In Midwest, fight over labor unions to be at heart of 2012 election

Although labor unions have had some reservations about President Obama, they're still looking to him as their best ally in the 2012 election. Meanwhile, Republicans who are hoping to further curb unions are putting stock in Mitt Romney.

In this June 8 file photo, President Obama talks about the economy in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. Four years ago, Obama won the upper Midwest, where union membership is densest. But since then, Republicans in this part of the United States have targeted labor rights.
(Carolyn Kaster/AP/File)

---

By Mark Guarino

Chicago

The fight over labor unions in the Midwest is a big reason why this region is shaping up to be a major battleground in the general election this fall.

Four years ago, Barack Obama won the upper Midwest, where union membership is densest. But since then, Republicans in this part of the United States have targeted labor rights. Legislation curbed bargaining rights in Wisconsin and made Indiana a "right to work" state. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a law that limited collective-bargaining rights for all public-sector workers, although voters repealed it last year.

Moreover, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has proposed cuts to state pensions and closures of prisons, which has rankled organized labor because it would eliminate thousands of public jobs.

Confronted with such moves, unions have also mobilized. In Michigan, they're trying to put a measure on the November ballot that would make right-to-work legislation unconstitutional.

And overall, unions and their supporters are now spending big money: Whereas political-action committees representing unions parceled out $73.1 million for political activity in 2008, they've spent almost $2 billion since that time, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

Although unions have had some reservations about Mr. Obama, they're still looking to him as their best ally. Meanwhile, Republicans who are hoping to further curb unions are putting stock in Mitt Romney.

"The Midwest is absolutely crucial in the presidential race," says Jeff Hauser, spokesman with the AFL-CIO. "Those are not states that can be taken for granted."
Since Obama took office, the numbers for union membership have shrunk. Nationally between 2008 and 2011, public and private union membership dropped by 3.3 percent. The numbers in the Midwest are more dramatic: a 14.5 percent slide in Wisconsin, 13.9 percent in Indiana, 12.9 in Michigan, 9.7 in Ohio, 8.1 in Pennsylvania, and 6.7 in Illinois, according to UnionStats.com.

Mr. Hauser says that four of the six states that the AFL-CIO plans to focus heavily on ahead of the election are in the Midwest: Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and the western half of Pennsylvania. The strategy will be to pursue undecided voters through grass-roots organizing.

The economic uncertainty in the Midwest is expected to galvanize voter turnout, which is expected to help Obama, says labor historian Mike Smith of Wayne State University in Detroit.

"I would not be surprised if there was greater union turnout than what we had four years ago because so much has happened to labor unions in the Midwest, especially if you had thousands of members in each state who lost their jobs during the crisis," he says. "They're a group to be reckoned with."

But enthusiasm for Obama and other Democrats is expected to be somewhat blunted in certain areas of the Midwest where unions have felt betrayed, says Henry Bayer, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Among other things, such betrayal stems from Obama's absence and the lack of financial support from the national Democratic Party during the recent gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin, in which Gov. Scott Walker (R) retained his seat.

Still, such shortcomings don't amount to enough for unions to abandon Democrats for Republicans, labor experts say. "The fact is, the labor movement at large has not been happy with Obama because he hasn't done enough for them; but on the other hand, what's the alternative?" Mr. Smith says.

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0724/In-Midwest-fight-over-labor-unions-to-be-at-heart-of-2012-election

Is this tea racist?

Many are starting to say that Bigelow is a racist tea company, but not because thy used to advertise on the Don Imus show. Rather, it is because they continue to use the word "plantation." What I find fascinating is that this word is considered a rather benign and slang term for a large monoculture farm outside of the United States. Language is fluid, with words changing within and among cultures.

I think we have reached or may soon reach the tipping point for this word to be used solely as a racially charged and insensitive word. It reflects greatly the amount of negative name calling and recalcitrant attitudes held by our political class. Our two party system does not lead to conducive and friendly debates on issues but relies on new and harsher name calling.

In the last few weeks Pat Buchanan used the word and so did  sports newscaster Bryant Gumbel. I have traced back the word to the usage by Hillary Clinton back in 2006  to describe the Republican congress, which naturally caused a lot of fuss. Now, I have witnessed liberals decrying the use of this word on tea calling for a boycott of Bigelow.

I am not going to argue that this is wrong. In fact, I would rather avoid the use of the word if it now has a negative connotation. What I am greatly curious about is when this change in meaning occurred. Did this occur quite recently or has this change been a slow process?

Most Americans do not know where there food comes from. They assume it comes from a grocery store and think nothing of the farms. In other countries, a plantation means a large monoculture farm of things like tea or trees. I believe some of the reason this word has a negative meaning is because the few Americans who think about where there food come from think only of farms. Some might even know about the existence of factory farms, which consume most of the food grown in this country to produce cheap meat products.

Since so few Americans are involved in the food industry, their only knowledge of plantations is that of history books. Therefore, this word conjures in many images of slavery and oppression. As Nicque Shaff puts it:

• "Plantation" calls to mind images of shameful subjugation -- enslavement and cultural exploitation faced by mostly brown people perpetrated by those who thought they had the right. From the Antebellum American South to Colonial India, Kenya and beyond plantations have been pure hell. This product naming may be careless oversight on the part of yet another company, but it's not acceptable.

I am curious about this issue and will update this post as I find more information. If you have a perspective then please post a reply!

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux and their DFL

Think people just gamble when visiting Mystic Lake or Little Six Casino? They're also supporting the corruption of the Democrat party.

In Minnesota the SMSC contributed $196,900 in 2008 with the vast majority funneled to Democrats. They contribute this much on an annual basis, at least since 1996. If you read the reports , many of those they contributed to returned their checks. What candidate would want to be tainted by money earned on the backs of union busting casinos that allow second-hand smoke to persist? Nonetheless, a majority of Democrats don't believe in unions or worker's rights if their contributors don't either.

Lobbying in Minnesota:

Association Name

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community

$200,000.00

$220,000.00

$660,000.00

$160,000.00

$140,000.00

$80,000.00

Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians-Corp Comm	$340,000.00	$380,000.00	$480,000.00	$460,000.00	$600,000.00	$100,000.00
Minn Indian Gaming Assn	$340,000.00	$350,000.00	$350,000.00	$320,000.00	$300,000.00	$150,000.00

Prairie Island Dakota Community

$360,000.00

$380,000.00

$520,000.00

$500,000.00

$460,000.00

$660,000.00

The following are Federal contributions:

SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/15/08	$20,000	Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MI 55372		7/28/00	$20,000	Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		11/1/02	$10,000	DSCC/Non-Federal Mixed (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		7/24/07	$5,000	Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MI 55372		7/21/00	$5,000	DSCC/Non-Federal Mixed (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/8/04	$4,000	Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	TRIBE/TRIBE	10/17/02	$1,000	Inslee, Jay R (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		9/20/04	$1,000	Pallone, Frank Jr (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	INDIAN TRIBE	10/14/98	$1,000	Kolbe, Jim (R)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COM PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	INDIAN TRIBE	5/31/96	$1,000	Yellowtail, Bill (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COM, PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	N/A/INDIAN TRIBE	12/16/05	$2,000	Pombo, Richard (R)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMM PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	TRIBAL GOVERNMENT	10/14/98	$1,000	Livingston, Robert L (R)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMNTY PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	INDIAN TRIBE	10/25/00	$1,000	Luther, Bill (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		3/7/01	$50,000	DNC/Non-Federal Corporate (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	N/A	10/16/02	$30,000	DCCC/Non-Federal Account 5 (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		8/2/96	$25,000	DNC/Non-Federal Individual
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/7/96	$25,000	DNC/Non-Federal Corporate
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/9/96	$25,000	DNC/Non-Federal Corporate
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		12/31/03	$25,000	DNC Services Corp (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		6/7/96	$20,000	Democratic National Committee
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	N/A	10/30/02	$15,000	DCCC/Non-Federal Account 5 (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		6/30/03	$10,000	Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	TRIBAL/TRIBAL	10/8/04	$5,000	DASHPAC (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		6/6/96	$5,000	Democratic National Committee
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	INDIAN TRIBE	2/28/06	$2,000	Shore PAC (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/12/05	$1,500	Peterson, Collin C (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	N/A/INDIAN TRIBE	3/1/06	$1,000	Renzi, Rick (R)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/16/04	$1,000	Wetterling, Patty (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372	TRIBAL GOVERNMENT	10/14/98	$1,000	Camp, Dave (R)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/21/02	$1,000	Feeley, Mike (D)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		10/19/98	$1,000	2nd & 4th Dist Democratic Victory Fund
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNI PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		2/1/03	$500	Kline, John (R)
SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX, COMMUN PRIOR LAKE,MN 55372		8/20/03	$1,000	National Republican Congressional Cmte (R)

Dear Blog Reader, Over the course of this campaign, we’ve heard a lot of talk about oil pipelines in Alaska, “drill, baby, drill,” and even an unfortunate embrace of so-called “clean coal” technology, though no form of coal is ever truly “clean.” With less than one month to go before Election Day, we need to let our candidates know we’re demanding a comprehensive, modern, green energy policy that will put this country back on the right path in more ways than one. Right now, we can launch a new green energy plan for the US that is intentionally designed to meet five urgent needs at once. We can: tackle the rising price of fuel, a hardship for many American families, transition the US away from its dependence on foreign oil, push back against the perils of climate change, and reverse rising unemployment rates, which reached a five-year high in September. create real investment into our economy that will counter the ongoing Wall Street meltdown, and its impact on Main Street. While Co-op America members have been making green-energy changes in their lives for many, many years, the time is NOW for a major system change. We’re challenging each of you to come together with us and tell all presidential and congressional candidates that our country is ready for a clean energy infrastructure that makes it easier to live green. All of our candidates need to be reminded that if we do this – if we implement a comprehensive green energy policy that calls for energy efficiency, cleaner cars, and renewable solar and wind power – we’ll ALL reap the rewards of a cleaner environment, reinvigorated economy, and more secure future. When you click through to take our action, you’ll be prompted for your ZIP code, which will bring up all congressional and presidential candidates running for office in your area. Then you can add your own personal touch to our editable message, urging all of the candidates to endorse a greener energy platform. Please take this urgent action today. Send your message to the candidates now » For background on Co-op America’s clean-energy recommendations, check our latest editorial, in which we debunk the myths that can discourage progress on green energy, and outline the components that any elected leader should have in her or his energy policy. (Please post it widely online, send it to your local paper, and otherwise help us get the word out.) Then, click through to our action page for more information on what should NOT be included in our energy policy (off-shore drilling, oil-and-gas subsidies, new coal plants, risky nuclear plants), before using our form to send your own message to Congress. Thanks for joining with us to keep this critical issue at the top of our leaders’ minds, as we push for action now, and under the new administration in 2009. Here's to all you do, Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director, Co-op America P.S. Clean energy news: The solar energy tax credits were extended for eight years as part of legislation signed into law on October 3. You can now get 30% tax credits for solar installed on your home or business – without a cap on the amount of the credit. Thanks to all of our members who joined with us in pushing for these tax credits!

Tell your presidential and congressional candidates to support a truly green energy policy. Act now. » DONATE to our Climate Action Program Help us expand our work to build a greener energy future for America. Donate today » Join Co-op America to keep informed about our work to build a green economy. Receive a subscription to our Co-op America Quarterly, our green living newsletter Real Money, a copy of the National Green Pages™, and our Guide to Socially Responsible Investing. Your membership makes all of our work possible, and shows that more and more Americans are truly committed to a greener future. Join Now » Post our editorial, or submit it to your newspaper Co-op America's latest green-energy editorial explains our position on a truly green energy policy for America. We invite you to post it to your own Web site, link to us, or submit it to your local newspaper. (If you do any of the above, please let us know!) Read the editorial »

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Why We Were Falsely Arrested

by Amy Goodman

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, "Democracy Now!" producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.

The Democratic and Republican national conventions have become very expensive and protracted acts of political theater, essentially four-day-long advertisements for the major presidential candidates. Outside the fences, they have become major gatherings for grass-roots movements - for people to come, amidst the banners, bunting, flags and confetti, to express the rights enumerated in the Constitution's 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."

Behind all the patriotic hyperbole that accompanies the conventions, and the thousands of journalists and media workers who arrive to cover the staged events, there are serious violations of the basic right of freedom of the press. Here on the streets of St. Paul, the press is free to report on the official proceedings of the RNC, but not to report on the police violence and mass arrests directed at those who have come to petition their government, to protest.

It was Labor Day, and there was an anti-war march, with a huge turnout, with local families, students, veterans and people from around the country gathered to oppose the war. The protesters greatly outnumbered the Republican delegates.

There was a positive, festive feeling, coupled with a growing anxiety about the course that Hurricane Gustav was taking, and whether New Orleans would be devastated anew. Later in the day, there was a splinter march. The police-clad in full body armor, with helmets, face shields, batons and canisters of pepper spray-charged. They forced marchers, onlookers and working journalists into a nearby parking lot, then surrounded the people and began handcuffing them.

Nicole was videotaping. Her tape of her own violent arrest is chilling. Police in riot gear charged her, yelling, "Get down on your face." You hear her voice, clearly and repeatedly announcing "Press! Press! Where are we supposed to go?" She was trapped between parked cars. The camera drops to the pavement amidst Nicole's screams of pain. Her face was smashed into the pavement, and she was bleeding from the nose, with the heavy officer with a boot or knee on her back. Another officer was pulling on her leg. Sharif was thrown up against the wall and kicked in the chest, and he was bleeding from his arm.

