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Monday, September 29, 2003

Cheney lies. 

Remember that poll that proved Iraqis believe they are better off with the U.S. as occupier? The debunking begins:

That same poll, however, found that, countrywide, only 33 percent thought they were better off than they were before the invasion and 47 percent said they were worse off. And 94 percent said that Baghdad was a more dangerous place for them to live, a finding the administration officials did not discuss.

The poll also found that 29 percent of Baghdad residents had a favorable view of the United States, while 44 percent had a negative view. By comparison, 55 percent had a favorable view of France.

# posted by scorpiorising : 3:26 PM |

Wesley Clark in Rolling Stone, Kucinich in Denver, and Dean... 

Kucinich in Denver today:

"It's only when the very narrow interest of certain economic groups masquerade as national interest does war become part of the discussion," Kucinich said. "We need to begin the work to make war archaic."

Wesley Clark is in this week's issue of Rolling Stone:

People are going to look back in 100 years and ask, "What did you leave behind in this country?" We will leave two legacies. The first is the Constitution, which implements the will of the majority while protecting the minority. The second is the environment. And if you want to protect it, you've got to start now. Unfortunately, this administration has rolled back the legacy we will leave for our children and our grandchildren. I believe in clean air. They believe in letting power plants modernize without pollution controls. I believe in clean water and preserving wetlands. They believe "shit happens." I don't believe in opening up old-growth forests for logging in the name of fire prevention. How would you decrease our reliance on oil imported from the Middle East?

The easy, conventional way is to raise the price of gasoline. But I don't want that. That's a regressive tax -- the people who pay it the most are the people who can afford it the least. There's people in my part of the country, in Arkansas, who are traveling sixty miles a day for a minimum-wage job. If you raise the price of gas to three dollars a gallon, they can't pay that. They're trying to save everything they can right now. The president talks a lot about hydrogen being the fuel of the future, but where are you going to get your hydrogen from? You're probably going to get it out of natural gas -- and a lot of that natural gas is going to come from the Middle East. So I'd raise average-mileage performance on automobiles. That's something we can do right now that will decrease our oil dependence - but it's something the administration has dragged its feet on.

And Howard Dean is, well, attacking Clark:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean accused some party insiders on Sunday of desperation politics in backing Democratic presidential rival Wesley Clark, a retired general who voted Republican in the past.

Dean, who has campaigned as a Washington outsider, said members of the establishment embraced the former NATO commander after White House bids of others in their circle sputtered.

"I think that Wes Clark is, first of all, a good guy," Dean told CBS's "Face the Nation." But Dean added, "I think what you see in the Wes Clark candidacy is a somewhat of a desperation by inside-the-Beltway politicians."

"You've got a lot of establishment politicians now surrounding a general who was a Republican until 25 days ago," said Dean.

I don't have to point out the one who sounds desperate.

# posted by scorpiorising : 2:32 PM |

Can the election be stolen? 

Buzzflash today is posting an interview with Bev Harris:

Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century has provided numerous articles on voting machine ownership, errors and security to news publications worldwide. In writing Black Box Voting, she spent over two thousand hours researching voting machines, and interviewed dozens of witnesses including many election officials and even voting machine programmers who work directly for the firms that build these machines. Harris owns Talion.com, a publicity firm, and has been writing professionally for 10 years. She is also the author of "How to Embezzle a Fortune", tips on how to identify accounting fraud and recover embezzled funds.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

1. Secrecy: What has always been a transparent process, subjected to many eyes and belonging to all of us, has very recently become secretive and proprietary. This happened when voting systems, which should be considered part of the "public commons" were turned over to private companies. These companies now assert that the process underlying the vote must be held secret from the voters.

2. Ownership: When a system that belongs to the public becomes secret, it becomes doubly important to make sure we can completely trust those who run it. Voting machine companies are not required to tell us who owns them. Two of the top six firms have been foreign-owned: Election.com, owned by the Saudis until an acquisition by Accenture recently, and Sequoia, now owned by DeLaRue (Great Britain). Three of the top six firms have owners and/or directors who represent vested interests:

-- Election Systems & Software, the largest company. Main owner is a company owned by Senator Chuck Hagel's campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy. Hagel has owned shares in both the voting company itself and in the parent company run by his campaign finance director, and Hagel was the CEO and Chairman of the voting machine company while it built the machines that counted his votes.

