All in all, it's been a very bad week for the world and America, though one doesn't suppose that George W. Bush has the slightest inkling of this.
©2001 Henry Porter in The Observer

Bush Closes The Wallet On The Endangered Species Act.
By Wendy Williams

"In government, there are two ways to destroy something," says one federal biologist. "If you can't do it directly, then just don't pay for it." Environmentalists in the executive branch ought to know: This Earth Day, President Bush is scheming to snap the wallet shut on the Endangered Species Act.

Bush's proposed 2002 budget limits Interior Secretary Gale Norton to $8.46 million with which to respond to citizen-filed suits requesting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list a species as endangered, and to designate specific habitat for that species. (Citizen-suits have traditionally been the main pathway for species listing.) Once that funding is spent, Norton would choose which species to protect and which to ignore. This provision would backhandedly nullify the 28-year-old Endangered Species Act via the appropriations process, giving Norton permission to ignore court orders. She wouldn't even have to defend her decisions on the basis of sound science.

The provision has activists up in arms. Some charge that the provision is unconstitutional because it suggests that the executive branch can ignore the courts. Given that judges' rulings pertaining to endangered species have, one more than one occasion, characterized Interior Department actions as "arbitrary and capricious," imagine the level of power the current proposal would unleash -- particularly considering that Norton once filed a brief challenging the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act itself. A power-grab of this magnitude is breathtaking.

So is the chutzpah with which Norton spun the grab.

"For the most part, what we're talking about are ways of expanding protections," Norton reportedly said.

Thus is black, white -- and up, down.

According to a Bloomberg.com report, Norton advocates giving landowners more discretion over classifying endangered species. How would that work? This animal is endangered on one man's land, but not another's? Aren't decisions about which species are listed as endangered supposed to be based on scientific data?

This is not a partisan issue. Many members of both parties are appalled. Yesterday, a spokesman for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry said the senator intends to take immediate action on this issue -- and on any other anti-environmental riders the administration may have tried to slip into the proposed budget. News reports last week connected Kerry with a threatened filibuster, but his spokesman yesterday said the senator hopes to rid the budget of such items long before they reach the floor for debate.

The truth is, this is just one more action in the unsuccessful campaign by right-wing business interests to destroy the Endangered Species Act. First approved in 1973 by a stunning 355-4 vote and eagerly signed by Richard Nixon, the Act was initially seen as something all Americans could get behind.

It has produced some tremendous results. Endangered species protection has brought back the American bald eagle, the American buffalo, and American alligator, and countless other, less charismatic animals. All these achievements have given the legislation superior status.

After the law went into effect, business interests began to feel the financial pinch. It was one thing to save the American buffalo by putting them on what was essentially a ranch -- the Wichita Forest Reserve -- and raising them like cattle, and quite another to save an endangered owl by setting aside forest habitat that logging interests had expected would be available for their personal use.

Since then, there have been a series of direct assaults, all of which have failed. The newest conservative propaganda line claims that the 100-plus lawsuits currently in process are hampering Fish and Wildlife staff. Allegedly, agency biologists are so tied up by these lawsuits that they cannot do their fieldwork.

After 20 years of visiting refuges and writing about this agency, I know a bunch of blarney when I hear it.

In fact, the in-the-trenches field biologists like these citizen-engendered lawsuits. The lawsuits relieve the working biologists of a great deal of political pressure. "Hey," federal biologists get to say, shrugging their shoulders, "it's not up to me. The court says we have to protect this animal."

There's a lot of behind-the-scenes teamwork going on here. Fish and Wildlife biologists supply data; the independent biologists push the issue publicly.

What's really at issue here is the shift in focus of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service over the past 10 years or so. While this shift is scientifically based, it's been divisive. It's pitted (1) agency biologists against agency politicians; (2) agency field employees against high-level officials who enjoy nice lunches and go on pleasant junkets to interesting foreign places; (3) young against old.

The foundation of these conflicts has a 100-year history. Our national wildlife refuge system -- with more than 500 properties, one of the nation's crown jewels -- was not founded as an environmental agency. In 1903, Florida's Pelican Island became our first wildlife refuge. Its purpose was to raise a plentitude of white herons and other birds, which had been hunted nearly to extinction because their mating plumage made great hats. In other words, it was a chicken farm.

In 1907, the Service sent a few of the nation's remaining bison -- most had been slaughtered at the behest of the nation's railroad barons -- to what is now the Wichita Forest Reserve and Game Preserve in Oklahoma, where the Service ranched them much like any other cattle.

Our best understanding of wildlife conservation in those days was to treat the animals like livestock. White herons in short supply? Start a heron farm in Florida. Too much buffalo slaughter? Begin a bison ranch.

These were good ideas, but science has advanced since then. Now we know that, in the long run, ranching and farming individual species is bound to fail. Without the ecology to support the species, our efforts are in vain. Although the Fish and Wildlife Service still maintains many old-style "farming" and "ranching" properties, over the last decade the agency has come to emphasize the preservation of entire ecological systems, rather than individual species.

Private interests accustomed to having free rein on federal lands have been furious. In 1997, conservatives introduced an outlandish proposal that would have destroyed the Act's effectiveness, but few elected officials supported them publicly. That same year, Rhode Island's Republican Senator John Chaffee brokered a middle-of-the-road compromise that would have resolved many of the dilemmas cited recently by Norton. That compromise, however, went nowhere.

