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©2001 chadsux
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In This Edition Robert Parry says it's, "A Time To 'Earn This'." Greg Palast asks, "Who Shot Argentina? The Finger Prints On The Smoking Gun Read ‘I.M.F.' " Jamin B. Raskin reminds us that, "Americans Have No Constitutional Right To Vote!" Joe Conason watches as Hoffa and Delay dance cheek to cheek in, "Unions Ditch Principles To Back Energy Bill" Gene Lyons explains how, "How Bush Will Spend His Summer Vacation." Mary McGrory studies nature and republicans in, "Quite Contrary." Ann Thomas cuts through the smoke and mirrors in, "Countering The Spin On ANWR." Jake Tapper asks the musical question, "Can Senator John Kerry Do In 2004 What Al Gore Couldn't Do In 2000?" Wolf Blitzer wins the "Vidkun Quisling Award." Molly Ivins says, "These Are Rough Times For The First Amendment." Tally Briggs looks into, "Hypocrisy Inc." And finally in "Parting Shots The Onion reports that, "NYPD Apologizes For Accidental Shooting, Clubbing, Stabbing, Firebombing Death," but first Uncle Ernie asks, "When Did Truth And Journalism Become Mutually Exclusive?" This week we spotlight the cartoons of Bob Gorrell with additional cartoons from Trucards, Media One, Tom Tomorrow, Ted Rall, Wolf Grulkey, BushBeer.Net, Mike Thomas, Chris Whitehouse, GWBush Art, Political Strikes and Chadsux.
Plus we have all of your favorite departments! Welcome one and all to "Uncle Ernie's Issues & Alibis." We hope you enjoy your stay! |
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Walter Isaacson's grasp of reality if very fragile even for a republican. Walter has been watching the ratings of his neo-nazi news services CNN and HNN and it's not a pretty sight. Ruperts version of Der Signal has gathered most all of the Freeper viewing group of 18 to 50 year old, white males with moron or lower IQ's to his Fox News. Poor Walter is beside himself with worry about what can be done to bring the goose steppers back to CNN?
He visited the RNC and their pals in Foggy Bottom the other day to see what CNN could do to slant their news even farther to the right. When questioned about this Walter lied his ass off, I know what a surprise! He then brought up a debate over 'Stem Cell' research to prove that CNN was fair and even handed. The debaters were from the right, William Donohue famous Catholic bigot and from the left? Well there was nobody from the left but pretending to be a liberal was everyone's favorite neo-nazi Christopher Shays. I wonder, what's wrong with this picture? Then of course Walter is making Americas favorite middle of the road talking head Tush* er Rush Limbaugh an offer he can't refuse to come to CNN and spout his maddness to the faithful. Well, being me, I was compelled to write Walter about his problems and offering to help pull CNN out of the basement with a story that could change everything, if only Walter would care to report it ?
Dear Walter,
Who do you think you're jiving with that cosmic debris? Certainly not any liberals. You claim you're not partisan and then run a debate supposedly between the left and the right. The left and right wings of what, the far right wing? From the right every Catholics favorite loony toon, William Donohue of the Catholic League debating on the right but pretending to be a liberal Americas favorite goose stepper, Christopher Shays who as we all know is a little bit to the right of Darth Vader! Don't worry about out 'righting' Fox I couldn't tell the difference now if I tried. You've got Hitler and Stalin shaking their heads in Hell about how you get away with broadcasting that Neo-Nazi swill.
Here, I'm going to give you a story from my magazine Issues & Alibis. I noticed you haven't run it yet, maybe due to your reporters not finding out about it, although it's been in all the European newspapers, TV and radio as well as this magazine for over six months. Perhaps you were just out of town and missed it? Now get a pencil Walter and write this down. If you want to win a ratings war this is the way to go. This is the biggest story in the history of this country and you missed it. You'll scoop every other news source, so take it and run with it, there is no charge. Here it is:
Last December (12/12/2000) Toni (light fingers) Scalia and the "Gang of Five" from the Extreme Court, the RNC and the crime family Bush staged a Coup De' Etat effectively ending 225 years of the Republic of the United States and replaced it with a dictatorship! Crowning emperor Smirkus Maximus the first emperor of the United States.
In case you'd like to bring CNN & HNN up to date Walter and run the truth for a change do visit my magazine at:
Your Pal,
So the question is dear reader when did journalism and the truth become mutually exclusive? Perhaps it has always been that way and I was just so naive that I never noticed. Still I can remember my first Coup De' Etat quite clearly. I remember Uncle Walter all but crying like a baby on TV and wondering what was going on when they murdered John Kennedy. Even Chet and David gave both sides of a story but where was the press raising hell when the Warren Report came in? Busy reporting on the Viet Nam war. Trouble is we never heard the truth about how we got involved in Viet Nam and who was responsible for it either.
No, perhaps we should go back to the "Good War" and look for the truth in broadcasting there. Again you have individual reporters ala Ernie Pyle reporting on the troops but not how it was we got involved. Only now some 60 years later do we finally get the truth although any journalist who cared to could have put two and two together then. Granted the Axis needed to be destroyed but did we have to set up all those old out dated battleships and kill all those sailors, flyers and soldiers to get involved? I think not. Consider why "Citizen Kane" was such a smash hit? I'll grant you setting up the fleet certainly shut up all those 'America First' types.
World War One had nothing to do with the mean old Germans as it did with the mean old German industry which had become a direct threat to Henry Ford and his pals. Didn't want to go fight and die for Wall Street? To bad, we have ways of making you cooperate!
Go back another 20 years and come see the effects of yellow journalism in the Spanish/American War. The same group of corporates that Abe Lincoln had warned about at the end of the Civil War orchestrated this splendid little war, complete with made up tales and lies to get us in and movies shot in New York showing our heroic troops in Cuba, the first war brought to you by your local newsmen!
I could go on back to the Roman Empire and beyond but why bother? Sure Petronius raised all sorts of hell in his books about Nero but nothing changed. Nothing much has changed in six thousand years of recorded history. Sure the weapons of war have gotten worse but the minds behind the propaganda are exactly the same. There has always been decent but that has largely been ignored by the masses. So I guess the bottom line is you get the news you deserve! And as long as America rolls over and goes back to sleep nothing will change. |
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A Time To 'Earn This' By Robert Parry Near the end of Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic Saving Private Ryan, Capt. John Miller – played by Tom Hanks – lies dying, wounded after a desperate battle to defend a bridge in Normandy. He signals to Private James Ryan to come close and whispers a final message. "Earn this," Miller tells the young soldier. "Earn it." The admonition seems harsh. In the movie, Ryan – played by Matt Damon – had lost his brothers in the Normandy invasion and had fought bravely himself. He chose to stay with his unit to defend the bridge rather than leave his post for safety when Miller’s patrol arrived to "save" him. Like many real soldiers who served in World War II, the fictional Ryan would seem to have done more than his fair share in the defense of his country and in the battle against tyranny. Yet, the message from a dying Capt. Miller to the young Private Ryan was "earn this." What a difference a generation or two can make! As the U.S. today stumbles through one of the greatest affronts to its democratic principles – last year’s overturning of the popular choice for president – the political and media forces that enabled those events are unchastened. Many on the losing side also seem to have learned little from the experience. Growling on the Right Six months after George W. Bush moved into the White House, the political-media dynamic that paved his way has grown even stronger. Conservative influence continues to expand over all forms of communications – from newspapers, books and magazines, to television networks, talk radio and well-funded Web sites. Along with its rightward drift, the national news media has gotten goofier, meaner and more disconnected from any larger sense of decency. The creepy obsession with Chandra Levy’s disappearance is only the most recent example of the media’s skewed judgment. The punditry’s insistence that Bush is doing a great job is another, even as the economy sinks, the budget surplus disappears, traditional U.S. allies are up in arms and potential enemies are growing closer in defiance of U.S. policies. Yet, as the conservatives smartly invest billions of dollars in their own media and draw the mainstream press ever more in that direction, the primary liberal response has been to launch a few home-grown Web sites. While individuals have shown spunk in creating aggressive new outlets, such as smirkingchimp.com and mediawhoresonline.com, the Web sites remain a proverbial drop in the bucket when compared to the size and sophistication of the conservative effort. Wealthy liberals mostly have stayed on the sidelines. After the election, Barbra Streisand issued a manifesto calling for a Democratic-oriented TV outlet to counter the conservative media. She also wanted Democratic politicians to show more spine. Yet, when her proposal encountered derision from the Washington Post and other bastions of national journalism, she backed down. Nader's Lessons Further to the left, Ralph Nader and his supporters remain in denial about their misjudgment in Election 2000 when they insisted that there was no meaningful difference between Republicans and Democrats. In just six months, Bush has shattered that myth by proving the obvious – that within the extraordinary might of the U.S. government, the shades of gray in policies as well as in the competence of the leaders can be vitally important. Indeed, those shades of gray can make the difference between whether life on this planet continues or doesn’t. As Bush has shown, a president has the power to sabotage international cooperation on key environmental issues such as global warming and to touch off a new arms race by backing away from treaties on nuclear and biological weapons. The White House also can begin dismantling the traditional forms of Social Security, Medicare and a host of other domestic policies that are important to many Americans.
Despite this freshly demonstrated reality, Nader still won’t admit that his white-male-dominated presidential campaign might have been
wrong and the 90 percent of African-American voters who backed Gore might have been right.
Gore's Silence But other key Democrats, such as Vice President Al Gore, slipped into the reeds. In his self-imposed silence, Gore avoided confronting Bush at a time when millions of Americans were looking for someone with stature to show leadership. Presumably, Gore felt that the country needed time to heal the wounds from the election. He also might have needed time himself to sort out his personal goals. Certainly, he bowed to the prevailing view from the Washington Establishment that he should accept Bush’s legitimacy and get out of the way. In that sense, the silence demonstrated one of Gore’s greatest weaknesses as the kind of leader needed to confront today’s peculiar circumstances. Gore continues to show polite respect for the so-called "meritocracy" of Washington, especially as represented in the national news media. Like many other prominent liberals, Gore resists the conclusion that the Washington press corps is approaching moral, ethical and professional bankruptcy. The positive liberal view of the press comes from the past, a quarter century ago when reporters exposed serious crimes of state in the Watergate scandal, the Pentagon Papers and the secret records of the CIA. Similarly, Gore put his faith in the court system and the rule of law during the Florida recount battle. He discouraged his backers from taking to the streets, even as the Bush campaign flew right-wing hooligans to Florida to mount violent demonstrations.
To the bitter end, Gore professed to believe that the U.S. Supreme Court would defend the fundamental right to vote in America, rather
than simply render a partisan judgment. He was wrong in his assessment.
The Beard In a reprise of the wacky elite journalism that characterized last year’s campaign, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd seized on the beard as a way to peer again into Gore’s psyche. "The beard is magnifique," Dowd wrote. "So Continental, so Pepe Le Pew. In all those pictures from Europe, the newly hirsute Al Gore, looking like Orson Welles, strolls contentedly after a repast in Rome with Tipper. He has a sly, freshly liberated expression that you usually see only on guys of 18, when they’re finally old enough to escape from their parents, principals and guidance counselors, go off on a trek to Europe and grow a goofy-looking beard. … "With his Hemingway growth and Heineken girth, all Mr. Gore needs is a pack of Gitanes and an earth-tone beret." [NYT, Aug. 5, 2001] In her clever writing style and her emphasis on the personal, Dowd has become the avatar of the new hip-nihilistic press coda that "nothing is everything and everything is nothing." She is a columnist who holds dearest the belief that a smartly turned phrase is the height of the journalistic experience.
Though Dowd holds a Pulitzer Prize for her commentary, her tendencies are really not so different from the TV pundits who less
eloquently mocked Gore for his beard. ABC’s This Week simply showed a photo of Gore’s beard, as the pundits uttered comments like
"a gray beard" and "Al Gore. What do you make of this?" and dissolved into laughter.