-- Diebold, the second largest voting machine company. CEO is Wally O'Dell, who recently visited George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch along with an elite group of Bush supporters called the "Rangers" and "Pioneers.” Days later, he penned a letter to Ohio Republicans promising to help "deliver the votes" for Bush. O'Dell sponsored a $600,000 fund raiser for Dick Cheney in July. Diebold director W.H. Timken is also a Bush Pioneer.

-- VoteHere, the company striving to get its cryptography software into all the other companies' machines (already has a contract with Sequoia), has as its Chairman a close Cheney supporter and member of the Defense Policy Board, Admiral Bill Owens. Former CIA director Robert Gates, who heads the George Bush School of Business, is also a director.

-- Voting companies also have a somewhat incestuous group of key players -- Todd Urosevich and Bob Urosevich founded ES&S, but Todd now is an executive with ES&S while Bob is president of Diebold Election Systems. Sequoia and ES&S share software and optical scan machines.




# posted by scorpiorising : 10:31 AM |

Link to USA products. 

I'm going to start listing sites that link to products made in the USA. Warning: some of the sites are supported by freepers. Nevertheless, it is important to buy American, if possible.

# posted by scorpiorising : 9:48 AM |

What a waste. 

I just posted on Daily kos as to the electability of Dean versus Clark versus Kucinich. What a waste of time though. It's about as good as masturbating. Better to spend my time helping to expose and discuss the lies and crimes against humanity of the Bush administration. Billmon and Atrios are doing a good job of this, and staying above the "who is electable" bullshit. I wish them all the best of luck, except for Leiberman.

# posted by scorpiorising : 9:36 AM |

Sunday, September 28, 2003

On the Waterfront, revisited. 

I just watched Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront again, for the umpteenth time. It's one of the greatest black and whites ever made, I should say, black and gray, there isn't much white, with the exception of the Eva Marie Saint's slip in one scene. Brando as the embattled Terry Malloy is at his most pure and brilliant. The last scene, when Brando as Malloy takes the Christ walk through the waterfront gates, to lead the way for the men, to crack the corrupt union leaders, is a walk we all have to take right now. Perhaps not bruised and bloodied, unless you can bloody and bruise a psyche. We're all walking around hurt and sore, and sometimes we don't know it. We're been beaten down by the president and his brown shirts, and all he wants us to do is take more crap, and drink the poison in the form of $87 billion.

He and his thugs Ashcroft, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, are like the corrupt union bosses of old, conducting shakedowns if someone steps out of line, like the exposure of Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA agent.

Who is going to expose these thugs, to a largely complacent and passive American population? It is going to be you and I. We are the modern day Terry Malloys.

We were willing to ride the market and good times under Bill Clinton, as long as things went our way. The corruption simmering beneath has bubbled up though, and this brew is poisonous. Don't look for Clinton to save us. We have to save ourselves.

Howard Dean is faulted for his anger, but let me tell you, right now he is carrying our anger for us. As is the other "angry" candidate, Kucinich. To varying degrees, all of the candidates have expressed very "appropriate" anger.

Maybe it's we who are not angry enough. If Bush is re-elected, I'll know we're not angry enough. Maybe we need to be as angry as Terry Malloy, when he said he was going down to the waterfront to "take his rights". We have our rights to take back, and we ought to be on it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We ought to fight the good fight, even if we lose, because then we'll have to fight even harder. But, we'll be used to it by then.

# posted by scorpiorising : 5:41 PM |

Saturday, September 27, 2003

Our government is insane. 

I was accused of insanity on a Daily Kos thread when I called someone a corporate fascist. Corporate fascism is sucking the dreams of every American who desires a quality life, with war spending, war, war, war.

This is the latest example. On CBSnews.com there is a pretty good video of details of the spending requests for the rebuilding of Iraq (click on "Iraq costs big bucks.) 20.3 billion of the 87 billion request will go towards the reconstruction and security of Iraq.

Here are some of the details, and, as the CBS anchorman said, "the devil is in the details":

100 million to investigate crimes against humanity.

400 million for a new prison system, at a cost of 50,000 dollars per bed.

54 million to study the phone system.

100 million for a witness protection program.

I'm not making this shit up. I wish that I were.

# posted by scorpiorising : 7:59 AM |

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Some good news... 

John Pilger slaps Condi Rice, Colin Powell, and George Bush around; Media Benjamin slaps Richard Perle around, and I'm feeling a little more conciliatory towards Dennis Kucinich, not that anyone need give a damn.