Certainly there is room for fine-tuning the Endangered Species Act. All but the most extreme of the non-profit environmental groups agree that reasonable discussions could yield important advances for all stakeholders. But approaching the problem through backdoor budget manipulation is bound to further alienate the various parties.

"The example of the Gingrich years taught us that what could never be passed in the light of day can often be accomplished in the late hours of the appropriations process through anti-environmental budget riders," Kerry said this week. "I hope the Bush Administration, if they're serious about changing the tone in Washington, wouldn't try to sneak this agenda through Congress that way." Bush is already the Arsenic President. It won't do him good to become the species killer too.
©2001 Wendy Williams

Quotable Quote

If arsenic has become the environmental issue that captivates the public, it is but a teacup in the sea change of environmental policy that has washed over Washington with the coming of the Bush administration.

Basically, it tells us with the subtlety of a sledgehammer why Ralph Nader was a moron for saying that it didn't matter if his candidacy cost Al Gore the presidency. The dime's worth of difference that Nader said didn't exist already has saved the nation's polluters billions in costs and may have cost future generations their ability to survive on this Earth.

Way to go, Ralph. ... Robert Reno

By the way, the AP story is ironically headlined—"Bush's choice for drug czar vows to help addicts." (May 11, 2001) Who knows? Maybe John Walters will make the price of cocaine drop again.
© 2001 Uri Dowbenko.

In part three, we'll take a closer look at propaganda and politics.
©2001 Carla Binion

Demonizing Donna Hanover
by Robert Lederman

Rudy Giuliani’s wife, Donna Hanover, recently moved to the top of the list of people the Mayor and his underlings have smeared with lies, insults and disinformation. Like the cancer that is eating away at his prostate, Giuliani has turned the final act of the eight year tragi-comedy known as the Giuliani miracle to the devouring of his own family.

It is simplistic to see this as nothing more than a bitter divorce battle. The Mayor is doing to his wife exactly what he has done to millions of other people as a prosecutor and Mayor. Nothing is sacred, nothing is beyond the pale, and nothing is too indecent to be used in the all-out effort to destroy. For Rudy Giuliani no lie is ever too big. If anything, the bigger the lie the better.

This is a man who used his inaugural and state of the city addresses to call for a more civil society; who demanded that New Yorkers treat government officials and the police - even when they are actively violating our civil rights under his orders - with courtesy and respect; who wanted public art museums closed because they showed a single painting that offended the sensibilities of some New Yorkers; who routinely tells reporters they should be ashamed for asking him personal questions.

The lesson to be understood from this latest bizarre twist to the Giuliani saga is not about divorce, or prostate cancer or airing one’s dirty linen in public. The cruelty, self-serving lies and utter lack of decency displayed by Rudy Giuliani and his surrogates in dealing with Donna Hanover is the exact technique they have used throughout his administration.

It’s easy to feel sorry for Ms. Hanover - by all accounts a decent woman and good mother - and most New Yorkers have readily moved to her side in this struggle. for most of us it was harder to understand things from the viewpoint of Rudy Giuliani’s previous targets and victims.

Squeegee guys, homeless people and panhandlers didn’t have her telegenic good looks and most of us felt little sympathy when they were crushed by Giuliani. His blitzkrieg attacks swept them from our streets with little opposition or outrage.

Few cared when vendors and cabbies were demonized in the name of quality of life. They were marginal people, immigrants, and according to the Mayor, a public nuisance.

For most Whites there was little outrage when unarmed innocent Blacks were gunned down by the police or hundreds of thousands of Black and Latino youths were illegally arrested for loitering outside their own apartment buildings. As long as we imagined ourselves to be safer we approved of the blatant racial profiling.

While virtually no one believes the lies Giuliani and his attack-attorney, Raoul Felder, are telling about Ms. Hanover, we were all too ready to believe that welfare recipients didn’t want to work or that the Mayor was "helping" them with his workfare program. We read hundreds of newspaper accounts about protestors being arrested and few people questioned whether this was a violation of the most fundamental right of speech rather than a matter of insuring public safety.

Likewise we read of hundreds of artists being arrested with none ever being brought to trial and thousands of works of art confiscated and destroyed, yet we shrugged off the comparisons to Nazi Germany as a fanciful exaggeration. When Giuliani created an art decency committee we accepted his lies that it was about the misuse of tax dollars rather than the pursuit of Nazi-like censorship.

When The Mayor "celebrated" Martin Luther King’s birthday by dining with infamous neo-Nazis, Jorg Haider, we swallowed his explanation that he didn’t know who Haider was - despite the fact that Mr. Haider has an entire contingent of NYPD bodyguards with him whenever he visits New York and that Jewish leaders had begged the Mayor not to allow Haider to run through their neighborhood in the NYC Marathon.

In 1989 when employees of Federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani were accused of forcing a Holocaust survivor whose entire family was murdered at Auschwitz to sit in front of a blackboard on which they had written Arbeit Macht Frei, work shall make you free - the motto over the gates of Auschwitz - we accepted Giuliani’s alibi that he knew nothing about it and had no idea how it had been written there. Likewise, in 1989 Giuliani was able to claim he had no knowledge that his law firm was representing the family business of Auschwitz’s mad doctor, Josef Mengele.

When Giuliani tried to smear innocent NYPD shooting victim Patrick Dorismond as a criminal, and justify the police shootings of Amadou Diallo and Gidone Busch most New Yorkers were willing to accept it as the price of quality of life, a justifiable price as long as we weren’t the ones paying it.