The Chandra Case On Aug. 1, in a classic sequence, the major TV news networks made a madcap dash of helicopters and satellite trucks to Fort Lee, Va., south of Richmond. The spare-no-expense race was in reaction to an anonymous tip published on a Web site that the body of the missing intern had been "shrink-wrapped" and buried in a Fort Lee parking lot. The next day, the tip turned out to be a hoax, but the networks still broadcast live stand-ups from Fort Lee. Fox News – the conservative news network that has devoted hours and hours a day to the Chandra Levy case, even consulting psychics – did its Fort Lee updates under the slogan, "Fox on Top." The pretense behind the media’s interest in Levy’s disappearance was always a heartfelt concern to help her parents find their missing daughter. It was a fortunate byproduct that the disappearance gave the TV news shows a chance to gossip about the young woman’s sexual affair with Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif. The Chandra Levy case also brought the old cast from the Monica Lewinsky scandal back in force, with conservatives Barbara Olson, Ann Coulter and William Bennett reprising their roles as the nation’s moral arbiters. In one dissonant question, CNN interviewer Larry King asked Bennett about hypocrisy on the part of Republicans who had embraced Condit as a conservative "Blue Dog" Democrat before the Chandra scandal and then disowned him. Bennett, the author of the book, The Death of Outrage, explained the moral relativism: "Look, hypocrisy is better than no standards at all." [CNN, July 10, 2001] As the Chandra obsession wore on, some media defenders argued that the intensive coverage was driven by the summer news doldrums. But the explanation didn’t wash, since other news events were underway in Washington, as Bush pushed a wide range of policy initiatives and the Democrats countered with some of their own. On Capitol Hill, however, it was Condit’s arrival at routine committee hearings that brought news-flash interruptions of regular programming.
Round-the-clock Chandra coverage also couldn’t be dismissed as some seasonal aberration, since similar stories had become the
national news media’s preferred fare year-round. If not Chandra, then Jon Benet or Monica or Marv Albert or O.J. or Princess Di or some
other celebrity to serve as fodder for the cable-news talk shows.
CNN's Pilgrimage Roll Call, a newspaper about politics on Capitol Hill, reported that Isaacson "huddled with House and Senate GOP leaders last week to seek advice on how to attract more right-leaning viewers to the sagging network." Isaacson met with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.; Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.; House GOP Conference Chairman J.C. Watts, R-Okla.; and others. "I was trying to reach out to a lot of Republicans who feel that CNN has not been as open covering Republicans, and I wanted to hear their concerns," Isaacson explained. [Roll Call, Aug. 6, 2001] The pilgrimage was galling to some liberals who feel that CNN has long bent over backwards to accommodate conservatives, while offering the usual "balance" of hard-line conservative activists debating centrist journalists. CNN has given right-wing columnist Robert Novak prominent roles as both a commentator and a reporter as well as providing a home for the likes of Pat Buchanan and Mary Matalin. What apparently has angered some conservatives is that CNN was founded on the notion that it should be an international network – not just an American one. So it seeks to temper its generally pro-U.S. slant on foreign stories with an awareness that other nations have different views. That ambivalence has drawn the wrath of House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who calls CNN the "Communist News Network" and has urged a Republican boycott.
Rather than defend CNN’s news gathering on principle, CNN’s new leadership seems interested in placating the Republicans by giving
CNN more of a conservative bent along the lines of Fox, although Isaacson denies that is his intent.
Jack Welch's Call Since February, Waxman had been pursuing allegations that Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, NBC’s parent company, had visited NBC’s decision desk on Election Night, cheering news favorable to Bush and hissing at gains by Gore. According to Waxman’s information, Welch even asked the decision desk, "What would I have to give you to call the race for Bush?" Waxman said two cameras had filmed action around the decision desk during the night for planned use in promotional advertisements for NBC and that those videotapes might shed light on Welch’s behavior. Initially, in sworn testimony before Congress, Lack agreed to supply the tapes, while denying that Welch had influenced NBC’s decision to call the election for Bush. "You’re certainly welcome to the tape," Lack assured Waxman during a congressional hearing in February that had been called by Republicans. In subsequent letters, however, Lack withdrew his offer, insisting that "there can be no videotape showing" Welch influencing NBC’s election call because, Lack said, he – not Welch – was in charge. Lack’s carefully worded letter did not specifically deny that videotape of the alleged scene existed nor did it exclude the possibility that Welch might have displayed pro-Bush sentiments on Election Night, only that Welch did not dictate the pro-Bush call and that therefore no videotape would show him doing so. As the letter exchange escalated, Waxman reminded Lack that he was under oath when he promised to supply the tape. In an Aug. 2 letter, Waxman gave Lack a Sept. 4 deadline for producing the videotape and threatened to "seek other means of compelling the production" of the tape if he didn't. Normally, a confrontation between a senior member of Congress and a major news network over alleged media bias would make for big news, especially given Welch’s high profile as one of the world’s most renowned CEOs. The allegation that Welch had behaved with such bias – even if his comments were made in a lighthearted fashion – also would support an analysis of how the so-called mainstream news media tilts to the right, following the political persuasions of the corporate chieftains who own the networks.
But the Waxman-Lack story drew little interest from the news media. The exchange of letters was posted at a Web site called Inside.com
on Aug. 3 and got some scattered attention, mostly in the trade press. Beyond that, the curious story of the CEO and NBC’s Election
Night call failed to make the grade as important news.
'Earn This' Fifty-seven years ago, American soldiers were battling their way across Europe, contributing to the end of one of history’s most tyrannical regimes. That victory gave rise to democratic aspirations around the world, fueling the hope that all nations might finally accept the founding American principle, that governments must derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. At the end of Saving Private Ryan, the scene of Ryan on the bridge in France merges into the face of Ryan as an old man. He has returned to Normandy and searched out the gravestone of Capt. Miller.
Fighting back tears, Ryan says he has tried to live a good life and has thought every day about Miller's admonition to "earn this." He says
it is his greatest hope that "I’ve earned what all of you have done for me."
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This is an easy case to crack. Next to the still warm corpse of Argentina's economy, the killer had left a smoking gun
with his fingerprints all over it.
The murder weapon is called, "Technical Memorandum of Understanding," dated September 5, 2000. It signed by
Pedro Pou, President of the Central Bank of Argentina for transmission to Horst Kohler, Managing Director of the
International Monetary Fund.
'Inside Corporate America' received a complete copy of the 'Understanding' along with attachments and a companion
letter from the Argentine Economics Ministry to the IMF from ... well, let's just say the envelope had no return
address.
Close inspection leaves no doubt that this 'Understanding' fired fatal bullets into Argentina's defenseless body.
To begin with, the Understanding requires Argentina cut the government budget deficit from US$5.3 billion in 2000 to
$4.1 billion in 2001. Think about that. Last September, Argentina was already on the cliff-edge of a deep recession.
Even the half-baked economists at the IMF should know that holding back government spending in a contracting
economy is like turning off the engines on an airplane in stall. Cut the deficit? As my 4-year old daughter would say,
"That's stooopid."
The IMF is never wrong without being cruel as well. And so we read, under the boldface heading, "improving the
conditions of the poor," agreement to drop salaries under the government's emergency employment program by 20%,
from $200 a month to $160.
But you can't save much by taking $40 a month from the poor. For further savings, the Understanding also promised,
"a 12-15 percent cut in salaries" of civil servants and "rationalization of certain privileged pension benefits."
In case you haven't a clue what the IMF means by "rationalization" - it means cutting payments to the aged by 13%
under both public and private plans. Cut, cut, cut in the midst of a recession. Stooopid.
Salted in with the IMF's bone head recommendations and mean-spirited plans for pensioners and the poor are
economic forecasts which border on the delusional. In the Understanding, the globalization geniuses project that, if
Argentina carries out their plans to snuff consumer spending power, somehow the nation's economic production will
leap by 3.7% and unemployment decline. In fact, by the end of March, the nation's GDP had already dropped 2.1%
below the year earlier mark, and nosedived since.
What on Earth would induce Argentina to embrace the IMF's goofy program? The payoff, if Argentina does as it's told,
is that this week the IMF lend $1.2 billion in aid. This is part of an emergency loan package of $26 billion for 2001 put
together by the IMF, World Bank and private lenders announced at the end of last year.
But there is less to this generosity than meets the eye. The Understanding also assumes Argentina will "peg" its
currency, the peso, to the dollar at an exchange rate of one to one. The currency peg doesn't come cheap. American
banks and speculators are charging a whopping 16% risk premium above normal in return for the dollars needed to
back this currency scheme.
Now do the arithmetic. On Argentina's $128 billion in debt, normal interest plus the 16% surcharge by lenders comes
to about $27 billion a year. In other words, Argentina's people don't net one penny from the $26 million loan package.
Little of the bail-out money escapes New York where it lingers to pay interest to US creditors holding the debt, big fish
like Citibank and little biters like Steve Hanke.
Hanke is President of Toronto Trust Argentina, an 'emerging market fund' which loaded up 100% on Argentine bonds
during the last currency panic, in 1995. Cry not for Steve, Argentina. His annual return that year of 79.25% put the
speculator's trust at the top of the speculation league table. This year he'll do it again.
Hanke profits by betting on the failure of the IMF's policies. But 'vulture' investing is merely Hanke's avocation. In his
day job as professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, he freely offers straightforward advice to
end Argentina's woe, advice which would put him out of the speculation game: "Abolish the IMF."
To begin with, Hanke would do away with the 'peg' - that one-peso-for-one-dollar exchange rate - which has proven a
meat-hook on which the IMF hangs the Argentina's finances.
It's not the peg itself that skewers Argentina - but the peg combined with the Four Horsemen of IMF neoliberal policy:
liberalized financial markets, free trade, mass privatization, and government surpluses.
'Liberalizing' financial markets means allowing capital to flow freely across a nation's borders. Indeed, after
liberalization five years ago, the capital has flowed freely, with a vengeance. Argentina's panicked rich have dumped
their pesos for dollars and sent the hard loot to investment havens abroad. Last month alone, Argentine's withdrew
6% of all bank deposits.
Once upon a time, government-owned national and provincial banks supported the nation's debts. But in the mid
1990s, the government of Carlos Menem sold these off to Citibank of New York, Fleet Bank of Boston and other
foreign operators.
Charles Calomiris, a former World Bank advisor, describes these bank privatizations as a "really wonderful story."
Wonderful for whom? Argentina has bled out as much as three-quarters of a billion dollars a day in hard currency
holdings.
There's more cheer for creditors in the Understanding, including 'reform of the revenue sharing system.' This is the
kinder, gentler way of stating that the US banks will be paid by siphoning off tax receipts earmarked for education and
other provincial services. The Understanding also finds cash in "reforming" the nation's health insurance system (cut
cut cut).
But when cut cut cut isn't enough to pay the debt holders, one can always sell 'la joyas de me abuela,' grandma's
jewels, as journalist Mario del Carvil describes his nation's privatization scheme. The French picked up a big hunk of
the water system and promptly raised charges in some provinces by 400%.
The Understanding's final bullet is imposition of "an open trade policy." This requires Argentina's exporters, with their
products priced via the 'peg' in US dollars, into a pathetic, losing competion against Brazilian goods priced in a
devaluing currency. Stooopid.
Still, the IMF's scheme could work. All, that is required is 'flexible' workforce, willing to bend to lower pensions, lower
wages or no wages at all. But, to the dismay of Argentina's elite, the worker bees are proving inflexibly obstinate in
agreeing to their own impoverishment. One inflexible worker, Anibal Verón, a 37-year-old father of five, lost his job as
a bus driver; his company owes him 9 months pay.
Verón joined the 'piqueros,' the angry unemployed who blockade roads (39 blockades began just this week). In
clearing a blockade in November, the military police allegedly killed him with a bullet to the head.
The death in Genoa of anti-globalization protestor Carlo Guiliani was Page One news in the US and Europe. Verón's
death was page zero. Nor did you read about Carlos Santillán, 27 nor Oscar Barrios, 17, gunned down in a church
courtyard in Salta Province when the police fired on a protest against the IMF austerity plan.
