Boost Participation

2005-02-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

Voter turnout in the United States is among the lowest in the world. When people don't participate in the system, they tend to have less confidence in the political decisions that result.

Restrictive voter registration requirements make it difficult for many to vote. As usual, poor people have a harder time of it. Poor people tend to have less stable living arrangements and may have to move more often. Actually, anybody who moves is going to have a lot going on in their lives. Updating their voter registration may not be their top priority.

There have been efforts to simplify the process. Motor Voter laws that allow you to register to vote when you get a driver's license are one example. Mail in registration is another. Voting by mail works for many people.

Most states cut off voter registration about a month before the election. This is so the election department has time to compile and print up comprehensive lists ready to use on election day. But, this is just when things are getting interesting and new voters are most motivated to get involved. In Washington, mail in registrations have that 30 day cut off but a voter can register in person at their county auditor's office for another two weeks. Curiously, I was told at my local Auditor's office that a completed form from a voter registration drive turned in to the auditor by anyone other than the voter was considered a mail in registration and did not qualify for the extra time even though they had it in hand. I never did understand why it made a difference who handed the form over the counter. Certainly it is confusing and disappointing to a citizen who finally gets motivated to vote, only to be told that they missed the deadline.

Currently six states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Idaho and 3 others) get around this problem by allowing election day registration. North Dakota abolished voter registration altogether 50 years ago. These states show higher rates of voter participation than the rest of the country. An analysis of voting trends from 1996-2000 showed the greatest increase in turnout in the states that have same day registration. When a 2002 Harris poll asked what would help get them to the polls, non-voters ranked same day registration at the top of the list.

Objectors to same day registration claim that it would promote voter fraud, but this has not been borne out by the experience of those states that use it. Voters are required to sign an affidavit that they are qualified to vote and show proof of identity and residence. This is basically the same as for advance registration. If there are concerns about somebody voting twice, same day registrants can be given a provisional ballot that will be counted after a cross-check of records show that there is no duplication. In fact, a better system for checking on eligibility could actually reduce fraud. Perhaps we could look towards Afghanistan and Iraq and use the finger dipped in indelible ink system to prevent double voting.

Following North Dakota's lead and abolishing voter registration would save the money currently spent on maintaining those records. Since it would also require each voter to show their current residence when they vote, it would automatically eliminate the problem of people neglecting to update their registration.

With voter confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes waning and budget shortfalls challenging us to find more efficient ways to operate our local governments, now is a great time to look into some form of same day voter registration.

Election Reform is Urgent

2005-02-04T19:06:00.000-08:00

The irregularities, machine failures, paperless ballots,
disenfranchisement, lack of transparency, and a host of other issues in
the 2000 and 2004 elections underscore an electoral crisis that needs to
be fixed right away. Americans are losing confidence in the integrity of
our electoral system, and with good reason.

The Washington recount taught us some important lessons. First of all,
counties that used black box electronic voting machines had no way to
recount or validate their vote totals. We have to take their results on
faith. At the very least, machines should produce paper ballots for a
manual recount and for routine audits of results. It is extremely
disturbing to see proposed legislation (HB-1025) moving the deadline for
requiring electronic voting machines to produce a paper record of all
votes back from 2006 to 2007. Furthermore, this legislation would permit
the substitution of auditing software for an actual paper ballot. This
approach makes the problem worse, not better. What we need instead are
machines that produce paper ballots and a system to routinely audit the
results by comparing the machine results to the paper ballots in
randomly selected areas. If there is a significant difference, then more
investigation will be required, up to a full manual recount.

These machines are also lacking in security measures. A credit card
transaction on the internet is protected much better than our voting
machines. Voting machines are in many cases connected by modem.
Experienced hackers could obtain access by calling the modem. A small
group of hackers, or a single individual could alter the results in
hundreds of locations by as many votes as they thought they could get
away with. We donít know if this has actually happened but if it did, we
might never find out.

