October 15, 2007 Volume VI, Number 42
A PROJECT OF THE CASCOGREENS
Paul Stephens, Editor and Publisher 406.216.2711 greateco@3rivers.net
THIS BULLETIN IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF ANY GREEN PARTY (see
disclaimers and selected resources at end)
Much of the content of this Bulletin is now being posted at
http://greateco.blogspot.com/
and http://www.myspace.com/greateco
Table of Contents:
UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS
FROM DEMOCRACY NOW
Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of
American Democracy - Charlie Savage interview
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/1455210
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAND USE GROK
Massive Wilderness Bill Inches Forward-13 Years Later
http://www.newwest.net/main/article/massive_wilderness_bill_inches_forward_13_years_later/
A key threshold crossed
IPCC report indicates limit on greenhouse-gases already exceeded By Gregory
M. Lamb, The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1011/p11s01-wogi.html
FROM GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES LISTSERVES
http://www.gp.org
Democrats and Republican, Greens and Reds: Why political parties are only as
good as the social movements which sustain them
by Scott Tucker, Editor of Open Letter
Can the Democratic Party be Saved? by Dave Lindorff
GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens
Anarchism, Feminism, and the Reconstruction of the State
The PAC-10 kids are at it again
USC's All-star Team
Philip Aaberg's new Piano Quintet
A note about why "classical music" is important
FROM NEW WEST.NET
Controversy Builds Over New American Indian Museum Director
By Rick Cohen
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/controversy_builds_over_new_american_indian_museum_director/C8/L8/
FROM RABBLE.CA
The Health Risks of GM Foods: Summary and Debate
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/GeneticRoulette/HealthRisksofGMFoodsSummaryDebate/index.cfm
FROM BLACK AGENDA REPORT (BAR)
Clarence Thomas, the 'Anti-Black' African America - Black Misleadership
Class
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=394&Itemid=33
COMMENT by Paul Stephens
ZNET COMMENTARY
Fatalism May Be Fatal By Michael Albert
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2007-09/28albert.cfm
September 11: The Epitome of American Arrogance
By Lucinda Marshall
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2007-09/22marshall.cfm
A NOTE ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
WEBSITES AND OTHER RESOURCES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE GREENS SUPPORT:
HEALTH CARE DOLLARS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS -- NOT INSURANCE COMPANIES AND
CORPORATE PROFITS http://www.pnhp.org
STOP THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW! WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ARE
NOT A LOCAL GROWTH INDUSTRY! http://www.antiwar.com/
COAL DEVELOPMENT MUST BE MINIMIZED, NOT MAXIMIZED: GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IS
REAL! http://www.ipcc.ch/ http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/
http://www.realclimate.org/
END CORPORATE DOMINATION AND PREDATION: CORPORATIONS AREN'T PEOPLE, AND THEY
DON'T HAVE "PROPERTY" OR OTHER RIGHTS! http://reclaimdemocracy.org/
For an introduction to Green Party philosophy and programs, go to
http://www.gp.org/welcome.shtml
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
UPCOMING AND ONGOING EVENTS
Do you support the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement?
Some local municipalities get it on the climate crisis and have been working
to meet these objectives. There are now over 500 city, town and county
governments representing over 50 million people that have signed onto the
Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/climate/
As explained on the website of Greg Nickels, the Seattle mayor who initiated
this effort over two years ago....
_____________
FROM DEMOCRACY NOW!
Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of
American Democracy
Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage joins us to talk
about his new book, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the
Subversion of American Democracy. Savage charts the ways the Bush
administration has circumvented laws and expanded presidential authority.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/1455210
_____________
THANKS to Senator Tester for VOTING AGAINST the irresponsible Kyl-Lieberman
amendment on Iran (moving us one step closer to war against Iran).
NO THANKS to Senator Baucus for failing to take action to stop the next war
the Bush-Cheney administration wants.
~ Frank Kromkowski
[Baucus's hypocrisy and duplicity knows no bounds. He refuses to support
NREPA (see next story), a bill which originated with Montana and other Rocky
Mountain environmental groups, claiming he "doesn't favor the top-down
approach to resource management, let alone someone from New York telling
Montana how to manage public lands." His recent TV ads supporting SCHIP
against Bush's veto claim that it would cost less than what we spend in Iraq
in a week - as though he hasn't supported the war and voted in favor of
every dollar wasted on it. And SCHIP, itself, is fatally flawed, since it
uses public money to buy "insurance" rather than paying health care
providers for this additional health care coverage for lower-income
children. Baucus always supports tax breaks for businesses to pay for
"insurance," not health care. He is one of the most insurance-funded
Senators out there.
Now, we read that he has already (a year in advance of the election!) raised
over $7 million dollars to buy ads with the corporate media. (He could buy
an entire Montana television network for that!) And they tell us this is the
"standard" by which candidates gain "credibility" and show they are
"electable." There is no reason to support Sen. Baucus's re-election for any
reason - even if the Republicans actually nominate someone like Racicot or
Rehberg to run against him (and they obviously have a deal not to do this,
but unless Baucus changes party affiliation, they will have to run a strong
candidate against him. Control of the Senate may again be decided by Montana
voters.) Obviously, the real Democrats aren't going to run anyone in the
primary against the pseudo-Democrat Baucus, either. Hopefully, the Greens,
Libertarians, or some independent will step up to get our support. -- PHS]
______________
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAND USE GROK
Massive Wilderness Bill Inches Forward-13 Years Later
http://www.newwest.net/main/article/massive_wilderness_bill_inches_forward_13_years_later/
By David Frey, 10-11-07
A vast wilderness plan stretching across the mountains in five states is
inching forward in Congress
after languishing for more than a decade. The Northern Rockies Ecosystem
Protection Act spans 23 million acres in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and
Washington. It's been controversial since its inception, and, writes the
Bozeman Daily Chronicle, its hearing before a House subcommittee next week,
is the farthest it's gotten in 13 years.
But those were years of Republican domination in the House. Now that the
Democrats are in control, supporters are hopeful it will stand a better
shot.
"NREPA's time has come," says Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, who along
with Christopher Shays, R-Conn., are sponsoring the bill.
Among the highlights of NREPA a 3 million acres of wilderness protection in
Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton national parks, plus a "wildland
recovery project" that would do away with 6,000 miles of road.
The problem, though, is that the bills sponsors tend to come from the other
side, not of the aisle, but of the country. That's enough to get Sen. Max
Baucus, D-Mont., to oppose it.
"Max doesn't favor the top-down approach to resource management, let alone
someone from New York telling Montana how to manage public lands," spokesman
Barrett Kaiser tells the Chronicle.
It's scheduled to hit the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 18.
Colorado had a strong year
protecting private lands from development last year, reports the Aspen
Times, but a report
the Colorado Conservation Trust shows land trust and governments are still
falling short of the group's conservation goal.
With some 167,500 acres preserved last year, Colorado ranked third in the
nation in land preservation, the group found, and was one of only two
Western states where more land is protected than is lost to development.
Still, the group found, Colorado's development rate is one of the highest in
the nation. As much as 90,000 acres of rural and natural lands may be
disappearing each year.
"Despite our substantial accomplishments, Colorado's conservation community
is falling behind in protecting our most special places," writes Will
Shafroth, executive director of Colorado Conservation Trust. "We need to
pick up the pace if we are to meet our 2 million-acre goal by 2015."
Among the threats facing conservation in Colorado is a boom in natural gas
drilling. Don't expect it to let up any time soon.
Jim Caswell, the new director of the Bureau of Land Management, told the
Associated Press that despite growing public opposition, the press for oil
and gas in the West is on
"There's absolutely no doubt that the interest in oil and gas is going to
continue. I mean, it is where it is," Caswell says.
Voter backlash is "to some degree overblown," he told the AP. Still, some
environmental concerns are on his platter, including protections for sage
grouse and other wildlife across the West.
"The key, though, to me is how do we develop that resource in the most
environmentally sensitive way?" Caswell says. "I mean, how can we be as
compatible as possible long-term? This is not some short-term thing; this is
long-term. I mean, we're talking 20, 30 years."
Plans for a nuclear waste storage facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain were
unpopular enough. Now, writes the Las Vegas Review-Journal, critics may have
twice the worries
of energy is roughly doubling the projected size in new studies for the
facility, with up to 135,000 metric tons of radioactive material slated for
the site. And officials are looking at the possibility that it could be
expanded further.
"Doubling the size of Yucca Mountain will only double the danger," says Rep.
Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "This is not a bad dream; it's a nightmare."
__________
FROM MILTON D.
Take a look at this geothermal project in Alaska. I wrote the company (UTC)
that built the unit to see if one could be added to a coal fired plant. A
coal fired plant misses 65% of the energy in the coal. If this technology
could be used on a coal plant that plant might be downsized by half. So a
250 megawatt plant might be downsized to a 125 megawatt plant and then use
this heat recovery system to still get 250 megawatts of power using half the
coal and producing half of the pollutants and maybe using only 1/3 the
water. There is enough geothermal in the west to supply us with 100% of our
electricity needs. No vagaries like with wind power.
http://www.yourownpower.com/
__________________
Income-Inequality Gap Widens; Highest Since 1920's
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101207R.shtml
Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal reports, "The richest Americans' share of
national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in
the 1990s bull market, and underlining the divergence of economic fortunes
blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers."