I was at the Xcel Center on the convention floor, interviewing delegates. I had just made it to the Minnesota delegation when I got a call on my cell phone with news that Sharif and Nicole were being bloody arrested, in every sense. Filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and I raced on foot to the scene. Out of breath, we arrived at the parking lot. I went up to the line of riot police and asked to speak to a commanding officer, saying that they had arrested accredited journalists.

Within seconds, they grabbed me, pulled me behind the police line and forcibly twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me, the rigid plastic cuffs digging into my wrists. I saw Sharif, his arm bloody, his credentials hanging from his neck. I repeated we were accredited journalists, whereupon a Secret Service agent came over and ripped my convention credential from my neck. I was taken to the St. Paul police garage where cages were set up for protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a peace officer. Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail, facing riot charges.

The attack on and arrest of me and the "Democracy Now!" producers was not an isolated event. A video group called I-Witness Video was raided two days earlier. Another video documentary group, the Glass Bead Collective, was detained, with its computers and video cameras confiscated. On Wednesday, I-Witness Video was again raided, forced out of its office location. When I asked St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington how reporters are to operate in this atmosphere, he suggested, "By embedding reporters in our mobile field force."

On Monday night, hours after we were arrested, after much public outcry, Nicole, Sharif and I were released. That was our Labor Day. It's all in a day's work.

© 2008 Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America.

The Impeaching of President George W. Bush

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich last night introduced 35 Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush in a dramatic presentation of the floor of the House of Representatives that last nearly five hours.

Green Party Holds State Convention in Mankato

The Green Party of Minnesota held its biennial convention over the weekend of June 7th and 8th in Mankato. The two main items on the agenda were selection of national delegates and endorsement of a U.S. Senate candidate.

Going into the convention, it was clear the front-runner for Green Party nomination for president, Cynthia McKinney, would receive a majority of Minnesota's twelve delegates to the national convention. Members had the opportunity to vote on the presidential endorsement at the local caucuses in March, through a mail-in ballot, or in person at the State Convention. When all the votes were counted, McKinney received eleven delegates, with one delegate representing the position that the Green Party should run no candidate.

The twelve delegates selected will be attending the Green Party National Convention in Chicago from July 10 through 13, where they will vote on the Presidential endorsement, on platform resolutions, and other issues.

McKinney is a former six-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives who has been known for her outspoken opposition to war and excessive military spending, and for her passionate support for the interests of people above profit. She has left the Democratic Party to join the Green Party which advocates what McKinney calls “radical common sense” policies that would result in real change in the United States. Her campaign website is at www.runcynthiarun.org. Three lesser-known candidates are also running for the Green Party endorsement. Though none received enough votes to earn a delegate from Minnesota, several speakers at the convention expressed appreciation for the sacrifices they have made to publicize important issues and support the Green Party.

The U.S. Senate endorsement contest was much closer. Michael Cavlan sought the party's endorsement, but was one vote shy of the 2/3 threshold needed to receive the party's endorsement. Therefore, the Green Party of Minnesota is not endorsing a U.S. Senate candidate in the 2008 election. Cavlan announced at the convention that he would run as an independent if he did not receive the endorsement.

Elections were also held for representatives on the State Central Committee and to the national party. Members debated and passed revisions to the party platform and by-laws.

The State Party is grateful to the Mankato local party for their efforts in hosting a productive and smooth-running State Convention.

( For video of the convention go here. )

These folks could spoil the party for McCain

By MICAH L. SIFRY

Sen. John McCain is champing at the bit to run against Sen. Barack Obama in the fall. But the presumptive GOP nominee should also worry about his own right flank. Bob Barr entered the presidential race this month as a Libertarian, and while the former Republican congressman from Georgia isn't going to become president, his run is no joke. Barr might well inherit the sizable support garnered by Rep. Ron Paul during his own run for the Republican nomination.

Though Barr's promises to drastically shrink government spending, begin withdrawing from Iraq and protect civil liberties will undoubtedly appeal to capital-L Libertarians, there's little evidence that he has much of a national following. Reporters covering his announcement noted that no Libertarian candidate has ever garnered more than 1 million votes. But he could still siphon votes from McCain in the fall -- not because Barr is such a compelling candidate, but because he could become the vehicle for the many disaffected Republicans gathered under Paul's flag. Consider the following facts:

•More than a million votes have been cast for Paul.

•Paul's activists are swarming local Republican party committees and conventions, quietly capturing or lining up delegates.

•And on the Web, the Paul movement -- which, astonishingly, generated enough grass-roots support to make him the top Republican presidential money-raiser in the fourth quarter of 2007 -- is still going strong.

Clearly, one sizable chunk of the Republican base -- small-government types who also oppose the Iraq war -- hasn't reconciled itself to voting for McCain. At the Republican National Convention, Paul may have a couple of dozen delegates and enough street presence to spoil McCain's show. If Barr manages to capture the attention of Paul's base, it could spell real danger for McCain.

Consider some third-party-candidate history from 2000. While everyone has fixated on whether Ralph Nader cost Al Gore Florida, TV commentator Patrick Buchanan, running on the Reform Party banner, got enough votes in Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin to tip them out of George W. Bush's hands. Ron Paul's sizable grass-roots movement will probably still be looking for a champion. Bob Barr won't be president, but he could still gore McCain.

Micah L. Sifry, author of "Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America," wrote this article for the Washington Post.

© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Run Jesse Run!

by Rich Broderick

The barely disguised antipathy Minnesota’s corporate news media displayed toward Jesse Ventura during the 1998 election and his subsequent time as governor always had more to do with snobbery and social class than policies or politics.

The shock over his election was rooted in embarrassment at what “they,” meaning the rest of the country (which doesn’t think about us at all), would think of Minnesota for having voted in a man who speaks with a Midwestern equivalent of a “youse guys” Brooklyn accent. It was the kind of vapors my lace-curtain Irish grandma used to succumb to whenever her grandkids behaved in ways that were not “respectable.” What will the neighbors think?!!

Even though Ventura appointed perfectly respectable – and highly competent – commissioners (he never once saddled us with hapless ideologues like Carol Molnau or Cheryl Yecke), his governorship was not a successful one. It fell victim both to his impatience with the often-tedious process of political bargaining and to the determination of the DFL and the GOP (one of the ringleaders: Tim Pawlenty) to sabotage him – and thus the Independence Party – the consequences of which narrow bi-partisanship have left Minnesota reeling financially ever since.

Still, it’s good to have Jesse back in action, hawking his new book and, even more intriguingly, bruiting the possibility of another run for office, this time for the U.S. Senate.

Anyone who caught Jesse’s bravura performance last week on MPR’s mid-day program got a refresher course in what a breath of fresh air the man is in today’s consultant-driven political environment. Not only is he bright and articulate, he also has an extraordinary ability to frame supposedly complex issues in ways that are not only simple to understand but also illuminate otherwise overlooked dimensions of critical importance. My favorite moment during the show was his comment about the proposed 600-mile fence along the U.S. Mexico border. People should remember, he observed, that fences not only keep people out, they can also keep people in – a pithy allusion to the authoritarian streak behind “Homeland Security.”