Second, there are counties still using punch cards. Punch cards are
notoriously prone to error. Voters have a hard time verifying that they
actually voted the way they intended. Hand counted paper ballots used to
be used everywhere and provide the greatest confidence in the integrity
of the system. Optical scan ballots are easy to mark and easy to read.
Voters can verify that they didnít make any mistakes before they turn in
their ballot and they can be easily recounted if necessary. Of course,
as with any voting system, there ought to be a routine audit as part of
the certification process to make sure that the count is accurate.
Machines are limited in their ability to interpret votes that any person
would understand instantly. For instance, a voter unfamiliar with
optical scan might circle their choice rather than fill in the little
blip or a punch card machine might leave a hanging or a pregnant chad.
The right to vote should not be denied due to a computerís limitations.

Third, there ought to be a guarantee that absentee ballots and
provisional ballots are actually counted. We saw during the recount that
these ballots are treated very differently in different counties. No
registration or vote should be disqualified without notifying the voter
of the problem and giving them an opportunity to correct the problem.
Provisional ballots were intended to insure that all voters will have a
opportunity to vote and have that vote counted. When a provisional
ballot is needed, it should trigger an investigation of what went wrong,
so that voting and registration procedures can be improved.

We call ourselves the greatest democracy in the world. We owe our
country no less than to make it so.

(Dan Goldstein lives in Port Townsend and is a member of Concerned
Voters of Jefferson County)

(Originally published as an Op-Ed in the Seattle Post Intelligencer)

Resolution on Iraq

2004-04-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Proposed at the Jefferson County, Washington Democratic Party Convention

Whereas President George W Bush led us into war in Iraq under false pretenses, asserting an imminent danger from Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism, which did not, in fact exist;

Whereas terrorists such as Al Quaeda hope to inflame passions against the United States and are benefiting through increased recruitment and support as a direct result of the destruction and suffering caused by the war, thus increasing the threat of terrorism;

Whereas the occupation is not moving Iraq towards democracy and stability but into a cycle of violence and counter violence in which American troops are opposed by increasing numbers of Iraqis;

Whereas the billions of dollars that are being spent on the war increases the US budget deficit, harms the economy and diverts funds from beneficial purposes;

Therefore be it resolved that we urge the United States government to ask the United Nations to draw up and implement a plan to:

.Withdraw all American troops from Iraq;
.Establish a transitional international peacekeeping force to protect the public until Iraqis can assume that function;
.Hold elections and handle the transition to a democratically elected Iraqi government.

Be it further resolved that the United States should assume a major portion of the cost of the UN Peacekeeping force and the reconstruction of Iraq while leaving the United Nations in control of the transition to Iraqi self government, reconstruction contracts and economic policy during the transitional period.

(This resolution along with all other resolutions proposed was passed along to the State Convention without comment or discussion)

The FCC - A Modest Proposal

2003-06-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

The airwaves belong to the people. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the only way to obtain a license to use those airwaves, in a major market, is to buy a license for millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. Broadcasting becomes the exclusive prerogative of the rich.

The law provides for broadcast licenses to be issued for a limited period of time. Currently, the term is 8 years, at the end of which time it is always renewed. In theory there is a possibility that in extreme cases of misuse of this public resource, the license could be taken away. Public comments can be taken, a process is followed, but the assumption is that the license will be renewed.

The result is that it is practically impossible for someone new to start a station. All the frequencies are already taken. (Qualification - there are some parts of the country with a few available frequencies, just not where most people live.)* If you had the foresight to grab a license back at the beginning of time, then you are in clover. If not, then you have to buy an existing license. Prices get into the hundreds of millions of dollars, if you can find somebody who is willing to sell. Many licensees are in it primarily to speculate in the price of the license. Any interest to actually run a station is secondary. (I can't substantiate that statement. It goes to the state of mind of a corporation. However, with rising purchase prices for licenses, appreciation of license value represents an opportunity that corporations simply cannot ignore. If speculation in licenses makes them more money than actually running the stations then it is only natural that that will be their major interest.)

So, given this situation, monopolization of the market by a few mega-corporations is practically inevitable. Nobody else can afford to break in. It is profoundly undemocratic and all the worse since it is the public's resource. Congress and the FCC are supposed to protect the public interest but they have been reducing their restrictions and oversight. They are actually protecting the interests of the monopolists.

