Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 10.03.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    10.03.05

1. Ward 5 candidates   10.03 11am
2. Ray Federman        10.03 12:30pm
3. Colombia/resist     10.03 4:30pm
4. Botswana democracy  10.03 4:30pm
5. Light rail?         10.03 6pm
6. Ramsey Co sheriff   10.03 7pm

7. MIC classroom       10.04
8. Palestine bannering 10.04 4:30pm
9. Women/philanthropy  10.04 5pm
10. Open dissension    10.04 6:30pm
11. Uhcan-mn health    10.04 7pm
12. Gay men's health   10.04 7pm

13. Cockburn/StClair - Democrats sink deeper into the ooze
14. Ralph Nader      - Bush is sinking, but the Dems are sinking faster
15. Paul Street      - Bill Clinton was no champion of the poor
16. Justin Felux     - The Bennett rule: abort every white baby!
17. Stew Albert      - Future shock (poem)
18. ed               - The old person's guide (poem)

--------1 of 18--------

From: Shawn Lewis <lewiss [at] email.com>
Subject: Ward 5 candidates 10.03 11am

Insight News Forum for 5th Ward candidates
Monday October 3rd,  11am
North High Auditorium Mpls

Live radio broadcast featuring 5th Ward Candidates Don Samuels and Natalie
Johnson-Lee


--------2 of 18--------

From: lynette <lynette [at] prettyhorses.net>
Subject: Ray Federman 10.03 12.30pm

Monday, October 3

Acclaimed Fiction Writer RAYMOND FEDERMAN reads from his latest work, "My
Body in Nine Parts." at the University of Minnesota, 12:30 pm in the Nolte
Library.

Attendees to this event will receive a free Raymond Federman CD! For more
info, go to: www.raintaxi.com This event is sponsored by the University of
Minnesota's Creative Writing Program, Jewish Studies, French and Italian
Departments, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and the Institute
for Advanced Studies.


--------3 of 18--------

From: allison sharkey <allison3333 [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Colombia/resist 10.03 4:30pm

"Free Trade, Militarization, and Resistance in Latin America:
Plan Colombia's Military Buildup Faces a Continent of Protest"

Diana Milena Murcía speaks
Monday, October 3rd, 4:30pm
Macalester College, Olin Rice Hall #100

Sponsored by Witness for Peace and Macalester College Latin American
Studies Department

Diana Milena Murcía is a Colombian lawyer practicing law since 2001 with
the Lawyers Collective "José Alvear Restrepo". Although she graduated from
Colombia's National University, she is hardly a stuffy legal expert,
spending much of her time in the field trudging through regions such as
Putumayo in southern Colombia, gathering direct testimony from farmers
about the destruction and human rights violations caused by Plan Colombia.
Despite her youth, she is considered among Colombia's leading legal minds
focused on Plan Colombia.

She has also traveled outside of Colombia, looking at the regional impacts
of Plan Colombia. In an ever changing region, many would say that the $2
million a day (by far the most US military aid in the hemisphere) that
flows through Plan Colombia serves as a US "aircraft carrier" in an ever
changing region, securing US influence as country after country challenge
policies from Washington.

Working with one of the more respected human-rights focused legal
collectives, Diana is considered by many a key player in Colombia's
vibrant social movement. As she puts it: "Really the truth is, I became a
lawyer by accident - but now I keep practicing law because of my
convictions."


--------4 of 18--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Botswana democracy 10.03 4:30pm

October 3 - Building a Successful Democracy in Botswana. 4:30pm.
Cost: Free.
Speaker Ketumile Masire, former President of Botswana
Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel, Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue,
St. Paul

You can REGISTER SECURELY ONLINE FOR Minnesota International Center at
http://www.micglobe.org/


--------5 of 18--------

From: Tim Erickson <tim [at] politalk.com>
Subject: Light rail? 10.03 6pm

entral Corridor Equity Coalition
Talking About Light Rail on University Ave?
So Are We!
We Want to Know...

How will this proposed light rail impact the Low Income - Seniors - Native
and African-American, Asian, African and Latino immigrant residents, small
business owners, churches and community organizations who are highly
represented along and around the Ave.?

What are the Pros and Cons? Will there be costs or benefits?
And WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

Join us for a community forum
Monday October 3rd 6-8:30pm
Martin Luther King Center, 270 N. Kent, St. Paul

Hear from and about others affected by the Hiawatha line in Mpls and other
light rail developments around the country. Bring your questions and
concerns.

Central Corridor Equity Coalition A Transit Development Voice for Those
Rarely Heard

More info: Contact Veronica - Just Equity * 612-277-1134

Coalition Members: Aurora St. Anthony Neighborhood Development
Corporation, Dist. 7 Planning Council, Lex/Ham Community Council,
Community Residents, JUST Equity, Ramsey County Commissioner Toni Carter,
Alliance for Metropolitan Stability, MICAH - Organizational Project of
African-American Congregations, Community Stabilization Project, Lutheran
Church of the Redeemer/ISAIAH


--------6 of 18--------

From: Mike Fratto <mfratto [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Ramsey Co sheriff 10.03 7pm

PUBLIC IS INVITED!
To a meeting of the Ramsey County Charter Commission, October 3, at 7pm
Ramsey County Public Works Building, 1425 Paul Kirkwold Drive
(Highway 96 and Hamline Avenue) in Arden Hills

Purpose:  The Ramsey County Charter Commission is holding public meetings
to inform and educate Charter Commission members regarding a possible
Charter Amendment pertaining to the election vs. appointment of the County
Attorney and Sheriff.