John Nichols Gore Wins the Norwegian Primary
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101207T.shtml
The Nation Magazine's John Nichols writes, "Al Gore has arrived at the point
that most politicians can only imagine in their wildest dreams. The entire
world is asking him to be not merely a candidate but an ecological - not to
mention, ideological - savior. And there is simply no question that he is vi
able. In fact, he is more viable than he has ever been."
Atlanta's Water Source Drying Up
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101207EA.shtml
Stacy Shelton for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes, "Lake Sidney
Lanier, metro Atlanta's main source of water, has about three months of
storage left, according to state and federal officials."
Greenpeace Hijacks UK Power Plant
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101207EB.shtml
Environmental News Network reports that "Greenpeace, the environmental
campaign group, has hijacked a power station in Kent. The takeover was
spurred by the prime minister's decision to approve the UK's first coal
plant in over three decades."
Nature Kill King Corn
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101207EC.shtml
Nature Magazine: Biofuels need new technology, new agronomy and new politics
if they are not to do more harm than good.
US Lets in More Immigrants for Farms
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101207LB.shtml
Nicole Gaouette, The Los Angeles Times: "With a nationwide farmworker
shortage threatening to leave unharvested fruits and vegetables rotting in
fields, the Bush administration has begun quietly rewriting federal
regulations to eliminate barriers that restrict how foreign laborers can
legally be brought into the country."
Crackdown Upends Slaughterhouse's Work Force
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101207LC.shtml
Steven Greenhouse for The New York Times reports, "Across the country, the
federal effort to flush out illegal immigrants is having major effects on
workers and employers alike. Some companies have reluctantly raised wages to
attract new workers following raids at their plants."
Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101207WA.shtml
Elisabeth Rosenthal for The New York Times writes that "A comprehensive
global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in
countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that
outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it."
/\/\/\/\/\
FROM MAZIN QUMSIYEH
http://justicewheels.org
http://qumsiyeh.org
(http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1192288533/ )(must read)
A NEW ISRAELI STUDY CONFIRMS OUR WORST FEARS : On the academic research of Psychologist Nofer Ishai-Karen and Psychology Prof. Joel Elitzur, Dalia Karpel shortened translation of article in Haaretz `Hamedovevet` Translation published in Israeli Occupation Magazine (this was in the Hebrew not English edition of Haaretz) http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=22525
(English partial translation) http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/905287.htm
(Hebrew in Haaretz)
Daniel Pipes and I have opposite views on many issues especially the core issue: his support of ethnocentric chauvinistic racism (Zionism). He even listed me (with five others including Noam Chomsky as "Professors who hate America").... Anyway, read what Pipes says in this Jerusalem Post article. It is a shame that some Palestinians are giving-up on our inalienable rights when most people (even Zionists) are coming to realize that the racism that denies us these rights is anachronistic and doomed to failure (Time was never on the side of Zionism no more than it was on the side of Nazism or South African Apartheid). http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4997
(Presidential) Candidates court Jewish support http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21266470/
The Mega-Lie Called the "War on Terror": A Masterpiece of Propaganda. By Richard W. Behan http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/63632/?page=entire
Grant F. Smith: "These are stifling times at college campuses" http://www.startribune.com/562/story/1479297.html
"It Doesn't Get Any Worse Than That, Ray: Unmasking AIPAC" By WILLIAM A. COOK http://www.counterpunch.org/cook10052007.html
"New revelations in attack on American spy ship: Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn't tell full story of deadly '67 incident"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,66005.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
(on how a visit to the occupied areas is essential for anyone wanting to give opinions on Israel/Palestine) "Go And See the Truth For Yourself, I Did," British Medical Journal,
http://uruknet.info/?p=m37031&hd=&size=1&l=e
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
/\/\/\/\/\
A key threshold crossed
An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report to be released next
month will show that the limit on greenhouse-gases scientists hoped to avert
has already been surpassed.
By Gregory M. Lamb, The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1011/p11s01-wogi.html
In Ray Bradbury's science fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451," that number
represented the temperature at which books would burn, a symbol of a
disturbing future under a totalitarian government.
For climate scientists, a similar number, 450 parts per million (ppm), holds
its own ominous meaning. It represents a dangerous concentration of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; a total that they were not expecting to
be passed for at least another decade.
But a new UN-sponsored report, to be released next month, will show that as
of 2005 the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had already
reached 455 ppm, according to Tim Flannery, a prominent Australian climate
scientist who says he's seen the raw data that go into the document.
In an interview on Australian television this week, Dr. Flannery said that
an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show that
carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide, methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and
other greenhouse gasses are at much higher concentrations than previously
thought
Reuters quotes him:
"We thought we'd be at that threshold within about a decade.... We thought
we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about mid-2005 we
crossed that threshold.... What the report establishes is that the amount of
greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that could
potentially cause dangerous climate change."
About 75 percent of the total ppm represents carbon dioxide, associated with
burning fossil fuels. The rest is a combination of the other gasses, he
said.
On the Sierra Club website, blogger Pat Joseph explains the meaning of 450
ppm
"450 ppm has long been held up as the threshold we dare not cross if we hope
[to] avert the worst consequences of warming. Well, if Flannery is right,
(and there's no reason to think otherwise) we crossed that line without even
breaking stride."How did it happen? For one thing, countries such as China
and India are actually "recarbonizing," Mr. Joseph says, meaning that their
economies are becoming more energy-intensive "as they turn increasingly to
[greenhouse-gas emitting] coal to feed their growth."
In May, the IPCC estimated current concentration of greenhouse gases at only
425 ppm
report at the time. It noted that many scientists equated 450 ppm with a 2
degree C (3.6 degrees F.) rise in temperatures. Allowing temperatures to
rise more than 2 C could lead to major impacts on the environment,
scientists said. In the article, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the
IPCC, explained the strategy this way:
"If you want to stabilise around 450 ppm, that means in a decade or two you
have to start reducing emissions far below the current level.... So in other
words, we have a very short window for turning around the trend we have in
rising greenhouse gas emissions. We don't have the luxury of time."
read more>> http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1011/p11s01-wogi.html
/\/\/\/\/\
FROM GREEN PARTY LISTSERVES
Democrats and Republican, Greens and Reds: Why political parties are only as
good as the social movements which sustain them
by Scott Tucker, Editor of Open Letter
For readers following health care debates and policies, note that the only
criticism of the Romney - Clinton health care plan in the article by Jason
Szep (see news story following) comes from Sally Pipes, president Pacific
Research Institute, a think tank that promotes so called "free-market"
policies. In other words, the "Massachusetts Model" is portrayed as leaning
toward big government, bureaucracy and runaway budgets. The convergence in
health care proposals coming from a Republican and a Democrat is indeed
newsworthy. But that's not even half the story, and does not reach to the
roots of our national health care crisis.
The Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) acknowledge that there
is a real problem with bureaucracy. But that this is the poisoned fruit of a
poisoned tree. The existing open market for medical middle-men and for
meddling bureaucrats is generated by the unhealthy alliance between
professional politicians and the big insurance companies. As noted on the
PNHP website:
http://www.pnhp.org/
"The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health
care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and
still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more
inadequately covered.
"This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume
one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment
though a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year,
enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans."
Here is the program that PNHP endorses instead:
"We endorse a fundamental change in America's health care - the creation of
a comprehensive National Health Insurance (NHI) Program. Such a program -
which in essence would be an expanded and improved version of Medicare -
would cover every American for all necessary medical care."
Not everyone agrees that an expanded version of Medicare is sufficient to
provide health care for all, at least not without further reforms. But the
PNHP proposal is one good place to begin a thorough national debate about
health care reform-- and a good place to begin wider education about a
single-payer health care program:
http://www.pnhp.org/publications/proposal_of_the_physicians_working_group_for_singlepayer_national_health_insurance.php
"We envision a national health insurance program (NHI) that builds upon the
strengths of the current Medicare system. Coverage would be extended to all
age groups, and expanded to include prescription medications and long term
care. Payment mechanisms would be structured to improve efficiency and
assure prompt reimbursement, while reducing bureaucracy and cost shifting.
Health planning would be enhanced to improve the availability of resources
and minimize wasteful duplication. Finally, investor-owned facilities would
be phased out."
Wars and imperial adventures are steadily blowing a multi-billion dollar
hole in our national budget. We need money and resources for housing, health
care and education; and for programs which might reverse the strip mining
and pollution of our planet. Instead we get charades and musical chairs from
the Democrats and Republicans.
"Progressive" pundits and journalists who have not done their homework claim
that the Democrats in Congress just don't have the number of votes needed to
stop the war and begin making peace on earth. They are typing press releases
and can't be bothered with investigative journalism. But what, after all,
was the last big election supposed to have been about? The Democrats
campaigned on promises to make peace and social change once they got their
seats in Congress. When we, the people, light fires under those seats, then
the professional slackers in Congress may get in the mood to follow-- since
they are plainly incapable of leading.
Hillary Clinton and plenty of other Democrats voted to give Bush his
original war budget. Now the Democrats can exercise the power of the purse.
Every time the war regime demands a hike in the military budget, the
Democrats might try acting like an opposition party. Why don't they? Because
both big corporate parties have immense business interests in common,
including heavy political and financial investments in military industries,
prison expansion, pharmaceutical cartels, and insurance companies.