In a recent Nation article, Kucinich's message is compared to Dean, with Kucinich leading the charge on most issues, and Kucinich easily outdistancing Dean on the progressive front, but we already knew that, didn't we? That said, I do believe that Kucinich did not believe enough in his ability to win, in his ability to convey his message in a "winning" way, and I do believe these beliefs have gotten in the way of his gaining popularity with the potential voters.

I was peeved yesterday at the amount of money I have contributed to the Kucinich campaign. However, I deluded myself, because his message is so damn good. I will continue to advocate his issues and ideas, but I can't help but defend and support Wesley Clark, whom I believe is a decent man, and will make a decent president. Besides, he'll have all of us Kucinich progressive dogs to deal with after the election. We must continue the fight for progressive issues. It will be the most important to do so after the election when everyone will tend to relax and get complacent again, that is, after the celebrating.

# posted by scorpiorising : 4:07 PM |

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Wesley Clark 

I'm teetering, I'm about to take the dive off of the cliff...my boat is sea-worthy, but it might have a new captain: Wesley Clark.

Not in a million years did I think I would say this, but Kucinich doesn't have a chance, and I think he knew this all along. Why the heck did he run? I gave too much of my hard-earned money to the guy. If he didn't think he could win, why not run a campaign like Mosley Braun, who is practically saying, don't contribute, I'm in it to contribute my influence to the expression of the issues, and get my name out there.

In all fairness, Kucinich has contributed to the issues, and kept at least some of the debate left-leaning. Couldn't he have done this without my money though? Again, Braun and Sharpton have.

That said, I'm excited about Clark. My bet is he will surprise us all and be the greatest liberal president since Eisenhower, and I don't say that facetiously.

Clark is already shown in a recent gallup poll to be neck and neck with Bush. He's come out of the gate strong and he inspires confidence in people. Now all we have to do is support him, and fend off the attacks already emanating from the scared, far right, such as William Safire, who would like to paint him as a Schwarzenegger type candidate and a puppet of the Clintons, in his column in the NYT on September 22 :

As a boot-in-mouth politician, however, Clark ranks with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He began by claiming to have been pressured to stop his defeatist wartime CNN commentary by someone "around the White House"; challenged, he morphed that source into a Canadian Middle East think tank, equally fuzzy.

Worse, as his Clinton handlers cringed, he blew his antiwar appeal by telling reporters "I probably would have voted for" the Congressional resolution authorizing Bush to invade Iraq. Next day, the chastised candidate flip-flopped, claiming "I would never have voted for war."

Clark's strange explanation: "I've said it both ways, because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position." He put himself in the hot-pretzel position — softly twisted.

Let's assume the Clinton handlers teach him the rudiments of verbal discipline and the Clinton fund-raising machine makes him a viable candidate. To what end? What's in it for the Clintons?

Busy, Busy, Busy has this take on Safire's attack:

My transcendent hatred of the Clintons having imbued me with preternatural mind-reading powers, I can discern in their support of Wesley Clark's candidacy a Machiavellian scheme to install Hillary in the White House.

Visit Clark's website and take a look at his 100 year vision, yes, that's right, 100 year vision for America. Here is a man who does not believe in his destiny in the apocalypse.


# posted by scorpiorising : 7:10 AM |

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

"Who ignored the threat?" 

I wanted to get away from relying on links to articles, but damn if two very well-written critiques of the war and the intelligence used to justify it, didn't pop up. A Daily Kos reader posted this link to an article by Joseph Wilson, the embattled and fighting back ambassador and exposer of the forged, Niger documents:

During the gulf war in 1991, when I was in charge of the American Embassy in Baghdad, I placed a copy of Lewis Carroll's ``Alice in Wonderland'' on my office coffee table. I thought it conveyed far better than words ever could the weird world that was Iraq at that time, a world in which nothing was what it seemed: The several hundred Western hostages Saddam Hussein took during Desert Shield were not really hostages but ``guests.'' Kuwait was not invaded, but ``liberated.''

It is clearly time to dust the book off and again display it prominently, only this time because our own government has dragged the country down a rabbit hole, all the while trying to convince the American people that life in newly liberated Iraq is not as distorted as it seems.

