Don’t Follow Leaders

Don't follow leaders. Watch the parkin' meters! … Bob Dylan

Bob gives some million-dollar advice in those lines from Subterranean Homesick Blues. I’ll address the former in today’s rant!

Mussolini coined the phrase to describe himself and every other Fascist dictator since Julius Caesar as a "Cult of Personality." These folks all had at least one thing in common they all had the ability to "Hypmotize" the masses. From Alexander the Great to Derr Snifter they could mesmerize the people with the spoken word. Amassing a huge following of the easily confused and in time marching off to conquer the world. Fortunately we don’t have to worry about Smirky becoming the next Napoleon, as he would be hard pressed to string together four complete sentences without inventing new words or becoming tongue-tied. Makes you proud to be an American doesn’t it? NOT!

Still, when you consider all that his masters had to overcome to put chimp boy in office it is truly impressive. I used to have some respect for Harvard and Yale but if Smirky is any indication of what it takes to get an MBA at Harvard or a BA at Yale I will have to rethink my opinions of them. Some see Cheney as the Duke of Gloucester hungrily eyeing the throne but I see them as an evil Laurel & Hardy with Smirky as Stan and Cheney as Ollie. Happy go-lucky bumbling incompetents, just who we want in control of those 7000 ICMS and H-Bombs. And it seems they are desperately trying to bring back the 'Cold War' or perhaps a new hot one? Just the thing we need, how nice. Not!

In less than 100 days they have managed to destroy a world that was slowly coming together. They have alienated East & West alike. Is this merely saber rattling? The new kid on the block trying to establish the pecking order and ruffling a few feathers in the process, perhaps? Perhaps, NOT!

Is it for the benefit of the already cowering Democrats? Just rubbing it in their faces, that yes I just stole the election, destroyed what remained of the Republic, sold the American peoples rights off to the Corporations, not to mention their health and environment. Yes a lot of "Balls" for the loser of the election. The 'creature without a mandate,' the infamous American traitor, a drunk driving, cocaine snorting, baby killing, draft dodging, AWOL is now the world most powerful man! Be afraid America, be very afraid! As I said in last week’s rant Bushit & company reminded me of Germany in 1931. Fortunately Dubya hasn’t got Hitler’s speaking ability or his boyish charms but he has his families abilities and knowledge. Remember Grand Pappy's Bush & Walker were as responsible for the rise and ascendancy of the Nazis as Hitler himself. So the Bush’s and Walkers have hands on experience. They also know how to make it pay. Boy Howdy, do they know how to make it pay! Or perhaps there was no one pulling strings and the Extreme Court wasn’t biased as they wrote new law and definitions of sedition? Perhaps? Not!

So to all you ‘Walter Middy’ types who day-dream about joining the party, strapping on the arm band and leaving Accountancy to become the new Gruppen-Fuhrer of Cleveland; just a few words to the wise before you go goose-stepping off into a ‘Brave New World!’ Nobody likes a Tory! Let me repeat that … "NOBODY LIKES A TORY!" They tend to get tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail and talked about behind their backs in supermarket lines. They get shunned at church socials and their skeletons are often found doubled up inside building cornerstones a hundred years in the future. Or perhaps you and your mistress will be hung upside down by a friendly group of patriots in at a gas station somewhere? As for me, I’m buying stock in armament companies, oil companies, lumber companies, coal companies and liquor distilleries. NOT!
©2001 Ernest Stewart

Faith Initiative May Be Revised Criticism Surprises Administration
By Dana Milbank and Thomas B. Edsall

The Bush administration will delay action on parts of its plan to channel more government money to religious charities until it can quiet some of the surprisingly vehement opposition to the program. "We're postponing," said Don Eberly, deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. "We're not ready to send our own bill up." Eberly acknowledged that the proposal "may need to be corrected in some areas," particularly the interplay between religious programs and government funding.

The White House expected church-state separation groups to object to the program. But it didn't expect a chorus of doubts from religious conservatives such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Richard Land, Michael Horowitz and even Marvin Olasky, one of the program's early architects. They worry that churches would be corrupted by government regulations or that objectionable sects would be rewarded.

President Bush, in an interview Friday, expressed confidence in the program, a cornerstone of his "compassionate conservatism" that once seemed to be an innocuous program meant to boost charitable works. Some people "are worried that once government gets in their lives, government will force a change in their religion," he said. "There are some who worry about, once government gets involved, government will force religion on people. And I am mindful of those concerns, and our policy will understand that. We'll fashion a policy -- that we have already fashioned -- that will, I believe, answer those critics."

What Bush calls his faith-based initiative is a much broader program that includes noncontroversial provisions that will likely be implemented quickly and quietly. A proposal to expand the charitable tax deduction to those who don't itemize has almost no opposition; Independent Sector, an association of nonprofits, said that could mean a $14 billion, or 11 percent, annual increase in charitable giving.