We even believed the Mayor when our own senses told us he was lying. When he lied over and over again about the signs at the Diallo rallies - most of which I personally painted - claiming the signs said the police were Nazis and the NYPD was a KKK organization, his lies were accepted and continue to be repeated to this day by his surrogates. Yet, anyone watching the coverage could plainly see that the signs said Giuliani was a Nazi and Giuliani was a KKK-like racist.

Street artists have a lot of first hand experience of the depths to which Giuliani’s lawyers and spokespeople are willing to go when protecting his interests. In our lawsuits the Mayor’s Corporation Council lawyers have repeatedly lied to Federal judges about matters as simple as what NYC laws actually exist. Former NYPD spokesperson Maralyn Mode used to tell reporters that I had never been arrested despite the fact that many of my 41 arrests were broadcast - in some cases live - on television with the same reporters present at many of them.

Lying is the main technique behind Giuliani’s so-called accomplishments. Whether he’s taking credit for other people’s efforts as he did with David Dinkins and the NYPD or forcing his police officials to falsify statistics to make it appear that crime goes down everyday in blood-soaked NYC, there’s not a single number issued by this administration that can be taken at face value. Giuliani "protecting" us from the fake West Nile Virus "epidemic", the welfare and workfare "miracles" and just about every other issue associated with Rudy Giuliani are similarly a mass of lies and falsified statistics.

As we approach the election of a new Mayor the term, "Giuliani Legacy", is on every candidate and reporters’ lips. Can the truth finally be told or must we wait until this monster is completely out of office?

His "legacy" is a mangled web of brutality, intimidation, cruelty, cronyism, corruption and illegality. Like the improved economy and crime reduction, whatever good was accomplished here in the past eight years either took place independently of Rudy Giuliani or was accomplished by others and falsely claimed by him. Like the inevitable effects on his children that will follow the shameless attacks on his wife, the real social and economic cost of his policies will only begin to surface after his ability to intimidate, censor and bully is ended.

Every New Yorker has been harmed by this Mayor because we have all lost some portion of our freedom.

Our public parks and streets have been privatized. Our tax dollars were given to billionaires like George Steinbrenner and David Rockefeller rather than used to repair the streets or improve the schools. Our cultural institutions are afraid to show politically sensitive art for fear they will lose their funding.

The price of Giuliani’s quality of life has been steep. The non-criminal children of hundreds of thousands of hard-working minority parents were illegally stopped and frisked by the police and will never feel at ease around a police officer again. Many were falsely arrested and put through the criminal court system, making it impossible to get a decent job or go to college.

In this one-time center of dissent and free speech New Yorkers have become afraid to attend a lawful demonstration or to even make a protest sign for fear they‘ll be falsely arrested. Thanks to Rudy Giuliani we’ve been gassed in our homes with poisons invented by the Nazis. Malathion and Anvil permanently degrade our environment and circulate throughout our bodies.

Hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens of all races have criminal records thanks to this Mayor which will follow them for life based on jaywalking, smoking a joint or drinking a can of beer on their front stoop after work. The decent police officers that make up much of the NYPD will have to spend 20-year careers working in a city where millions view them as the enemy rather than as enforcers of the law and protectors of public order.

The Giuliani Legacy? Just ask Donna Hanover. At least she didn’t vote for him.
©2001 Robert Lederman ... robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net

Clear And Present Danger
By Tally Briggs

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.....The headlines are starting to have an almost Stephen King-like eerie quality to them: From the LA Times: Bush Wants FEMA to Tackle Terrorism Yes, that's right; Bush wants FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency to establish an Office of National Preparedness to coordinate a "seamlessly integrated, harmonious and comprehensive" response to biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. "Prudence dictates that the United States be fully prepared to deal effectively with the consequences of such a weapon being used here on our soil," the president said. Can you even believe that? Now, while as policy, it may be a far better idea than a $60+ billion missile defense shield that will never work, but as it was presented as an executive order from the man who has no common sense, could it be any clearer an indication that Bush intends to start a war with anyone he can successfully provoke? And fully anticipates the action may take place on our home soil!

The Los Angeles Times also recently reported, that according to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, "People are concerned about several unilateral moves the United States has taken recently." The article went on to say, "The list of such acts is long and growing. The latest was President Bush's speech last week on missile defense. After promising to consult with allies before he took any major step, he instead signaled his intention to withdraw the United States from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty." How does he think that will not piss off the entire population of the Earth except the Defense Contractors he is trying to pay back for campaign contributions?

Another headline, this time from msnbc.com: U.S. diplomats search for answers - In the United Nations, what went wrong for the United States? "Stung by a double blow to its U.N. stature, U.S. diplomats past and present are trying to explain what went wrong for the United States in crucial votes last week that left them off important international panels for the first time."

What went wrong??? I can tell you. Bush and his illegal administration are a Clear and Present Danger to not only the citizens of this country, but to the planet itself. The rest of the world can see this since they have an honest and open press who doesn't commiserate with the BIG MONEY in charge. So why are they surprised? Have they been sleepwalking through the last six months? Were they living under some rock when the entire nation was disenfranchised and The Hive of Five illegally appointed the 43rd President of the United States? Maybe they've all been drugged, or perhaps it's some mass hypnosis. Whatever it is, I feel it is the height of audacity and hubris to even remotely feign shock at being voted out of two UN seats we've held, one for almost half a century, the other since it's inception in 1964.