Globalization boosters like Tony Blair prefer to portray resistence as a lark of pampered Western youth curing their
ennui by "indulging in protest, misguided" by naive notions. The media plays to this theme, focussing on the few
thousand marching in Genoa, but not the 80,000 in the streets of Buenos Aires last May, nor the general strike
honored by 7 million Argentine workers last June.
In Argentina, President Fernando de la Rua blames violence on the protesters. But the Peace and Justice Service
(SERPAJ) charges de la Rua's government with using hunger and terror to impose the IMF plans. SERPAJ leader
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel told me he is documenting cases of torture of protesters by police in the town where Santillán
and Barrios died. To Pérez Esquivel who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 repression and liberalization are
handmaidens. He told the Observer he has just filed a complaint charging police with recruiting children as young as 5
years old into paramilitary squads, an operation he compares to the Hitler Youth.
But Pérez Esquivel, who led protests against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, doesn't agree with my
verdict against the IMF in Argentina's death. He notes that the economically fatal 'reforms' are embraced with
enthusiasm by the nation's finance minister, Domingo Cavallo, best remembered as the head of the central bank
during the military dictatorship. For the aging pacifist, that suggests that the untimely demise of the nation's economy
wasn't murder, but suicide. |
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Americans Have No Constitutional Right to Vote By Jamin B. Raskin Of everything we learned about American politics from the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore last December, nothing was more important than the Court's insistence that the people still have "no federal constitutional right to vote." We (the people) have only the voting privileges our states choose to grant us. If the Florida legislature wishes to select presidential electors without public input, the people shall not stand in the way. More than presidential elections are at stake here. Several weeks before Bush v. Gore, for example, the Supreme Court upheld a 2-1 federal-district-court decision that rejected an equal-protection attack on the denial of voting rights and congressional representation to the more than half a million U.S. citizens who live in the District of Columbia. "The Equal Protection Clause does not protect the right of all citizens to vote," the lower-court ruling stated, "but rather the right 'of all qualified citizens to vote.'" Thus two Clinton-appointed federal judges overruled the senior judge on the panel--Louis Oberdorfer, a Jimmy Carter appointee--and found that however "inequitable" the condition of D.C.'s residents may be, simply being subject to federal taxation and military conscription does not confer on Washingtonians a right to vote and to be represented in the Senate and the House or other governing institutions. This may be a conservative reading of the Constitution, but it is black-letter law. True, the Constitution contains specific, hard-won language in the 15th and 19th Amendments that forbids discrimination in voting on the basis of race or sex. But these prohibitions don't establish a universal right to vote. Thus, Congress cannot selectively disenfranchise women in the District of Columbia but can, and does, render all of its residents voiceless in Congress by denying them representation in the House and Senate. The Florida legislature may not (theoretically, anyway) dismiss only the votes of African Americans; but as the Supreme Court kindly reminded us in Bush v. Gore, it can dismiss everyone's votes. Likewise, Florida cannot selectively deny African-American ex-convicts the right to vote in state and federal elections, but it disenfranchises all ex-offenders--some 400,000 of them. The nation's tolerance for disenfranchisement in the twenty-first century is quite exceptional. The constitutions of at least 135 nations--including our fellow North American countries, Canada and Mexico--explicitly guarantee citizens the right to vote and to be represented at all levels of government. In fact, every new constitution adopted over the past decade makes the right to vote the very foundation of government. Constitutional silence on a basic right to vote leaves the United States in miserable, backward company. By my count, only Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Pakistan, Singapore, and, of course, the United Kingdom (whose phony doctrine of "virtual representation" the colonists rebelled against centuries ago) still leave voting rights out of their constitutions and therefore to the whims of state officials. This sin of omission violates--to the extent that anyone cares--the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and numerous other international conventions inspired by the democratic triumph over totalitarianism in World War II. It is time for American progressives to engage in serious constitutional politics on behalf of the right to vote. This is the only way to redeem the chaos of the 2000 presidential election and to begin to ensure that such an assault on democracy will never be repeated. Consider this proposal for a 28th Amendment: Section 1. Citizens of the United States have the right to vote in primary and general elections for President and Vice President, for electors for President and Vice President, for Representatives and Senators in the Congress, and for executive and legislative officers of their state, district, and local legislatures, and such right shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State. Section 2. The right of citizens of the United States to vote and to participate in elections on an equal basis shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of political-party affiliation or prior condition of incarceration. Section 3. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall elect Senators and Representatives in the Congress in such number and such manner as it would be entitled if it were a State. Section 4. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. A campaign for such an amendment would give coherence and energy to the scattered efforts across the country to reform the anachronistic, malleable electoral structures that exist in literally thousands of self-regulated jurisdictions. The movement behind the amendment would help sweep away not only disenfranchisement but reactionary partisan and sectional opposition to a number of democratic reforms: the push to upgrade and equalize voting technology and machinery, the effort to require equal and adequate funding of voting systems, and unsung efforts by third parties and independents to end discriminatory practices against candidates and voters based on party identification. (In many states, "major party" candidates automatically appear on the ballot while "minor party" candidates must collect tens of thousands of signatures to secure the right to compete. Along similar lines, the Supreme Court in 1998 upheld the partisan gerrymandering of government-run candidate debates.) Instead of treating these seemingly disparate causes as a patchwork of local grievances, a right-to-vote amendment would elevate the agenda of electoral reform to a matter of national self-definition and fundamental constitutional values. The reason that the Bush v. Gore decision--that unthinkably radical statement about the urgent need for absolute equality of voting procedures and standards across county lines--won't work in these other cases can be found in the disclaimer appended by the Supreme Court's conservative majority: "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities." Like Cinderella's dress, the conservatives' gallant defense of voting rights after last year's presidential election turned to rags at midnight. In Yale Law School professor Bruce Ackerman's phrase, "constitutional moments" don't come around all that often, so it is crucial to seize the political opportunity created by the continuing scandal of the 2000 election. But even when the time is right for change, reformers face hard choices. In this case, the biggest headache is the electoral college. A deliberately undemocratic institution that made the popular-vote loser (George W. Bush, by more than half a million votes) the president of the United States, the electoral college is an international embarrassment. Since the nation's founding, it has entrenched the power of the slave states (four of the first five presidents were slave masters), white supremacy (throughout the twentieth century, southern states ran regional candidates and manipulated the electoral college to thwart the civil rights movement), and now the Republican electoral-college coalition, which represents a minority of voters nationally and a much smaller minority of the people. George W. Bush took every single electoral-college vote in the South and found a majority of his electoral-college votes there. Meanwhile, the majority of African Americans, more than 20 million, live in the South and gave Al Gore better than 90 percent of their vote. Yet because of the winner-take-all method of distributing electoral-college votes, black votes in the South--even when counted--had zero impact on the election. In a more rational world, abolition of the electoral college would be a key part of a 28th Amendment. But too many states and senators buy in to the myth that the electoral college helps them. It is extremely unlikely that even a simple majority of states would ratify an amendment abolishing the electoral college, much less the 38 required constitutionally. Only a handful of senators, including New York Democrat Hillary Clinton, have voiced support for the idea; and the Senate, where small states hold great power, will be a long time coming around on the issue. As outrageous as the situation is, it does not make sense to load down a right-to-vote amendment with this kind of baggage. Few things would stop this amendment, but the electoral college is one of them. That issue's time will come. Some may wonder about the wisdom of tackling the disenfranchisement of Washingtonians and ex-convicts. But these battles of basic principle are eminently winnable. Public-opinion polls show that commanding majorities of the people favor giving residents of Washington, D.C., equal voting rights in Congress, and the rallying cry of "No taxation without representation" has persistent and broad cross-partisan appeal. The amendment would not restore rights to incarcerated citizens--only to those who have already served their time and been released. Disenfranchisement of 1.4 million citizens, disproportionate numbers of whom are people of color, makes no sense. It drives ex-offenders away from political participation and civic belonging precisely at the moment they need to be encouraged and invited back into mainstream society. Most states already extend voting rights to this group and have crime rates no higher than the 13 states that turn a period of former incarceration into a permanent civic disability. Americans are fair-minded people and most would be shocked to learn that one in three African-American men has permanently lost the vote in Florida because of a prior felony conviction. A provision protecting former inmates' voting rights would have a good chance to make it through Congress and be adopted by the states. It now falls to the people to bring the U.S. Constitution into line with the fundamental tenets of American political thought that emerged in the aftermath of the modern civil rights movement. As Robert P. Moses and Charles Cobb tell us in their important new book Radical Equations, the concept of "one person, one vote" in the early 1960s gave "Mississippi sharecroppers and their allies" a principle of "common conceptual cohesion" that was taken up by the Justice Department and then embraced by the Warren Court in the redistricting cases. As Justice Hugo Black put it in 1964, "Our Constitution leaves no room for classification of people in a way that unnecessarily abridges [the right to vote]." But universal suffrage, a radical axiom established by the blood and sweat of civil rights activists in the South, has steadily eroded on the conservative Rehnquist Court's watch. Over the past decade, the Supreme Court has dismantled congressional districts composed mostly of African Americans or Hispanics--districts brought into being by the Voting Rights Act of 1965--and in the course of doing so has inscribed into law a presumption that whites shall be in the majority. It has allowed states to deny voters the right to "write in" the candidates of their choice. And it has upheld state laws that ban "fusion" and thus deny new political parties the capacity to build by "cross-nominating" candidates and creating multiparty political coalitions. The principles of universal suffrage and democracy now lie in tatters. Yet the American movement for "one person, one vote" has traveled around the world, from Poland to South Africa. The United States must now catch up with its own legacy. We must disprove the French observation, much deployed after the 2000 election, that the Americans have no antiques--except, of course, for the Constitution. The political question is whether progressives, accustomed to fighting off countless proposed amendments by the right on issues like school prayer and flag desecration, can overcome their knee-jerk suspicion of all constitutional changes. Many liberals treat the Constitution like an untouchable religious text and the republic's founders as omniscient. This is ironic, for we have traditionally understood that the original Constitution was deeply compromised by white supremacy and fear of popular democracy. Many of the amendments enacted since the founding are suffrage amendments championed by progressives--most recently, the 23d Amendment (adopted in 1961), which gave residents of Washington, D.C., votes in the presidential electoral college; the 24th Amendment (1964), which banned poll taxes; and the 26th Amendment (1971), which extended the vote to 18-year-olds. Meaningful democratic politics requires an aggressive constitutional politics. Let them come at us with proposals about the flag, school prayer, and the Ten Commandments. We can return fire with the constitutional right to vote, which in a democracy must take moral precedence and logical priority over everything else.