--------7 of 18--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: MIC classroom 10.04

October 4.  MIC Classroom Program.  Cost: Teachers and educators $75
(includes three free presentations by an international speaker, meal and
CEUs); International students FREE.

MIC is offering training workshops for teachers and educators interested
in having an international speaker at their school and for international
students wishing to learn more about the MIC Classroom Program.

Educators may receive 0.4 Continuing Education Units through the
University of Minnesota.

For more information or to register: Contact Robin at rbragge [at] mic.umn.edu
or 612.625.4421

Location: MIC, 711 East River Road, Minneapolis.  Limited free on-site
parking.


--------8 of 18--------

From: tracymolm <tracy0581 [at] redconcepts.net>
Subject: Palestine bannering 10.04 4:30pm

Emergency Response Bannering for Palestine!
Tuesday Oct. 4th 4:30pm at the Plaza above Mayday Books (301 Cedar
Ave, Minneapolis)

As many of you know since September 24, Israeli Occupation Forces have
carried out 18 aerial bombardment raids against houses, civilian
properties, and vehicles carrying Palestinian activists. The incursions,
which are continuously escalating, have so far resulted in the detention
of 269 Palestinian civilians.

Detentions are targeting scores of Palestinian civilians, including
religious figures, politicians, community leaders, academics, journalists,
student activists, and nominees for the third round of municipal
elections, scheduled for today in the West Bank. These actions by Israel
are clearly aimed at interfering with Palestinian elections.

At the same time, Israeli Occupation Forces continued
increasingly-dangerous attacks on the Gaza Strip. Their aerial bombardment
campaign is targeting civilians throughout Gaza, including two bridges in
the town of Beit Hanoun. In addition, Israel F-16 fighter jets carried out
mock air raids, resulting in a deadly state of fear among civilians.

We demand: * An end to the most current attacks on Palestinians in both
Gaza and the West Bank * End aid to Israel * End to Israeli Apartheid
policies

Please also check out our other upcoming events including an eyewitness
report from Colombia, and a Reportback from the Sept. 24 Protest in
Washington, D.C. www.antiwarcommittee.org

For more info, call us at 612.379.3899
Check out our website at http://www.antiwarcommittee.org


--------9 of 18--------

From: info [at] economicprogress.net
Subject: Women/philanthropy 10.04 5pm

The Center for Economic Progress is hosting a public conversation with
successful women who lead foundations in the upcoming event "Women in
Philanthropy: Foundation Perspectives."

This event will be held on Tuesday, Oct 4th from 5-7pm at the Cowles
Auditorium, located in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the
University of Minnesota.  Admission is $25.00.

Join CEP to learn, listen and discuss as these women talk about their
experiences, how their roles serve women and the future of giving.
Featured speakers include: Cynthia Gehrig (Jerome Foundation), Carolyn
Roby (Wells Fargo Foundation), and Karen Starr (Otto Bremer Foundation).
Sage Cowles will deliver Opening Remarks and Dr. Reatha Clark King will
moderate the panel and question and answer session. Closing Remarks will
be given by Kathleen Fluegel of the HRK Foundation.

This is a wonderful opportunity for those who are involved, or are
interested, in the non-profit sector, women's and economic issues, and
fundraising as well as a chance to get the inside scoop of what successful
foundations look for when they approve grants, to network with other
players in the nonprofit arena, and to discuss the role of womenâ^À^Ùs
issues in today's economics. Seating is limited -- RSVP NOW:
www.economicprogress.net; info [at] economicprogress.net;(651) 293-1222.

Thanks! Kristina Shaw Executive Assistant Center for Economic Progress
(651) 293 - 1222 www.economicprogress.net


--------10 of 18--------

From: patty guerrero <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Salon - open dissension 10.04 6:30pm

The Conversational Salon this Tuesday, October 4 will be an Open
Discussion.  Come and share your thoughts with other people who will share
their, also. thanks.

Salons are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN

Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------11 of 18--------

From: joel m. albers <joel [at] uhcan-mn.org>
Subject: Uhcan-mn health 10.04 7pm

The MN Universal Health Care Action Network
Organizing Meeting, TUESDAY, October 4, 7pmn

Walker Church Basement,3104 16th ave S.(near Lake Str and Bloomington
ave in Minneapolis). Open to all.

Suggested Items:

1. October begins employee Open Enrollment for MN HMOs across the state.
This is a very "teachable moment". We are planning an informational
literature distribution at U of MN, various other places, on current
health insurance "choices" for workers v.  the real way health care
benefits should be organized: i.e. forming one large common pool, w/
comprehensive, uniform benefits, based on intergenerational solidarity. We
would like to work with labor unions, health practitioners, and students
on this. October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2. Health Care, Not Stadiums. We are in contact w/ 2 groups in Blaine,
where the new Vikings stadium is to be built. Pawlenty is also calling for
a "special session" at the capitol concerning the new stadium, (and also
the new Maple Grove Hospital proposal). Public polls have soundly rejected
public financing of stadiums only to enrich the rich team owners and
enormously wealthy players. At the same time polls show the public favors
public financing single-payer universal health care for Minnesota.