Now for my proposal. We can change this situation and restore the airwaves to the public, increasing diversity and promoting the free flow of ideas essential to a democracy. All it takes is a small change of emphasis and a huge change of attitude.

What would happen if the license were to actually expire at the end of its term? It would not be automatically renewed, in fact it wouldn't be renewed at all. Somebody else would get a chance to broadcast. Speculation in licenses would end. Since it would expire in a few years, its value would be greatly reduced. In fact, we might want to forbid the sale of a license. If a licensee didn't want it, they could turn it back to the FCC to be reassigned. There are lots of people who would want the chance to broadcast, if only they could get a license. The FCC says as much on their website. In fact, that is what drives the speculation in licenses.

When a license expires it will need to be reassigned. The fairest way to do that would be a lottery. The current FCC assumption that the applicant with the most money is to be favored** has no basis and is profoundly anti-democratic. Many small stations do just fine with quite modest budgets. Actually, with less money tied up in the license, there should be more money available for equipment and programming.

When a broadcaster gives up their license, they would still be eligible to try to get a new one for the same frequency, or a different one, on an equal basis with everybody else. They could sell their equipment to the next licensee, or equipment could be leased for the term of the license.

The public would have to get used to a constantly changing array of broadcast stations. Some might not like losing their favorite station, but certainly many people lose their favorite stations today. Stations are bought or just change their format and programs all the time. You can take it for granted that nothing lasts. At least with new stations coming on the air all the time with a variety of programming choices, we should have a good chance of finding something else to our liking. We will be forced to seek out new sources for news and entertainment, which will help nurture the free and diverse flow of information our democracy needs.

The transition will be difficult. Current owners will not be happy to give up their monopolies. A broadcaster who has huge amounts of money tied up in their license will not like to hear that it has no resale value. Perhaps there could be some ameliorative measures but it is not always in the public interest to protect speculators when their investments go bad. It is, after all, necessary to reform the system precisely because the public interest has been abused.

I have no illusion that this is a perfect system. Perhaps there are negative aspects I haven't thought of, or further refinements that will be needed to prevent abuse. Certainly it can use more study and contributions from many people. I do think that we need to think about how to restore democracy to our public airwaves and not just react to each new outrage as it occurs.

*see the FCC website: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/getstat.html. "Potential applicants for radio and television services should be aware that frequencies for these services are always in heavy demand. For example, the Commission received approximately 30,000 inquiries from persons seeking to start radio broadcast stations last year. Where broadcast frequencies remain available, competing applications are routinely received. Thus, you are cautioned at the outset that the filing of an application does not guarantee that you will receive a broadcast station construction permit. You should also be aware that in many areas of the country, no frequencies may be available on which a new station could commence operating without causing interference to existing stations, which would violate FCC rules. For that reason, we do not recommend that you purchase any equipment before receiving a construction permit from the FCC."

**see the FCC website: http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/about/index.html where they assert that the willingness to pay more means that the license will be used more effectively - "The auction approach is intended to award the licenses to those who will use them most effectively." and on http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/about/auctiondesigns.html, "This provides information about the value of the licenses to all bidders and increases the likelihood that the licenses will be assigned to the bidders who value them the most."

Dear Al Gore

2002-12-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

Dear Al,

I've been thinking about you since I just read a couple of articles by Sarah Vowell about you, about how you were too smart, too nerdy for today's politics and what a shame that is.

I have also listened to sound bites from the last few months, in which you have been critical of the impending war and of Republican economic policies. I have to say that you sounded pretty good. You didn't hedge your bets or worry about offending somebody every time you opened your mouth. What a refreshing change from practically every politician in the country, especially the Democrats. How are the Democrats going to attract support if they don't stand for anything?

Well, I just heard that you decided not to run for President. Probably a smart move. You would have been attacked from all sides and advised to death by well meaning consultants. Your strong direct appealing words wouldn't have lasted long.