And then we have the Startribune.com, for lack of a better description, ripping Vice-President Dick Cheney a new asshole, originally posted by atrios:

Dick Cheney is not a public relations man for the Bush administration, not a spinmeister nor a political operative. He's the vice president of the United States, and when he speaks in public, which he rarely does, he owes the American public the truth.

In his appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Cheney fell woefully short of truth. On the subject of Iraq, the same can be said for President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. But Cheney is the latest example of administration mendacity, and therefore a good place to start in holding the administration accountable. The list:

• Cheney repeated the mantra that the nation ignored the terrorism threat before Sept. 11. In fact, President Bill Clinton and his counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, took the threat very seriously, especially after the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. By December, Clarke had prepared plans for a military operation to attack Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, go after terrorist financing and work with police officials around the world to take down the terrorist network.

Because Clinton was to leave office in a few weeks, he decided against handing Bush a war in progress as he worked to put a new administration together.

Instead, Clarke briefed national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Cheney and others. He emphasized that time was short and action was urgent. The Bush administration sat on the report for months and months. The first high-level discussion took place on Sept. 4, 2001, just a week before the attacks. The actions taken by the Bush administration following Sept. 11 closely parallel actions recommended in Clarke's nine-month-old plan. Who ignored the threat?

Indeed.

# posted by scorpiorising : 2:46 PM |

Sunday, September 14, 2003

The Twin Towers: reprise 

I received this Greg Palast article on the twin towers the other day, and sent it on to a friend, who posted this response to the article:

Elizabeth,
I disagree with the article by Greg Palast, which seems oppositional for the sake of being oppositional. Tom Brokaw may just be an empty hair-do, but I think he and the European Left had it right when they said the WTC and the Pentagon were symbols of American capitalism and hegemony. (Palast is just flat wrong to think they were referring only to the WTC towers).
Palast tortuously tries to make the point that they symbolized socialism instead because of the the public tax money that created the towers and because a couple of social activists worked there in addition to the thousands of capitalist tools, but that flies in the face of the meaning of "symbolism". Symbolism is what things mean to most people, not just what they mean to one guy. Greg Palast wants to change the meaning of those two symbols for some reason, but it's a hopeless effort. The WTC and the Pentagon were attacked because, in the eyes of the world, they symbolized American hegemony and capitalist globalization despite their public origins and the couple of activists Palast happens to know worked there.

{H}

My friend, I'll call him {C}, also chipped in with this response to the article:

I have to agree with {H} on this one. I think Palast is a good writer, but
his personal friendship shrouds his judgment in this argument. Though, I do
think that we are more of a socialist nation than most people realize, we ain't
number1 or even close to anything in the EU. Furthermore, when the public can
buy stock into a company, or if the entity is primarily financed through
municipal bonds, it is not part of a socialist structure. In a socialist
environment, all citizens are taxed like hell and this just isn't happening yet.
That's
the biggest problem with socialism. But, it does work if everyone is employed
and you don't mind relinquishing a third of your income. Personally, I don't
trust any government and if I'm so inclined and able to be philanthropic, I'll
choose where to be charitable, not Uncle Sam. Thus, I'm a Libertarian at
heart.

{C}

My response to both my friends:

Your response {H} to Palast's article, aside from being rather stern in tone, provoked an emotional response in me that, pardon me from saying, had me appreciating Palast even more.

He chose to share obviously very personal feelings and beliefs about the two towers and its occupants who lost their lives. I don't know that the two workers he talked about were the only two socialists "out of a thousand capitalist tools", as you said. The building did harbor, yes, capitalist workers, some socialist workers (Palast himself, used to have an office there)
and a great number of service industry workers that cleaned and maintained the building.

The service industry people I feel a little bit more of an affinity for, as well as the socialist workers, but I suppose I felt an affinity for everyone within the building, the firemen and policemen, all who lost their lives.

I remember painfully that day, getting stuck in Houston and sleeping at the International Hostel, which turned out to be quite enjoyable, actually. Sleep that night though was waking up every couple of hours with a start and a sickening rush of awareness flooding my consciousness. It happened. Indeed, the horrible event happened.

I don't know that Palast "wants to change the meaning of those two symbols for some reason," as you said. Ideally, he can't possibly do that for others, unless people are open to his ideas, which is a personal choice. He reached within to explore the symbolism of the two towers, for himself, and volunteered to share it with others (I receive a weekly email from him).