According to the article published on www.msnbc.com : "Although the United States believed it had the support going into a series of votes Thursday at the United Nations, it lost seats it has held for years on the U.N. Human Rights Commission and the International Narcotics Control Board." Hello?!!!

Let's start with the International Narcotics Control Board: First of all, our country is currently being run by a member of one of the largest drug and crime families in the history of our nation, whose father as ex-CIA director began what has been one of the most insane drug policies ever envisioned. Bringing the CIA into cocaine production and trafficking to not only raise enormous amounts of money to buy, sell, and trade illegal arms, but also to finance the overthrows of foreign governments which conflicted with US interests. Not to mention letting drugs infiltrate an already weak population in order to retain control over them.

According to Al Martin, a government insider and ex-member of ONI - the Office of Naval Intelligence, he is "The Man Who Knows Too Much". On his website, www.almartinraw.com, you’ll find all sorts of amazing information including, "WHAT IF a criminal cabal, a de facto white-collar crime syndicate, took over the US Government and used its systems and operations for its own profit? According to former government operative whistleblower Al Martin, this is exactly what happened." Well, it isn't just Al Martin that has this information. The rest of the world remembers Christmas Eve, 1992 when President Bush Sr. pardoned Weinberger and the rest of the Iran Contra operatives who could implicate him, as well as President Reagan, in a criminal scandal that would most likely have landed everyone involved in prison. And they certainly won't stand for another administration not only just as corrupt, but openly so.

What about the Human Rights Commission? How has the new Bush administration handled Human Rights so far? Well, first he stopped overseas funding for Planned Parenthood. A move that, even though on the outside looks as if they are taking a stand against abortion, does in fact, by ceasing support for the dispensing of information on birth control and choices, actually has shown to increase the abortion rate. When women don't know they have alternatives to abortion, like how to not get pregnant in the first place, (since world-wide, birth control seems to be the woman’s sole responsibility), abortion increases. Even though there was a scientific study to prove this, most intelligent, rational people can figure it out on their own.

What else? How about completely rejecting the Kyoto Protocol? Now, even though there may be finer points that still need to be worked out, why abandon it? Hey Georgie! Guess what? The rest of the world DOES care about the air we breathe! I suppose that a campaign promise is just a lie to get votes. Or, not sticking to the new regulations on lowering the amount of arsenic in drinking water. Why? Well... if we lower them to the standard that Clinton set just after the 1998 study was released, it would "cost" Bush's contributors in the mining, utility, and other big industrial industries just too much to fix the way they pollute, so we'll let them regulate themselves. How about this for an idea: If they were so concerned about not polluting, why haven't they already changed their ways and cleaned up the way they operate? Looks like the rest of the world also cares about poison in the water supply, and feels it is a human rights violation to poison people. There is also the gouging of America with regard to energy and gasoline – especially when there is only a fictional shortage. Or closing the offices on AIDS and Women's Issues. Or taking away funding from such national needy programs as Reading Is Fundamental, and programs to help neglected and abused children, and others, just to fund a tax cut for the already obscenely wealthy ONE percent of US citizens, who, it turns out are mostly on Smirky's cabinet. Or allowing the Rogue Court to pass a judgment making it legal for a citizen to be arrested of a minor offense, harassed by an out of control officer who needs anger and stress management training, all in front of her children who she was also not allowed to drop off with family members before she was taken in. Even the fact that Smirk was not legally elected and did everything possible including paying a mob to stop a legal vote count, proves human rights violations. We, as a nation, have been disenfranchised.

Clearly, the US Constitution has become null and void in the eyes of our current government, and the rest of the world clearly sees the injustices going on here, especially when we legally elected someone else, who just happens to not have been sworn in.

Maybe the rest of the world is sending in their cavalry, only it's to save OUR collective ass this time
©2001 Tally Briggs

Dead Letter Office

Heil Bush,

Dear Gruppenfuhrer Baucus,

Congratulations you have just been awarded the Vidkun Quisling Award for 2001. Your name will now live throughout history with such past award winners as Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling and last year’s winner Volksjudge Antoni (light-fingers) Scalia.

With your vote to weaken workers safety laws and thereby save your corporate masters billions of dollars, while eliminating useless, worn out workers from corporate responsibility, you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new world.

Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross 2nd class presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala party in das Fuhrer Bunker, formerly the White House on 7-4-2001. We salute you Herr Baucus! Sieg Heil!

Signed,
Deputy Fuhrer Cheney

Heil Bush

Newsies Are Behind The Curve Again
By Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas -- A bizarre example of "fair and balanced" media coverage was the Summit of the Americas trade meeting in Quebec, Canada, in April. The first night of the trade summit, ABC spent four minutes covering the minimal violence created by a tiny fraction of demonstrators, whereupon Peter Jennings came on and asked his correspondent: "What are these people protesting? Or are they just looking for a fight?" The correspondent replied comprehensively, "They're against capitalism." So much for that argument.

In this era of ur-capitalism, when free trade is equated with democracy, raising questions about the specifics of trade agreements, or even pointing out the downside of NAFTA, has become a media solecism, akin to wearing white shoes after Labor Day. It's Just Not Done.

But the newsies are behind the curve again: It's actually quite chic among your forward-thinking multinational corporations to encourage labor and environmental protections in new trade agreements. Haven't heard that? Neither have the media: They're still stuck on the old Tom Friedman script --- Globalization is Good and anyone who questions it is Bad, or as The Wall Street Journal so happily put it, "Luddite whackos."