You know, I am still furious over the way you blew the 2000 election. Oh, I know that you got more votes and really did win but it shouldn't even have been close. I know you are capable of delivering a strong, passionate message. At the convention and again the day before the election you made speeches that talked about empowering ordinary people and outlining the real differences between Democrats and Republicans. You made me want to support you then. Unfortunately, the rest of the campaign was so lackluster that even when you were right, you failed to engage me or make me want to vote. I would have voted for Nader if my state hadn't been so evenly divided. What almost saved you was fear of what Bush would do. We had no idea, of course, but what we did know was bad enough.

Now we see a President out of control. Republicans are on the attack, with an unabashed policy of enriching the rich with no controls, no thought for the rest of us. Democrats range from cheerleaders for the Republicans to silence. Nobody will say a thing in favor of the majority, the non-millionaires.

And yet, people are acting. Quietly organizing, publicly demonstrating. During the debate in Congress on the resolution authorizing attacking Iraq, representatives received thousands of letters opposed. They were deluged by opposition but most of them wouldn't go against the tide. There is no integrity in the process.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the responses, or lack thereof, to Trent Lott. The Senate Majority Leader, of course, said that he wished that Strom Thurmond's segregationist campaign for President in 1948 had succeeded. He couldn't have been clearer in his support for the policies that Thurmond espoused in that campaign. Thurmond was absolutely opposed to Civil Rights, just as Lott has consistently, in word and deed, opposed Civil Rights legislation. His statement last week showed that he still holds these views. There is no other way to understand it. At first, even the Democratic leadership said nothing, or tried to explain that Lott didn't really mean it. Nobody pressed Lott to explain exactly what he did mean. They only criticized him when it became clear that it would be politically advantageous to do so. And then they said as little as possible. They rushed to accept his apology that managed to not actually apologize for anything. This is the way they do things. They have to be forced to take a stand. Otherwise they just go right along with the corporatism that is rampant today.

I don't know what to do. Do we go Green? Do we try to take back the Democratic Party? Maybe we need a Gene McCarthy to really challenge the leadership and rally the opposition.

The Stock Market as a Ponzi Scheme FAQs

2002-11-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

The more I think about this, I feel like some paranoid nut spouting conspiracy theories. The problem is that for the life of me I can't find the flaw in my logic. Since the stock market bubble burst, with so many CEOs and other executives coincidentally cashing in their stock just before the crash, I have noted some similarities with the classic Ponzi or pyramid scheme. I have not been alone in this. However, as I consider the matter carefully, I can't see any important difference at all. The inescapable conclusion is that the stock market, as it operates today, is a pyramid scheme that would be shut down in a minute if somebody tried to start it up as a new enterprise. The plan to divert Social Security money into the stock market lends a new urgency to this question.

I found this definition of a pyramid scheme on the SEC Web site.

"In the classic "pyramid" scheme, participants attempt to make money solely by recruiting new participants into the program. The hallmark of these schemes is the promise of sky-high returns in a short period of time for doing nothing other than handing over your money and getting others to do the same.

The fraudsters behind a pyramid scheme may go to great lengths to make the program look like a legitimate multi-level marketing program. But despite their claims to have legitimate products or services to sell, these fraudsters simply use money coming in from new recruits is used to pay off early stage investors. But eventually the pyramid will collapse. At some point the schemes get too big, the promoter cannot raise enough money from new investors to pay earlier investors, and many people lose their money."

Consider then how the stock market operates. Read the above paragraphs substituting "stock Market" for "pyramid scheme". Investors are lured into the market with the prospect of high returns. What you hope for is that lots of other people will want to buy the same thing that you got, thus driving the price up. What you buy is nothing that is of value in and of itself. You can't eat it or fix your house with it or enjoy its beauty. You just hope that new participants are recruited into the scheme so you can sell out at a profit.

Stock Market Ponzi FAQs:

Q: Don't you own a share of the company when you buy stock?

A: In theory, yes. If you are a billionaire you might own enough stock to actually control the company. Your 100 shares gets you no voice in how the company is run. The only actual right you have is the right to sell out to new recruits to the scheme.

Q: What about dividends?