The only thing worse than a professional politician is a professional
journalist in the pocket of that politician. Bipartisan politicians are
business partners. That's no surprise. But it is the journalists who provide
the daily evasions and excuses which befuddle the public. Investigative
journalism is quite unknown to many of the hacks opining in the major
newspapers, and to most of the talking heads on television.
There is only one serious party of peace, and that is the Green Party of the
United States.
Kucinich is busy running perennial vanity campaigns, but the Democratic
Party remains in the death grip of the Democratic Leadership Council.
Kucinich is Kool Aid for "progressives," but the Clintons are the poison
pill. Kucinich is the flashy window dressing for naive hipsters and
students; the real deals get made in ruling class back rooms.
There is only one party which is serious about ecological sanity, and that
is the Green Party of the United States. Gore can't be counted upon to tell
the public that corporations must operate within limited corporate charters,
subject to public review and revocation. The "free market" is heavily
responsible for the burning and pillaging of the planet, but this is a truth
too inconvenient to be proclaimed by professional politicians.
There is only one viable electoral party which is serious about social
democracy, and is therefore serious about fair wages, housing, health care
and education. And that party is likewise the Green Party of the United
States.
Full disclosure here: yes, I am a registered member of the Green Party. But
I am free to regret the "libertarian" candidates seeking a Green ballot line
in some states. The word libertarian was once associated with the
libertarian left, until it was hijacked by gurus and acolytes of the "free
market." Presently there is a tactical alliance between some "free market"
libertarians and some Greens, mostly because they have a common interest in
securing fair ballot access and fair elections. As long as that alliance
remains tactical, I do not believe the deeper strategic program of the
Greens will be compromised.
An independent party of democratic socialism is a crying need in the United
States. Until the day we get such a party, I'll take my chances and make my
compromises with the Green Party, which already can boast a national network
of smart and spirited public citizens.
Is that good enough, given ecological and economic crises on so many fronts?
No. But the Greens will be an essential and principled ally in any future
and emerging Green - Red political coalition. Greens are red-baited now in
any case, however much they prefer to claim the mantle of social democracy
without calling themselves socialists. A principled and non-sectarian left
wing among Greens will develop over time, much as the broad horizon of
ecology finally dawned on some sectors of the left.
A political party is only as good as the social movements which sustain it
and carry it forward. There is immense cynicism about both big business
parties. Well deserved! But that cynicism can also be the latest hipster
excuse for standing on the sidelines. The Green Party deserves our votes,
donations and support. One proof that the Greens have already changed our
political landscape is that the Democratic Party is busy with the dirty work
of preventing fair elections. In Pennsylvania, leading Democrats chose to
mobilize lawyers and judges to drub Green candidates with heavy fines - and
to try rubbing the Green Party off the electoral map. If this is the way the
corporate parties want to run elections, then every major election day
should become a day of vocal public protest.
Hillary Clinton voted for war - a war with mounting costs in health care,
both because money has been diverted from public health and because of
widening devastation against soldiers and civilians. When Bill was in the
White House, her first health care plan was attacked by the right wing as a
Bolshevik conspiracy. Nothing of the kind. Quite the opposite. She carved
out huge fiefdoms of private profit for insurance companies, and indeed was
hoping to create new sectors of bureaucracy. Now she has come forward with a
health care plan which some pundits have already endorsed as being more
conservative. They have a point. Twisting the arms of citizens to pay up for
the insurance plans she has endorsed is a refinement of the old mobster
"protection" rackets. No wonder the two reigning political mafias, Democrats
and Republicans alike, have converged so closely in promoting the
"Massachusetts Model."
Why should we vote for the "pragmatic" candidates in elections rigged by the
ruling class? We, the people, have the power to deny those candidates our
votes, our money, and our consent. We must also follow through by teaching
the ruling class to earn an honest living, and by taking back open and fair
elections. The two party system is not an act of God, nor is it a
Constitutional requirement. It is a human invention. It is a Golden Calf. It
is a rattletrap locomotive gone off the rails, and it is now an actual
obstacle to peace and democracy.
The unfinished business of the American Revolution can never be limited to
election days. But we had better mark those days on our calendars, and at
least make a beginning.
TO JOIN OR LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GREEN PARTY:
http://www.gp.org/
_________________
Can the Democratic Party be saved?
by Dave Lindorff
read the whole article>> http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lindorff/024
Highlights of the Lindorff article regarding the struggle for progressives
to get their values represented in the Dem party:
"The results of this decades-long effort to 'work from within' have been
pretty dismal."
"I am proposing that progressives quit the Democratic Party - actually go
down to their local voter registrar?s office, and re-register as
independents.
"But not quietly or privately. This must be a mass movement, with groups of
progressives in local communities organizing marches to their county
elections board, and with the media notified."
Especially note the last paragraph:
"They are also signaling, by quitting, that if the Democratic Party doesn't
come around, they are open to the idea of a new party. And if large numbers
of progressives cut their ties to the Democratic Party, that is a threat
that should really scare party leaders."
So since the Dems are highly unlikely to come around, essentially Lindorff
is calling for to a new progressive party. Just as I've been predicting for
months I think its likely that a new progressive third party will be formed.
How about we seize the moment and connect with disaffected progressive Dems
and independents and invite them to be a part of the
Green Party.
Green is Essence!
Drew Johnson
GPCA delegate
/\/\/\/\/\
GREEN SOLUTIONS by Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens
Anarchism, Feminism, and the Reconstruction of the State
Throughout the history of political thought, the State has been identified
with Patriarchy, property ownership (including slaves), and other forms of
elitism, in which the poor, minorities, and in most cases, the female sex
were exploited and oppressed - systematically, and as a matter of state
policy and design. All of the egalitarian and anti-racist, anti-sexist,
free-thinking (anti-theocracy) reforms were thus attempted within the
context of an institution which fundamentally denied their legitimacy and
propriety. We all know that women weren't allowed to hold office or vote in
the United States until the 20th century, and our country was more
progressive than most in this respect. Although there have been female
monarchs (and even the odd general, admiral or other military leader or
dictator), they always ruled because of an accident of birth or
circumstances, and only with the support and connivance of powerful men. In
no sense were any of them examples of "sexual equality". The origins and
later manifestations of that desirable goal were to be found in the arts,
literature, business, science, education, medicine, etc, not political
activism.
One of the most frequently presented arguments against giving women the
right to vote was graphically illustrated in the election of Ronald Reagan.
Opponents of "women's suffrage" (itself a bizarre and loaded term) claimed,
convincingly, that if women were allowed to vote, they would elect some
popular singer, actor, or other "heart-throb," thus degrading the quality of
leadership (which only the most intelligent graduates of law schools,
military academies, or other "leadership training" could supposedly
provide.) And what would happen if a woman were actually elected to high
office? Wouldn't she be totally controlled by her husband and other male
relatives, who would use her position for their own financial advantage?
(Cf. Benazir Bhutto). Or, what if she was a social reformer like Jeanette
Rankin? She might vote against any and every war - even those against
Fascism, or "to make the world safe for Democracy." Surely this would be a
disaster of historic proportions!
Hillary Clinton, if she receives the Democratic nomination, will test (prove
or disprove) this thesis in dramatic fashion. As weak as the Democratic
field is (at least in terms of delectability), the Republicans are even
weaker. Romney, as a Mormon, will be smeared and accused of all sorts of
heresies and "anti-Christian" principles. (How could the Romney's possibly
have been elected governors of Michigan and Massachusetts? And even if they
were Rockefeller-like Republicans, we know that even a real Rockefeller
could never be elected President). Giuliani is pro-choice, a total
non-starter for Republicans (and most Catholic and other religious) voters,
plus he's been married and divorced several times, and he's from New York -
hardly a national center for popularity these days. The rest trail far
behind, with only Ron Paul actually adhering to Republican principles (and
thus getting no media coverage whatsoever). The same is true of Kucinich vis
a vis the Democrats. He (along with Mike Gravel) are the only real Democrats
(I'd give Richardson about half-credit for that, but he is largely pro-war
and pro-nuclear - non-starters for us Greens).
This would certainly be the time for the Greens, Libertarians, and other
"minor parties" to run a strong candidate, or for an independent run by
someone like Ross Perot. Mayor Bloomberg is obviously contemplating
something like this, but it seems unlikely that anything will come of it.
Hillary against Giuliani would amount to the "reduction ad absurd" of
"liberal" Big Government and corporate sell-outs slugging it out toe to toe.
The percentage of voters who identify with either of these losers must
surely be less than 20%. John McCain is both too old and too bellicose. No
one wants to see any war expanded at this point - least of all the military
voters. Obama, except for a few gaffe's (which seem to have been largely
manufactured by the media) is sounding more presidential every day. He seems
to be the only leading candidate who can actually think on his feet, and say
intelligent things while everyone else is babbling nonsense. I still wonder,
though, if half or more of the voters would even consider voting for any
Black candidate, period. (Just as they wouldn't vote for a Jewish one, a
Muslim, or a woman - possibly excepting someone resembling Margaret Thatcher
or other dyed-in-the-wool matriarch, which Hillary is anything but).
I don't know why the Greens or other real revolutionary parties are even
worried about this phony exercise in corporate "bourgeois democracy." We
should be spending our energies on fundamental reforms, rather than
contesting elections which, in the final analysis, mean absolutely nothing.