3.  Media Campaign: We need artists, graphic designers, photographers,
videographers, journalists, thespians etc to help us design ed and
outreach materials and other ways get the single-payer health care for all
message out, and to counter and respin industry propaganda.

4. Bring your ideas, develop your skills. Ours imaginations are the limit
to what we can do. Bring a friend.

The MN Universal Health Care Action Network
www.uhcan-mn.org , 612-384-0973,  joel [at] uhcan-mn.org


--------12 of 18--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Gay men's health 10.04 7pm

October 4 - Alan Spear Forum Series: Ron Stall: A Closer Look: Gay Men's
Health Beyond What's Between the Naval and the Knees. 7pm.

HIV is primarily transmitted through sex and the most basic means of
preventing its spread are safer sex practices. Gay men in America know
this, but that alone has not been enough to stop the HIV epidemic in gay
men s communities. Dr. Ron Stall has pioneered research exploring the
greater context of HIV risk among gay men, and his findings are startling.
He argues that HIV risk is tied directly to a combination of multiple
epidemics that exist among gay men, among them depression, partner
violence and substance abuse.

He calls the phenomena of multiple epidemics making each other worse
"syndemics" - a syndrome of interacting epidemics. Add to the issues
mentioned above the homophobia and poverty affecting many gay men, and it
becomes clear that the scope of the fight against HIV needs to extend
beyond what lies between the navel and the knees of America's gay men. A
prominent researcher in the field of HIV risk behaviors and a strong
advocate for gay men s health since the earliest days of the HIV epidemic,
Stall served as Chief of the Prevention Research Branch Division of
HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC from 2000 to 2005.

For more information, call the MAP AIDSLine: 612-373-2437 612-373-2465
(TTY) 1-800-248-2437 1-888-820-2437 (TTY)

Location: Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S, Minneapolis, MN 55455


--------13 of 18--------

From Lynndie England to Shaq
Democrats Sink Deeper into the Ooze
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch
October 1 / 2, 2005

Away to prison for three years goes Lynndie England, her pleas for mercy
ignored by the military judge in Fort Hood, Texas. So who are the
penalized thus far to indicate America's revulsion over the systematic use
of torture by its own forces? It tots up to a handful of rednecks.

Scot-free go those who inherited a secret system of torture that goes back
decades and who ensured that its relentless and widening application would
soon bring the practice to light. The framers of the policy go free. The
lawyers who gave torture its new garb of legality plump themselves down in
richly endowed chairs at our most esteemed law schools or are rewarded
with seats on the Supreme Court. The senior military officers, who ordered
the use of dogs, isolation cells smeared with filth, water-boards and
other techniques designed to drive their captives mad, have escaped all
sanction, except for the eloquent reproofs of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
The lumpen intellectuals, like Jonathan Alter and Alan Dershowitz, who
clamored for torture need fear no indictment or downtime on the cable
networks.

If there was a real party of opposition, maybe those who mandated the new
torture system would face some sanction. If Democratic Party leaders had
made an issue of it, some fiber would have been given to the calls for
punitive sanction of the engineers and administrators of the torture
systems. But top Democrats were silent. Torture was not an issue in the
Kerry campaign. And the grunts were abandoned as surely as Kerry abandoned
the rednecks of Appalachia and the working poor across America.

Thus it is that with each month that passes the Democratic Party seems to
have touched bottom. Then it promptly sinks even deeper into the ooze of
cowardice and irrelevance.

While Interstate 45 from Galveston to Houston was clogged with evacuees
fleeing the wrath of hurricane Rita, there was a similar jam on the
beltway round Washington DC as Democrats fled the city on the eve on the
September 24 antiwar rally, panic-stricken lest their presence in
Washington might somehow be construed as endorsement of the rally's
antiwar message.

Here's a war which the voting population of the United States views a
hostility that is soaring by the day. The latest CNN poll released on
September 26 shows 67 per cent disapproving of Bush's Iraq strategy. This
represents a jump of 10 per cent holding this position since CNN ran its
last poll, less than a month ago.

More than half CNN's latest sample declare that Iraq will never become a
democracy; 63 per cent want to see a pull-out start right now.

It looks very as much as though attitudes to the war no longer break along
traditional party lines: 40 per cent of Republicans oppose their own
president, in regarding the war as a bust. At Saturday's rally it was only
Ralph Nader who pointed out that Republicans may be the antiwar movement's
prime emerging market.

Nader pointed out that Rep Lynn Woolsey's "homeward bound" resolution to
begin the immediate withdrawal of US troops is cosponsored by two
Republicans, Walter Jones of North Carolina and Ron Paul, whose Texas
constituency stretches south west of Austin down to the Rio Grande.

You would think that on the most elementary precepts of political
self-advancement, congressional Democrats would have been besieging the
rally's organizers for a speaker's slot. But the Democrats have not only
forgotten how to fix elections, they've lost the simplest political
instincts of all, opportunism and grandstanding.

Not fifty, no twenty, not ten, but only a fistful of congressional
Democrats, led by Cynthia McKinney - a woman the Democrats tried their
best to destroy three years ago - addressed the 150,000 people on the Mall
protesting the war in Iraq, on September 24. A few other Democrats were
spotted skulking on the fringes of the rally, no doubt angling for the
briefest photo-op of the momentous day.