Under Article V of the Constitution, an amendment requires either a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress
followed by ratification by three-fourths of the states or passage in a constitutional convention called upon the
application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states followed by ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Starting with the League of Women Voters, the secretaries of state, the NAACP, journals of opinion, the labor
movement, political parties that are willing to place democratic principle above factional designs, and the state
legislatures, we should reach out to our fellow citizens and take the irresistible case for a voting-rights amendment to
the people. Certain progressive members of Congress already see the logic of such an effort. Democratic
Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Illinois has been arguing eloquently for a whole series of new constitutional
rights, including health care and housing. His broader agenda is more complicated, but his spirit is perfect for the new
century: We have to stop treating the Constitution like a fragile heirloom hidden away in the attic. And we must begin
by providing what was missing when the Constitution was first drafted--the right of the people to vote and, therefore,
to govern. |
 Unions Ditch Principles To Back Energy Bill Since John Sweeney ascended to the presidency of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. almost six years ago, he has sought to improve American unionism—to transform labor from a narrowly self-serving special interest into a broad, active movement for social, economic and political reform. Rejecting the conservatism of the old labor barons, Mr. Sweeney has consistently reached out to immigrants, students, clergy, environmentalists and other potential allies. This daring break with institutional culture hasn’t fulfilled all the unrealistic expectations evoked by his rise, but it was at the very least a sign of life among the moribund. On the evening of Aug. 1, much of Mr. Sweeney’s good work was undone when the House of Representatives voted to pass the Bush administration’s energy bill, thanks to a relentless campaign by lobbyists from the Teamsters, the United Auto Workers and the building-trades unions, among others. Only a few weeks ago, that noxious legislation—with its billions in corporate welfare for the oil and coal industries, its encouragement of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its hostility to conservation standards—was thought to be dying, if not dead. Labor’s clout whipped dozens of Democrats who otherwise would have voted no into approving a bill they all know is wrong. How ironic it was to see lifelong union enemies such as Republican boss Tom DeLay, who have complained so bitterly about the political power of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., depending entirely on labor lobbyists for a victory that was otherwise beyond reach. Few sights in recent years have been more appalling than the press conference where the reactionary Texan locked arms with a smiling Teamster lobbyist, vowing to "crack the back of the radical environmentalists." The payoff to the labor chiefs was a quiet guarantee, tucked away in the Bush bill, that the construction sites despoiling the Alaskan wilderness will favor organized labor. This amendment represented a major lapse from right-wing orthodoxy for conservatives like Mr. DeLay, who oppose the right to organize, the minimum wage and every other advance working people have achieved during the past century. Pragmatism outweighed principle on both sides of this deal. There was little reason to expect better from Teamsters boss James Hoffa Jr., whose leadership of his father’s union has evoked the era when the Teamsters cozied up to the Nixon Republicans. More troubling by far was the Teamster chief’s success in persuading Mr. Sweeney to endorse the Bush energy bill. When the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s legislative director explained this decision by pointing to an Alaska-drilling resolution approved by the pre-Sweeney labor leadership in 1993, he only proved how rapidly his organization could revert to its worst old habits. The U.A.W., traditionally among labor’s more idealistic organizations, behaved exactly like the Teamsters, their longtime adversaries in the movement. Their worry was that higher fuel-efficiency requirements would reduce demand for sport utility vehicles and cost union members their jobs. Jobs are always the justification when union officials sign up for an idiotic proposal. The latest instance is the endorsement of the national missile-defense boondoggle by the Machinists Union, an organization that once preferred housing and schools to useless weapons. Mr. Hoffa happily anticipates construction of many more nuclear-power plants, perhaps imagining his drivers transporting radioactive waste across the countryside. It all brings to mind a bitter quip that used to circulate among environmentalists: If the government ever decided to put up concentration camps, they joked, the unions would eagerly welcome the creation of so many new, well-paying jobs. That rapacious image—exaggerated but not entirely unfounded—was among the negative perceptions that Mr. Sweeney set out to erase after he took control of the labor federation. He consulted with national environmental organizations. He spoke out for global environmental standards. And now he’s acted as if all those fine words had never been uttered, with destructive consequences for his admirable project. Surely Mr. Sweeney understands, even if Mr. Hoffa does not, that the future effects of this legislation will be as destructive to union families as to everyone else on the planet. No great vision is required to realize that a conservation ethic must prevail if there’s to be a future worth living for. A union card won’t protect anyone against airborne coal particulates or global warming or urban smog. Not all the blame for this debacle belongs to labor. The liberal Democrats who knuckled under have earned their fair share of shame. More importantly, the Democratic leaders who were defeated by the defection of their own members ought to ask themselves an obvious question: Why have they failed to promote their own energy policy as a jobs program? Ever since the first oil crisis almost three decades ago, copiously documented studies have proved that conservation generates much more employment than exploitation.
The public, including union members, is ready to hear that message. And the Democrats, if they
hope to defeat the Bush bill in the Senate, shouldn’t hesitate to proclaim it.
General William Tecumseh Sherman 
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 How Bush Will Spend His Summer Vacation by Gene Lyons Show me a man who takes a Texas vacation in August, and I'll show you a politician or a fool. George II says he plans to spend much of the month communing with beef cattle. Give me a break. Cowboy hat and all, Bush's idyll at his recently acquired ranch in Crawford, Texas, constitutes a purer form of play-acting than did any of the poll-tested Clinton vacations. Rich Texans buy ranches for the same reasons rich New Yorkers buy Park Avenue condos and donate to art museums: to consolidate their social status and advertise their sensibilities. In Texas iconography, the Bush ranch symbolizes the rugged individualism of the kind that people who inherit great wealth are eager to impersonate. Previous to inheriting the White House, the smallest city George W. Bush had occupied during his adult life was Midland, Texas, not exactly a country town. He's no more a rancher than Bill Clinton's a duck hunter. White House aides have also told reporters that Bush will be doing a lot of deep thinking between photo-ops in sun-scorched pastures. Supposedly, he'll be pondering the difficult ethical and moral implications of permitting federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. Cynical me, I figure he'll be spending a lot more time trying to work his way out of a political trap he set for himself. During the campaign, he won the allegiance of the single-issue anti-abortion crowd by promising to prevent such research from taking place. Now he's got a problem. Does he break a campaign vow to the religious right or do something truly stupid? Normally, Bush could be counted upon to tack rightward. But this issue is complicated by several factors. First, stem cell research appears to offer the greatest alleviation of human suffering since the discovery of antibiotics. Treatment of diabetes, heart disease, spinal cord injuries, and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases could all be revolutionized. Second, the research is going to be done in Europe regardless of what Bush decides. The potential financial losses to the American pharmaceutical industry could be incalculable; hence, many conservatives like Sen. Orrin Hatch are urging Bush to alter his stance. Pro-lifers, they've made a moral distinction between fetuses implanted in a woman's womb and infinitesimally tiny frozen embryos in petri dishes that were being routinely discarded in fertility clinics before science began probing their mysteries and right-wing theologians turned them into a cause celebre. Bush's dilemma was dramatized during his recent audience with the pope, who publicly urged him to choose medieval doctrine over medical science. Privately, George II must have fumed about getting sandbagged by the pontiff. Well, if John Paul II is going to insert himself into American politics, Bush ought to learn a bit of church history. The theological underpinning of John Paul's argument on stem cell research is his predecessor Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae, a reassertion of the church's ancient teaching that the only truly legitimate purpose of sex was procreation and that birth control was akin to infanticide. Until Humanae Vitae, many priests had been counseling Catholic couples that as the Holy Father was all but certain to modify the church's historic ban, they might in good conscience limit the size of their families without committing a mortal sin. When Paul instead tried to turn the clock back to the 14th century, as British novelist David Lodge put it, "Catholics convinced of the morality of contraception were no longer disposed to swallow meekly a rehash of discredited doctrine just because the Pope was wielding the spoon." Indeed, given overpopulation and poverty in Third World Catholic countries, many thought Humanae Vitae not merely silly, but morally obtuse.
After the democratizing reforms of Vatican II, the result wasn't to reassert
papal authority over the intimate lives of educated Catholics, it was to
diminish it irreparably. Should Bush heed the pope on stem cell research, it's
apt to have a similar political effect upon American Catholics. Advisers who
say otherwise are talking to too many bishops and cardinals, too few voters. |
 Quite Contrary By Mary McGrory Several readers -- okay, two, if you must know -- kindly wrote to inquire how my garden grows. About the same, I would say, except that this year the squirrels are black -- a fact much noted by young visitors, even when I tell them it doesn't make any difference. They have tails that look like bad dye jobs, henna-streaked ink. They are even more aggressive and vindictive than the old gray crowd. These have been brought up to get even with me for finding, finally, a bird feeder they cannot crack. They shinny halfway up and halt melodramatically at the cylinder that stops them. They sit there and glare at me. I'm afraid there's not a scrap of Saint Francis in me -- I glare right back. I have good reason: The black squirrels scored a huge victory this year. Steve Pearlstein, a colleague with a green thumb, kindly brought me some beautiful day lilies from his vast store to put along the stone wall I had had built to keep my condo from falling into Klingle Road. He put them in for me, too, and as spring advanced they shot up in a most encouraging fashion and even bloomed -- something that is never taken for granted in what passes for me as "a lovesome thing, God wot!" Then one morning I looked out. The beautiful orange blossoms had disappeared. I knew it wasn't deer, who have been known to make a McDonald's of the astilbe bed that I had hoped would get me on the neighborhood garden tour. What had gone wrong? It seems the lilies had picked up stakes and decamped during the night. Eventually I found some on the ground. Had the rapacious raccoon, who goes for grass seed after he has pigged out on the bird food he has clawed out of the bag, suddenly decided he needed beauty in his life -- and his stomach? No, as I was watching the last flower left standing, I saw something black streak through the air. The squirrel blasted out of the low-growing evergreen bush, gripped the long, flexible lily stem and rode it triumphantly to the ground. I could picture the glee in the squirrels' clubroom. They had committed the perfect crime -- and probably sold rides on the "lily trapeze" at exorbitant rates. I put nothing past them. Other setbacks have occurred that I cannot blame on the squirrels. For instance, an entire lavender patch that had flourished for several years suddenly committed mass suicide. The plant had seemed happy enough. The orange cat who pads through every morning just to give the sparrows cardiac arrest had never bothered it. No trace of Kool-Aid, either. Did Dr. Kevorkian pass through and drop hints about a swift resolution as preferable to a long, drawn-out indisposition? Or was it more subtle than that? My mind turned to the White House flaw-finders, whose job is to spot imperfections in international treaties. They are summoned every time the rest of the world decides to put its heads together about some little imperfection in the way the world is run. The treaty scribes haven't scored yet with W. They've tried the Kyoto treaty, which says there's entirely too much smog around. "Fatally flawed" was the verdict of the perfectionist in the Oval Office. They tried small arms trade, biological weapons. All close, but no signature. Bush was in sympathy with the goals, of course, but . . . . You can imagine the demoralization of the treaty writers, who, like the unlucky gardener, search desperately for the clues to their failures. The wrong parchment? Unappealing calligraphy? Perhaps the grammar failed to pass muster in the Oval Office, although the current occupant makes minimal rhetorical demands upon himself. Or maybe it was worse: The scribes didn't tell the United States that it is No. 1, superior, unique, and not to be confused with other, lesser nations? After a hard day's fly-specking at the White House, do the flaw-finders moonlight at my place, sidling up to some plant that could go either way and whispering, "Say, I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were you. Dick Cheney was seen in the neighborhood last week and may be casing it as a place to drill." I can find no other explanation for the meltdown of two glorious delphiniums with white, navy and royal blue flowers that I had found at Johnson's and planted with great expectations. Overnight, they turned droopy and dirty. Like Alexander Haig under difficult circumstances, I suspect a "sinister outside force." Malaise is in the air, I fear. Once in a great while, a cardinal comes to my feeder. He is gorgeous, especially among the dun-colored, quarreling sparrows that are my regular clientele. On his cameo appearances, the cardinal brings his old lady to keep watch. She chirps away, but he is nervous. I hear her saying, "Go ahead, dear, you had no lunch." But he worries: "It's getting late, I saw a hawk, I felt a raindrop."
Naturally, I am hoping for better times. That's how you know us hapless gardeners -- by our dirty fingernails and our absurd,
unquenchable optimism about next year. |
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Although I'm angered by the House's approval, I'm not seriously worried - yet. Daschle isn't a dummy, and
he knows he's got to fight this one with everything he's got. And so do the other Democrats. The simple
truth is that despite the endless propaganda blizzard the Cheney/Bush regime have unleashed to try to
pump up public enthusiasm for trashing ANWR, the majority of people are still opposed to the idea. And
with good reason - it's a mind-bogglingly stupid idea.
Funny how the regressives recently stopped talking about gas prices. For a while, they were practically
guaranteeing that if those radical environmentalist types didn't quit hollering about destroying the
"wasteland" (one of the Bushies' favorite terms for ANWR) and open it up to Cheney/Bush's buddies in
the oil industry, gasoline prices would triple. But then - darn it! - the price of gas started declining. A few
weeks ago, I drove past my favorite gas station (their prices are always the lowest around...of course, they
also sometimes run out of gas, and their credit card machine never works, but it's nice knowing that
Exxon/Mobil isn't getting my money), saw that gas had dropped another few cents, and got the giggles
picturing Shrub on his knees praying: "Please, dear Jesus, make gas prices go up again!"