I don’t know if Ventura could win a Senate seat this year. Conditions are not the same as they were in ’98, and he would face a wave of press hostility that would make his previous tangles with the “media jackals” pale by comparison. But it sure would be fun to hear him debate Norm Coleman, desperately trying to distance himself from the Bush Administration, and Al Franken, the soi-disant wit who is not only witless when it comes to public policy but a major-league carpetbagger as well – the real issue exposed by his recent tax problems. In any public forum matching a clone and a clown like these two, Ventura would shine.

Norm Coleman and Al Franken running for Senate? Now that’s embarrassing

Source

America supporting a failed state in Africa

Olympics in Addis Ababa for 2016! Ethiopia in lockstep with China in suppressing all who oppose "their will."

By Ernest Mpinganjira

A political disaster is looming in Ethiopia. The Government cracked down on opposition supporters in a desperate attempt to prevent Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s rivals from entrenching themselves at the grassroots.

One of the parties boycotted village, district and provincial elections. Another party threatened to follow suit in protest about uneven playing field and repression against opposition.

Against the backdrop of blatant human rights abuses, international organisations have raised concerns about the West’s silence over its ally’s excesses.

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report last week accuses Addis Ababa of harassment of the opposition and independent Press. The report also questioned whether the US military aid to Addis Ababa has been used to suppress the opposition and entrench Zenawi into power.

The report noted: "The Ethiopian Government’s repression of registered opposition parties and ordinary voters has largely prevented political competition ahead of local elections that began on April 13.

"These widespread acts of violence, arbitrary detention and intimidation mirror long-term patterns of abuse designed to suppress political dissent in Ethiopia."

HRW Africa Director, Mr Georgette Gagnon, expressed dismay that while the ills persisted, the US has not raised concern over curtailment of democracy and independent media.

HRW said the repression was a preamble to national elections slated for November.

"It is too late to salvage these [grassroots] elections, which will simply be a rubber stamp on the EPRDF’s (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, Ethiopia ruling party) near-monopoly on power at the local level. Still, officials must at least allow the voters to decide how and whether to cast their ballots without intimidation," Gagnon said.

Ethiopia’s election chaos comes hot on the heels of the debacle in Kenya that resulted in 1,200 deaths and more than 350,000 people displaced. In 2005, Ethiopian forces killed 200 opposition supporters and detained dozens of others for protesting Zenawi’s poll win.

The US’s silence about Zenawi’s political mischief has elicited international concerns. The Economist magazine questioned the silence, which could encourage some African governments to ignore the rule of law and suppress democracy.

The magazine provided a glimpse of what thinking in Washington could be: The close military ties between the two countries that involve the civil strife in Somalia.

The US, it said, fears that Somalia may have already become an incubator of international terrorism, hence its reluctance to criticise Zenawi, lest he welcomes the terrorists in reaction to criticism.

"That is why America backed Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia at the end of 2006. Its own air raids on supposed terrorist targets in Somalia have relied on Ethiopian intelligence, though nearly all appear to have missed.

"American officials praise the Ethiopian troops who are still in Mogadishu, Somalia’s battered capital, as peacekeepers; most Somalis see them as occupier," writes the magazine.

Civil strife

Kenya’s political chaos after the disputed December 27 polls seem to have shielded Addis Ababa from international criticism on gross abuse of human rights.

Until last December’s disputed presidential poll in Kenya, Nairobi was the presumptive anchor of US interests in the larger East African region. Recent political turmoil have weakened this position, hence the Bush administration’s partiality to the savagery in Ethiopia.

"...The Pentagon wants to make Ethiopia a bulwark in a region where Somalia is a dangerously failed state, Sudan and Eritrea are pariahs and Kenya has troubles of its own," The Economist noted.

Some of the reasons the magazine gives for Ethiopia’s persistence in abrogation of human rights, which are largely true, are appalling.

"The African Union is based there. Its ancient Christian history stirs American evangelicals. Its poverty and population of 80 million, (Africa’s third-largest) attract development-minded foreigners," The Economist says.

But as the international community busied itself with the developments in Zimbabwe, where presidential poll results are yet to be released, Addis Ababa was clamping down on opposition during grassroots elections.

Said HRW report: "The nationwide local elections…are crucially important. It is local officials who are responsible for much of the day-to-day repression that characterises governance in Ethiopia. Many local officials in Oromia have made a routine practice of justifying their abuses by accusing law-abiding government critics of belonging to the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front."

The report said that as a result of the intimidation, candidates allied to the EPRDF are elected unopposed in the vast majority of constituencies across Ethiopia.

This was after opposition coalition, the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), withdrew its candidates for fear of persecution.

"UEDF officials complained that intimidation and procedural irregularities limited registration to only 6,000 of the 20,000 candidates they attempted to put forward for various seats," the HRW report says.

Just as was the case in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria in 2006, Ethiopia’s National Elections Board (NEB) came under stinging criticism for bending the rules in favour of the governing party.

Against this pattern of abuse, HRW London Director, Mr Tom Porteous, took issue with the West for backing a brutal regime.

"If Western governments were more consistent and less selective in their reaction to human rights abuses around the world, they might be less inclined to turn a blind eye to Ethiopia’s failure to abide by international norms …" Porteous observed last week.