For those interested in some of the reasons for this incredible
abdication, we can cite former National Security Agency staffer and
muckraker Wayne Madsen who reported two days after the rally that
"according to Democratic insiders on Capitol Hill AIPAC put out the word
that any member of Congress who appeared at the protest, where some
speakers were to represent pro-Palestinian views, would face their
political wrath."

Madsen wrote that three members of Congress had been scheduled to speak at
the rally - McKinney, Woolsey and John Conyers. "Word is that AIPAC will
direct its massive campaign to Wolsey's neo-con and pro-Iraq war primary
challenger, California state assemblyman Joe Nation, who has strong
connections to the RAND corporation."

Insofar as there is an official position on the war from congressional
Democrats it's presumably the "US Army Relief Act" put forward by Senators
Joseph Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Bill Nelson and Jack Reed and Reps
Ellen Tauscher and Mark Udall. Reed, Tauscher and Udall are among the most
liberal Democrats on the Hill. The resolution calls for the increase in US
military troop strength by 80,000 over the next four years.

This is not a position that is finding much favor among American voters.
The recent CNN poll registered just 8 per cent of respondents, both
Democrats and Republicans, as supporting an increase in US troop strength
in Iraq.

There's scant doubt that 2008 will see an anti-war Democrat running in the
presidential primaries. It might well be Senator Russell Feingold of
Wisconsin, although it seems Mrs Feingold cited his presidential
ambitions as one of the reasons she was divorcing him, a plan she
disclosed to the senator earlier this year.

[Might another reason be his loss of backbone, and certain male
appendages? Might he have traded the family jewels for fine gold? -ed]

But Feingold fled the September 24 rally just like the others. Perhaps he
feared jeers from the demonstrators from his bizarre performance in
another political arena, the hearings on Bush's nomination of John Roberts
as chief justice of the US Supreme Court.

In the Senate Justice Committee's questioning of Roberts, Feingold's tough
interrogation extracted damaging testimony from Roberts, on the nominee's
view that US citizens can be held indefinitely, without access to a
lawyer, on the thinnest suspicions that they might be associated with a
terrorist organization.

Feingold also pinned down the Catholic zealot on the death penalty, where
he forced Roberts to disclose that he stands with Scalia on the latter's
view that innocence is no defense against the executioner's lethal needle.

Then Feingold voted to confirm the 50-year old Roberts as chief justice, a
post he may well hold through most of the first half of the twenty-first
century. Another liberal Democrat, Senator Kent Conrad, enthused that he
found Roberts to be "extraordinarily intelligent, and he has assured me
that he brings no ideological agenda to the Supreme Court. He wants to be
a justice for all of the people."

Then there is Patrick Leahy of Vermont. He joined Feingold in voting to
send Robert's' nomination to the full senate. And what grave reasons of
state prompted Leahy to adopt this position? If we are to believe a report
in The Hill, a well-informed source on such matters, Leahy was miffed at a
gag order that had been issued by Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic
minority leader.

Reid had ordered all his senatorial colleagues to keep their mouths shut
on how they would vote on Roberts until after the hearings were over and
they could speak with one clarion voice. But Reid became so incensed at
Roberts' answers to Feingold that he could contain himself no longer and
publicly declared that Roberts was unfit to lead the Court.

Up to this point Leahy, on his admission, was on the fence. He had
prepared two speeches, pro and con Roberts. Reid's manly outburst was the
decisive factor. Leahy cast aside the text offering measured rebukes of
Bush's nominee and grasped the other speech supporting the nomination. He
confided to colleagues that Reid had gone too far.

In the end, 23 Democrats, more than half, voted to confirm Roberts,
including such luminaries as Patty Murray, Ron Wyden, Lieberman and
Christorpher Dodd.  [The dishonor roll - ed]

The prime loyal Democratic voting bloc left consists of black Americans.
If one facet of Roberts's career is indisputable, it's his lifelong
hostility toward, and efforts to undermine, civil rights laws and federal
court rulings on desegregation. This carries scant weight among Democrats
on the Hill. You want further evidence of Democratic collapse? How many of
them went to New Orleans to protest the most glaring exhibition of racism
in America since Bull Connor wielded his cattle prod? Shaquille O'Neill,
who air-lifted tons of aid to the Crescent City, couldn't even assemble a
full basketball team out of the paltry number of big-time Democrats who
came to New Orleans in its hours of crisis.

Note: This column originally ran in the print edition of The Nation.


--------14 of 18--------

Gutless, Spineless and Clueless
Bush is Falling, But the Democrats are Sinking Faster
By RALPH NADER
CounterPunch
October 1 / 2 2005

You would think that with all the troubles surrounding George W. Bush and
the Republican leadership in Congress - from the life-costing bungling of
Hurricane responses to the deepening quagmire in Iraq to the front page
stories of corruption, self-dealing and national security leaks - you
would think the Democrats would be in the ascendancy.

Not so. The polls are plummeting for George W. Bush on a whole variety of
questions, including the key approval rating being at a record low for
him. But the Democrats seem to be sinking right along with the besieged
Republicans. Stan Greenberg, a leading Democratic Party pollster, declares
that "feelings about Democrats are at a 54 month low." Another pollster,
John Zogby, reports that the Democrats are floundering because people do
not perceive them as having any credible national leaders.