Bill Greider analyzed this new-found corporate respect for Luddite whackos in a Nation article in late March: "The only whiff of sincerity is they sincerely want fast track legislation with minimum cost to their bottom lines," explained Daniel Seligman of the Sierra Club. The corporations have run up against the formidable political coalition stalling further trade agreements and are anxious to get around it. Hence, the sudden discovery that if corporations can insist on protective clauses for intellectual property rights and investor security, it's quite difficult to argue against protective clauses for the environment and labor. Save the whales and the workers!

It's interesting to see who gets it and who doesn't on this issue. When NAFTA was signed in 1993, we were told it would create 200,000 jobs in the first year alone. According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA has eliminated 766,030 actual and potential U.S jobs. In 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of $1.7 billion. By 1996, it was over $17.5 billion. The trade deficit with Canada increased from $10.8 to $22.8 billion. By 2000, the deficit with both countries had increased by 378 percent to $62.8 billion. As Jim Hightower said in his newsletter, "Corporate chieftains routinely use the back-door exit to Mexico as a threat to abandon workers and communities here unless the workers accept major pay cuts, give up health and pension benefits, speed up the work line and put in more hours."

On the other hand, The New York Times ran a long, touching front-page story this week about the closing of a cotton factory in Alabama and the devastating effects on the town and its people. One worker explained: "People came to work sick, people gave their all to keep it open, to keep up production. They thought it was their protection." More than halfway into this long story comes one mention that NAFTA "was a death knell for working people like the cotton millers in Jacksonville."

One common side effect is the downward pressure on wages, as factory workers are forced into the low-paying service jobs. This in turn contributes to rising income inequality, another subject about which the American media do not talk. They're too busy with the Robert Blake story.

Here's a modest proposal: Fox News regularly eats up mountains of time reporting foreign news with its in-depth segment, "Around the World in 80 Seconds." I think they can get it down to less than 10: "This just in, news still bad." This would free up 70 precious seconds for a report on the Doug Jones' Average.

The Doug Jones Average, an old Hightower concept to replace the Dow Jones, would report on how average ol' Doug is doing today; up, down, anything Greenspan up to affecting him? New trade treaties? How's it by Doug? Anyone warned Doug about Chapter 11?

If you still think Chapter 11 means bankruptcy, you are not up on your trade treaties. The new and more horrible Chapter 11 (not the bankruptcy law Congress just finished screwing up) is about government by corporations. As Greider says, "Chapter 11 is the smoking gun" that proves we have given up national sovereignty for corporate rule. The evidence is in and becomes clearer by the day.

Chapter 11 of NAFTA established a new system of private arbitration for foreign investors to bring injury claims against governments. Under the rules, foreign investors in any country can bring suit against the government and demand compensation if the profit-making potential of their venture has been injured by a government decision "tantamount to expropriation." For starters this gives foreign-based companies more rights than domestic businesses operating in their own countries.

"In Mexico," Greider reports, "a U.S. waste disposal company, Metalclad, was awarded $16.7 million in damages after the state of San Luis Potosi blocked its waste site in the village of Guadalcazar. Local residents complained the Mexican government was not enforcing environmental standards and that the project threatened their water supply. Metalclad's victory established that NAFTA's dispute mechanism reaches to subnational governments, including municipalities."

No one knows how many of these cases have been filed because there is no requirement to inform the public. The contesting parties, Greider reports, choose the judges who will arbitrate, choose which issues and legal principles are to apply, and also decide whether the public has access to the proceeding. It is assumed these disputes are none of the public's business, even though public laws are under attack and taxpayers' money will pay the fines.

If I hated lawyers as much as George W. Bush hates lawyers, I'd step on that before it starts crawling.
©2001 Molly Ivins

The Asbestos President
By Maureen Dowd

WASHINGTON — Being witty about poisoned drinking water isn't easy. It requires a certain obtuse savoir-faire.

Our president gave it a go Thursday night at a press dinner here.

"As you know, we're studying safe levels for arsenic in drinking water," he told the crowd of radio and TV correspondents at the Washington Hilton. "To base our decision on sound science, the scientists told us we needed to test the water glasses of about 3,000 people. Thank you for participating."

I guess a guy who can yuk it up about a woman he has executed in Texas can yuk it up about anything.

But it was a creepy moment.

It worked for Erin Brockovich to joke about the carcinogens in the water enviro-villains were sipping because she wanted to get the poison out. W. wants to keep the poison in — to help the enviro-villains who contributed to his campaign.

Forgive me, Al Gore.

I used to think you were striving too geekily to be Millennial Man. The Palm Pilot on your belt. The Blackberry. The Earth-cam you dreamed of. Citing "Futurama" as your favorite show. The obsessions about global warming and the information highway. Boldly choosing the first Jewish running mate.

But now I'm going hungry for a shred of modernity. Bush II has reeled backward so fast, economically, environmentally, globally, culturally, it's redolent of Dorothy clicking her way from the shimmering spires of Oz to a depressed black-and-white Kansas.

With the guidance of his regents, the Duke of Halliburton and Cardinal Rumsfeld, W. has set off the specter of a mushroom cloud of carcinogens and carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power and "China Syndrome" fears, rapacious drilling and retrenchment on women's rights, the missile shield, spy tensions and the cold war.