source: http://www.eastandard.net/columnists/?id=1143985093&cid=190

What NSIS knew about election violence

Story by MUGUMO MUNENE

The security services knew beforehand and issued warnings about the violence that rocked the country on New Year’s Eve, the Sunday Nation has learnt. Youths on the warpath in Kawangware, Nairobi, after the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced the results of the disputed presidential election. Photo/FILE The National Security Intelligence Service also warned the government that Mungiki was planning to invade the city two weeks before they paralysed transport in the city on Monday, authoritative sources said. The same warning — and specific information where they would attack and in what numbers — was given a week before the riots in parts of the city, a top government official with access to security intelligence said. The warning was again given on Friday and on Sunday at “tactical, operational and strategic levels”, according to the official. This means that police were provided with the information from lower to higher levels. Public fears In an interview with the Sunday Nation, a recently retired top NSIS official sought to allay public fears that the spy agency, considered to be one of the best in the region, was sleeping on the job. He said NSIS foresaw the events of early in the year and made proposals — including changes to the laws — many of which were thrown out of Parliament. The Sunday Nation formed the impression that though the intelligence community does not blame the police and the provincial administration — the main consumers of security intelligence — for the security lapses that led to the displacement of more than 350,000 people, the death of 1200 and the embarrassing presence of Mungiki on the streets of Nairobi, there is a growing impatience and frustration over large amounts of intelligence going to waste in the face of the current insecurity. The former NSIS official, who cannot be named because of service discipline, said that though the intelligence service might sometimes “miss some things” and “see others coming”, “we know pretty much everything that happens in this country”. Criminal justice system He took the Sunday Nation through the steps that the spy organisation took throughout last year to prevent chaos at the election and how Parliament, the complexities of a freer and democratic society as well as “under investment in the criminal justice system” conspired to bring the country to the brink of chaos. They informed the security agents at the district, provincial and national levels of the impending threats posed by the political tides sweeping through the country and whipping up ethnic tensions to a level never witnessed before. The revelations come a week after hundreds of Mungiki members took control of some populous suburbs in the city and paralysed transport in other areas for nearly three days. The manner in which the sect members struck and vanished, coming weeks after thousands of them staged a protest march that took them right past the Police headquarters raised questions about the intelligence-gathering system and its effectiveness in the war against spontaneous and organised crime. It also came as the nation was recovering from the convulsions that followed the announcement of the disputed election results in which more than 1,000 people were killed and 350,000 others were displaced. The Intelligence community is secretive and their complex world hardly understood by the citizens they serve. Calls to NSIS for comment were not returned. Its officers are hardly known to the public, often operating in the shadows. The only officer who takes oath in public is the director general, who is currently Maj General Michael Gichangi. The NSIS official website, for instance, has only one item under the title Bulletin. The recently retired spy, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity but whose views are likely to be widely shared, said the law and the fact that NSIS is a civilian intelligence service, have significantly reduced its ability to “neutralise” threats to security. “Our job is to investigate, analyse and advise, not neutralise,” he said. He said if the service had the legal mandate to act on its own intelligence “all these things would never have happened”. Because of the history of extensive abuses of human rights, including widespread torture, by its predecessor, the Special Branch, NSIS was created as an intelligence gatherer and denied the powers to act on it. The organisation’s mission is to safeguard the Republic of Kenya against any threats emanating from within and without does which ambitious given that the NSIS Act confines the organisation to gathering, analyzing and processing information but not neutralising the threats they identify. The former spy was categorical that NSIS foresaw that politics was taking a dangerous turn that would result in violence. He said they accurately predicted that the violence would grow out of the hate speech by politicians and some vernacular radio stations. To contain the threat, the former spy said, NSIS proposed that the Penal Code be amended to criminalise hate speech. The service also made proposals to amend the law to empower the government to censor hate speech on FM radio. The Bills were tabled and rejected along the way. The former official said the lack of legal safeguards opened the way for unchecked hate campaigns, which led to the chaos. “We had proposed the passage of laws that would check these things because we had analysed information and predicted the kind of things that took place,” the official told the Sunday Nation. “But these were difficult times when politics had divided the entire country right down the middle.” On Mungiki, he said they had dealt with it for a long time and that they fully understood it and how to contain it. He said though he was no longer in the service, “I can tell you where four of them are meeting this minute, in this city to plan for next week”. But that the much NSIS can do is pass on the information to the police. The intelligence community regarded Mungiki as an organised crime group, funded through extortion, he said. To empower police and other law enforcement agencies to deal decisively with it, NSIS was actively involved in the Organised Crime Bill, which was presented, and rejected by Parliament. Breakdown of law The official said there was concern about community attitudes which tended to support the breakdown of law and order, such as what happened in the Rift Valley and in Kayole, Nairobi, where residents defended Mungiki. He spoke of “grid-lock’” in the criminal justice system which encouraged impunity (where people are not punished for crime). The official was not optimistic that Kenya will be secure, unless there is further development of the criminal intelligence wing of the police and a lot more investment in law and order. In the current open environment, he said, it was impossible for the intelligence services to go back to torturing people and violating rights even if they were given the authority to “neutralise” threats to security. “We analyse intelligence and identify threats but according to the law that creates us, we cannot neutralise these threats,” he said. “We can only advise the relevant arms of government who will then decide how to use the information available.” Officers in the NSIS do not enjoy the same powers as those enjoyed by their predecessors in the now defunct Directorate of State Intelligence, which was popularly known as the Special Branch. The Special Branch ceased to exist in 1999 when NSIS was created by an Act of Parliament that took away from spies the powers to arrest, interrogate or prosecute suspects. The Special Branch was dreaded as it had long been used by the Kenyatta and Moi regimes to silence politicians who held a different view from the Establishment. “That was the wisdom that informed the thinking of Parliament at the time,” the retired spy said. “But now it’s an area that needs to be looked at to see whether the Intelligence can be given reasonable powers to arrest, interrogate and prosecute those suspected of threatening State security.” He gave the example of the U.S. where the Federal Bureau of Investigations has powers to gather Intelligence and additional authority in law to arrest and prosecute suspects just like the police can do. source: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=121565

Gas prices bring out the worst in candidates

By Steve Chapman

In the realm of energy policy, there are a great many bad ideas and a very few good ones. The usual practice of presidential candidates is to 1) sift through all these proposals, 2) separate the wheat from the chaff, and 3) keep the chaff.

This year, the two parties are competing to show who is most eager to discard sound economics and long-term prudence in favor of appeasing aggrieved motorists. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are pandering with a proposal to punish oil companies with a windfall profits tax. John McCain has targeted the same group by urging a federal gas tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

What motivates them is high pump prices, which are at odds with the popular view of cheap gasoline as a national birthright. One common defect of the candidates' measures, though, is that they would not actually reduce prices.

The Democratic option rests on the unshakable belief that Big Oil is guilty of chronic profiteering at public expense. In fact, from 1987 through 2006, oil and gas companies did worse than other industrial companies on return on investment in all but four years.

When the price of gasoline is high, drivers notice. But when it's low, as it has been for most of the period since 1982, everyone takes it for granted.

No idea can be definitively judged until it has been tried, which makes the Obama-Clinton approach particularly hard to defend. Congress, you see, enacted a windfall profits tax on oil back during the Carter administration. You would think Democrats would not want to remind voters of that president or embrace his errors, but you would be wrong.

By almost any standard, the last windfall profits tax was self-defeating. According to a 2006 study by the Congressional Research Service , it generated less than one-fourth of the revenues that were expected. Worse yet, it reduced domestic oil production by as much as 8 percent.

Obama has yet to provide details of his plan. Under Clinton's version, if a company's profits rose above a specified level, the government would take 50 percent of the "windfall" -- in addition to what it reaps from the existing corporate income tax, which tops out at 35 percent.

The expropriation would deter investment in exploration and drilling by reducing the potential payoff. It would depress the supply of oil over the long run, which would push prices up, not down. Punishing Big Oil would mean hurting ourselves.

McCain avoids this error in favor of a different one. He wants to stop collecting federal gas taxes for three months, which he says "will be an immediate economic stimulus -- taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas." It sounds like a simple, sure remedy, and it is simple and sure. It's just not a remedy.

As energy analyst Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute points out, prices are now at the level required to balance supply and demand. Cut prices by the amount of the gas tax, and consumption will rise, pushing prices back up. So drivers would get no holiday, and the economy would get no stimulus.