Instead of drawing bright and bold lines with the Republicans about the
nation's future directions, leaders in the Democratic Party have persuaded
themselves to just stand by and let the Republicans sink themselves. By
standing by, the Democrats are feeding the "pox on both your houses"
mindset of many citizens.

Apart from protecting social security, what do the Democrats fight for
these days? As a Party they are headless regarding the Iraq
war-occupation. Their leaders cannot even follow some of their own members
in Congress and propose a responsible but definitive exit strategy. This
is the passive case even though there are former leading retired military,
diplomatic and intelligence officials who have done just that.

I and others have called on the Democrats to raise the roof on Bush's
grotesque dereliction in still not providing adequate protective armor for
the military vehicles in Iraq. Billions for the Halliburtons; lethal
excuses for the soldiers.

Also, deliberately undercounting US casualties in Iraq because thousands
of serious injuries and sicknesses were not incurred directly in combat is
a monumental display of disrespect by Bush for these soldiers and their
families. Lowballing the human casualties keeps the public's political
opposition lower than putting out the truth about the injury and sickness
toll being double the official false figures coming from the Bush regime.

To this day, in criticizing Mr. Bush, even the anti-war Democrats like
Rep. Dennis Kucinich use the false lowball figure of injuries.

To this day, Democratic House Leader, Nancy Pelosi, with arguably the most
anti-war constituents in the nation residing in her California district,
is not leading the Democrats with even comparable statements that some
Republicans are making.

Consider the following:

>From Vietnam war veteran, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who, after
returning from one of several trips to Iraq, said: "We should start
figuring out how we get out of there - our involvement there has
destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the
further destabilization will occur."

>From Rep. John Duncan, Jr., conservative Republican from Tennessee, who
urges conservatives to oppose the "undeclared and unnecessary war" not
only because of the deaths but because "there is nothing conservative
about this war; it mean[s] massive foreign aid, [and] huge deficit
spending."

>From CIA Director Porter Goss, who told the Senate in February that the
war in Iraq has become a recruitment and training ground for more and more
terrorists who will go back to other countries.

>From Walter B. Jones, Jr., Republican Congressman from North Carolina,
comes the declaration that he wants out of Iraq - a war he once
prominently supported but does no longer because the President did not
tell him the truth when invading that country.

These legislators come from regions where a much larger percentage of the
people support the war than in Nancy Pelosi's District. There is a growing
majority of Americans who believe that war was a costly mistake and want
out.

On other major matters affecting and afflicting the American people, the
Democrats, dominated by their corporate connectors, are not up front.

On defending our civil justice system from the corporate attack on injured
or defrauded people's right to their full day in court, the Democratic
Party is gutless.

On moving serious corporate reforms to stop corporate crimes that have
drained trillions from workers, investors and pensioneers, the Democrats
are spineless.

On challenging the huge waste, fraud and corruption in government
contracts and programs under the Republicans, the Democrats are hapless.

On raising the impoverished minimum wage to give working Americans a
living wage, the way Senator Ted Kennedy has been calling for, the
Democratic Party is clueless.

The Democratic Party will continue sliding into serial haplessness until a
new breed of "jolters" comes to take over.

Ralph Nader is the author of The Good Fight.

For more information, see DemocracyRising.US.


[I suggest entertaining the extremely upsetting explanation, which I
support, that leading Dems have for several years decided to throw the
fight, in return for corporate dollars for campaigns and trips and perks,
and in return for the corporations not financing challengers, so they keep
their seats.

This means they dare not piss off the corporations, but must help them
take over America and the world, and in the process ending democracy and
possibly life on earth. I can imagine them saying "But, hey, what else can
we do?  Isn't it all over now that money is so concntrated? Isn't fascism
inevitable? So why shouldn't we get what we can for ourselves? Since it's
pretty much all over, what's so wrong with bamboozling a bunch of gullible
Dem voters into the fenced-in road to the killing floor?"

Thus these leading Dems are not stupid, but evil. And those who cooperate
with them as the "lesser evil" are blowing away any chance of alternate
action, just to feel good for a few more years before all the masks drop
and we're all terminally screwed. -ed]


--------15 of 18--------

Bill Clinton Was No Champion of the Poor
by Paul Street
www.dissidentvoice.org
September 29, 2005

                    "We Had a Different Policy"

It's interesting to see former Democratic President William Jefferson
Clinton speaking for the poor and against those who would distribute
wealth yet further upward in America.  Two Saturdays ago, Clinton told ABC
News that "you can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects
middle-class people and up and when you tell people to do something they
don't have the means to do you're going to leave the poor out."  Clinton
added that Tropical Storm Katrina pointed up steep "class division[s] that
often play out along racial lines" in America.

Before making these comments, Clinton reminded ABC that poverty fell in
the United States (U.S.) during his presidency. As Clinton knows, American
poverty has risen during every single year of the George W. Bush
presidency -- the first time that the nation's official deprivation gauge
has gone up for five consecutive years.

The White House was so stung by Clinton's comments that Bush spokesman
Scott McClellan was compelled to make a curiously reflective announcement.
"There is a deep history of injustice that has led to poverty and
inequality" in the U.S., McClellan noted, "and it will not be overcome
instantly."