Whatever the candidates claim or promise, we know they will deliver to no
one except their own backers and paymasters. We must "take back our
government" instead of worrying about who will be elected as figurehead
"leader" of the corporate monstrosity which now exists.
And while we're distracted by the national picture, we're letting our local
governments go to the dogs. After decades of usurpations and catastrophic
mismanagement, we can't even get any credible candidates to run for mayor or
city commissioner here in Great Falls (nor even the School Board, it would
seem). So much for grass-roots democracy. Even Thomas Jefferson knew
democracy could not exist without a free press and independent media -
something which the powers that be were careful to prevent or eliminate
whenever that issue should arise. Every civic-minded person or public entity
we've approached to support local public radio and TV (not to mention an
independent newspaper or on-line news source like this Bulletin) have not
only been indifferent; they've been absolutely hostile and committed to
suppressing it at any cost. Go figure.
-- PHS
_________________
The PAC-10 kids are at it again
While most Montanans are locked into the Bobcat-Grizzly rivalry, the real
elite of Montana are graduates of PAC-10 schools. Due to accidents of birth
and circumstances (primarily the fact that my mother was the actress Jean
Arthur's cousin), I ended up at UCLA, and so experienced (or suffered) that
apotheosis. Others from my high school class (and other friends and
neighbors) attended Stanford, Washington, Washington State, Oregon, USC,
Cal, etc. So we have our own little "suburb" of the West Coast right here in
the wilderness/rust-belt of Montana. At times, it gets very interesting.
We also have the distinction of our first Territorial Governor, Gen. Thomas
Meagher, having been the organizer and leader of the Civil War "Irish
Brigade" from whence Notre Dame's "Fighting Irish" took their name, so we
also have a number of graduates and fans of that school, along with other
"Midwest diploma mills," and even a small, beleaguered contingent of Ivy
League grads, seemingly concentrated among Dartmouth, Columbia, and
Pennsylvania, with the occasional Harvard, Princeton, Cornell or Yale
graduate to reassure us that the rest of the Establishment hasn't completely
forgotten us.
There was a time when Montana's better public high schools were competitive
with top prep schools, and we also had a number of distinguished parochial
(Catholic) schools - even in such smaller towns as Lewistown and Havre.
Great Falls Central, at one time probably the largest of these in the state,
went away entirely for a couple of decades, but has now returned in a new
building with a vengeance. They may end up with most of my periodicals and
media library/collection, whether posthumously or because I have to
liquidate it in order to get out of town. Although I have never been
Catholic, ancient family connections with the Stuarts and Jacobites (not to
mention local Polish connections with Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II)
would so warrant or dictate.
USC's All-star Team
As long-time readers of this Bulletin know, when I start talking about head
coaches and scholar-athletes, I'm usually talking about symphony conductors
and classical musicians. Call it "the Mozart Effect." Now "the Creative
Capital of the World," Los Angeles' premier "fine arts" classical music
station is KUSC.
I've known this for a long time, but I never really examined the team roster
or their particular resumes until fairly recently. This is understandable,
since I haven't been in LA since 1981, or lived there since 1970. I only got
a broadband internet connection a couple of years ago, and soon began
listening on-line. http://www.kusc.org/
I knew about Jim Svejda as early as 1981, and wanted to get his "Record
Shelf" program for KUFM at that time - I don't know if it was even
syndicated then. And KUSC, along with Minnesota Public Radio, was among the
first to rebel against the NPR establishment, together starting American
Public Radio (later PRI and American Public Media, now again affiliated with
NPR, although various programs alternate back and forth between the two
umbrella organizations). With NPR having succumbed almost entirely to
Bush/neo-con control, both "official" public radio entities are practically
worthless for anything but cultural programming. Only Pacifica and some
other university or independent stations still offer good news and public
affairs programming.
KUFM (from the University of Montana, Missoula) used to be one of them, but
they, too, have reverted to NPR programming for everything but their local
news and a couple of "extras" like "Alternative Radio," "Making Contact,"
and an excellent local public affairs program, "In Other Words," started by
Women's Voices from the Earth and other Missoula feminists. The only
first-rate NPR/MPR/APM news program I know of is American Radio Works, which
periodically produces extensive documentaries on hot-button issues. One of
the most memorable was their survey of the prison industry, the war on
drugs, and ALEC, the umbrella organization which "trains" state legislators
to keep passing counter-productive laws in support of the prison industry,
and thus erodes our budgets and liberties with these monstrous usurpations
of the public trust and tax dollars.
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/corrections/
The complete catalog of downloadable programs is at
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/documentaries.php
But getting back to KUSC, check out their website and listen, if you have
any interest in classical music whatsoever. And check out the resumes of
their announcers. For long-time listeners to public radio, they are
practically a Who's Who in that field, including a number of former station
managers, graduates of the top music schools, etc. They could form their own
chamber ensembles, and probably issue CD's on a major label. Live from KUSC!
Most impressive. http://www.kusc.org/php/Programming/hosts.php
Philip Aaberg's new Piano Quintet -- the Three Charlies
No sooner was Luciano Pavarotti planted in the ground than the new Aaberg
work, written for himself and the Cascade Quartet, was premiered here in
Great Falls. The second movement of this rather long work is entitled
"R.I.P. - The Three Charlies." The "Charlies" in question, Russell, Ives,
and Parker, are all incorporated thematically into the work. (I don't know
if Aaberg is aware of the connections between Charles Marion Russell,
William Andrews Clark, the LA Philharmonic, and Carlo Maria Giulini and the
"Spaghetti Westerns" and their film composer, but having gone to Harvard on
the Leonard Bernstein fellowship, he should be). As for Charlie ("Bird")
Parker, no further elaboration is necessary for those who have heard the
work.
The program for this performance included the Amy Beach Piano Quintet (which
Aaberg also performed with the Cascade Quartet some years ago) as well as
the first movement of Ives' 1st String Quartet, so we got an introduction to
Ives' unique style, as well. Ives should be a big favorite with Montana
audiences, because of his Transcendentalist and futuristic associations. (He
also founded what later became the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, of
all things!) His "Three Places in New England" includes the St. Gaudens
memorial sculpture of Col. Shaw and the black Civil War regiment, for whom
Fort Shaw here in Cascade County was also named. And he was a
near-contemporary of Russell, with the added association of Burl Ives (any
relation?), who played a noteworthy character in "The Big Country," one of
my favorite Westerns also starring Carol Baker, Jean Simmons, Charlton
Heston, and Gregory Peck. Charlton Heston may be a good candidate for a
"fourth Charlie", in case Aaberg (or anyone else) wishes to expand further
on this theme, continuing the same tradition. (It might be subtitled, "From
my cold, dead hands.")
Aaberg is one of the most eclectic or "fusionist" composers around - even in
this day when "classical" composers regularly employ jazz, blues, folk, and
even hip-hop, Ska, or other seemingly incongruous elements in their
compositions. There are also elements of Minimalism in this work, but in a
much more interesting and cheerful fashion. In his eclecticism, Aaberg
follows in the footsteps of his patron (whom he only met once, he tells me,
and never studied under). This being the 50th Anniversary of West Side
Story, it might be considered a kind of tribute to that breakthrough
fusionist work.
Although written as an "ordinary" Broadway show, the WSS recorded version I
prefer is staged and sung as opera, with Kiri te Kanawa and Jose Carreras.
In all the stories and commentaries on WSS broadcast recently, I found out
some interesting facts about that. Originally, it was written to be set on
the lower East Side, with a Jewish girl and an Italian gangster. That's
probably why Natalie Wood was originally cast as the Puerto Rican, but by
1957, the center of racial strife had moved to the upper West Side, where
large numbers of Puerto Ricans were moving in.
This, of course, meshed with Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, as well as the Jett
Rink (James Dean) character from Giant. Mysterious, indeed, are the
inter-relationships of Hollywood, Broadway, and other popular culture genres
and venues. This tragedy (based loosely on Romeo and Juliet, of course),
would play out in real-life for Bernstein, who married a Chilean, and saw
her country taken over by the Kissinger-Nixon-sponsored gangsters, more or
less contemporaneously with the composition of his Mass, which inaugurated
the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Try as it might to be free of
political influence, even the greatest artistic enterprises must usually
succumb to the dictates of the state, if only to inspire the next
Revolution.
What more can I tell you about Aaberg's R.I.P.? Very little. I only heard it
once, but I was deeply moved. It's probably his best work thus far, at least
in the formal, classical genre. We looked forward to hearing it, again, and
the live performance was recorded and broadcast on local public radio last
Saturday. Perhaps they would like to send it to APM's "Performance Today."
Or Phil could release it as a CD on his own label, Sweetgrass Music.
http://www.sweetgrassmusic.com/
_____________
A note about why "classical music" is important
Many people who grew up in upper-class, educated, "professional" or academic
homes were exposed to classical music from an early age, along with
literature and poetry, trips to museums and concerts, and other forms of
"arts appreciation." But many of these same people, if they later became
egalitarian and political activists of the Left (or were otherwise
embarrassed by their privileges) decided that classical music is "elitist"
and mainly the province of "dead, white European males." They couldn't be
more wrong.