I have to confess I rather felt some affection towards the two towers. I know they were, well, big. They dominated the New York skyline so effortlessly, soaring, claiming the skyline as its own. Their destruction left an indelible mark, an outline, a whisper of a dream perhaps grown too tall, but a dream nonetheless.

I'm well aware, as Palast is, of the importance to many of the twin tower's symbolism as one of capitalism, hegemony.

Bin Ladin chose the towers for a very good reason. One could almost say he made a "wise" choice, though diabolical.

The capitalists, at least, many of them, bought that choice hook, line and sinker. They became afraid. He is striking at us, they thought; he is trying to hurt us. Many very dangerous knee-jerk reactions were born of that fear, of that acceptance of Bin Laden's hostility. It is directed at us, our way of life, many thought, our capitalism.

The symbolism of the twin towers is striking in its apparent obviousness.

Yet...what is a symbol, except a reflection of a collection of beliefs. It is transparent, in that it doesn't have physicality. It is a meaning.

What Palast did, in my view, was turn the symbil, ever so slightly, as if viewing the towers from an angle not often seen. Sure, {C}, it wasn't a perfect symbol of American socialism
but it was a publically owned building, and I didn't know that.

Yes, the EU is miles ahead of us in terms of socialism, including it health care and pension plans. But Europe is also miles ahead of us in terms of the privatization of it's electric and water services.

Right now, there is a small group of dedicated activists, fighting to prevent the privatization of water services here in New Orleans. I've participated with this group. The bidders have been huge, multi-national companies from Europe, Vivendi and United Water are two of them. They are buying up water rights all over the globe, sending rates up and services down. Atlanta just kicked out United Water.

There is a horror story on Commondreams.org about this right now, concerning South Africa. I think we can apply relativity to the socialism issue, and safely say that Palast is encouraging the appreciation of the socialistic institutions, that America already has, and is struggling to keep. Kucinich's fight, as mayor of Cleveland, to keep it's utility company publically owned, is a case in point.

It was nice to find out the twin towers were serving a useful function, besides office space, in that, according to Palast, they "generated the revenue wich pays the bonds that keep the city's infrastructure-subways, tunnels, bridges and more-out of the hands of the ever-circling privatizers".

Also an aside to this, Palast points out, is that Canter Fitzgerald was the "government securities market maker", the company that sold those municipal bonds, to help generate the revenue, to keep the privatize buzzards away, and that Canter Fitzgerald was lost, on that day, 658 workers.

Hidden meanings, alternate symbolism, like alternate probabilities.

What if...we had all collectively thumbed our noses at Bin Laden, defied his attempt at destruction of our dream, flawed that it is, and gone on our way, a little more cautiously perhaps, or perhaps a lot more cautiously. Thank you very much, Bin Laden, but if we want to destroy our own dream, we'll do it ourselves. After-all, we granted ourselves this right in the Declaration of Independence:

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Perhaps Bin Laden doesn't realize that with every terrorist act on our soil, this will strengthen the neocons, or perhaps he does. Both are desperate, and share one trait that is glaringly obvious: fanaticism.

We ought to try to understand the desperation of these men. But even more than that, let us not allow them to "hijack" our own symbols. Let us work to recreate them, if we must, and reclaim them anew.

# posted by scorpiorising : 5:15 PM |

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Dean versus Kucinich 

I had an interesting exchange with Dan, who posts on Daily Kos. I wrote him an email on Kucinich. I'll let the exchange speak for himself. I do intend to write him back again.

Dan,

I've enjoyed your posts on Daily Kos, but I have to disagree with you on your assumptions on Kucinich, and, for that matter, the assumptions of the Socialist Worker online.
I will say that Kucinich never for once overestimated his chances for winning.

As hard as he is working to win, though, is testament to his openness to winning,
if you catch my drift. He certainly realized the odds were great when he started, and knows, I am sure, how great the odds continue to be. Did you watch the debate last night?
Kucinich is clever in how he words his "attacks" on the other nominees, in that he carefully points out differences in their pre-war stances, for example. This is a man running to win, not to elect a democrat who supported the war.

Because he stated in the Cleveland newspaper that he wants his candidacy to be a "big tent" for those alienated from the party, doesn't mean that he doesn't want to include, within that big tent, others who support his proposed policies. In other words, he doesn't want his tent to be a small tent for the alienated, but a big tent for everyone.