"From Day 1," McClellan added, Bush "has been acting boldly to achieve
real results for real Americans."

By Clinton's accurate account, Bush's "real results for real Americans"
have included the redistribution of money and wealth from real lower and
middle-class Americans to really rich Americans.

"Whether it's race-based or not," Clinton told ABC, "if you give tax cuts
to the rich and hope everything turns out alright and poverty goes up and
it disproportionately affects brown and black people, that's a consequence
of the action made. That's what they did in the 80s; that's what they've
done in this decade." "In the middle," Clinton reflected, "we had a
different policy." (Phillip Shenon, "the Ex-President: Clinton Levels
Sharp Criticism of the President's Relief Effort," New York Times, 19
September 2005, A17).

                           How "Different?"

Fair enough on Reagan and the two Bushes. But how "different" and more
socio-economically and therefore (by Clinton's analysis) racially
democratic was administration policy under Bill Clinton, the
self-appointed post-Katrina champion of the poor? By Clinton's account,
McClellan's "deep history of injustice" was under egalitarian federal
assault during the years of the Clinton regime. The record suggests
otherwise.

A good place to check that history against Clinton's populist claims is
the thirteenth chapter, titled "The Clinton Presidency," of Howard Zinn's
magnificent modern history counter-text The Twentieth Century (New York,
NY: Harper Perennial, 2003). Another place to look is progressive
economist Robert Pollin's excellent Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic
Fracturing and the Landscape of Global Austerity (New York, NY: Verso,
2003).

What emerges from a careful reading of these and numerous other texts and
sources is a Clinton administration that defied mainstream public support
for socially democratic policies by conducting the public business in
regressive accord with the interrelated neoliberal and racially disparate
imperatives of empire and inequality.

Clinton's domestic agenda was first announced as a gigantic jobs-creation
program coupled with a determined effort to guarantee health care for all.
But, Zinn notes, Clinton quickly betrayed these declared campaign
priorities by "concentrating on reduction of the deficit, which under
Reagan and Bush I had left a national debt of $4 trillion." This emphasis,
Zinn argued, "meant that there would be no bold programs of expenditures
for universal health care, education, child care, housing, the
environment, the arts, or job creation." Clinton's "small gestures" toward
social democracy did "not come close to what was needed in a nation where
one-fourth of the children lived in poverty; where homeless people lived
on the streets in every major city; where women could not look for work
for lack of child care; where the air, the water were deteriorating
dangerously."

More than being merely inadequate to the needs of America's millions of
truly disadvantaged citizens, the Clinton administration actually attacked
the disproportionately non-white poor in numerous interrelated ways.
Clinton signed a punitive neoliberal welfare "reform" bill that ended the
federal government's guarantee of financial help to impoverished families
with dependent children. By forcing poor families getting federal cash
assistance (such families were mainly non-white single-parent units) to
find employment without establishing concomitant government programs to
create or directly provide livable wage jobs, Clinton flooded the nation's
low- and poverty-wage and no-benefits job market with hundreds of
thousands of defenseless new proletarians. He also scored points with the
grinders of the poor by taking welfare benefits away from legal as well as
illegal immigrants.

It was all done in the name of "Personal Responsibility," "Work
Opportunity," and "Reconciliation," to use the key Orwellian phrases of
the Clinton-Gingrich welfare-elimination regime.

Clinton enthusiastically signed a "Crime Bill" that expanded federal
prison construction, helping turn the "land of freedom" into the world's
leading incarceration state. Poor blacks made up a wildly disproportionate
number of the Clinton era's massive and expanding army of prisoners and
felony-marked "ex-offenders".

Meanwhile, Clinton increased economic insecurity in poor and working-class
American communities by signing the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). NAFTA destroyed tens of thousands of American industrial jobs by
tearing down long-established regulatory barriers to the movement of
corporate capital and commodities across the U.S.-Mexican border.

Clinton claimed that "the era of big government is over."  He was more
than content, however, to sustain funding for the regressive, repressive,
and militaristic "right hand of the state."  His concern with balanced
budgets did not extend to the prison- and military- industrial complexes.
As Zinn notes, Clinton's federal government "continued to spend at least
$250 billion a year to maintain the military machine." Clinton "accept[ed]
the Republican claim that the nation must be ready to fight two regional
wars simultaneously, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989."

It was only the left hand of the state, the part that serves the poor and
non-affluent majority, that Clinton targeted in his quest for deficit
reduction.

                          "The Traumatized Worker"

Ironically (or fittingly) given its insistence on throwing poor people
onto the mercies of the "free" labor market, where most Americans obtain
(uniquely among industrialized states) their health insurance, the Clinton
administration ended without any serious effort to meaningfully deliver on
its initial health insurance promises. It also failed to advance any
meaningful initiative to protect the beleaguered rights of workers or to
increase the woefully inadequate minimum wage. "Both the average wages for
non-supervisory workers and the earnings of those in the lowest 10 percent
of wage earners," notes Robert Pollin, "not only remained well below those
of the Nixon/Ford and Carter administrations, but were actually lower than
that even than those of the Reagan/Bush years. Moreover, wage inequality
-- as measured by the ratio of the 90th to the 10th wage decile --
increased sharply during Clinton's tenure in office, even relative to the
Republican heyday of the 1980s." To make matters worse, the percentage of
Americans living at or below the poverty level during the Clinton
administration (13.2) was only minimally smaller than the corresponding
statistic for the Reagan/Bush era (14.1). The circumstances of the
officially "poor" population actually worsened under Clinton. This partly
reflected the Clinton administration's neoliberal slashing of federal
family cash assistance for jobless single mothers and its related reliance
on the capitalist labor market to improve the conditions of society's most
vulnerable.