Of course, drilling in ANWR wouldn't have any real effect on gas prices, and the more intelligent
right-wingers know that...but it did make for good rhetoric. Luckily for them, there's plenty more rhetoric to
go around, and plenty of ignorant regressives who'll swallow the pap and then regurgitate it at every
opportunity.
I used to wonder why the Bush supporters remained so stubbornly clueless about the facts involved with
drilling in ANWR, until I realized that the truth is that they simply don't care about the facts. Most likely, the
vast majority of the little lemmings are dimly aware that this would not be a good move on the
environmental level; many of them probably realize that it wouldn't be a good move on ANY level, except
the "make-the-oil-industry-happy" level. So why do they support it? Well, first, it's a simple way (because
they're fed easy-to-remember talking points) to support their Commander-in-Thief, and -- as recent polls
have shown -- he needs all the support he can get right now. And secondly, it's a way for them to fight
back against those who care about the environment and believe we ought to all take a little responsibility
for ensuring that the world is an acceptable place to live a few generations down the road. Nothing gets a
regressive hotter under the collar than the suggestion that he or she ought to be responsible. And the sad
truth is that they really don't care about the environment. They are short-sighted, selfish and greedy, and
the Cheney/Bush regime has repeatedly told them that it's okay to be this way...and they are by God going
to defend their selfish, greedy short-sightedness as best they can.
It'd be nice if we could just assume that any rational person would look at both sides of the issue (we'll
skip over irrational people -- their minds won't be changed, and it's pointless to waste time on them) and
realize that drilling in ANWR is a mistake. Unfortunately, that would require a fair, unbiased media; and
we haven't had that in this country for a long, long time. So it's important to know the facts in order to
counter the right-wing spin, and hopefully grab the attention of those right-wingers who are still capable of
seeing reason.
So the next time you hear someone blathering about the "energy crisis" and the need for drilling in ANWR,
slap them down with the facts. It's entirely possible that they have never heard them.
First, drilling in ANWR will not in any sense stop us from being dependent on foreign oil. We wouldn't
even GET the damned oil for 10-15 years, and the US Geological Survey has done extensive studies
proving that while the oil from ANWR might have a TINY (and we're talking pennies here) effect on prices,
the effect would last for less than a year.
And more oil is not a be-all end-all solution. These are not magical oil reserves...they will not renew
themselves. When the oil's gone, it's gone. Period. Other solutions need to be found if we give a damn
about the future.
Secondly, the scare tactics used by the right to make people believe that we've got to have our own supply
of oil so we're not "dependent on foreign oil", and would be able to fight Saddam if necessary, is just
downright silly. Not just because drilling in ANWR wouldn't rid us of this dependence, but also because of
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - over 570 million barrels of crude oil that could be used in a war effort.
We have about twice as much oil in reserve (plus the capacity to extract more) than will ever be found in
ANWR.
Right-wingers have gone back to championing "states' rights" after their brief departure in the Selection
2000 debacle, and often claim that we should leave the decision of drilling in Alaska up to Alaskans. This
sounds sensible until you think about it for five seconds. Would we support New Yorkers if they decided to
trash the Statue of Liberty? Would we give a wink and a nod to Montana, Wyoming or Idaho if they decided
to pave over and "develop" sections of Yellowstone National Park? The key word here is "National", and
let's not forget that that's what the N in ANWR stands for. It doesn't belong to Alaskans alone -- it's mine,
too. And yours.
It is true that some Alaskans support drilling. Why? Well, follow the money. A large percentage of the
profits from drilling (over half) would go to the residents of Alaska. So, naturally, the more greedy
residents of Alaska want those profits. The same holds true for the Inupiaq Eskimos - their corporation,
formed in 1970, would receive millions of dollars from the destruction of ANWR. But the argument that the
"native people" of Alaska, to whom the land belongs, support drilling falls apart when one considers that
the Gwich'in tribe is staunchly opposed to drilling...and the land belongs to them, too.
No doubt, if you engage in debate on this issue, you'll be told that a poll was taken which showed that the
American public supports drilling. But this poll consisted of only 803 people -- and while it's true that
repondents said they favored drilling, it is ALSO true that they said they favored it ONLY AFTER outlawing
environmentally-destructive SUVs and investment into renewable energy sources. And since responses
invariably fall along partisan lines - those who voted for Bush support drilling, those who voted for Gore
oppose it - than it's clear that the "No"s have it.
To those Bush-lemmings who scoff at environmental concerns and state that drilling in ANWR wouldn't
hurt anything, I honestly think that the only appropriate response is derisive laughter. Anyone who truly
believes that drilling is environmentally friendly is a fool. Of course, the truth is that the regressives who
spout such nonsense simply don't give a damn about the environment, so giving them the facts won't
change anything.
But if you enjoy beating your head against concrete walls (or if you find someone who does care about the
environment, but is genuinely misinformed), you can always point out that unlike Prudhoe Bay, the
possible oil reserves in ANWR are highly unlikely to be found in one big field -- they are scattered about,
which means that rather than one large production site, a multitude of smaller production sites would be
necessary, all connected by roads, pipelines, landfills, utility lines, etc etc etc. I don't think you'll find
anyone who'll argue with a straight face that oil spills are GOOD for the environment, and if you find
someone who argues that oil spills won't happen, my suggestion would be to ask "Oh, will the Tooth
Fairy prevent them?"
And yes, the caribou will be harmed. It's true that the drilling in Prudhoe Bay has not had as much of an
adverse effect as was feared, but the primary reason for that is because the caribou were able to move
away from the areas of production. In ANWR, there are almost no other places for them to go...so the two
cannot be logically compared.
There is one reason, and one reason alone, to drill in ANWR - and that is to fatten the pocketbooks of the
oil industry bigwigs.
Anyone who says otherwise is either a fool, a liar -- or, more probably, both. ~ Rose
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Can Senator John Kerry Do In 2004 What Al Gore Couldn't Do In 2000?
It's 6:40 a.m. and Kerry, headed to western Massachusetts to spend the day meeting with constituents, tears through
the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the New York Times. He remarks that the day before, both Times columnist
Maureen Dowd and a Times editorial slammed former Vice President Al Gore. He doesn't sound joyful about it, but
neither does he sound all that sympathetic about the man who ran one of the worst presidential campaigns in recent
history.
In the middle of the sports section, Kerry asks a staffer if his scheduled visits will permit him to get home in time to
watch the Boston Red Sox face off against the Texas Rangers. He had tickets to Friday's game, which was rained
out.
No, he's told. He won't get back in time.
Kerry sighs. But the race for the American League pennant isn't the Boston vs. Texas matchup Kerry is asked about
as he makes his way around the state. Whether it's supporters or politicos or editorialists from the Berkshire Eagle
and the Springfield Union-News, everyone tries to get Kerry to step up to the plate and admit that he's going to run for
president in 2004.
"You still haven't answered my question about the presidency," jokes Eagle editor David Scribner halfway through
their meeting. "Oh, we won't tell anybody!"
Kerry shrugs off every pitch, insisting that his senatorial reelection contest in 2002 is foremost in his mind. The state
GOP, though, has yet to field a decent candidate, and it seems pretty clear no Republican in the state could be half
as daunting as was Kerry's last Republican challenger in '96, popular then-Gov. William Weld. Despite having been
reelected governor in 1994 with 71 percent of the vote, Weld lost the Senate race to Kerry, 45 percent to 52 percent.
Kerry clearly is taking nothing for granted, but that doesn't mean he doesn't recognize what essentially right now is
political kabuki theater. I cannot even hint that I want anything other than my Senate seat, lest they resent me for it.
Not any of his potential rivals for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination -- Gore, Sen. Joe Lieberman of
Connecticut, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware -- will cop to anything but an intense interest in the
2002 elections.
But Kerry's presidential campaign seems pretty certain, even if he's playing coy, complying with political tradition.
He's made small gestures to boost his profile, like renaming the Oceans and Fisheries subcommittee he chairs to
Oceans, Fisheries and the Environment, exploiting a growing national interest -- and an area of potential vulnerability
for the current administration. (When the Senate returns to session, Kerry has also vowed to filibuster any bill that
allows drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.)
Thursday night, Kerry - the author of a July 19 Senate letter to Bush in favor of full federal funding of stem cell
research, signed by 59 Republican and Democratic senators -- blasted Bush's attempt at a middle-ground decision on
the matter in starkly philosophical terms with a presidential garnish. "Leadership is making choices, and governing
means laying out priorities," Kerry said. "Regrettably, tonight's announcement aims to create a political middle ground
where there is no scientific one. Compassionate conservatism could have meant lifesaving treatments for those
suffering from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease; instead, it appears to be using words of compassion to mask
efforts to keep a campaign promise to conservatives."
On a more pragmatic, back-scratching political level -- where Kerry has traditionally never excelled -- he spent Sunday
in New Hampshire, where he appeared as the star attraction at fundraisers for a couple of local politicos. (He'll return
to the Granite State to keynote the AFL-CIO convention Oct. 18.) And as if Kerry's Sunday nod toward the state with
the first presidential primary weren't enough, Tuesday night, at the Beacon Hill townhouse he shares with his second
wife, Teresa Heinz, he hosted a fundraiser for the Democratic governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsak. Kerry also helped Vilsak
raise reelection funds in June in Iowa, which happens to host the first presidential caucus.
As political chits are being stacked on the side, Kerry's campaign coffers are being filled. He has raised $2.2 million
this year, all without PAC contributions, which he has refused in all three of his Senate races.
And in this, Kerry seems to have an early lead over his potential rivals. Edwards, up for reelection in 2004, has $1.2
million in the bank, having raised $615,360 for his campaign committee in the first six months of this year. After
holding 10 fundraisers, Lieberman's leadership political action committee -- Responsibility, Opportunity and Community
PAC, or ROCPAC -- has raised $585,604 in its first three and a half months, with an additional $1.1 million left
unspent from his 2000 Senate race. Biden, who is up for reelection in 2002, has raised $726,775 in the first six
months of the year, with $1,466,330 cash on hand. Daschle, reelected in 1998, has $735,000 in his campaign
committee coffers. Gephardt has $247,566 in his leadership PAC, and $501,823 on hand in his campaign committee,
having raised $851,650 since January.
But to watch Kerry now is to watch a man who appears to be sounding out to himself his own reasons for running, as
if to build the kind of self-conviction that, say, Gore never seemed to really have. As President Bush begins a
month-long "working vacation" at his Texas ranch, Kerry thinks about themes, tests out rhetoric and practices
arguments that sound far better suited to a national campaign than the more parochial one he faces next fall.
This year is not the first time Kerry's name has been seriously mentioned as a prospective nominee. No, that
stretches back to 1971 when, on "60 Minutes," Morely Safer asked Kerry, then 27 and leader of Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, about whether he would want to be president. (Kerry's answer was no.) He's clearly been thinking
about it more credibly for quite some time. Just a year ago, his ambitions were mentioned by Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz., who, while commenting on the weak performances of Gore and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley in the
Democratic race, rhetorically asked: "You know the guy with the biggest regrets that he didn't run?"
McCain, a friend of Kerry's, answered himself: "His initials are J.K."
Kerry had briefly flirted with the prospect of challenging Gore for the nomination, but in early 1999 opted out. One
year later, Kerry made Gore's short list of potential vice presidential picks, but in the end he came in third, behind
Lieberman and Edwards. Kerry, according to sources close to him, never thought Gore was going to pick him. Many
of Kerry's supporters -- those who thought Lieberman was too timid as the vice-presidential nominee, too easy on
Dick Cheney in the vice presidential debate and too hesitant to step into the attack dog role -- naturally think Gore
made the wrong pick. Whether or not you buy that, quite unlike Lieberman, Kerry says that whether or not Gore is
running will not be a factor when he makes his decision about 2004.
"Thank you for that extraordinarily generous introduction," Kerry said at one of the New Hampshire fundraisers. "I was
tempted to go: 'I accept the nomination!' But I won't." The crowd laughed knowingly.
On the stump, Kerry talks about engaging "a common journey right now" that includes "very significant choices about
our country." It sounds a lot more like a Kerry for president speech than a Kerry for Senate speech. "We have to
organize around a vision about our country and about our citizenry," he says.