The son has become what the father used to privately deride as an "extra- chromosome" conservative.

W.'s press conference on Thursday boiled down to one exhortation: "Let's hear it for corporations!"

This administration is so hawkish that Colin Powell is cast as a sandals- and-beads peacenik. And John Ashcroft threatens to fry the F.B.I. spy.

The Clinton team wrestled with the messy grays of a post-cold-war world. The Bush team decided it was easier to bring back the cold war.

"These guys are linear," says a top official from Bush I. "They have to have black and white. They have to have bogeymen."

One veteran cold warrior who served under several presidents told me he was shocked that Bush II had refrozen the cold war.

"They've turned the clock back to 1983," he said. "It doesn't make any sense to slap the Russians around. They're already on their knees. We don't have to humiliate them. We need to use some finesse, to allow them some dignity.

"The thing I always hated about Clinton foreign policy was they seemed to be making it up as they went along. But these guys seem to be doing that, too. They are negative toward old policies, without coming up with anything positive."

The regents moved quickly to cast the administration in the gray-flannel image of their salad days. (One Republican says that Henry Kissinger once called Mr. Rumsfeld the most ruthless man he knew, all global despots included.)

Not satisfied with smacking around the Russians, humiliating Christie Whitman, downsizing Condi Rice and brushing back Colin Powell, the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis has no patience for the plaints of health-conscious yuppies, either.

You can just hear Rummy, slugging back a Scotch with Cheney in the Oval after they've put the Kid to bed, grousing about the gazillion dollars' worth of investments he has to sell to avoid a conflict, and growling: "Real men can drink twice that much arsenic. And how soon can we get some lead back in the lousy paint?"

What's next? Asbestos, DDT, bomb shelters, filterless cigarettes? Patti Page? Rummy griping that Laura Bush is too assertive?

W. never seemed happier than he did on Friday at the White House, surrounded by the old-timers from the Baseball Hall of Fame, basking in memories of his beloved 50's.

He is only our second boomer president, but his White House needs Geritol. He seems older than his sprite of a father. He goes to bed early and, except for sports, is oddly disconnected from the culture. He seems to have no engagement with contemporary America, except by virtue of being the president of the United States.
©2001 The New York Times Company

The Cartoon Corner

This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of Darrias.

A Day In the Life
With apologies to The Beatles

I read the news today oh boy
About a man who never made the grade
And all the news was rather sad
For we had just been took
We could not just stand back and look

We'd love to overturn

He blew his mind out using coke
He drank too much, a sorry bloke
But that did not stop him at all
As he took the oath
Everybody hoped that it was just a joke

We'd love to overturn

I saw the news today oh boy
the Bush Family had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But we just had to shout
Since our votes they did not count

We'd love to overturn

Woke up, got out of bed
Could not believe what was said
Made our way downstairs to catch a train
Carrying signs "NO, Not Bush Again!"

Grabbed our coats, grabbed our hats
Went to DC in seconds flat
Wrote some songs to sing loudly as one
To drown out the the guy the court said had won.

Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhhh ahhhh ahhh ahhhhh

I read the news today oh boy
About a man who never made the grade
His daddy could cover up his DUI collars
Buy his way through Yale
Now we know the Supreme Court can be bought for dollars
We'd love to overturn
New lyrics by Lesley Edwards

Washington Voters March Photos

PROUD TO BE ON THE FRINGE
By Rose

This is the speech that I gave at Lafayette Park on the morning of May 19th, shortly before we began our march to the Capitol steps.

"Good morning, fellow patriots!

My name's Rose, and I'm one of the 'fringe people' who thinks that George W. Bush is a coward, a liar, a thief and a fraud. And if you think that Bush is an illegitimate president...guess what? You're a 'fringe person' too. That's right - according to the Toxic Texan, the ONLY people who oppose him are 'fringe people'.

The first time I heard this, I was somewhat taken aback. I've never considered myself one hundred percent 'mainstream', but I think I'm fairly normal; and certainly the vast majority of anti-Bush people I've met online and at protests are not at all what I would call "fringe".

But hey - if the term 'fringe' has been redefined, and it now means "people who love democracy, and prefer that the winner of a presidential election actually gets to be president" then you'd better believe that I want to be a part of that group.

And you know what? I hope that Dubya continues to call us fringe people. I hope that he continues to say that only fringe people oppose him - that only fringe people think that all votes should be counted and only fringe people think that paying huge sums of money to prevent voters from casting their votes is maybe not the best way to run a democracy. Because every time he calls us fringe, he proves just how clueless, arrogant and downright stupid he is.

On Jan. 20th, I joined over 5000 angry people in LA to protest Shrub’s inauguration. And that night, other than a couple of 30-45 second spots on local news channels, I saw NO coverage of the rally. The mainstream media practically went into contortions in order to avoid giving accurate coverage of the tens of thousands of protesters here in Washington DC. Their reasoning, it seemed, was that they felt it wouldn’t be polite to give airtime to people who were angry about the theft of the election - after all, Bush had to get up and give a speech that day, and I suppose it was terribly mean and heartless of all those people to try to distract him when we all know that when it comes to speaking, Bush is...well, "special".

The corporate media has decided that their REAL job is to alternate between acting as Bush's nursemaid and waving pom-poms in the air every time he pronounces a word correctly. And so it's up to us to make our voices heard, to let everyone in the country who feels as we do - and if you don't know by now that the MAJORITY of Americans feel as we do, then you've been watching too much Fox News - to let every patriot and lover of democracy know that NOW is the time to stand up and be counted.