As Pollin shows, following the testimony of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan, the leading explanation for the exceptionally low level of wage
growth that occurred even amidst a tightening labor market during the
1990s was the reluctance of workers to demand higher incomes. This
reluctance emerged from the weakness of labor's bargaining power in an
increasingly global economy where employers widely and quite credibly
threaten to close their shops and relocate if workers voted to unionize.
It also emerged from the neoliberal pro-corporate-globalization stance of
the Clinton administration, which did virtually nothing to enhance
workers' bargaining power vis-a-vis business, thereby making it certain
that the "traumatized [American] worker" (as Greenspan described American
working people to Congress in 1997) would accept historically minor wage
increases during the 1990s boom.

                      "Putting People First?"

Clinton's heralded fiscal transformation (from deficit to surplus) was
achieved only at extraordinary public cost. The single leading factor
behind this transformation, Pollin shows, was neither faster economic
growth nor the Clinton administration's modest reversal of massive
Reagan-Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but the significant reduction of
federal government spending as a percentage of American GDP from 22% in
1992 to 18% in 2000. While post-Cold war cuts in military spending
explained part of this reduction, a bigger share came through significant
declines in federal spending on education, poverty-reduction,
environmental protection, economic regulation, and equity promotion -- all
while wealth exploded at the top and the "poverty gap" (the amount of
money required to bring all poor people exactly up to the official poverty
line) rose from $1,538 to $1,620 from 1993 to 1999. At the same time,
Pollin notes, the U.S. military budget remained "more than the amount
spent by all the rest of NATO plus Russia, plus all the countries in the
Middle East and North Africa, including Israel, combined."

Finally, the significant, albeit limited and uneven, economic expansion
that occurred under Clinton was purchased against the future.  It was
fueled primarily by an inherently tenuous, debt-financed stock market
bubble that fueled primarily upper class consumption and which inevitably
burst, with recessionary consequences passed on to the presidency of Bush
II. The dramatic and dangerous over-escalation of stock prices could have
been stemmed with elementary regulatory measures the Clinton
administration refused to undertake because of its allegiance to
neoliberal prescriptions against government intervention in the workings
of the supposed "free market" to limit the excesses of private economic
elites.

This performance made a mockery of Clinton's 1992 campaign slogan,
"Putting People First," which communicated a populist message Clinton
rapidly abandoned once he attained the White House, and his Treasury
Secretary Robert Rubin (former head of Goldman Sachs) reminded him that
extremely wealthy folks are the people who matter most when it comes to
running the country. Even before Rubin's reminder, however, Clinton was a
veteran of the Republican-light Democratic Leadership Council (DLC),
formed to increase the influence of big business and reduce the influence
of labor and other progressive forces within the Democratic Party. The
Clinton Democrats' basic commitment to business-class neoliberal values
poisoned the 2000 presidential election, when Al Gore could see nothing
better to do with Clinton's federal surplus than to pay down the national
debt even as nearly 700,000 African-American children lived in "deep
poverty" (at less than half of the nation's notoriously inadequate poverty
level) and beyond.

                  Beyond Centrist-Democratic Snakeoil

You can't blame Clinton for trying to help his wife and his party make
some pseudo-populist political hay out of the Bush administration's
pathetic performance before and during Tropical Storm and Societal Failure
Katrina. Clinton has always had a strong sense of when to push populist
buttons and when (more commonly) to return to standard
corporate-neoliberal rostrums. Since he does in fact come (as he told ABC
News) "out of an environment with a disproportionate amount of poor
people," he's always been more genuinely comfortable around the sort of
non-affluent people that tend to make the aristocratic Bush clan wince.
Still, Americans who wish to substantively overcome McClellan's "deep
history of injustice" would do well to remember that the sociopolitical
construction of American inequality is a richly bipartisan affair. Real
solutions will require dedicated activism against reactionary agents of
class and race privilege within both wings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Party. They will not emerge from the superficially populist rhetoric of
past American presidents, no matter how accurate those ex-presidents'
critical take on current Republican policy.

Paul Street is an historian, journalist, and public speaker in DeKalb, IL.
He is the author of three books to date: Empire and Inequality: America
and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, October 2004);
Segregated Schools: Class, Race, and Educational Apartheid in the
Post-Civil Rights Era (New York, NY: Routledge-Falmer, 2005); Still
Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, Policy, and the State of Black Chicago
(Chicago, IL: The Chicago Urban League, April 2005).  Street.s next book,
Racial Apartheid in the Global Metropolis (New York, NY:
Rowman-Littefield) will be published in late 2006. He can be reached at:
pstreet [at] niu.edu


--------16 of 18--------

The Bennett Rule
Abort Every White Baby!
By JUSTIN FELUX
CounterPunch
October 1 / 2, 2005

Bill Bennett, a prominent right-wing blowhard, has recently come under
intense fire for remarks made on his radio show, in which he stated, "I do
know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could ...
abort every black baby in this country." He quickly backed away from the
proposition, saying "That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally
reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." It's
unfortunate that Bennett chose to be so politically correct, because I
think he may be onto something here. He's just wrong about the target. If
we really wanna get tough on crime, it's the white babies who should start
getting the coat hanger treatment.