A: Most companies don't pay dividends. They would rather push the stock prices up. People used to own stocks in order to share in the profits via dividends. But the dividends are mostly a small part of the reason to own stocks. We wouldn't care about the Dow if we were in it for the dividends.

Q: Don't stock offerings serve an important purpose in raising capital for companies?

A: The primary purpose of stock offerings is to create a feeding frenzy in the market, drawing in new recruits and driving the stock price up so the insiders can profit. Private channels are much more important ways to raise capital for new ventures. By the time it gets to the stock market, they are just trying to bring in the chumps.

Q: Stock prices go up when companies show a profit and down when they lose money. Doesn't this show that there is something substantial behind stock prices?

A: Hello! Where were you during the tech bubble? From Amazon.com on down, lack of profits did not dampen the rising stock prices. What investors care about is whether other investors will buy a given stock. This depends on "investor confidence". Stocks are bought and sold on a short term basis by the big investors. They will buy a stock when a company does better than expected because they expect others will do the same. This is true even if the news is that the company loses less than expected. Investors will run from a company that makes a profit but a little less than expected in a given quarter to one that loses a little less than expected but still loses.

Q: Who benefits?

A: Many ordinary Americans watched their saving skyrocket during the 90s. Some of them actually got their money out before the crash. The big winners, however, were the insider traders. Ken Lay made millions of dollars by manipulating Enron's stock price and then selling out his shares just before the crash. Although the headlines went to Enron, this pattern was not all that unusual. Many companies used "creative accounting" to lie about their profitability and lure in new investors to push the price up.

Q: They couldn't all be crooks?

A: Maybe not, but consider this. Most CEOs are paid largely in stock options. This means that they can only make obscene incomes if they drive the stock prices up. So, they will do almost anything to drive stock prices up.

Q: What happened to regulation?

A: Good Question.

Q: But seriously ...

A: OK. The SEC requires that companies submit audited financial statements. Auditors are supposed to independently evaluate management figures and give their stamp of approval only if the books really reflect reality. Auditors, such as Arthur Anderson, have found that they are under tremendous pressure from their corporate clients to rubber stamp management's claims. Companies are not eager to pay higher audit fees in order to increase the chance that an audit will come up with unfavorable results. Auditors have been fired for delving too deeply. Meanwhile the SEC is supposed to be overseeing this process and conducting its own investigations but it is underfunded, especially compared to the corporate giants they are supposed to be investigating. Under the current administration the top posts in the SEC are held by people with close ties to the corporate world who seem uninterested in meaningful regulation.

Q: How does all this affect me?

A: Most pension plans are heavily invested in the stock market, so they are vulnerable. Worse yet, companies have largely switched to 401c(3) individual investment plans that encourage us to invest our pension money ourselves. This really puts us at an unfair advantage vis a vis the "big boys". People are watching their pensions evaporating before their eyes.

Q: At least I'll have Social Security?

A: That depends on Congressional action to insure that there are actually sufficient funds available when you retire to pay your benefits. Proposals to convert a portion of Social Security into individual accounts to be invested in the stock market can be seen as another attempt to lure more chumps into the market so that they can be fleeced.

Q: Isn't that a little extreme?

A: I told you I was feeling like a paranoid nut about this. You tell me where I'm wrong.

Q: Sure, the market is down now, but it will go back up again, won't it? After all, stock prices fluctuate but over the long run they always go up.

A: Just remember that the only reason stock prices go up is that there are more buyers than sellers. As long as there are new recruits to the scheme it can keep going but as the SEC says about pyramid schemes in general, "At some point the schemes get too big, the promoter cannot raise enough money from new investors to pay earlier investors, and many people lose their money." There is nothing more substantial than a lot of PR behind it all.

Blame Florida

2000-11-28T18:29:00.000-08:00

It is tempting to blame Bush for suing to stop the votes from being counted, or Gore for endless legal manouvering to somehow make the election come out his way, or little old ladies in Palm Beach who can manage 15 Bingo cards but couldn't figue out the ballot, or Katherine Harris for having too much make-up or the Florida Supreme Court for intervening or the US Supreme Court for intervening... The list goes on.