A few months ago, frustrated by the media's refusal to acknowledge us, I started the Fringefolk Project. Many of you may have already heard of Fringefolk - I know there are a good number of Fringers here today. I want to take a moment to explain that Fringefolk is not another activist group - we're an online directory of people from ALL the activist groups. The directory - which is at www.fringefolk.com - gives concrete proof that we are NOT getting over it ...and because our pictures are posted in the directory, anyone who goes to the site can see exactly what the so-called 'fringe people' look like. We range in age from 15 to 82. We come from all over the country. We come from all walks of life -- teachers, lawyers, stay-at-home moms, executives, artists, waitresses, students, scientists, secretaries...we are the face of America; the Fringe MAJORITY.

Our mission statement is simple - to provide an online, ongoing protest against the right-wing coup and Bush's illegitimate presidency. Fringefolk is something to point to when people claim that the country has moved on - it's visible proof that we exist, and that we're not going to shut up and we're not going to go away.

When I started Fringefolk, I didn't know if people would be willing to take such a visible stand against the coup, but I knew I was willing. Today, if someone were to say 'Oh, most people have gotten over the election and moved on', I can offer them concrete proof that nearly 500 people have NOT gotten over it. And that's just the beginning; the Fringefolk directory grows daily.

If you're as disgusted and angered over the theft of democracy as we are, I hope you'll decide to stand up and be counted along with us. We will NOT move on until democracy is restored.

Frank Herbert once wrote: "If you think of yourselves as helpless...it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless..."

One thing that I have learned in the past few months is that the people who claim that one person can't make a difference are full of it. One person absolutely can make a difference. Just ask Katherine Harris if you don't believe me.

Everyone here is making a difference right now. And if you love your country - and I know that you all do, or you wouldn't be here - then you must continue making a difference. We can't afford to let a day go by without protesting the theft of democracy. The right-wingers want you to believe that you're helpless. The corporate media wants you to believe that you're helpless. They want you to feel so overwhelmed that you finally just sit down and shut up. Well, the hell with them, because I’m not going to shut up. I’m going to keep on yelling until my voice is heard.

My president is Al Gore. And I'm going to read you something that President Gore once said: "We need more people to believe in this country and to believe in our ability as a people to make it what it's supposed to be...we can change "politics" if we have enough people who are willing to push past the fear of disillusionment and disappointment and do what our Founders did and what each generation has done in really seizing the opportunity to make this country what it's supposed to be."

It’s up to us, guys. I love my country, and I believe in my country, and in democracy. And I believe in our ability to make sure that that lying, thieving SOB in the White House gets exactly what's coming to him. We will win. We will get democracy back. Because we won't shut up, and we won't go away. Keep fighting!

-Rose

Not only do I endorse " Fringefolk"! I'm also a member! ... Uncle Ernie

National Strike Success! May 17- May 21
By Estrella Holtzknecht/Berosini

To those of you who have joined in National Strike One, CONGRATULATIONS, you are the leaders, the independent thinkers, who were lucky enough, or persistent enough, to get the facts about election fraud 2000.

To those of you who could not afford to call in sick, or whose employers would have suffered great harm by your absence, thank you for your endorsement of the strike. It is nearly as powerful to support national strikes as it is to participate in them.

To those who do not agree that national strikes are warranted, we know that only time will allow you to get the facts about a right wing regime. They have blocked all other avenues to prosecute the felony criminals who committed massive election fraud in 22 states, including Florida. Know that any interruption in the process of a completely legal election is, in fact, election fraud. So, if we disregard all other hard evidence of election fraud, just what we all saw on national television was a big enough felony to warrant national strikes.

The radical right wing cannot win elections without using many forms of election fraud. We have no reason to believe our next election will be fraud free. The best deterrent against election fraud is to not let them get away with it. Since our three branches of government think it's better for our nation to let the People suffer the consequences of election abuse; to sink into profound denial of such abuse, we have no choice but to learn how to use national strikes instead of being helpless, hopeless victims. We refuse to be victims of felony abuse. We refuse to aid and abet election fraud felons by smoothing over, and denying, their crimes. To do so is to enable their further abuse. This is as much about the psychological health of a nation as it is about voting rights.

In recent days it has become very clear that the Bushmen stole the White House so they can price gauge us at the gas pump, in our electric bills, and to raid our taxes for more weapons we do not need. (The military is 52% of our budget) We've got oil and weapons men staging phony oil shortages, and phony reasons for aggression and murder in the middle east. It is all a price gauging scam to empty our pockets.

We shall use these strike dates to learn how to react to national strikes as if they are fire drills. We can get very good at it. We can call a national strike within days of any threat to national security which rises to the level of election fraud 2000.

We take full responsibility to prosecute these felons by not doing business with criminals. This is not against the law, this is to protect our laws broken by Bush's right wing in the field and in the Supreme Court. Please know that if a national strike is an absolute certainty, it is as powerful as actually having a national strike. The most important part of this action is for all of us to support the national strikes, even if we cannot participate in them. All we need do is get on the same page with each other about how serious the need to strike is, and have lightening fast technological techniques for calling us all to action, actually, it's non-action, doing nothing.