There is an awful lot of assumption in the socialist worker party article. By-the-way, I consider myself a Lefty with a capital "L". Perhaps though, according to your unexpressed criteria, I delude myself. I consider myself a socialist in that I want to see limits on the amount a person may earn as profit. I want to see the basic necessities of life guarunteed to every individual, as long as they contribute in some way, if they are capable of contributing, and I believe in the public ownership of those services necessary for life.

There is so much more to be said as far as beliefs and socialism. Suffice it to say that Mr. Kucinich more than meets my criteria, in this day and time, as a candidate who truly cares about people, and not profits.

Elizabeth Cook

P.S. I'll post this on Daily Kos as well. Thanks for your continuing hard work in regime change.


And Dan's reply:

Hi!

Nice to meet you...I saw your reply in Kos, and while I agree in large part, and I agree with the general assessment of Kucinich as the most progressive candidate, here's where I stand in regards to "Big L" lefty-ism and electoral politics in general:

1) If a Lefty does choose to take part in the two-party electoral game, it should be with specific strategic and tactical goals aimed at achieving specific progress in terms of the overall Lefty political outlook.

2) No Democrat will EVER meet the criteria set by those standards -- they simply cannot do it and remain in the Democratic party.

3) Therefore, when choosing a Democratic (or Green, or Libertarian, or Independent) candidate to support, a Big L lefty must look at not what platform they put forward (Kucinich's is by far the best in terms of progressive politics, no question), but instead must look at who, how, and why that particular candidate is appealing to people, and how many of them...

4) Therefore, based on cold political/strategic calculation, this Big L lefty chooses to support Dean, not because of the man, but because of the campaign. Not because of the planks in the platform, but because of the makeup and dynamism of the populist/popular campaign.

Obviously, if Kucinich were running a similarly successful campaign, I would gladly support him over Dean. Not-so-obviously, if Kerry, or Gephardt, or Graham, or even Lieberman were running a similar campaign, I would support them!

Here's why -- when dealing with established political party politics, we must understand that the planks are essentially meaningless -- Bush, Clinton, Bush the elder, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, and so on have taught us that campaign planks and platforms are empty promises made for purposes of publicity, nothing more...not out of total mendacity, mind you, but as a result of the basic fact that campaign promises NEVER survive the reality of...ahem...bourgeois liberal representative systems and their inherent design - to promise the sky and deliver only more pain to the hoodwinked supporters in the lower classes...sorry about that...channeling Engels again...

When popular reform movements grow out of material political reality - anti-death penalty, gun control, civil rights, equal rights, abortion rights, and so on - Big L leftists must and do take part, in coalition or united front, with the various liberal, identity/issue, progressive groups that also fight for these reforms...while still recognizing that the reform itself will not change the inherent nature of the capitalist system, nor will the reform bring about real, long-lasting, structural change to our society and its profits based, stealing labor based, inequality and disinformation based mechanisms...

I view political campaigns the same way. I supported Nader in 2000, not because of Nader, but because of the nature of his campaign in its populist, "energize the so-far uninvolved" character.

Likewise, for the moment, and for the same reason, I support Dean over Kucinich...

Kucinich's policy ideas are much much better, but Dean is running a broad based campaign that is energizing a lot of people that were previously uninvolved.

It's a no-lose situation in several senses:

If Dean wins on that wave of populist support, and proceeds to hold true to his promises to that populist base and act on his statements and planks...then an era of progressive reform will ensue that will help, via success and progress, energize more of the working class than today...and the Left can only benefit.

On the other hand, if Dean wins on that base of support and proceeds to do what every other recent populist has done (betray that base) then those who were activated and energized by that campaign will be angry. Very angry....and they will look for an outlet to vent that anger. As a big L leftist WHO SUPPORTED THAT CAMPAIGN ALONGSIDE THEM, I (or my party) has a lot of "struggle credibility" if you will...and can say "look, I am pissed too, I helped get this guy elected even though my party's politics and his were so different, and now, he met my worst expectations, and betrayed us all, why don't you work with US and make a REAL progressive populist party that will REALLY change things!"

Finally, if Dean LOSES, then working alongside his populist base will only benefit "Big L" parties that do so, for similar "struggle credibility" reasons...

Cynical and calculating perhaps...but there it is.

Again, Kucinich says more of the right things, but his campaign is not a "reformist progressive populist" campaign...Dean is not a progressive populist, but his campaign IS...and therein lies the difference.