I blame Florida because nobody there seems to have a clue about how to hold a fair election. This is not a partisan issue because both Democrats and Republicans have built and maintained the system, if you can call it that, that failed to produce a result. We have to accept that whatever happens now, half the country is going to feel cheated. Why? Because Florida can't count votes.

How do you know who won a close election?

1) There have to be voting machines that accurately record the votes cast. Machines are necessary, whether they use gears and levers; punch cards, optical scanners or some other technology, because they are fast and generally accurate. Most ballots will be quickly and accurately read by a good machine. A bad machine, however, will lend itself to outright cheating or confused results. Machines that have been found to produce significantly inaccurate or incomplete results should be replaced. There should be a system to audit the results as part of the certification of the election. The purpose of the audit should be to verify the accuracy of whatever voting system is in use and/or to identify problems so they can be dealt with.

2) There has to be an agreement about what constitutes a vote. Clearly, if the intent of the voter can be reasonably determined, then that intent should prevail even if there are technical problems. An extraneous mark, incorrect ink color or a hanging chad should not disqualify a ballot, even if the machine can't read it. Ballots that are disqualified by the machine should be examined by a human being to determine what the intent of the voter was. This only works if the machine can flag the problem ballots so a person can find them and look at them. If there are a small number of problem ballots, it will be easy to examine each one. If there are a lot of problems, it may be indicative of problems in the machine, so they should be examined carefully and corrective action should be taken.

3) There has to be a procedure in place before the election that provides for a recount under certain well defined circumstances, such as a winning margin of less than 1/2 of 1%. Candidates also have to have the option of requesting a recount.

4) There has to be a well defined procedure for conducting a recount. The same standards should apply for the whole election. This will specifiy what gets counted, who conducts the recount and what counts as a vote. The purpose of the recount is to provide a more accurate result than the original count. Special care should be taken with ballots that have been disputed or rejected by the machines to insure that all qualified voters have their votes counted. Observers from both sides and the news media should be able to verify that everything is done properly and according to the accepted procedures.

So how does Florida stack up?

1) The punch cards used in some Florida counties were woefully inadequate. There is a long history of uncertainties created by chads that are not completely removed. In many cases the attempt to vote is foiled by a bad machine. This is clearly a scandal. Florida has had these problems for years and has not dealt with them. Now it has reared up to cast the Presidential election in doubt.
Additionally, the infamous butterfly ballot has proved to be a huge mistake. Thousands of voters were confused and either voted for the wrong candidate or for two candidates by mistake. Over 4% of the votes cast in Palm Beach County were disqualified for this very reason. Out of 25 people in line at the polls, one person did not have their vote counted. That is outrageious.

2) Every county in Florida has their own standard for whether to count hanging chads or dimples. Palm Beach county counts dimples only if a given ballot has lots of them. Other counties count them regardless. Even within a county, the election boards had to decide as they went along what to count and what not to count. Other states have established a standard and stuck to it. Florida could do neither. As a result the election officers trying to do their job were subject to public pressure, lawsuits and suspicion that they were not acting impartially. It cast the result of the election in doubt.

3) Florida does provide for an automatic recount in very close elections. This part of the process worked well. Nobody disputed that there should be a recount due to the closeness of the election.

4) The recount procedures in Florida were wholly inadequate. The intial recount by machine did nothing more than was done election night. Problem ballots were not examined. The machines read the ballots a little differently but there was no reason to think that the second time was more accurate.
The manual recount was not done statewide, leading to charges that it was an attempt to select areas that would help one candidate.
There was no attempt to isolate the problem ballots and determine the intent of those voters. Instead the manual recount spent incredible amounts of time reviewing ballots that been read accurately by the machines in the first place.

A more productive procedure would have started the recount with a machine recount, folowed by manual examination of ballots rejected by the machines. The same standards should be used statewide. Then any other disputes about any challenged ballots should be examined and resolved according to preset procedures. At the end of this process there would be a pretty clear result with little room for legal challenges.