We speak of "the literature of music" in almost exactly the same sense as
the literature of prose and poetry. Sonnets became sonatas; ballads
ballades, and nearly every great novel, play or poem has had music written
for it, as an opera, "incidental music," or musical settings of poems into
art songs. "Lyric" is a term that applies to both written words and music.
And film music has become one of the most important musical manifestations
of all - both from the film-maker's perspective, and from that of the
audience.
I came across a striking example of this in the history of ethnic and
philological studies (the origins of ethnic groups and languages). The great
Hungarian composer, Bela Bartok, was also a pioneering ethno-musicologist
(along with his countryman, Zoltan Kodaly, best-known for the role of his
work in the Spielberg film, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind.") Hungarian
folk music at that time was believed to have derived primarily from Gypsy
music (itself from India, where the Gypsy religion and culture originated).
Bartok, however, discovered that traditional Hungarian forms (and even
melodies) could be traced back to north-central Asia. This was before anyone
knew where the Magyars had originally come from, or how their language was
related to others (principally, the Finns). Both groups, it turns our,
originated east of the Urals and near the Arctic Circle, nowhere near India.
Think of music as simply another parallel language and history to go along
with written and oral traditions. As such, it should be learned and absorbed
like any other literature and folklore. And curses be upon those who have
commercialized music to the point that it is worthless as any sort of
educational or cultural artifact. -- Paul Stephens
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Controversy Builds Over New American Indian Museum Director
By Rick Cohen
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/controversy_builds_over_new_american_indian_museum_director/C8/L8/
Editor's note: This piece is cross-posted from DailyYonder.com.
The First National Rural Assembly, held in July, came together to generate
change in rural policy, and to honor six "rural heroes," too.
One was Elouise Cobell, the former treasurer of the Blackfeet tribe, a
founder of the first Native American Bank, director of a Native American
community development corporation, and a member of the board of trustees of
the National Museum of the American Indian
(Recently, Cobell was also elected to the Board of the Center for Rural
Strategies, which publishes the Daily Yonder.)
Those attainments would have been more than sufficient to qualify her for
rural heroism, but instead the Assembly highlighted Elouise Cobell's role as
the lead plaintiff in the nation's largest class action law suit, Cobell v.
Kempthorne
her fellow plaintiffs are asking the government to account for billions of
dollars owed to 500,000 Indians and tribes, allegedly lost due to the
federal government's trustee management of Indian lands.
For her role in the litigation, Cobell may be a hero to rural America and
the recipient, in 1997, of one of the MacArthur Foundation's "genius
awards," but she does not appear to be quite so admired by the Smithsonian
Institution, which recently hired Kevin Gover as the new director of the
National Museum of the American Indian without consulting Cobell or most of
the museum board's other trustees.
Kevin Gover, a member of the Pawnee tribe, just so happens to be the federal
official who fought Cobell for years in court, earning a contempt citation
in the process.
When the case was first launched, it was called Cobell v. Babbit; at the
time, Bruce Babbitt was Bill Clinton's Secretary of the Interior, and the
Department of the Interior, through its Bureau of Indian Affairs, functioned
as the trustee for the Indian lands. Babbitt's deputy secretary in charge of
the Bureau was one Kevin Gover. In court, federal judge Royce Lamberth
ordered the Interior and Treasury Departments to produce records and
documents of the mineral, timber, and energy earnings of the Indian trust
lands. With Gover in charge of the process, Interior told the court it was
assiduously gathering the records-at the same time that Interior employees
were destroying 162 boxes of documents in a Maryland warehouse.
Declaring that he had never seen more "egregious" conduct by a federal
agency, Judge Lamberth found Babbitt, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and
Gover in contempt of court and imposed a $600,000 fine. Judge Lamberth
refrained at the time from removing Indian lands from the Bureau of Indian
Affairs' oversight. As he left the Clinton Administration, Gover gloated
that he had "whipped" the "dangerous" and "destructive" Cobell plaintiffs
because the Bureau had maintained its role as trustee.
On September 11, 2007, the Smithsonian announced in a press release
http://www.nmai.si.edu/press/releases/2007-09-11_Gover_Named_New_NMAI_Direct.pdf
that it was hiring Kevin Gover to replace the retiring Rick West as director
of the National Museum of the American Indian. Only two NMAI trustees were
part of the Smithsonian's search committee. Prior to the news release the
rest of the museum's board members, including Cobell, were never informed of
Gover's candidacy, much less his selection.
Cobell complained loudly and publicly, saying the Smithsonian had treated
the NMAI board (statutorily established as an advisory board) as "wooden
Indians," on display for show but without a voice in the most important
administrative decision affecting their museum. In response, the Smithsonian
hurriedly convened a phone call with a few of the NMAI trustees and
explained that the names of the finalists for the job had been
"confidential." The NMAI board telephone meeting occurred on the same day
that the Smithsonian Regents held a press conference pledging a new era of
transparency and openness in place of the culture of secrecy under disgraced
Smithsonian secretary Larry Small. Only three months earlier, an independent
report on the Smithsonian found that Small's institution was rife with
ethical problems, lavish expense-account spending and lax management.
Had the Smithsonian shared Gover's name with the NMAI trustees, Cobell might
have pointed out his role in the Indian land trust case and the contempt
citation he and Babbitt garnered for the Department. According to Elouise
Cobell account of the last minute phone conference between trustees and
Institution officials, the Smithsonian claimed not to have known about Gover
's role in the Cobell litigation and Judge Lamberth's contempt citation
before it made the job offer.
There are many ironies in this story. The Department of the Interior under
Babbitt and Gover destroyed files demanded by the courts that could have
revealed critical information about monies owed to a half million Indians.
At the Smithsonian this past year, a subordinate was caught trashing files
containing critical information about Larry Small's compensation, travel,
and expense accounts.
The departing director of the museum, Rick West, likely knew of Gover's role
in the Indian land trust case. West and Gover had been long time law
partners, and Gover said that West had even counseled him on how to answer
the Smithsonian's questions during the recruitment process, according to
Indian Country Today. But the information about Gover's role in the case
somehow didn't reach the Smithsonian regents or the NMAI trustees who were
in on the hiring, or so they told Cobell.
To improve the Smithsonian's operations, Acting Secretary Cristián Samper
pledged more frequent and honest involvement of the Smithsonian's more than
two dozen advisory boards, but demonstrated the exact opposite in
circumventing the NMAI board with the confidential hiring of Kevin Gover.
The Smithsonian's new policy of treating its advisory boards seriously and
professionally was part of Samper's message at a National Press Club speech
titled (incongruously in light of the NMAI incident) "Facts, Fiction, and
the Future of the Smithsonian."
"I'm troubled by the Smithsonian's actions here," Sen. Charles E. Grassley
(R-Iowa) said after Gover's appointment. Grassley has led an investigation
of the Smithsonian by the Senate Finance Committee's Republican staff.
"After recent scandals, the institution needs to operate with complete
transparency, especially when vetting the new leaders of its museums. The
management needs to go the extra mile to ensure public trust. In this case,
I worry that they have trouble even going the first mile."
The deed is done. The power to hire and fire rests with the Smithsonian
regents, not the NMAI board. Gover asserts that he will do a great job and
win over his critics, even Cobell herself. After all, in 2000, Gover made a
tearful apology for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' "legacy of racism and
inhumanity," making him the highest ranking federal official to ever issue
such a statement about the country's treatment of Native Americans.
Chastened by the Indian land trust litigation, Gover could turn out to be a
worthy successor to Rick West. The jury is still out.
But for the Smithsonian itself, the verdict is increasingly obvious. The
Smithsonian's performance in the hiring of the new NMAI head suggests that
its current leadership still doesn't quite get it. Larry Small may have been
dragged out of the Smithsonian leaving claw marks on the floor, but he was a
symptom of the Institution's problem, not its sole cause.
The Cobell suit is a vital issue for the tribes. In fact, how many more
important issues in the history of Native Americans can there be than the
rights to the billions earned from the rural lands Indians entrusted to the
federal government to manage on their behalf?
A Seminole leader on the NMAI board summed up the Smithsonian's mistreatment
of the largely Indian members of the NMAI board of trustees:
"It is my opinion that the [search] committee should have known the
potential conflict and taken the appropriate steps to inform the board, if
not consult with the board on the potential selection. I do not know Kevin
Gover and have never worked with him, therefore, I cannot personally attest
to his suitability for the job. I must say that due to his tenure with the
BIA as well as his actions during the Cobell litigation, I will find it hard
to hold him in the high regards that I have for Rick West."
The Smithsonian might have elicited some obviously important information
about its candidate to lead the NMAI had it simply asked the museum's
advisory board members to advise rather than keeping them in the dark.
This piece originally published at DailyYonder.com, a daily source of
coverage of rural America. The author, Rick Cohen, is National Correspondent
for Nonprofit Quarterly magazine.
________________
Eunice Wong The Great Forgetting
Eunice Wong writes for Truthdig.com: "The Smithsonian National Museum of the
American Indian, located on the Mall in Washington, DC, is a monument to
historical amnesia. The blond limestone building, surrounded by indigenous
crops of corn, tobacco and squash, invites visitors on a guilt-free, theme
park tour of Native American history, where acknowledgment of the American
genocide is in extremely bad taste."
Nobel to Lessing, Incisive Voice of Women's Fate
Motoko Rich and Sarah Lyall for The New York Times report, "Doris Lessing,
the Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised and London-residing novelist whose deeply
autobiographical writing has swept across continents and reflects her
engagement with the social and political issues of her time, yesterday won
the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature."