About the only effect would be to "transfer money from the federal government to the oil companies," says Taylor. If the oil companies don't deserve a windfall profits tax, neither do they deserve an additional windfall. The gas tax hiatus would also enlarge the federal deficit, since McCain would take general revenues to make up the loss to the highway trust fund -- and at the moment, there aren't any extra revenues waiting to be spent.

Besides proposing useless or damaging ideas, the candidates have also passed up the single best idea for energy policy: a carbon tax that would curb use of fuels that release greenhouse gases, while encouraging development of clean alternatives. Better yet would be a carbon tax whose revenues go to cut payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, rewarding work without raising the deficit.

It's a win-win concept with wide support among economists, but almost none among politicians. That's the nature of energy policy in an election year: Any bad idea may be adopted, while the good ones remain orphans.

Steve Chapman's column is distributed by Creators Syndicate.

source: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/17865649.html

Actually, I didn't do it

By DAVID KARNES

On March 6, as one investigator later put it, I was the "unluckiest person in the world." That morning, someone bombed the military recruiting station in New York's Times Square, and 3,000 miles away, the fallout landed on me.

A 64-page pamphlet and a 20-page memo I wrote to Capitol Hill Democrats had reached lawmakers the very day the bomb went off. Knowing the odds against anyone actually reading what I sent, I had included a photograph to grab their attention. It shows me in a victory pose in front of that Times Square recruiting station's neon flag, with the caption "We Did It!" To the authorities, it was a smoking gun. My explanation is found only at the end of the memo: "I have enclosed the Holiday card I sent out to family and friends after the 2006 election. I hope and fully expect to have reason to send out an equally jubilant card after this November's results."

Arriving home that evening, I was met by FBI agents, dogs and a bomb squad. I consented to thorough questioning and a search of my home, and was greatly relieved to learn the next morning that the FBI had publicly cleared me of any connection to the bombing.

As it turned out, my relief was a little premature. I began surfing the Internet and realized just how stridently fingers had pointed in my direction. The tabloid headlines left little room for doubt: "Letters Claim Responsibility for Times Square Blast" (the New York Post); "'We Did It' Taunts Sicko's Manifesto" (the New York Daily News).

Also striking was how the media, without firsthand information, had adopted stock descriptions of both me and my writings: an "antiwar activist" (Fox News and USA Today); an "anarchist manifesto" (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com), and an "anti-Iraq war screed" (michellemalkin.com).

In fact, my "activism" rarely leaves my keyboard, and I have never opposed any U.S. military action before 2003. As for Iraq, it is only one of many topics addressed in my congressional mailings, and my message was that "there is no easy way out" and that instead of debating "withdrawal," Democrats should offer "compelling and alternative" positions on "unilateralist foreign policy, preemptive war, effective counter-terrorism (and) genuine 'pro-Israel' policies."

The only ones to get it right were the law-enforcement personnel who read what I actually wrote. One investigator told me (correctly) that many of my views sounded "conservative," and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly fairly characterized the mailings as "innocuous."

I hoped my clearance by the FBI would keep me out of the spotlight, but the focus simply shifted to what one official described as an "incredibly unbelievable coincidence."

Given the odds, much of the right-wing blogosphere insisted that there must be a cover-up: "I do not believe in 'incredibly unbelievable coincidence(s)' " (freerepublic.com); "... Waterboard him!" (weeklystandard.com).

Then my name surfaced, and I became, as one friend told me, "the talk of the town," as well as a media stereotype: a 50-year-old, single, gay entertainment lawyer coming home from the gym to the Hollywood Hills.

Reporters next located my 82-year-old mother. She lives alone, and with the television news blaring and the phone ringing, anxiety got the best of her. She tried to defend me as "the most gifted, creative person. ... He's been writing letters since he was 13 years old." She then called me and burst out crying: "I hope I did the right thing."

Speaking out on political matters entails risks, but nobody should have to take the risk that the media will inflict personal damage without regard for innocence or content. My pamphlet -- titled "Common Ground" (with a nod to Thomas Paine) -- was modeled on classic American patriotic tracts. A lot of thought, time and money went into my writings, which were never quoted and reportedly were confiscated by Capitol police. And while I can now rest easy that my FBI file is clean, no such luck with Google.

Friends advised me to retain an attorney and even a publicist. But I decided to rest my case on "the best evidence rule" and let my writings speak for themselves. As for publicists, I don't see how anybody could say it any better than FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller already has: "This was a citizen exercising his right to make a political comment to his representatives."

David Karnes, an entertainment attorney in Los Angeles, wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.

source: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/16796746.html

Mike Gravel and the Green Party

National Statesman and International Hero Senator Mike Gravel Supports Jesse Johnson's Bid for President

In what has to be the most unprecedented cross party statement of support Democratic Party Candidate for President Mike Gravel announced that he has decided to support the campaign of Green Party Candidate Jesse Johnson running for the nomination on the Green Party Ticket.

After a meeting between the two in Washington DC Friday, Gravel stated, "My political party long ago walked away from taking the necessary steps that will safe guard our nation's and our children's futures. I worked dedicatedly throughout my career as a U.S. Senator to protect the precious resources our country had within it's boundaries as well as to mitigate the negative impact our businesses and individuals were having on the planet. I have watched the ever important job of stewarding these gifts vanish from the political landscape and I hold the Democratic Party leadership responsible for giving up that fight."

Why did Gravel choose Johnson from among the other candidates vying for the nomination in all the campaigns of all available political parties? Gravel explains, "I'm supporting Jesse because he began his political career with the determination that the environmental plundering must stop. He placed every other interest on hold to run for office, in his home state and now nationally, to challenge the corporations that destroy our national resources and then harvest from this practice a toxic energy source; coal. The mountain top mining practices devastate the landscape by blowing apart mountains and then carbon belching plants burn the coal creating a form of energy that serves as one of the major contributors for global climate change."

Gravel continues, "We must have a voice in the political realm speaking earnestly and intelligently about all of our environmental needs. Johnson and the Green Party have that environmental credibility that we Democrats have lost."

Senator Gravel intends to travel and campaign with Jesse Johnson as their schedule allows.

Jesse Johnson, former chair of the West Virginia Mountain Party and two time candidate for statewide office, said that this sort of cross party support "was just the kind of non-traditional, selfless act that we have come to know Senator Mike Gravel to make. When he read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record, or filibustered to end the draft he had his eye - at all times - on the big picture and the needs of others. I am not surprised that a true patriot and advocate of the citizen as leader of our country would take such an unprecedented and bold stand. And I am honored and humbled that he has selected my campaign and the Green Party as his allies in this very important race to save our environment from the actions of humans."

Gravel closed by saying, "We've seen the havoc the two parties can wreak, on a global scale, by locking out the voices of reason - by eliminating the third party voices. I want to amplify those voices to save our country from our own shortsighted and greedy actions. If we want to end the war in Iraq, provide health care to all citizens, educate our young people, we're going to have to start not only working together with these alternate parties: but literally working to support them. That's why I'm supporting Jesse Johnson's campaign for President."