Consider the fact that whites commit three times as many violent crimes as
blacks every year, just in raw numbers. This is just for ordinary "street
crimes" such as assault. The numbers become skewed out of this world when
you consider "white-collar" crimes (typically, the collar isn't the only
thing that's white).

For instance, job-related accidents and illnesses claimed the lives of
70,000 Americans in 1992, a significant portion of which can be chalked up
to white employers neglecting to comply with occupational health and
safety laws. According to studies, up to 64,000 die every year due to
pollution and other environmental hazards produced by industry. Another
21,700 die due to consumer product deaths, costing the nation $200 billion
a year. Another $200 billion is lost annually due to white-collar
embezzlement. These two statistics alone add up to over 26 times the
amount of all the robberies and petty thefts committed every year
combined!

We should also not forget the ravages of the white-owned health care
system and insurance industry. Around 18,000 adults are killed every year
as a result of a lack of medical coverage. Over 25 thousand die as a
result of unnecessary prescriptions and surgeries performed by mostly
white doctors. All in all, corporate criminals take about ten times as
many lives as street criminals. And I haven't even mentioned the white men
who control the apparatus of state, which through war, sanctions, and
other means kills hundreds of thousands, if not millions more. Over
100,000 civilians have died in Iraq alone, for example.

I don't know about you, but every time I see a white man in a suit I find
a place to hide. Once I feel safe, I call the Department of Homeland
Security to report his suspicious activity. I simply don't feel safe
knowing that all these savage, white thugs are out walking the streets.
After all, from Bob Chambliss to Timothy McVeigh to Eric Rudolph, by far
most of the terrorist attacks in America have been committed by whites.

Which brings me to my next point: even if a white guy isn't wearing a
suit, you still shouldn't assume that he isn't dangerous. One can find a
plethora of deadly and pathological behaviors uniquely prevalent among
whites who look just as ordinary as you and me. Most notable among them
are spree killing, serial murder, and cannibalism. About 90% of all serial
killers are white men. Some other white pastimes include animal torture,
vampirism, Satan worship, witchcraft, self-mutilation, eating disorders,
and child sexual molestation. White men engage in child sexual abuse at
twice the rate of black men. By aborting all the white babies, we will be
protecting a great many children from the horror of enduring abuse at the
hands of white male sex perverts (pardon the redundancy), in addition to
preventing the creation of new white molesters in the future.

Alas, even if we allowed white fetuses to continue living, and they manage
to avoid the pitfalls of vampirism, corporate employment, and serial
murder, the odds are still pretty good that they will turn out to be
hopeless drunks. Whites are 74% more likely than blacks to binge drink
regularly. In fact, there are more binge drinking whites than there are
blacks in the entire population of the country! Naturally, whites are
twice as likely as blacks to drive drunk, resulting in over ten thousand
deaths every year. The same trend can be seen when considering drug use in
general, contrary to popular belief. Whites make up 74% of illegal drug
users, whereas only 14% are black. Whites make up a majority of drug
dealers as well.

Given all of these facts, can there be any doubt that aborting every white
baby would not only reduce the crime rate, but would also result in a much
safer, cleaner, and happier existence for all Americans? I can already
hear some of you sissy liberals whining about "human rights" or some other
nonsense. In reality, you are soft on crime and lack the rugged
individualism necessary to get things done. At the very least, we should
start forcibly sterilizing white males, much in the same way we did to
Latinas and black women up until the 1970s.

I think the most interesting debate will be over the question of what to
do with mixed race babies. Should we apply the "one drop" rule, whereby
one drop of white blood marks the fetus for termination? I doubt we'll
need to take it to that extreme. If the baby is say, 1/8 white, then its
more destructive tendencies should be sufficiently diluted. Nevertheless,
police and homeland security should still apply increased scrutiny to
individuals whose skin looks suspiciously pale. I'm sure Bill Bennett
wouldn't mind taking a little harassment from the cops if it results in a
safer America for everyone.

Justin Felux is a writer and activist based in San Antonio, Texas. He can
be contacted at justins [at] alacrityisp.net.


--------17 of 18--------

 Future Shock
 By STEW ALBERT

 After Bush,
 what monsters go lurking
 on the edges of our lost mind?

 Who can fully fill
 such a giant vacuum of evil?
 Mediocre Democrats may be getting
 a brief time at bat
 but harsh winds of hate will have them
 hiding in Hell.

 A time of total tyrants then begins.
 Slouching beasts with sinister Christian purpose
 and
 self righteous greed
 hitchhiking across a galaxy
 of dementia and devastation.

 Bush made Hunter
 sentimental about Nixon
 so he killed himself.
 Will future demons
 get us reminiscing
 about Dubya
 in the good old days?

Stew Albert runs the Yippie Reading Room. His memoir, Who the Hell is Stew
Albert?, is just out from Red Hen Press. He can be reached at:
stewa [at] aol.com


--------18 of 18--------

 The old person's guide
 to the orchestra: there's a
 long rest at the end.


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