Frankly, neither one, if elected, will follow through on the promises and planks they are laying out - they can't.

Not unless there is a revolution...and campaigns don't make revolutions.

Big L lefties must choose campaigns to support based on how they benefit the growth in self-consciousness in the working classes, and how they build the potential for real revolutionary change, not in the specifics of the either empty, or unimplementable-within-the-current-system promises.

Peace, and thanks for your mail!

Cheers

Dan






# posted by scorpiorising : 7:52 AM |

Wednesday, September 10, 2003

The WTO is insane. 

The Sierra Club, is voicing concerns that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is proposing changes that could seriously undermine efforts to protect the environment and the interests of working families.

I would say this is a vast understatement.

· Under the services rules on "market access," US trading partners could challenge the right of a local government to restrict the size or location of a new residential or commercial development. States could be penalized for limiting the number of fishing licenses granted in coastal waters, the amount of waste dumped into a landfill, the amount of timber that can be logged from public lands, or the amount of water extracted from an aquifer. Even limits on energy production in wilderness areas could be challenged as illegal restrictions on "market access."

Clean Water at Risk

· New investor rules on "expropriation" could prevent governments from setting standards that protect the public if doing so harms a foreign company's profits. For instance, the Methanex Corporation of Canada used NAFTA's investor provisions to sue U.S. taxpayers for $1 billion after California phased out a hazardous gasoline additive, which the company helps to manufacture. Should Methanex prevail, the federal government would have to force California to reverse its ban or pay damages. Similar lawsuits are expected to grow if investor provisions are included in the WTO.

So, let me get this straight: a Canadian company that produces an additive that has been used in gasoline, recently sued California citizens, because California banned the additive because it was found to be hazardous? And the WTO wants to expand the power of trading partners over the self-rule of local governments, in effect, severly watering down their autonomy and ability to govern themselves, according to what they feel ought to be their priorities?

Has the WTO finally gone stark raving mad? The level of greed and megalomania within this organization is amazing to me. Regarding NAFTA, were some of its creators delusional? Did they bow to corporate pressures to ante-up the powers awarded multi-nationals?

And we wonder why Dennis Kucinich, presidential candidate, wants to cancel NAFTA and the WTO? The same Kucinich who is semi-regularly labeled something close to "insane" in the popular media, and posters on the Daily Kos (recently, someone there called him possibly "crazy as bat shit", though she agrees with his politics; go figure).

It is interesting to me to observe how someone like Kucinich is regularly misunderstood by many. Is it the mark of genius, to be so out of step, as to be seen ready for the funny farm? I guess his proposed Department of Peace really has them preparing papers for his admittance on the 3rd floor.

I suppose wanting peace, and a fair shake for workers and their families, and a clean environment, are really insane.

# posted by scorpiorising : 2:21 PM |

My letter to Salon.com 

My letter today:

Mr. Andrew Sullivan, columnist for the London Times, is suggesting that President Bush, in his infinite wisdom,
has purposefully set up what one might call, a "final showdown" with terrorists.

He suggests Iraq is being used as a fly trap to lure terrorists within its borders, so that the military can "take 'em on".
Mr. Bush's "bring 'em on" statement should be understood within that context, according to Mr. Sullivan.

I have to award Mr. Sullivan for the most absurd and dangerous spin regarding this debacle in Iraq. Putting aside the obvious absurd notion that he appears to be assuming there is some kind of "fixed" number of terrorists, more dangerously, he appears to assume we will eventually have killed so many of them, terrorism will decrease in the world.

A childish notion at best, foregoing the awareness that in the Muslim world, terrorists are recruiting successfully everyday, what with the horror in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Afghanistan war in which we are losing ground because of the number of new recruits, and now a new front for Jihad, Iraq.

Mr. Sullivan and those of his ilk demonstrate a severely narrowed and skewed view of the world, where dead bodies of American soldiers is a sign that we are confronting and taking on the terrorists.

How many more American deaths, and Iraqi deaths for that matter, will it take to awaken the sense of shame that ought to be naturally inherent within those who created and supported this failed policy?

# posted by scorpiorising : 5:42 AM |

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Blog been down.  

My blog has been down since August 19, or somewhere thereabouts.
My, it took a long time for the blogger people to respond. I will be blogging again, for all those who missed me. The issues certainly haven't gone anywhere. Soon.

# posted by scorpiorising : 5:46 PM |

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