Elliot Spitzer and America's Ethical Perversity

by Rabbi Michael Lerner

The cross-the-political-spectrum attacks on Elliot Spitzer and the intensity of the demands that he resign his office show just how far the Right-wing sexual moralizing has been able to trump any other kind of ethical reasoning in American society.

Going to a prostitute is legal in some states and some countries around the world, and is often the very arrangement that saves families from splitting up whose sexual energies have diminished but whose love is intact. It's not uncommon for men (and now increasingly women as well) who have achieved great power in our society by adopting an outer show of ruthless pursuit of power and influence (even, as in Spitzer's case, if the power is aimed at pursuing laudable ends) to feel a deep emptiness and loneliness that is not addressed by friends or spouse, and hence to seek some kind of outside connection no matter how superficial that is not bound by previous rules and roles. Nevertheless, I and many others in the religious and spiritual world oppose that practice when it involves adultery or prostitution, because it depends on the objectification of another human being, so that sex is disconnected in ways that it should not be from a significant encounter with the spirit of God in the other or a deep recognition that is the only real way to overcome existential or situational alienation.

Moreover, the trade in women for sexual purposes has frequently led to rape and abuse and the kidnapping of young women who are sold into sexual slavery. All of these outrageous practices are abhorrent and should be challenged. The flaunting of sexuality in the media, and the implicit message that the only real satisfaction comes from having the most physically attractive people as sexual partners, not only generates huge dissatisfaction even as it allows corporate advertise to become predators manipulating our personal sense of inadequacy to sell their products, but also generates desires that feed the sexual trade in women. Given this larger social context, until sexual satisfaction is so broadly available in our society that no one has to pay for it and so deeply tied to love that no one is objectified in the process, this kind of exploitation of women and degradation of sex is likely to continue. All of these practices foster the sexual predators of the contemporary world.

So Elliot Spitzer deserves to be critiqued and ought to be doing deep atonement for what he did. His previous moral arrogance and willingness when he had power to do so to prosecute others for their participation in creating prostitution rings makes him an easy target. We, in turn, might practice the forgiveness that our religious and spiritual traditions preach, particularly those of us who have been willing to honeslty face how flawed we ourselves are, and how at times we ourselves fail to embody in our actual practice with others the values that we publicly espouse. Humility and compassion are also part of the path of a spiritual progressive.

But the intensity of the critique of the N.Y. governor, tied with the demand that he resign, shows more about American society's ethical perversity than about Spitzer.

The President of the U.S. and the Vice President, working in concert with several other high ranking officers of our government, lied and distorted to get us involved in a war that has led to the death of over a million Iraqis, the displacement of 3 million more, the death of 4,000 Americans and the wounding of tens of thousands more. After token opposition in Congress, our elected representatives have overwhelmingly passed budgets funding this war, rather than refuse to fund any military projects until the President stopped the war and withdrew the troops.

Meanwhile, our government has overtly engaged in torture, wiretapping of our phones, and violation of our human rights and the rights of people around the world. Senator Diane Feinstein and Senator Charles Schumer votes to confirm as Attonrey General a right-wing judge who refused to repudiate these crimes.

The U.S. government has rejected every attempt to implement the Kyoto environmental agreements or to work out new agreements sufficiently strong to reverse environmental destruction that is certain to lead to new levels of flooding particularly in several poor countries around the world. The consequence: tens of millions of deaths.

The Clinton Administration pushed, along with corporate support, a set of trade agreements that have devastated the farmers of many developing countries, forcing many off their farms and into city slums where their daughters and sons are often sold into sexual slavery. The global economic system we have fostered has led to increasing gaps between the rich and the poor, so that over one out of every three people on the planet lives on less than $2 a day, 1.5 billion live on less than one dollar a day, and over 15,000 children die every day from malnutrition-related diseases and inadequate availability of medicine that is hoarded by the rich countries who can afford the prices made to ensure huge profits to the pharmaceutical industry.

Health insurance companies and private medical profiteers are doing all they can to ensure that there will be no health care for tens of millions of Americans, unless that is provided in ways that guarantee corporate super-profits and thereby guarantee that the cost of health care paid through taxes will be huge and create anger at all government social welfare and well-being programs, leading to their likely de-funding.
People in the US have faced severe economic crises on a regional and soon on a national level because corporations move their centers of production to countries in Asia where they can exploit workers with less government or union interference and where they can destroy the environment with less societal restraints. Wild to achieve greater profits, corporations and the rich have managed to support politicians who lower the taxes on the rich, in the process bankrupting the public sector or severely reducing its ability to provide enough funds for quality education, health care, libraries, public transportation, and social welfare.

That there is no outcry for these government officials and corporate leaders to resign immediately or be impeached, that there is no moral outrage at the entire system that produces this impact, is America's ethical perversity. Instead, the only crime against humanity that the media takes seriously and the politicians fear is being exposed for personal sexual immorality. While everyone basks in their own self-righteous demands on Spitzer, we all allow media and elected officials to fundamentally distort our ethical vision and play out our morality on the smallest of possible stages while ignoring the global and personal consequences of our larger ethical failures.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine www.tikkun.org <http://www.tikkun.org> , Chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org <http://www.spiritualprogressives.org> , rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue-without-walls in San Francisco and Berkeley, and author of The Left Hand of God. He welcomes comments at RabbiLerner@tiikkun.org

If you agree with this perspective, call your local media and ask that it be presented alongside the mainstream views. And help us continue to provide alternative analyses by joining the Network of Spiritual Progressives (www.spiritualprogressives.org) and urging your friends to do so as well!

Sexism! Still a Force in American Politics

The quest for the Democratic nomination continues to ebb and flow as the two rivals struggle to gain an edge. Senator Clinton was presumed to be the front runner prior to the Iowa Caucuses, but Senator Obama won that state impressively. Then Senator Clinton came back to win the New Hampshire primary and looked poised for a sweep on Super Tuesday. The sweep turned out to be more of a draw and launched Senator Obama on to a string of eleven straight primary or caucus victories from South Carolina to Wisconsin from Washington to Vermont. Once more he seemed on the crest of victory. The super delegates who had been pledged to Senator Clinton began to waver and defect. No one smells blood better than a politician. The pundits were now sure that he would wrap up the nomination on March 4. It was, however, not to be as Senator Clinton roared back dramatically, scoring impressive victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Next Senator Obama won a caucus in Wyoming and a primary in Mississippi to regain his frontrunner position, but he did not win so decisively that he was able to clinch the nomination. So the struggle now moves on to the key state of Pennsylvania in which Senator Clinton, according to the polls, stands poised to make her third comeback of this primary season.