/\/\/\/\/\
FROM RABBLE.CA http://www.rabble.ca/
BUILD A FRONTIER, YOU GET COWBOYS: PART I
The plan wasn't to destroy Iraq; it was to create a market frontier. And the
reason you build a frontier is always the same: nothing is more profitable.
> by Naomi Klein and John Cusack
> http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=63173
BUILD A FRONTIER, YOU GET COWBOYS: PART II
Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, but it was
economically insignificant compared to today's disaster capitalism complex.
> by Naomi Klein and John Cusack
> http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=63201
THE 2007 UAW-GM NEGOTIATIONS: ONE SIDED CLASS WAR
The UAW negotiations over the last few months might have been a chance to
make up for a generation-long period of working-class defeat. But, once
again, only one class was fighting.
> by Sam Gindin
> http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=63128
THE STRUGGLE FOR SAFE ABORTION IN LATIN AMERICA
There is a slogan commonly heard among Latin American feminists: "The rich
women abort and the poor women die." Among those who fall through the cracks
of the extreme wealth inequalities of Latin America, the women who die or
suffer health problems due to unsafe abortions are invisible victims.
> by Jen Peirce
> http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=63068
PRESCRIPTION FOR A HEALTHY CANADA
A new report says that the federal government's failure to protect the
environmental health of Canadians is costing us billions of dollar a year.
> by Redeye
> http://www.rabble.ca/rpn/episode.shtml?x=63117
REFLECTING ON MARX AND MONEY GONE MAD
The Bank of Canada is busily handing out money to buoy the Canadian
financial system, resorting to purchase, and re-purchase agreements which
allow financial institutions time to find more funds to satisfy their need
for liquidity aka cash.
> by Duncan Cameron
> http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=63062
HOW DALTON GOT HIS MAJORITY BACK
Ironically, the election results (which handed McGuinty two-thirds of the
seats with less than half the popular vote) helped to prove the case for the
electoral reform that's not going to happen.
> by Scott Piatkowski
>
/\/\/\/\/\
Go to Original
We Have Seen the Enemy - And Surrendered
By Barbara Ehrenreich
BarbaraEhrenreich.com http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/092407HA.shtml
Thursday 20 September 2007
Bow your heads and raise the white flags. After facing down the Third Reich,
the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R., Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the
United States has met an enemy it dares not confront - the American private
health insurance industry.
With the courageous exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic candidates
have all rolled out health "reform" plans that represent total,
Chamberlain-like, appeasement. Edwards and Bema propose universal health
insurance plans that would in no way ease the death grip of Aetna, Unicare,
MetLife, and the rest of the evil-doers. Clinton - why are we not
surprised? - has gone even further, borrowing the Republican idea of
actually feeding the private insurers by making it mandatory to buy their
product. Will I be arrested if I resist paying $10,000 a year for a private
policy laden with killer co-pays and deductibles?
It's not only the Democratic candidates who are capitulating. The
surrender-buzz is everywhere. I heard it from a notable liberal political
scientist on a panel in August: We can't just leap to a single payer system,
he said in so many words, because it would be too disruptive, given the size
of the private health insurance industry. Then I heard it yesterday from a
Chicago woman who leads a nonprofit agency serving the poor: How can we go
to a Canadian-style system when the private industry has gotten so "big"?
Yes, it is big. Leighton Ku, at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities,
gave me the figure of $776 billion in expenditures on private health
insurance for this year. It's also a big-time employer, paying what
economist Paul Krugman has estimated two to three million people just turn
down claims.
This in turn generates ever more employment in doctors' offices to battle
the insurance companies. Dr. Atul Gawande, a practicing physician, wrote in
The New Yorker that "a well-run office can get the insurer's rejection rate
down from 30 percent to, say, 15 percent. That's how a doctor makes money.
It's a war with insurance, every step of the way." And that's another thing
your insurance premium has to pay for: the ongoing "war" between doctors and
insurers.
Note: The private health insurance industry is not big because it
relentlessly seeks out new customers. Unlike any other industry, this one
grows by rejecting customers. No matter how shabby you look, Cartier, Lexus,
or Nordstrom's will happily take your money. Not Aetna. If you have a prior
conviction - excuse me, a pre-existing condition - it doesn't want your
business. Private health insurance is only for people who aren't likely to
ever get sick. In fact, why call it "insurance," which normally embodies the
notion of risk-sharing? This is extortion.
Think of the damage. An estimated 18,000 Americans die every year because
they can't afford or can't qualify for health insurance. That's the 9/11
carnage multiplied by three - every year. Not to mention all the people who
are stuck in jobs they hate because they don't dare lose their current
insurance.
Saddam Hussein never killed 18,000 Americans or anything close; nor did the
U.S.S.R. Yet we faced down those "enemies" with huge patriotic bluster, vast
military expenditures, and, in the case of Saddam, armed intervention. So
why does the U.S. soil its pants and cower in fear when confronted with the
insurance industry?
Here's a plan: First, locate the major companies. No major intelligence
effort will be required, since Google should suffice. Second, estimate their
armed strength. No doubt there are legions of security guards involved in
protecting the company headquarters from irate consumers, but these should
be manageable with a few brigades. Next, consider an air strike, followed by
an infantry assault.
And what about the two to three million insurance industry employees whose
sole job it is to turn down claims? Well, I have a plan for them: It's
called unemployment. What country in its right mind would pay millions of
people to deny other people health care?
I'm not mean, though. If we had the kind of universal, single-payer, health
insurance Kucinich is advocating, private health insurance workers would
continue to be covered even after they are laid off. As for the health
insurance company executives, there should be an adequate job training
program for them ñ perhaps as home health aides.
Fellow citizens, where is the old macho spirit that has sustained us through
countless conflicts against enemies both real and imagined? In the case of
health care, we have identified the enemy, and the time has come to crush
it.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of thirteen books, including the New York
Times bestseller "Nickel and Dimed." A frequent contributor to The New York
Times, Harpers, and The Progressive, she is a contributing writer to Time
magazine. She lives in Florida.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
FROM PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
In a paper presented at the British Royal Society of Medicine in London on
Thursday, PSR Board member Dr. Ira Helfand presented a paper arguing that
even a limited, regional nuclear war could result in the loss of more than
one billion human lives.
?In the event of a protracted global cooling triggered by a limited,
regional nuclear war, it seems reasonable to postulate a total global death
toll in excess of one billion from starvation alone,? concludes Dr. Helfand.
In addition, he observes that "a global famine on the scale anticipated
would provide the ideal breeding ground for epidemics involving?cholera,
malaria, smallpox, and dysentery."
Dr. Helfand?s paper cites new research by Professors O.B. Toon of the
University of Colorado at Boulder and Alan Robock of Rutgers University who
contributed to a study published in the journal Science in March 2007 and
who also presented papers at last week's conference in London on the
climatic effects of a regional nuclear war.
Dr. Helfand's paper is available at:
http://www.psr.org/site/DocServer/HelfandPaper.pdf?docID=2881
_____________
The Hidden Menace of Mobile Phones
The Independent UK's Geoffrey Lean reports: "Using a mobile phone for more
than ten years increases the risk of getting brain cancer, according to the
most comprehensive study of the risks yet published."
/\/\/\/\/\
Derailing a deal
BY NOAM CHOMSKY
7 October 2007
NUCLEAR-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation,
confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out good-faith
negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear
states has lived up to it.
The United States is a leading violator, especially the Bush administration,
which even has stated that it isn't subject to Article 6.
On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement with India that guts the
central part of the NPT, though there remains substantial opposition in both
countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an NPT
signatory, and has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. With this
new agreement, the Bush administration effectively endorses and facilitates
this outlaw behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and bypasses the
Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations that have established strict rules
to lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, observes
that the agreement doesn't bar further Indian nuclear testing and,
"incredibly, ... commits Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies
from other countries even if India resumes testing." It also permits India
to "free up its limited domestic supplies for bomb production." All these
steps are in direct violation of international nonproliferation agreements.
The Indo-US agreement is likely to prompt others to break the rules as well.
Pakistan is reported to be building a plutonium production reactor for
nuclear weapons, apparently beginning a more advanced phase of weapons
design. Israel, the regional nuclear superpower, has been lobbying Congress
for privileges similar to India's, and has approached the Nuclear Suppliers
Group with requests for exemption from its rules. Now France, Russia and
Australia have moved to pursue nuclear deals with India, as China has with
Pakistan - hardly a surprise, once the global superpower has opened the
door.
The Indo-US deal mixes military and commercial motives. Nuclear weapons
specialist Gary Milhollin noted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's
testimony to Congress that the agreement was "crafted with the private
sector firmly in mind," particularly aircraft and reactors and, Milhollin
stresses, military aircraft. By undermining the barriers against nuclear
war, he adds, the agreement not only increases regional tensions but also
"may hasten the day when a nuclear explosion destroys an American city."
Washington's message is that "export controls are less important to the
United States than money" - that is, profits for US corporations - whatever
the potential threat. Kimball points out that the United States is granting
India "terms of nuclear trade more favourable than those for states that
have assumed all the obligations and responsibilities" of the NPT. In most
of the world, few can fail to see the cynicism.
Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore the NPT rules entirely,
while threatening war against Iran, which is not known to have violated the
NPT, despite extreme provocation: The United States has occupied two of
Iran's neighbours and openly sought to overthrow the Iranian regime since it
broke free of US control in 1979.
Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have made strides towards easing
the tensions between the two countries. People-to-people contacts have
increased and the governments are in discussion over the many outstanding
issues that divide the two states. Those promising developments may well be
reversed by the Indo-US nuclear deal. One of the means to build confidence
throughout the region was the creation of a natural gas pipeline from Iran
through Pakistan into India. The "peace pipeline" would have tied the region
together and opened the possibilities for further peaceful integration.
The pipeline, and the hope it offers, might become a casualty of the Indo-US
agreement, which Washington sees as a measure to isolate its Iranian enemy
by offering India nuclear power in exchange for Iranian gas - though in fact
India would gain only a fraction of what Iran could provide.
The Indo-US deal continues the pattern of Washington's taking every measure
to isolate Iran. In 2006, the US Congress passed the Hyde Act, which
specifically demanded that the US government "secure India's full and active
participation in United States efforts to dissuade, isolate, and if
necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of
mass destruction."
It is noteworthy that the great majority of Americans - and Iranians -
favour converting the entire region to a nuclear-weapons free zone,
including Iran and Israel. One may also recall that UN Security Council
Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, to which Washington regularly appealed when
seeking justification for its invasion of Iraq, calls for "establishing in
the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all
missiles for their delivery."
Clearly, ways to mitigate current crises aren't lacking.
This Indo-US agreement richly deserves to be derailed. The threat of nuclear
war is extremely serious, and growing, and part of the reason is that the
nuclear states - led by the United States - simply refuse to live up to
their obligations or are significantly violating them, this latest effort
being another step toward disaster.
The US Congress gets a chance to weigh in on this deal after the
International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group vet it.
Perhaps Congress, reflecting a citizenry fed up with nuclear gamesmanship,
can reject the agreement. A better way to go forward is to pursue the need
for global nuclear disarmament, recognising that the very survival of the
species is at stake.
Noam Chomsky's most recent book is Interventions, a collection of his
commentary pieces distributed by The New York Times Syndicate. Chomsky is
emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass
/\/\/\/\/\
FROM INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE TECHNOLOGY
http://www.responsibletechnology.org
The Health Risks of GM Foods: Summary and Debate
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/GeneticRoulette/HealthRisksofGMFoodsSummaryDebate/index.cfm
This section summarizes the health risks of genetically modified foods and
serves as a forum for a global discussion and debate. It is organized around
the 65 main point summaries presented on the left side of the two-page
spreads in Part 1 of Genetic Roulette. Each section linked below offers the
opportunity for people to submit updates, corrections, challenges and
responses. Before making a submittal, please review the full content in that
section of the book.
Contents at a Glance: [there are 5 or more technical articles with links
under each section. Use the main link, above, to access this material]
Part 1: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods
Section 1: Evidence of reactions in animals and humans.
Section 2: Gene insertion disrupts the DNA and can create unpredictable
health problems.
Section 3: The protein produced by the inserted gene may create problems.
Section 4: The foreign protein may be different than what is intended.
Section 5: Transfer of genes to gut bacteria, internal organs, or viruses.
Section 6: GM crops may increase environmental toxins and bioaccumulate
toxins in the food chain.
Section 7: Other types of GM foods carry risks.
Section 8: Risks are greater for children and newborns.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Slavery Is Alive and Well in the US
Suzi Steffen, AlterNet.org, says, "What do you call it when those who cross
the Mexican-US border get charged thousands of dollars for a ride to a job
where their employer makes them pay rent for unspeakably bad living
conditions and board for the food they can only buy at the company store and
where that employer patrols with dogs, trucks and thugs so the workers can't
leave?"
Supreme Court May Have Taken Steps to Outlaw Abortion
Louise France of The Observer UK reports: "In their long, black cloaks, the
eight men and one woman look like crows on a telegraph wire. In reality they
are the most powerful judges in America and, on 18 April 2007, they made a
decision which opponents fear brings the end of legal abortion in the United
States one step closer."
_______________
FROM BLACK AGENDA REPORT (BAR)
Clarence Thomas, the 'Anti-Black' African America - Black Misleadership
Class
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford October 10, 2007
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=394&Itemid=33
The most blatant and unashamed African American-hater on the U.S. Supreme
Court - and probably on the national scene - is Clarence Thomas, a
psychologically damaged ally of the worst sections of the white ruling
class. Thomas is often described as a "complicated" personality, but that's
just a euphemism for a crazy self-loathing that he projects on the rest of
Black America. Dirt-poor Pin Point, Georgia, the peers of his youth who
called him "America's Blackest Child," and an overbearing grandfather who
wanted more than young Clarence was willing to give, made Thomas useful to
no one but Black people's most implacable foes, for whom he has become a
deranged pit bull. Viewers of 60 Minutes were permitted to learn none of
that, as CBS circled its protective wagons around the Most Despised Black
Man in Black America.
Clarence Thomas, the 'Anti-Black'
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Clarence Thomas is a deeply troubled man - a grotesquely twisted, "Down
Home"-grown Black personality at war with the demons of his dark-skinned,
dirt poor youth. Although Thomas has accumulated many "enemies" - earned and
imagined - since his entrance to the white world in the 10th grade in
Savannah, Georgia, his core pathology is Black-directed - a trait so obvious
it was immediately perceived by a succession of white Republican racists who
rocketed him to the U.S. Supreme Court with obscene haste to become a
hit-man against his own people.
Thomas is a perverse right-wing joke played on Blacks and, being of above
average intelligence despite his mental illness, he knows it. But it is a
knowledge he cannot endure, a burden that has made him a pathological liar,
who blurts out contradictions so antithetical to each other that they cannot
possibly coexist in the same brain without a constant roiling and crashing
that puts him at flight from himself and all those who remind him of his now
hopelessly entangled torments and tormentors.
If African Americans had our own insane asylum, Thomas would be welcomed in
and cared for, with proper compassion for the sorely afflicted. But there
are no such facilities available to treat a man who forgives whites for Jim
Crow and every other aspect of past and present discrimination - indeed,
embraces the most racist among them - but can never forgive Blacks for the
way they treated him in Savannah, Georgia and the outlying shanty town of
Pin Point.
"Thomas has since childhood felt despised by African Americans, the only
group that could make his young psyche scream by calling him 'ABC' -
'America's Blackest Child.'"
Thomas, the affirmative action kid, should have gone to Yale, where he
proved to be as adept at navigating the curriculum as at least half the rest
of the class. He should not have ascended anywhere near the U.S. Supreme
Court, or to any government agency that affects the fate of the people he
despises, and has since childhood felt despised by: African Americans, the
only group that could make his young psyche scream by calling him "ABC" -
"America's Blackest Child."
Thomas titled his first and only book My Grandfather's Son, in honor of
grandfather Myers Anderson, who physically rescued him from the abject
poverty of Pin Point at age seven, at his destitute mother's request, but
never let young Clarence forget that he was born in the mud of deepest,
lowest class, Gullah-speaking (Geetchie) Blackdom. "Whenever he'd get angry
at Clarence," a childhood friend of Thomas told Washington Post reporter
Juan Williams, in 1987, "he'd say, 'Oh, you from Pin Point.' " Grandfather
Anderson, a self-made, semi-literate businessman, alternately wielded "Pin
Point" as the most cutting insult to the boy's value as a human being, and
as the low-life nightmare to which Clarence must return if he did not show
himself worthy of elevation above the mud.
Grandfather Anderson was a committed member of the NAACP, a regular
contributor of money to the cause. He coerced Clarence to read his good
grades aloud in front of NAACP meetings, an experience the shy child found
painfully intrusive. When Clarence gained entrance to an almost lily-white
Catholic seminary, with vague ideas about becoming a priest, old man
Anderson warned, "don't you shame me and don't you shame your race.'"
Too much pressure for the emotionally fragile kid, who had been ceaselessly
reminded that his Pin Point background was a shame on its face, and that he
must begin his climb up from a deep hole to rise to the standards of the
upscale-dominated Savannah NAACP - a tall order for "America's Blackest
Child." In a 2002 interview with Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida and
Michael A. Fletcher, Thomas said he "can't think of any" good the NAACP ever
did. Civil rights leaders, in general, just "bitch, bitch, bitch, moan and
moan, whine and whine."
The overbearing, unrelenting Granddaddy Anderson pinned his hopes on
Clarence graduating from the Catholic seminary and using his credentials and
education to assist other Blacks. However, Clarence quit in 1968, and
Anderson put him out of the house. Thomas' lying memory begins to dominate
the narrative at this point in his 19-year-old life, with estrangement from
his Black anchor and hate-love object, Granddaddy Anderson. The old man and
the NAACP expected great things from young Clarence, based on their
standards, schedule and mission. Thomas claims he quit the seminary when, on
news of the shooting of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he overheard a white
student say "Well, that's good. I hope the SOB dies" - evidence that the
Catholic Church had failed him.