Do not listen to cynics. We are as certain of the validity of this as we were certain the Vietnam War was a mistake. We are as sure of this as we are of global warming. Those who joined in this first strike are the ones who know first. It is our right to get the correct facts out to everyone else. We will set as many strike dates as it takes to get the results our laws require, including setting a national strike date beginning the week after the 2002 election. That date is set because, if we do nothing to prosecute election fraud 2000, if we do nothing to remove this fraudulent administration from the White House, they will surely commit election fraud again.

Let's move forward on all the varying issues most important to each of us. Let's do all we can to register more people to vote. Let's do all we can to protect those votes. The national strikes support you in this effort. This action is a big umbrella which covers all of us. Use it to remove this reign of corporate tyranny, and to protect all elections in the future.

Thank you, with all my heart, for your participation.
Estrella Holtzknecht/Berosini

The next strike date is July 2 through July 8, extending to the following week is optional.

New news media alternative: http://www.warpradio.com/asx/RADIOLEFT-IN.asx This new radio show is fabulous. You will love it! Now for left wing cable

TV. For more info on national strikes go to:

National Strike One

National Pro-Democracy Convention
Shaping the Future of Democracy in America: From Voter Disenfranchisement to a Voters' Bill of Rights … June 29 - July 1, 2001

From June 29 to July 1st, 2001, the Center for Constitutional Rights and a coalition of civil rights/human rights organizations, including www.votermarch.org, are sponsoring a National Pro-Democracy Convention at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Convention is being convened in response to the disenfranchisement of thousands, if not millions of voters in the recent Presidential election.

With the Voter's Bill of Rights as a primary focus, the National Pro-Democracy Convention will be a vehicle to gather up and galvanize the disparate and disaffected constituencies and movements outraged by the flawed election to build a permanent force for real democracy.

The Convention will include a range of important activities:

* Preceding the convention, there will be a Training Institute for anyone interested in intensive work towards election reform.

* The kick- off event for the Convention will be a National Town Hall Meeting, where national leaders will speak out about Election 2000 and offer recommendations for democratic reforms.

* Throughout the convention, there will be continuous information and discussion around the principles outlined in the Voters' Bill of Rights and strategies for strengthening the pro-democracy movement.

The organizers of the Pro-Democracy Convention are determined that what happened during the 2000 presidential election will never occur again in our country. We accept the challenge to energize the broadest coalition of organizations, constituencies and individuals to fulfill this nation's promise of truly being a bright beacon of democracy and human rights for the world.

To register or for more information, see
www.pro-democracy.com or e-mail demconv@ccr-ny.org.

TO OUR REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS

We, the undersigned voters, know that our cherished democracy is endangered from within by the grave and potentially fatal flaws in our voting systems exposed by the Presidential Election of 2000.

As our elected representatives, you have the duty, the opportunity, and the privilege to correct these flaws and to restore fair and honest elections throughout our nation. To this end, we charge you to construct and pass a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS, which shall include:

Strict enforcement and extension of the Voting Rights Act to prevent the disenfranchisement of voters and require full investigation and criminal prosecution of any offenders;

Standardized, easily understandable federal election ballots

Funding to replace old and unreliable voting machines to ensure that every vote is counted fairly and accurately

Genuine campaign finance reform that bans campaign contributions from special interests

Replacement of the Electoral College with a majority-rule election, or substantial reform of the Electoral College to allow for proportional representation

Measures to increase voter participation by eliminating bureaucratic hurdles to voter registration and turnout, including language barriers, physical barriers, archaic equipment, and lack of resources

Enactment and enforcement of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS will restore trust in our government and encourage participation in our democratic processes. The linchpin of a democracy is the process by which we select our representatives and leaders. The right to vote is our defining right as citizens of this nation. We call upon our elected representatives to protect our Constitution from abusive exercise of government power by enacting a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.

We pledge our full and constant support for enactment of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.

A Note of Protest:

It is likely that 50% of the U.S. population is strongly dissatisfied with the ascendancy of George W. Bush to the office of President. There are three likely reasons:
1. Bush won the election under questionable circumstances;
2. Bush has espoused a reactionary platform that places him far to the right of mainstream America;
3. Bush has demonstrated none of the intellectual attributes expected of a president.

In the interest of democracy, one could discredit election gripes (point number one) as being unfair to our longstanding electoral college process.. Also, one might disregard Bush’s agenda (point number two) because the hallmark of the United States Constitution is tolerance for divergent political and moral beliefs.

However, point number three leads to a more egregious problem, namely that a rather anonymous man, with no distinguishing ambition or vision has, by virtue of family wealth and connection, been installed as President of the United States. Even the most cursory glance at George W. Bush’s history and character builds a strong case for charges of nepotism and cronyism. Such a glaring display of favoritism, to benefit an individual with no considerable talent, runs counter to the spirit of competition and fair play that has driven the engine of American capitalism for more than two hundred years.

There is a way to tangibly and immediately raise a voice in protest of George W. Bush as President. For the remainder of his term, conscientious Americans should simply write "George W. Bush is an Idiot" on all U.S. currency that passes through their hands.

This protest has already begun. The first bills were marked and spent in San Francisco as of January 26, 2001. What is important, though, is to not only begin marking all currency (and to continue the effort throughout the Bush presidency), but to forward this memo as much as possible so as to replicate the message throughout our money supply.

In an effort to mark money more industriously, many of us have ordered a BUSH IS A FRAUD rubber stamp; these self-inking rubber stamps are useful for marking the "Fraud" message in red ink.

Make your voice heard,
Steven Capozzola
San Francisco, California