In an interview, Kerry reflects on the speeches he's been giving recently, during stops that have included Georgia,
Colorado, Washington, Iowa and Texas. "As I go out and have spoken in the last weeks, last months, I've talked
about choices," he says.
"Choices" as exemplified by the Bush tax cut. To a few dozen dairy farmers in Adams, Mass., Kerry talks about the
Northeast Dairy Compact in the context of Bush's "irresponsible tax cut so big ... this past month we borrowed to pay
for the tax cut." The debate has been "reduced to stupid little phrases, like 'It's not the government's money, it's the
people's money!'" Kerry sneers. "Well, that sounds great, folks, but there are some things that only the government
can do."
He paints himself as the fiscal conservative, spinning Bush as the radical. Kerry drives into the larger point, saying
the $1.35 trillion Bush tax cut deprives the Senate of "opportunities to provide you with a decent price support
program." He talks up his support of both the "tough vote" for the 1993 Clinton deficit reduction program as well as
"the first thing" he supported as a new senator in 1985, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction act. But beneath
Kerry's talk of "choices" lies a pretty liberal philosophy and a voting record on most things that matches up well with
the state's senior senator, Ted Kennedy. Though Kerry has carved out a somewhat unpredictable niche by leaning
right on free trade and the deficit, he knows that he, the former lieutenant governor for Gov. Michael Dukakis, will be
slammed as just another Massachusetts liberal should the time come. He hopes to avoid that, and the themes he has
been sounding -- or at least the ones he's been discussing recently, among certain audiences -- have made a fan out
of at least one influential conservative Democrat.
"I've been going to Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinners in Georgia since the 1950s, so I've seen a lot of speeches," says
Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., easily the Senate Democrat most supportive of the Bush agenda. "Kerry's was by far the best
speech I have ever heard given at a function like that. He talked about citizen-soldiers and he talked about the flag
raisers at Iwo Jima. It was a very good, touching speech."
Back in the 1971 "60 Minutes" profile of Kerry, Safer referred to Kerry's "manner, his credentials, a veteran whose
articulate call to reason rather than anarchy seemed to bridge the call between the Abbie Hoffmans of the world and
Mr. Agnew's so-called 'Silent Majority.'" Will Kerry be able to bridge the gap between the red and the blue states?
Miller has criticized his fellow Democrats (including Al Gore) for not "getting it." I ask Miller: Does Kerry get it?
"I'm not sure," Miller says, allowing that he and Kerry differ on some issues, including the Bush tax cut. The American
people will want to see if "he's talking about issues that affect their daily lives" rather than issues of "political
correctness or some far-out social issue," Miller says.
"He's a man of great substance and great character, but the cold hard fact is one speech does not make a candidacy
in Georgia," Miller says. "But it was certainly an auspicious beginning."
Kerry hopes so. "I've got a pretty fundamental sense of why I'm in this business," he says to this reporter, again
sounding out one of his themes. "I know what brought me here in the first place. And I'm very frustrated."
Here he begins, again, to test a theme, one I later hear him give from the top of a picnic table at a meeting of
Springfield Democrats. "Because so much has been written about the 'Greatest Generation,' I think it's time that we
ask the question: What's going to be said about the virtue of our generation? Nobody seems to be nurturing that very
much."
Of his fellow boomer, Bush, he says: "I can't tell you what this administration is offering us that suggests that we
have a larger sense of what we'd have as a legacy with respect to this time we have in government to make a
difference."
Kerry, who first jumped to national prominence during the Vietnam War, combines a "Greatest Generation" profile with
a hippie credibility his peers must envy. He enlisted in the Navy right after graduating from Yale in 1966, served six
months in country, was awarded a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. Then he came back and
marched against the very war in which he had served so valiantly, helping to form Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?" Kerry famously asked the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in April 1971. "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I.,
thanked Kerry, then 27, for testifying before the committee, saying, "As the witness knows, I have a very high
personal regard for him and hope, before his life ends, he will be a colleague of ours in this body."
A few days before I was to travel with Kerry in Massachusetts, I found an ancient copy of "The New Soldier" -- which
Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War put together in 1971 to record their week in Washington protesting the
war. I handed it to him upon squeezing into his minivan, and he began leafing through it.
"There's Robert Muller," Kerry says, pointing at scrapbook photos in the back of the book showing a high-school era
Muller pole vaulting before he went abroad and lost the use of his legs. "Gold Star Mothers," he says, pointing to a
photo of an older woman wrapped in a flag, clutching the medals that are all that's left of her son. "There's Rusty
Sachs," Kerry says. "Look at his face." Sachs is throwing one of his medals back on the steps of Congress; he's
fighting back tears.
The moment has political ramifications, and not just because some -- like McCain -- found the spectacle of veterans
tossing their medals distasteful and inappropriate. In 1984, the Wall Street Journal revealed that -- despite a speech
Kerry gave in which he angrily claimed that "This administration forced us to return our medals ... These leaders
denied us the integrity those symbols supposedly gave our lives" -- Kerry had actually kept his medals. The medals
he threw that day belonged to others, it turned out. It was an example, the media alleged, of Kerry the phony.
From Kerry's perspective, of course, it was all pretty complicated and he never really understood what the brouhaha
was all about. The medals were, after all, a highly personal matter. He'd ultimately decided to throw his also-important
ribbons, and the medals he tossed were on behalf of some disabled vets. He never claimed to have thrown his own
medals, and certainly the more important matter was that he had enlisted and fought bravely in the war, and had then
come back to protest the atrocities he had participated in. And, it should be noted, in the "60 Minutes" interview with
Kerry, which ran a mere four weeks after the 1971 demonstration on the Mall, Kerry refers to the "the emotion in the
faces of those men who threw their medals back ... if you watch their faces, there was agony in them as they threw
those things back," and so on, continuously referring to the medal-throwers in the third person, never including
himself.
A couple pages after the photo of Sachs and others throwing their medals back are two different close-ups of the
piles the vets left in their wake. "Look at that," Kerry says. "You see? A big deal was made about whether I threw
back my medals or ribbons or whatever, but look. People threw everything. Ribbons. Discharge papers. Photographs.
Certificates ..."
Indeed, that's what the photos show. In one photo, a veteran is throwing his cane. Kerry swallows. Slightly shakes
his head.
He moves on to other photos in the book. In one of the last shots, a sapling stands on the Mall where the veterans all
congregated that week in April. The text next to the photo says "The quadrangle on the Mall is vacant. Not one act of
violence has been committed. They came in peace. The war in Indochina continues."
"We planted that tree," Kerry says. "But it's not there anymore. We went there recently to look for it and they added a
wing of a museum or something." With weariness, Kerry hands the book back to me. We're off to the next stop.
"Look at that!" Kerry says roughly every five minutes to his 24-year-old daughter Vanessa, who has come with him
today, as we drive through another gorgeous vista. "God's country," he says. He turns around and makes sure
everyone in the car has seen the Berkshires' lush green rolling hills, as if we could miss them. We pass a
cattle-crossing sign.
"Cattle crossing," Kerry says in his Yalie, Brahmin patrician way. "Swallows swooping."
Vanessa rolls her eyes, embarrassed a bit by her dad waxing poetic. "He's such a cheeseball," she says lovingly. "I
mean, it comes out that way. But he's really sentimental. He really means it."
There is something about the Kerry style that has made him an easy target for critics, ones a bit harsher than his
daughter. "Aloof and pompous," says a senior Democratic Senate staffer. Similar criticisms come fast from
Democrats, especially those allied with any of Kerry's possible rivals. He's arrogant, a show pony, a media hog,
hyper-ambitious.
"Show me one of these people who isn't ambitious," McCain says, defending Kerry, and paraphrases a famous line
from the late Rep. Morris Udall, D-Ariz. "Unless you're under indictment or detoxification every senator automatically
consider himself a candidate for president of the United States."
McCain says Kerry could be a good candidate. "John is tenacious, which is an attribute that I admire, obviously. He's
willing to work hard. One thing we all know -- those who have observed and those who have been in a presidential
campaign -- is it's a lot of work. And a number of people who decide to run find out how hard it is and have a
tendency to kind of pull back and relax. John Kerry will not do that. He will go out like a bulldog."
Moreover, McCain says, Kerry is one of the smartest people in the Senate. "You may accuse him of a lot of things,
but not knowing the issues is not one of them." Though, McCain allows, "sometimes he has a tendency to
over-explain the issues."
And he can seem too ambitious, off-putting to even would-be supporters.
As soon as Kerry became a public figure, even Garry Trudeau, a liberal, someone who one normally might think would
be a supporter, was knocking him in his cartoon.
"If you care about this country at all, you better go listen to that John Kerry fella," a stranger lectures Mike
Doonesbury and B.D. in the Oct. 21, 1971, comic strip. "He speaks with a rare eloquence and astonishing conviction.
If you see no one else this year, you must see John Kerry!"
"Who was that?" B.D. asks as the stranger leaves.
Responds Mike: "John Kerry."
In the Oct. 22, 1971, comic strip, Kerry is shown giving an impassioned speech at the end of which he is revealed to
be thinking, "You're really clicking tonight, you gorgeous preppie."
Jim Jones, a longtime Kerry staffer who's worked as both his policy and communications director, says that the
sneers that come Kerry's way are usually over his style rather than his substance. "He may have his flaws, but he
wears them," Jones says. "What you see is what you get, he has no hidden agendas. And he's a very complicated
person."
That "gorgeous preppie" -- or what passes for gorgeous in politics, at any rate -- has harsh words for his younger self,
for the "brash" way he conducted himself when he was with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, for his fairly
shameless district-shopping back in 1972 when he ran, and lost, a race for Congress. But those close to Kerry think
that he's gotten something of a bum rap. It isn't something that has much affected what voters think of him, or what
his national profile will be should he run, but among elites -- particularly those in the media -- there is a dismissal of
Kerry that his supporters argue isn't fair.
Sure, he can be demanding and headstrong and longwinded, they say. But welcome to the U.S. Senate. During the
'96 campaign, Kerry was slammed for crashing at the ritzy manse of a lobbyist. But that was during his divorce, say
his supporters. He sure seems to love Hollywood, and his time between his two marriages (he separated from his first
wife, Julia Thorne, in 1982; they divorced in 1988) seemed to be filled with lots of young women. He was single,
counter friends, and much of that was overblown. (A 1997 Boston Herald gossip column had Kerry walking "with an
unidentified woman" into a 7-Eleven for "some after-dinner snacks." Says daughter Vanessa: "That was me.")
Even Kerry's 1995 marriage to heiress Heinz, widow of former Sen. John Heinz, R-Penn., was cast in a cynical light,
though Kerry says he hasn't spent one dollar of her money on any political activities. Other than that, Kerry himself
won't touch the subject of media snarkiness, lest he be seen as whining. Though he did briefly brush by the matter in
his Georgia speech, bemoaning "the cynicism of a press that wants to make entertainment out of news."
The larger point of the speech, though -- and what made Miller such a fan of Kerry -- was Kerry's talk of duty, both as
a soldier and as a Democrat. "There is a difference worth fighting for between the parties," Kerry told the Atlanta
audience. "It is a difference that has a profound impact on the lives of our fellow Americans -- and it's time we got
back to being Democrats who stand up as citizen soldiers -- in good times and in bad -- and fight for a national
politics that lifts up our nation.
"We Democrats believe this nation is more than gleaming buildings and the gated communities with their swimming
pools and finely manicured lawns," Kerry said. "We do not see America as a finished product; a city established upon
the hill. We see an America still in the process of becoming; a dream not yet fulfilled; a promise not yet kept."
Despite this lofty rhetoric, Kerry is now known in the Senate less as a high-profile legislator and more as someone
who offers well-considered amendments here and there. Toiling in the shadow of Mount Teddy Kennedy hasn't been
easy, as one has to cede a large chunk of American domestic policy to the Senate chairman of the Health Education
Labor & Pensions Committee.
"His strengths have been more investigative, rhetorical and intellectual than legislative," allows a Kerry advisor, "which
worries me not at all, because if that mattered we'd be in Year 5 of the Dole administration."