Beneath the excitement of what is surely the most interesting political contest in recent memory, there is another dynamic, always present, but seldom talked about. Two debilitating prejudices, sexism and racism, are in this political process being routed from their dwelling places deep in the psyches of our citizenry. Both have had long histories in the Western Christian world. Racism, the more overt and obvious of the two prejudices, was once protected by the laws of this nation, but it has had its back broken first by the bloodiest war in our nation's history and second by a rising consciousness that found expression in the relentless pressure of the Supreme Court. Sexism on the other hand penetrated the culture in an almost assumed way that seemed to many to be appropriate, even proper. Even though sexism was also protected by the laws of this nation it was always more subtle and its evil less recognized. While no one would seriously argue today that racism in this society is dead, it is recognized at once when it rears its ugly head, while sexism is still widely supported in high places, including an obvious presence in the official statements of organized religion. Many church leaders continue to use a version of the "separate but equal" argument that has no credibility at all when applied in a racial context. No one in the political arena would dare to make an overtly racist comment, but overtly sexist comments have not been absent from this campaign. History tells us that while racism is crueler, sexism is more difficult to root out. Remember that this nation gave the vote to black men many years before it was given to white women. Data from this political season still points to the fact that sexism continues to be less recognized in the body politic than racism.

Senator Clinton, who had been first defined nationally as the "First Lady," had to establish her professional competence apart from her husband. She did this by winning a seat in the United States Senate, by mastering the intricacies of that most exclusive of clubs, by gaining the respect of her colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and by avoiding the spotlight of the media while doing her unglamorous homework. Her constituents in New York responded to these efforts and rewarded her with election to a second term by an astonishing 64% majority. Senator Obama, on the other hand, had been in the Senate for only two years when he announced his intention to seek the presidency. This is not to say that he is without significant credentials. He was an impressive student in law school, being chosen to be editor of the Harvard Law Review, an honor that goes only to Harvard Law School's top student. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago's Law School for ten years, during which time he was elected to and served in the State Senate of Illinois. Those accomplishments are not to be minimized, but it is to say that no woman with a resume as brief as that of Senator Obama would have been taken seriously as a presidential candidate. A woman still has to be twice as impressive to be viewed as equal. That is an expression of sexism.

Hillary Clinton also had to carry the baggage of her husband in a way that no male politician has ever had to do. She is colored by the foibles of her husband's administration. His negatives became her negatives. She wanted to keep her maiden name, Rodham, but political pressure on Bill Clinton after he lost the governor's office in Arkansas forced her to become Hillary Rodham Clinton. The loss of her own identity, a reality that women have had to live with for centuries, has played a significant role in this campaign when people, defining Hillary as a Clinton, realized that in the elections of 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 there had either been a Bush or a Clinton on the presidential ballot. She was thus identified with the Clinton politics of yesterday, not the Rodham politics of tomorrow. She was implicated in what came to be called the Whitewater Affair, which was investigated endlessly and finally dismissed, yet its odor seems to cling to her. When the Clintons left the White House in 2001 charges were made about the Clintons removing things that were not theirs. These charges turned out to be nothing more than political attacks and were demonstrated to be false; nonetheless the stain on her integrity remained. When Hillary Clinton was cast in the role of violated wife in the sordid Lewinsky affair, she could not win. She was criticized by some for refusing to leave her husband and by others for standing by her man. None of these things would have been the fate of a male politician. Sexism was clearly operating below the surface.

In 1972 when Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency, she carried with her candidacy the impact of both racism and sexism. It is interesting to note that she said overcoming her status as a woman was always more difficult than overcoming her status as an African-American. That was an indication that even long ago racism was more overt and easily identified in the public arena than was sexism. In support of that thesis, I cite the following data from this campaign.

When Bill Clinton played the race card in the South Carolina primary, it backfired because people, aware of racism, were embarrassed by it. The sexist rhetoric that commentators let forth on Hillary Clinton, however, did not receive a similar rebuke in the Court of Public Opinion. Carl Bernstein on live national television referred to Hillary's "thick ankles" and Tucker Carlson, an MSNBC conservative talking head, observed that "every time I get near Hillary Clinton I feel castrated." Those were weird sexist comments, saying more about both Bernstein and Carlson than they did about Senator Clinton, but the point is that no female reporter could have gotten away with describing Governor Huckabee's legs or with saying, "Every time I am in the presence of Mitt Romney, I feel like I am going to be raped!"

A male radio host for Station KOA in Denver, Colorado, wondered on a live national network whether Chelsea Clinton "was going to wind up with a big posterior like that of her mother." Can anyone imagine such a statement being made about a son of John Edwards? When a woman in a political gathering asked John McCain how he was going to "beat the bitch," he knew to whom the question applied and proceeded to answer it without unloading its hostility. McCain later, however, rebuked a right wing radio host when he spoke of Senator Obama in a derogatory racist manner.

Another radio talk show host accused a cable news channel of overreacting by suspending one of its political reporters, who had wondered aloud on national television "if the Clintons were pimping out their daughter as a campaign presence." Is that not sexism?

Senator Clinton also had the distinction of being the only candidate to be called "the anti-Christ" by a member of the religious right. That was, I believe, a sign of misplaced sexist rage. Why would not the three times married, admitted adulterer, Mayor of New York, whose children will not speak to him because of his treatment of their mother, be a candidate for that title? Yet he was spared this ultimate religious slander.

Many people quite clearly still carry unconscious fears about a powerful woman. Look at the way Sandra Day O'Connor was negatively described by all of the Republican candidates except John McCain. Look at the number done on Geraldine Ferraro when she was the vice presidential nominee. Look at how Margaret Thatcher developed the aura of autocratic masculinity to win in Great Britain and how British male pride was displayed when they described her "as a man wearing a skirt." Maybe no one ever forgets those years in our lives when we were helpless dependent infants being cared for by that seemingly all powerful woman we called mother. Maybe the fear of being made dependent again on a strong woman is still buried in our psyche. Maybe our sexist, male-oriented society, which still holds to the primary definition of a woman as a sex object, creates an unconscious difficulty in our ability to relate to women in a position of ultimate authority. Maybe women, who were taught how important it is to please a man to get ahead, were also threatened by her potential power. Perhaps that is why there have always been more "Aunt Jemimas" in the women's movement than there were "Uncle Toms" in the black movement. There is much about which we can speculate, but the fact of which we are certain is that sexist barriers are still potent and that Hillary Clinton, is the current victim.

People uncomfortable about this charge reply, "I am not opposed to women, only to this woman." However, this woman was the only one who has battled to the place where she has a real shot at the presidency and, in the final analysis, she has not yet won a normal portion of the white male vote while she has consistently lost,, never the majority, but a substantial part of the female vote to her opponent. Hillary Clinton may or may not become our next president. That is yet to be decided. What is clear, however, is that she has taken some of the sexist poison out of the body politic by absorbing it. That will make it possible if she fails in this quest for another woman in another day to climb to the top of the hill.

I am drawn to Hillary Clinton's ability and to her intelligence. I admire the integrity and independence of John McCain. I am excited about the vision of a potential Obama presidency. I hope, however, that I will live long enough to see my nation and this world be able to celebrate the full humanity and the equal competence of women.

John Shelby Spong