Note that Thomas does not punch the white kid out, for which he might have
been expelled. He just quit, and in so doing quit his grandfather and the
NAACP, as well.. Although the alleged remark is totally plausible, given the
blatant, unabashed racism that prevailed in Sixties white Georgia campuses,
parochial and public, it is equally implausible that Thomas had not heard,
and been personally subjected to, many verbal racial assaults during his
time at the seminary - and never reacted. It is much more likely that
Thomas, having already charted his exit from Black Savannah and a path to
the Ivy league, later invented or used the incident to cast himself as a
"radical" - the pose he (possibly after-the-fact) adopted during his
scholarship-assisted and affirmative action-arranged stay at Yale, his next
stop....
read more>>
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=394&Itemid=33
Do not believe anything Clarence Thomas says, since his statements are
almost uniformly lies of commission or omission. It is doubtful that he
knows which. He claims not to have been able to "get a job" after graduation
from Yale, when in fact he soon got a dream position for any young Black man
looking for a fast track into the heart of rising Republican rightwing
politics. The Black GOP list wasn't just short, it was almost non-existent.
Missouri Attorney General John "Jack" Danforth snatched up the boy from Pin
Point in a New York minute, doubtless after getting an earful from the Yale
graduate about the demeaning nature of Ivy League affirmative action. The
$10,000 a year salary sounds paltry in current dollars, but in 1974 it was
quite enough for a single recent grad. More to the point, Thomas was an
Assistant Attorney General, a title for which many graduates would intern
without salary. Most importantly, Thomas had found a mentor and protector in
Danforth, who would stick by (or use) him through to the 1991 Senate
confirmation process. "ABC" had found his niche. He would not return to Pin
Point to dedicate his law skills to the folks, as his grandfather so dearly
wished. The beret was gone, too.
Clarence promptly picked up his first book on Black "conservatism" (or, he
may have read it in preparation for the Danforth interview - the record is
nonexistent). Thomas Sowell's intellectually primitive Race and Economics
was, according to Thomas, his introduction to the tiny grouplet of rightwing
Black fellow-travelers hoping to get in on the ground floor whenever a
national change of regime might occur. With Danforth as his guide, Thomas
was on the launching pad. The Missouri attorney general became a U.S.
senator in 1979, with Clarence in tow all the way to Washington....
The truly obscene "affirmative action" from which Thomas has benefited is
Republican-made - a cascade of rewards for being the "Anti-Black" who can be
counted on to bludgeon and bad-mouth his own people at every opportunity,
while his benefactors snicker at the joke. That's why Thomas so richly
deserved Emerge magazine's 1994 depiction of him as a lawn jockey, a
cartoonish figure placed on lawns by whites to remind everyone of Black
subservience.
Thomas has written over 300 High Court opinions, about par for the course.
He has been a minority-of-one more often than any other Justice, simply
because, despite being surrounded by clerks educated in the
chapter-and-verse of precedent and statute, Thomas repeatedly casts the
fundamentals of judgeship aside to vent his venom, hostility, pent-up pain,
and desire for vengeance - against his fellow African Americans.
Thomas imagines himself a man of the people. "Man, quotas are for the black
middle class. But look at what's happening to the masses. Those are my
people. They are just where they were before any of these policies," Thomas
told a reporter. But Clarence from Pin Point certainly isn't where he used
to be. And the almost exclusively poor and disproportionately Black prison
population would be in even worse shape if Thomas' 1992 dissent in a "cruel
and unusual treatment" case had been joined by the majority of the High
Court. Angola, Louisiana, prisoner Keith Hudson was left "with loosened
teeth, facial bruises and a cracked dental plate" after being shackled and
taken to a secluded place to be beaten by guards. "In my view," wrote
Clarence The Man of the People, "a use of force that causes only
insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral, it may be tortious, it may
be criminal...but it is not 'cruel and unusual punishment.' "
60 Minutes dubbed its book promotion masquerading as journalism, "Clarence
Thomas: The Justice Nobody Knows." They then proceeded to make sure nobody
would really know him, if they didn't already.
Possibly the most pathologically illuminating portion of the network PR job
came at the end of the interview. Thomas, asked where he feels he is in
life, responds: "I'm Home."
Home is what Clarence has been running from all along - although he can't
escape the formative environment in which he sickened so early in life. He's
really in Purgatory, and trying to put the rest of us in Hell.
_____________
COMMENT by Paul Stephens
I reprinted the above for several reasons: First, the BAR and Mr. Ford are
pro-Green - at least more so than any other Black publication or
organization I know of.
Second, I have sometimes been accused of "white racism," which may or may
not be true. (Disclaimer: I've recently discovered that I am distantly
related to Alexander Hamilton Stephens, Congressman, Senator, and Governor
of Georgia, as well as VP of the Confederacy, leading Constitutional
scholar, and probably the most outspoken apologist for black slavery, on
Biblical grounds. I am descended from AHS's uncle James, from Pennsylvania,
Kentucky, Illinois, and thence to Montana. Thus, we were always Northerners,
anti-slavery, and Lincoln Republicans, although sympathetic to AHS's
"State-rights" strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.)
And third, I have in the past expressed some favorable opinions about
Justice Thomas - especially his vote against the majority which held that
private homes could be condemned and the property sold to Wal-Mart or other
corporations, simply because the local municipality could collect more tax
revenues as a consequence. This is the notorious decision which caused
legislatures all over the country to pass revised "Eminent Domain" laws,
supposedly reversing this decision by statute. (In fact, most of them were
also corporate-sponsored, and only made the situation worse.) Still, I give
Justice Thomas credit for supporting the people over corporations in this
decision. The "liberal" justices like John Paul Stevens, along with the
corporate conservatives, voted with the majority.
And there are other decisions of a similar nature. I also tend to agree with
Thomas that Brown vs. Board of Education was not, with benefit of hindsight,
a good thing - either for public education, or for black children. Public
schools today (at least in the North, and Brown was about Kansas) are more
segregated, and more beset with "savage inequalities" in funding and results
than was the case in 1954. "Affirmative action," racial quotas for college
admission, and the like have largely fallen by the wayside, without any help
from Justice Thomas. He is merely reflecting a widespread antipathy towards
these "liberal" programs, by blacks and whites, alike. State socialism and
corporate fascism were the original models for a "planned," progressive,
scientific, egalitarian society. In general, they did not deliver, or were
"subverted" for whatever reasons. What remaining valid laws or legal system
we have must be recognized as fair and just by everyone, else people will
come to reject the very ideas of law and government (as they would seem to
have done in most of the U.S. already).
One thing Thomas said in the Kroft interview was that when GHWB interviewed
him before the nomination (and remember, they were both Yale graduates,
along with the Clinton's and John Kerry), the President insisted that Thomas
promise always to do what he thought was right, and not succumb to political
pressures. This, too, would be a good thing, if only he actually knew what
was "right." The Republicans, after all, were the party of Emancipation, and
in the North most "Negroes" voted Republican until the 1960's. Racism, of
course, is not restricted to any one party, and I have made the case, in
other places, that the Greens' "respect for diversity" value should also be
respectful of "white" or European culture and traditions as well as those of
"minorities" (in fact, "whites" are the minority world-wide, when compared
with "people of color." )
The U.S. Supreme Court is a "white" or European institution, with both
English Common Law and Roman Law antecedents. Surely no one would wish to
argue that no black (or non-English/Roman) people should serve on it! Come
the Revolution, perhaps we won't have any more
British/Roman/Napoleonic/Justinian legal system, but I have yet to hear of
any American political movement (excepting, arguably, Native American
traditionalists) proclaiming that as a desirable goal. The "Rule of Law" (an
independent, precedent-bound judiciary) is what protects everyone's rights
and freedoms - theoretically, at least. And it is this very "judge-made law"
which protects us all from the predations of a bought-and-paid-for Congress
and state legislatures - the Jacobin "mob rule" which "conservatives" used
to warn against.
It was an "independent judiciary" which gave us Brown vs. Board of Education
and Roe vs. Wade. They can just as easily be reversed, if they prove to have
been counterproductive or destructive of the social order and contrary to
fundamental legal principles. All-girl's schools were also outlawed under
Brown vs. Board (although it took quite a while to do so). Feminists today
are questioning that policy. And even "abortion on demand," although clearly
a valid civil (or even a "property") right, is absolutely prohibited under
the Hippocratic Oath, the oldest code of medical ethics. If we were real
legal sticklers, we could still have abortions, but not carried out by
licensed physicians! A separate "professional category" would be needed,
such as "executioners," a duty which licensed physicians are increasingly
unwilling to carry out in the penal system as well.
Thinking strategically, I wonder why a black advocacy group would want to
denounce so fervently the one black Justice on the Supreme Court? Do they
believe he is totally beyond reason or any arguments or encouragement which
might lead him to better-represent his own race? Some of the arguments put
forth by Mr. Ford sound suspiciously like the Zionists accusing their
fellow-Jews who support Palestinian rights of being "self-hating Jews." The
fact is, Justice Thomas is there, and he may be the only black person on the
Court for the next decade or more. We'd best try to get along with him. Our
"Brethren," indeed! -- PHS] ___________
Congo's Tormented Women
Reporting for The Toronto Star, Olivia Ward writes, "... after a savage
attack on her own daughters, [Congolese human rights worker Justine] Masika
fears for her life, but continues to work in the turbulent eastern town of
Goma, where her grassroots collective, Synergie des Femmes pour les Victimes
de Violences Sexuelles, helps female victims of violence."
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