Kerry's highest-profile victories have been fairly solo, executive actions: helming the controversial Select Committee
on POW/MIA Affairs, using Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee powers to investigate Gen. Manuel Noriega,
uncovering the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) scandal, unearthing Lt. Col. Oliver North's private
aid network to the Contras which eventually led to the Iran-Contra affair. Kerry sees this as part of his record of
holding the system accountable, but these boat-rocking investigations -- especially the BCCI scandal, in which he
went after D.C. icon Clark Clifford -- did nothing to endear him to the Washington establishment. Clifford, a former
secretary of defense and key Democratic advisor to four presidents -- eventually faced charges of fraud, conspiracy
and taking bribes in the BCCI affair, the biggest banking scandal in history. Indictments against him were ultimately
put on hold because of his failing health.
"He was the first one to say about Clark Clifford that the emperor had no clothes," says a former senior-level Kerry
staffer. "And that was a lonely place to be. One time a highly respected senator got on the elevator and said to Kerry,
'What are you doing to my friend Clark Clifford?' John didn't say anything. After the other senator got off, John turned
to me and said, 'I get that all the time on the Senate floor.' He did the right thing. I remember, we had a discussion
once about what happens being in the Senate, how you sort of get neutered. The institution doesn't reward the people
who push and stick out their necks. This was a good example."
"Kerry's got courage," McCain says. "He's got courage. He'll do what he thinks is right."
The feeling is mutual. Impressed as Kerry was by McCain's campaign and seemingly less than dazzled by Gore's,
Kerry says he's trying to marry what he saw as McCain's "no bullshit" appeal with a testimonial to the
accomplishments of the Clinton administration -- something Gore was never really able to sell.
"Why I like John McCain so much and why I admired his foray last time is because he, I thought, talked common
sense, and that's what I think people want, is for us to not bullshit them," Kerry says in an interview. "The American
people are smarter than a lot of politicians want to give them credit for. And more courageous, more prepared to deal
with some tough choices if somebody would present them to them. I don't have all the answers, but I'm willing to
embrace the discussion."
It's not as if John McCain isn't a politician, of course, with his own unique brand of bullshit packaged in earthy, ironic,
wink-and-a-smile "straight-talk" wrapping. American politicians can't tell the truth; the American people won't let them.
So what needs to be offered is a limited version of no-bullshit, as when Kerry, in his van, peruses the Democratic
Policy Committee talking points slamming the Bush Social Security Commission for claiming that Social Security will
run out of money around 2012. The Democratic talking points paint a rosier picture than Kerry believes is accurate --
the government will continue to make payments by amassing debt, but the Republicans are right, the money will run
out. Kerry calls the talking points "disingenuous," but he has yet to formulate an official policy on Social Security
Reform, and already he's ruled out the relatively minor reform measure of raising the retirement age.
It's Monday evening and Kerry, his daughter and his staff are making their way back to Boston on the Mass Pike.
Kerry is placing calls to a radio station, to supporters and staffers with vague allusions to "political" decisions that
have to be run by his two longtime strategists, Jim Jordan, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee, and David McKean, his administrative assistant. The Red Sox-Rangers game is on the radio. Reception is
spotty.
"Can we get it better? Isn't it on another station?" Kerry asks demandingly of the driver. Another staffer says that we
shouldn't bother; Red Sox catcher Scott Hatteberg hit a line drive right smack dab into a triple play in the fourth inning
and the Sox are down 7-6.
The radio is dimmed. Kerry returns to phone calls. In the seventh inning, though, Hatteberg -- the game's goat, the
one Sox fans are booing -- steps up and wails the ball. Grand slam. Sox win 10-7. Things can turn around quickly in
the world of baseball; one inning's goat is another inning's superstar.
"I don't want to get highfalutin about it," Kerry says in an interview when I ask him about how 2002 seems quite like a
practice run for 2004, how the preparations for Kerry for President are being made not just among staffers and
fundraiser but in his head and speeches. "I want to be careful about it. I'm not 'picking themes,' I'm just trying to talk
about things that make sense. And obviously I'll see how and what matters to people. Or how they respond to some
of those things as I think about what I may or may not end up doing." |
|
Dead Letter Office
Heil Bush,
Dear Propaganda Ansager Blitzer,
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.
Without your help shilling for us, spinning the truth, telling out right lies and ignoring the real news, holding onto power after our Coup D' Etat would have been impossible. With the help of our mutual friends, the other "Media Whores," you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new bank account.
Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross 2nd class presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala celebration in der Wolf's Lair (formerly Rancho de Bimbo) on 9-03-2001. We salute you Herr Blitzer ! Sieg Heil!
Signed,
Heil Bush
|
|
Vanessa Leggett, a freelance writer and teacher at the University of Houston's professional writing program, was sent
to jail July 20 by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon for contempt because Leggett refused to turn over her notes
and tapes on a murder case.
As it happens, it was one of those high-profile, rich, white-trash cases for which Texas is famous. The victim was
Doris Angleton, wife of a millionaire bookie, shot to death in her River Oaks mansion. Her husband, Robert the Bookie,
was charged with murder, his supposed motive being to save himself millions in a divorce proceeding. He was
acquitted in 1998.
Robert's brother Roger also was implicated but he committed suicide in jail before his trial. He left a note saying he
had killed his sister-in-law in order to frame his brother.
Apparently the feds still are hot and bothered about this, and the Justice Department demanded Leggett turn over the
tape of an interview she had with Roger while he still was in jail, as well as all her other material. Leggett is working on
one of those true-crime books about the case and has neither the money nor a publisher to back her. The case was a
huge embarrassment to the Houston Police Department because, among other reasons, Robert Angleton turned out to
be one of its informants.
Leggett was jailed without bail (writing teachers are such a menace to society) after a secret hearing and could face
18 months in prison.
Look, this is pretty simple. The cops and the Justice Department have people with guns and badges and subpoenas
and the entire criminal justice system to back them up. A journalist is a citizen with a notebook and a pencil--and in
this case a tape recorder as well. Her lawyer, Mike DeGuerin, said, "The government is annexing the news media as
investigative agents of the government by this process." Of course they are.
The case of Brian Dalton, 22, of Columbus, Ohio, reminds me of the late John Henry Faulk's dictum: We all think we're
in favor of free speech, but actually defending it tends to make you "about as popular as a sick whore tryin' to get
into the SMU [Southern Methodist University] School of Theology."
Dalton, who has never even been accused of actually molesting a child, was arrested for violation of probation after
his parents turned his private journal over to his probation officer, hoping it would get the young man some mental
treatment. Instead, he got seven years.
Dalton had pleaded guilty in 1998 to possession of pornographic photos of children and was given probation. His
crime this time was writing a fictional account of three children being kidnapped, caged in a basement and sexually
tortured. According to those who read it, this is sick stuff. Nevertheless, it does not involve real children and it was
not intended for sale or distribution.
Dalton is doing seven years for what he thought about. His lawyer says the reason Dalton pleaded guilty to the
probation violation is so the journal would not be made public.
If writing one's thoughts in a private journal is against the law, the 1st Amendment is in deep trouble. |
|
Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic, Falsification, theft, and simony, Panders, and barrators, and the like-filth. Inferno, Canto XI Circle VI, The Heretics ~ Dante Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but how many of these people do you know? The anti-animal cruelty political Vegans/Vegetarians (not the ones who do it strictly for health reasons), who also wear leather, and/or use a number of everyday products like Antifreeze, hydraulic brake fluid, gelatin, deodorant, and even mouthwash which all contain animal by-products of one kind or another. (Go Here for more info on Animal By-Products.) Or the Fundamentalist Christians who decry the agnostic and atheists as non-patriotic heathens? I guess they skipped that class on the US Constitution and the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Ring a bell anyone? Please understand I am not attacking vegans or Christians, or anyone else for that matter. I am calling attention to the ignorant hypocritical mindset many of these people have. Like they say, knowledge is power. Stem cell research is proving to be another arena plagued by glaring hypocrisy. Bush's pathetic middle of the road decision, on one hand pandering to his big pharmaceutical industry contributors, while on the other trying to appease the religious right, is bringing new levels to his own ignorant hypocrisy, and in doing so, has pissed off nearly everyone. How does the argument to only use the 'existing strings' make any sense? Either go for it or don't. Why don't they ever see the hypocrisy of having a double standard? It's like the parents who are hooked on painkillers or still smoke grass but want their kids to remain drug free. Or the fact that only Republicans are entitled to their privacy. As Dan Rather rightfully inferred in his comments following Bush's announcement on stem cell research, this entire subject is very complex, and so much deeper than 'when life begins', but let's start there, as it seems to be the current focal point, and to which this issue seems to have been reduced in this country. The UK has been able to separate faith and science on this issue without a socio-economic meltdown, but for some strange reason our current administration wants to use every item in its rhetorical bag of tricks to keep that from happening here. Bush's stance on being anti-abortion, unless it is incest, rape, or where the life of the mother is at stake, is in and of itself hypocritical. If you believe that abortion is murder ñ why should the circumstances negate the act? You can't have it both ways. It either is or isn't. But then Bush is the pure definition of a contradiction with his pro-life/pro-death penalty views. So, does it follow then, if you are pro-life, you are also anti-fertility and anti-birth control? Again, how can you have it both ways? Isn't the argument always "What God intended?" It's a fact that widespread education and use of birth control lowers the abortion rate. So why is this bad? Please indulge me in a short tangent on this subject, as it is a small pet peeve of mine. There are many people who don't understand how the pill works. They think it 'withers' the uterine lining making it impossible for a fertilized embryo to take hold. Nope. "You ARE the weakest link. Goodbye." Hypocrisy and ignorance most always go hand in hand. In a nutshell, the two main ingredients do the work. Progesterone prevents ovulation, while estrogen keeps the uterine lining the same as it is during most of a womenís cycle, in other words it keeps it sticky and thick, not the slip-n-slide fast track to the ovum it turns into when a woman is ovulating. No embryos are harmed, because no 'fertilized embryos' exist. No ova ever leave the cushy comfort of the ovary, and because since there is no fast moving freeway, the sperm can't get to them either. Aside from the IUD, which is, in my opinion, too dangerous to be an option, none of the countless other forms of birth control from prophylactics to spermicidal sponges result in killing embryos. The whole idea is for the sperm and ovum to never cross paths in the first place. So, how can you be pro-life where birth control is concerned when there has been no ìlifeî in the equation? It seems to me, birth control and education would be a plus for the pro-lifers. Maybe they just haven't experienced that 'education' part yet. But ignorance is no basis for passing major legislation. Enough on birth control, what about various methods to increase fertility? I have heard many comments praising Bush for speaking on the use of the extra embryos that are currently discarded in the in-vitro process. Why waste the tissue that is currently getting thrown away? But again, murder is murder, right? So why are they happy? Oops, there's that wacky double standard again. Once more it comes back to the 'what God intended' argument. If 'God intended' for her to conceive, it must follow then that 'God intended' for the AIDS/crack mom to have more children than she can feed with the abusive boyfriend who can't find a job. And also for the loving, well-established couple, who yearn for a child more than anything, to be barren, and denied parenthood. Do you suppose that 'God' also intends for sick and twisted fathers to rape their daughters? For women to put their lives at risk continually putting their bodies through pregnancy until their uterus drops, or they die in childbirth leaving the grieving father to care for the entire brood and hold down a job? To put the lives of their other children at risk because there just isn't enough food, love, and attention to go around, not to mention money or medical care? For childless couples to have no other means of conceiving when they want nothing more to have children of their own? For the woman who suffers from the pain of endometriosis not to have the relief that being on the birth control pill brings? Personally, as I am entitled to my own opinion, I believe that 'God' gave us the amazing gift of intelligence and the ability to reason, think, and learn, and that it is our job is to use it to our best ability. 'He' gave us the ability to invent countless ways to ease our suffering, and make the world a happier and healthier place for everyone. I have a feeling that if we lived, to some of the extremists' 'God intended' way of thinking, then we would be back before fire and the wheel, but then many of these people most likely deny the existence of Cro-Magnon man and the dinosaurs since they aren't specifically mentioned in the Bible. Again, you can't have it both ways. You can't have 'selective learning;' it's either all science and technology or none. 'God' has given us the tools for many things, it is up to us to be doggedly courageous enough to find them and use them wisely. From the various forms of food and shelter we enjoy today, to perhaps curing the devastation of diabetes, Alzheimerís and perhaps even cancer and AIDS.