Of course, Florida isn't the only place with these kinds of problems. We all should examine procedures in our own states and localities to make sure they live up to these standards. This messed up election should be an impetus to clean up our act.‡

Gore Wins

2000-11-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

The Presidential Election hinges on the results in Florida. The Florida results depend on three things as of this afternoon (Friday 11/10/00).

1) The results of the recount, which AP reports as giving Bush a 327 vote lead.

2) 2,000-3,000 outstanding absentee ballots, which won't be final until November 17.

3) 19,000 double-punched ballots in Palm Beach County. This represents 4.2% of the total ballots cast in that county for President and more than 58 times the 327 vote lead Bush currently holds. If these 19,000 ballots represent voters who were trying to vote for Gore, then Gore truly won Florida. Any recount has to include consideration of these ballots. They should be studied to see which candidates were voted. Press reports are tha t all or most of these were voted for Gore and Buchanan. I'll wager that this is not due to people who couldn't make up their minds between these two. If these ballots show people voting a straight Democratic ticket then it is pretty safe to say that th ey intended to vote for Gore. That intention should be honored. Even if that applies to only a small number of these ballots, it is more than enough to swing the election to Gore.

Voters have been reporting since Tuesday morning that they were worried th at they had punched their ballot incorrectly in trying to vote for Gore and voted for Buchanan instead. These reports were coming in long before anybody could have guessed how close the election would be. Many people have come forward to report that the y made this mistake. A large number of ballots marked for both of these candidates suggests that people started to punch the wrong hole and then corrected themselves. Unfortunately they ended up with both holes punched. It is very difficult to tell with a punch card ballot whether you voted correctly since the candidates names do not appear on the ballot itself, only on the machine.

The question is, what is to be done?

1) The election can be re-voted in the area affected by the ballot problems. This opens up the campaign again as both sides flood the area with campaign ads and workers to try to influence the outcome. I feel sorry for the people of Palm Beach. It could be a real mess. Besides, would only voters who voted last Tuesday be eligible or could non-voters decide that they want to vote now too? It seems unfair to let them vote again and not the rest of us. Maybe Nader voters would change their minds, knowing the closeness of the election. Maybe Buchanan voters would. No, the election happened we can't redo it.

2) The double-punched ballots can remain disqualified. After all, that is the normal procedure. That seems to be the Bush Campaign's position. Voters should have exercised more care in voting. If they thought they voted wro ng, then they should have requested a new ballot. Indeed, second guessing the intentions of voters is dangerous.

This option will result in Bush's victory. Many Gore Supporters will feel cheated by a deceptive ballot and some will believe that the elec tion was stolen. Bush will serve his term under a cloud. But he will have majorities in both the House and Senate.

3) Some or all of these ballots can be accepted as Gore votes. It seems certain to me that this was the intention of the people who cas t those ballots. Since only a small percentage of these ballots would make Gore President, It is safe to assume that a majority of the voters voted for Gore. Surely the will of the voters should be recognized.

Bush supporters may feel that the election was stolen away by highly suspect tampering with the ballots. Gore will serve out his term under a cloud. He will also face a Republican Congressional majority.

However, this election showed one thing. The country is incredibly evenly split between D emocrats and Republicans. It would be a fair reflection of this situation to have a Democrat as President and a Republican congress. After all, The Democrats won the popular vote for President by a hair and the Republicans won Congress by a hair. The E lectoral College is evenly split.

I believe that the Florida election officers, both campaigns and the American people are acting in good faith to try to find the "right" answer. The punch card ballots are difficult to use under the best of circumstan ces and the ballot could have been laid out differently. This was not an attempt by anybody to affect the outcome of the election. Both parties participated in this situation.

I also believe that the will of the voters can only be recognized with the ac ceptance of the disputed ballots as Gore votes. Gore won more votes, even if there was a technical problem that resulted in an unwanted second punch. 4.2% of the voters in Palm Beach County were disenfranchised by a poorly designed system. This is shock ing! This apparently has been going on for years, although not as badly. Why hasn't anybody noticed this and moved towards a system less prone to failure? I certainly hope that this would be a result of this election, not just in Florida, but throughout the country. If we have learned anything, it is that every vote counts and we have to design a system that accurately records every vote.