Never forget - Centuries ago, it was heresy to believe the world was round. We've come along way since then. We still have a long way to go. Just imagine the possibilities!
This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of Bob Gorrell |
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To End On A Happy Note ... I'm The Slime The new Fox News theme-song
I am gross and perverted
I may be vile and pernicious
You will obey me while I lead you
That's right, folks..
Well, I am the slime from your video
I am the slime from your video
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Activist Alerts "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." ... Edmund Burke
http://www.orgop.org/OR2001-WesternLdrshpRegist.pdf
The Republican Leadership Conference has scheduled Katherine Harris, secretary of State, FL as a guest speaker
on Friday October 5th.
The "subjest" is VOTER FRAUD!! There is a registration form at the link above if anyone wants to attend & I
assume, learn how to commit voter fraud! Did you Florida voters know that there is a special provision in the new
Florida "Reform" to allow military to vote by FAX and WITHOUT BEING REGISTERED TO VOTE?!!
FOR FLORIDA VOTERS WHO ARE TIRED OF PAYING FOR KATHERINE HARRIS'S LUXURY TRIPS.....this is the info
given on the hotel. There are 160 luxury guest rooms at The Resort at the Mountain. Several other lodging places
are mentioned but:
Do you have any doubts as to where Katherine Harris will be staying? I would think that this is the time to write to the
unhonorable Sec. of State and tell her to pay her own damn bills. She was born with more money than God and we
should not have to pay for the flozzie to take luxury trips with Jebbie, Dubya, etc.
Something's rotten in Florida? Are we going to just sit idly by and do nothing?
Maggie
New Protests From Voter March
August 22, Wed., Voter March NY General Meeting
September 9, Hempstead, Long Island, NY, Scalia Protest
A protest is planned at the Hofstra University School of Law on Sunday,
September 9, where Antonin Scalia, one of the 5 Supreme Court Justices
who stopped the hand counting of votes in Bush v. Gore, will give a
keynote address at the Legal Ethics 2002 Conference. Scalia is scheduled
to be a speaker from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm and at 6:00 pm there will be a
banquet in honor of Justice Antonin Scalia. The banquet will be at
Carlton on the Park at Eisenhower Park, near Hofstra University School of
Law. Hofstra University is located in Hempstead, Long island, about 25
miles east of Manhattan, less than an hour away by train or automobile.
September 24, Monday, United Nations, New York City
To protest Bush at his appearance and speech at the General Assembly of
the United Nations. We will gather before noon at Dag Hammarskjold
Plaza Park at 47th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan. Voter March has
a permit pending and is inviting all pro-democracy groups to join in
with this protest action. We will have a stage and sound system. For
additional information, contact info@votermarch.org
For updates and additional information on all these events, see
Voters March
SUPPORT THE OREGON DEMOCRATS' PROPOSAL TO IMPEACH THE FELONIOUS
FIVE!
Here's what you can do to help:
2. Contact your local and/or state Democratic Party office urging them to also
support the resolution.
3. Contribute to the Democratic Party of Oregon. We plan to continue to promote
this resolution and your contribution, no matter how small, will help us in this fight
for democracy. Click on Democratic Party of Oregon to send your support today!
Was it the worst Supreme Court decision in US history, as
American University Constitutional scholar Jamin Raskin has
suggested? Considering that Raskin is a staunch civil rights
advocate, the very thought that he would rank Bush v. Gore
lower than both the Dred Scott and Plessy rulings is instructive.
Nor does Raskin stand alone in his opinion of this judicial coup.
Justice John Paul Stevens: "One thing, however, is certain.
Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity
of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the
loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as
an impartial guardian of the rule of law. I respectfully dissent."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "In sum, the Court's
conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is
a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested.
Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the
United States. I dissent." And related is the unsigned per curiam
decision of the Scalia 5, a transparent attempt to try to avoid
history's scarlet letter.
Hendrik Hertzberg, former presidential speechwriter: "The
election of 2000 was not stolen. It was expropriated."
David Kairys, Temple University: "We had a constitutional
crisis, and it was Bush v. Gore. History will not be kind."
Suzanna Sherry, Vanderbilt University: "There is really very little way to reconcile this opinion other than that
they wanted Bush to win."
Jeffrey Rosen, legal scholar: "They have...made it impossible for citizens of the United States to sustain any
kind of faith in the rule of law as something larger than the self-interested political preferences of William
Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Sandra Day O'Connor."
Randall Kennedy, Harvard University: "But we should also insist that there be no confirmation for Scalia-like
champions of the right-wing agenda. The Supreme Court has hurt its own reputation by wrongly intervening to
ensure the victory of George W. Bush. Those who abhor what the Court did should say so and say so loudly and
clearly."
Jesse Jackson and John Sweeney: "But if it comes down for justices to the 14th amendment and the promise
of equal protection, one can only hope for the sake of the country that they consider how not counting all the votes
mirrors too closely the habits of heart and mind that brought us slavery and segregation--the original sins of our
nation that the equal protection clause sought to repair."
And, of course, Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of several bestselling true-crime
books, in The Betrayal of America: ". . . the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate
for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law.... [The Court searched] mightily for a
way, any way at all, to aid their choice for president, Bush, in the suppression of the truth, finally settling, in their
judicial coup d'État, on the untenable argument that there was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal
protection clause..."
Recent polls indicate the public's growing dissatisfaction with the results of the Scalia Five's decision. A survey
conducted by the Pew Research Center and Princeton Survey Research Associates (June 13-17) showed George
W. Bush's job approval rating at just 50 percent, down six points from March; the New York Times survey with
CBS News (June 14-18) put the rating at 53 percent, down seven points from March. And Democracy Corps's
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll (June 11-13) found that 48 percent of likely voters think the nation is currently on
the "wrong track." Perhaps most tellingly, 25 percent of voters in the Democracy Corps poll said that the phrase
"not really elected President" describes Bush "very well," with another 15 percent saying that it describes him
"well"--in other words, six months after the Scalia Five coup, 40 percent of likely voters still believe Bush was not
really elected President.
What then, is to be done?
The least we can do is know our own history, and to understand that what the Injustices did was an insult to the
dreams and ideals of Lexington and Concord, Valley Forge and Jefferson and Paine, Gettsyburg and Lincoln and
Douglass, Selma and King, Seneca Falls and Anthony, Delano and Chavez, Flint and Debs and Lewis. We can
bear witness to injustice, in the nonviolent protest tradition of Thoreau, Gandhi, King, Havel, Robinson, Chavez.
The Scalia Five's judicial coup came down on the second Tuesday last December. So, on the second Tuesday of
July, July 10, 2001, the Tuesday after the Pro-Democracy Convention in Philadelphia, the Tuesday between
Independence Day and Bastille Day, the Institute for Policy Studies and friends are calling for a peaceful,
nonviolent vigil at the Supreme Court building, at noon.
On July 10--and each Tuesday at noon from then on--let's gather at the scene of the crime, and bear witness to the
truth. The Scalia Five won't be there; but we should be.
Bring a candle or a bell, like the Czechs a decade ago. Bring a copy of the Voters' Bill of Rights, or the US
Constitution. Send an e-mail to all your friends, with your favorite quote from this list. Bring Pablo Neruda's and
Marge Piercy's poems. Bring the next generation, so they will never forget. Bring your commitment to restore,
rebuild, and expand American democracy. The Supreme Court cheated. Democracy lost. For now.
This ultra-conservative group needs donations! Lend them a helping hand by sending them a few $100 or $1000 bills ... Confederate ones! Click
here to print or download the bills. Send them to other right-wing groups as well!
And if you still want to annoy the Heritage Foundation, you can always go to their
online donation form as soon as you try to leave the page, a pop-up window appears asking why you decided not to donate. Give them an explanation, but remember to be polite!
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.
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:
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, Top twenty Republican donors with global consumer brands:
1 Philip Morris - $4,554,732
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CONTRIBUTING LINKS
Parting Shots...  NEW YORK--New York City police commissioner Howard Safir issued a formal apology Monday for the accidental
shooting, clubbing, stabbing, firebombing, choking, impaling, electrocution, lethal-injection death of a 38-year-old Jamaican immigrant in
the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.
Robert Livingston, who had emigrated from Kingston last July, was surrounded and killed by 27 police
officers on April 20 while standing on the stairs in front of an apartment building reaching for what the officers
thought was a gun. The object turned out to be a doorbell.
"We deeply regret that this terrible tragedy has happened," said Safir, reading an official NYPD statement at
City Hall. "But I must stress that it was understandable given the circumstances. There was no way those
officers could have known for certain that Mr. Livingston was not heavily armed and about to kill them."
According to NYPD sources, at approximately
11:30 a.m. on the day in question, a detachment of 12
officers observed Livingston, a delivery driver for a
Chinese restaurant, standing at the entrance to an apartment building
"acting in a suspicious and aggressive manner." After ignoring the officers'
repeated commands to put down the threatening item in his hand, a bag
containing a double order of General Chao's Chicken and a pint of rice,
Livingston reached for the doorbell. The officers responded by opening fire
on his strategic top-of-the-stairs position from point-blank range,
discharging their standard-issue 9mm handguns 245 times and striking
him with approximately 175 teflon-coated hollow-point slugs.
Defiantly ignoring the officers' orders to freeze, Livingston dropped to the
floor and convulsed wildly, kicking and thrashing and hurling blood in all
directions.
"It was an extremely dangerous, volatile situation," Brooklyn 26th
Precinct Sgt. Raymond Sullivan said. "We were dealing with a man who
was out of control and willing to do anything to stop us. It was clear that
subduing him would necessitate extreme measures."
After calling for backup, the officers threw 25 phosphorus grenades at the suspect and opened fire with 12-gauge riot shotguns,
their vision aided by the illumination of Livingston's body, which was burning at roughly 1,500 degrees. Though most of Livingston's
clothes had melted off, officers concentrated their fire on his remaining shoe, which they feared held a concealed weapon.
Once 15 extra officers and an NYPD armory van had arrived on the scene, Det. James McPhee took 10 men to the top of the stairs
to engage Livingston in hand-to-hand-combat.
"Mr. Livingston attempted to resist, raising his remaining forearm and striking at the officers' weapons with his face, teeth, knees
and genitals," McPhee told reporters. "Acting in accordance with standard police procedure, we countered by stabbing the suspect 59
times in the chest and throat."
Patrolman Edward Caggiano, who sustained a mild bruise when hit by a piece of Livingston's jaw in the melee, then grabbed the
suspect's head and began standard-procedure neck-snapping.
According to the officers involved, Livingston's head then attempted to flee the scene by separating from his torso and proceeding
down the front steps. "I shouted several times for the fleeing head to halt," Caggiano said. "But the more I yelled, the faster it seemed
to roll. After every other option and tactic was exhausted, we were finally left with no choice but to subdue the head with rocket
launchers."
Shortly after 1 p.m., Livingston was finally brought under control when a second team of officers impaled his headless body on a
sharpened oak pole. Once the body was skewered, members of the NYPD medical team were given clearance to move in and
administer a lethal injection.
Speaking at a press conference Monday, New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani called for the immediate paid suspension of all 27
officers involved in the incident. He also urged Safir to keep the officers suspended "until they can be cleared of all wrongdoing
following an extensive internal NYPD investigation that will conclude sometime Friday afternoon."
"And to the families of those officers involved," Giuliani said, "I would like to extend my deepest, most heartfelt apologies. Your
loved ones went through a terrible trauma, and I want to assure you that the New York Police Department is doing everything in its
power to help them put it behind them." |
Issues & Alibis Vol 1 # 23 © 08/17/2001 
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