The administration's budget blueprint also contains a provision to let states use surplus welfare funds to promote a new tax credit for charitable donations -- also without controversy.

Bush's proposed "Compassion Capital Fund" for public-private partnerships was part of his address to Congress. Another key element of the program is Bush's installation of adviser Stephen Goldsmith atop the AmeriCorps national service program to expand those efforts and recruit more religious volunteers. Also, Bush officials can achieve much of the office's mission -- reducing regulations that hamstring religious charities -- without approval from Congress.

"Federal agencies are already in the process of becoming more responsive," Eberly said. "That is the muscle on the bone, the major policy initiative." The White House office sets the tone. The message tape for after-hours calls provides the business hours and then says, "May God bless you, and have a nice day."

The major argument is about a law passed in 1996 as part of welfare reform and signed by President Bill Clinton. Bush isn't proposing changing what is known as the charitable choice provision -- which lets religious charities compete for government welfare dollars -- but merely wants to expand its reach to other programs.

Instead of limiting charitable choice to a few programs in the Department of Health and Human Services, Bush would expand the provision to allow religious charities to compete for more than 100 programs in the departments of labor (job training, for example), justice (community policing), education (after-school programs) and housing and urban development. It is this proposal that faces serious obstacles. "My sense is that it's not dead but that they are going to have to think very carefully about the way forward," said Bill Galston, a University of Maryland professor and former policy adviser to Clinton.

Marshall Wittmann, a former Christian Coalition official now with the Hudson Institute, concurred. "It has the president's blessing, so it's not going to collapse," he said. "But the program may be trimmed back significantly." In the latest setback to the effort, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who had been a backer of the initiative, said the administration should delay the program until it can figure out how to avoid violating civil rights. Eberly and others argue that much of the conservative opposition is "friendly criticism" that, with some minor changes in the proposal, could be silenced. But instead of wooing conservatives, the White House has been feuding with them. John J. DiIulio Jr., the Bush official in charge of the program, last week lashed out at "predominantly white, exurban evangelical" leaders for their lack of interest in urban problems, saying their objections "would rankle less if they were backed by real human and financial help." As president of the Southern Baptists' Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Land is one of the nation's leading religious conservatives. He retorted: "It would rankle less if he wasn't so ignorant about us and didn't try to stereotype us."

Much of the controversy is over the requirement that programs segregate their religious and service messages; if such groups require religious conversion, they wouldn't be eligible.

Olasky, a Bush adviser who helped formulate "compassionate conservatism," complained that under Bush's guidelines, some of the expressly religious programs that the president has pointedly named in campaign appearances as deserving of government support, especially the anti-addiction program "Teen Challenge," would not be eligible for a government grant.

"If the federal government puts out the welcome mat for some religious groups and tells others to 'opt out,' it is preferring one religious belief over another," Olasky said. "This is exactly the type of religious discrimination that the First Amendment is designed to prevent."

But any move to please the likes of Olasky would likely produce more outcry on the left. There, the criticism focuses on the concerns that awarding grants to religious groups will violate the separation of church and state, and that tax money will be used to finance programs allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring practices. Even Lieberman has joined that argument.

Liberal critics feel strengthened. "This is a program that seems to be developing more and more problems the more you think about it," said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-Va.) said the proposal "creates new holes in our civil rights laws and would allow religious bigotry in hiring to be practiced with the use of federal funds."

Supporters are concerned about the opposition. "They could very well lock up all the Democrats in the Senate with this so-called hiring discrimination argument," said Nathan Diament, who directs public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, which supports the plan. A number of conservative activists are proposing alternatives in an attempt to avoid church-state collisions. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Mich., proposed, for example, a tax deduction or credit as an incentive for doctors, nurses, lawyers and other professionals who volunteer work time to helping the poor. Along similar lines, Robert Woodson, who has been active with community-based service programs around the nation, said a change in the law authorizing or requiring private insurance providers to pay for qualified social services given by church agencies would be a way to channel cash to many programs in poor areas.

The most promising alternative, many involved in the debate say, is the notion of vouchers, which allow government funds to be used for a religious purpose but make sure the individual recipient, not the government, would be choosing the religious option. An addict, for example, could redeem a treatment voucher at a church program or a government program. The idea still is opposed by some such as Lynn, who calls it "a transfer of money to a religious mission," but provokes far less anger than the direct-grant idea.

"It is a way out and one that seems to be win-win," Eberly said. "If this becomes problematic, vouchers is certainly an option we'd consider." Bush, in the interview, embraced the idea of "social vouchers" as one way to fund religious programs without as many of the church-state complications inherent in government grants.

"There's a lot of concern about proselytization and that we should not use taxpayers' money to fund groups that proselytize," Bush said. "My attitude is, you fund an individual."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company

The President Who Bought Power And Sold The World

George Bush's decision to ignore global warming and pull the plug on Kyoto is payback for the energy industries which backed him, reports Ed Vulliamy.
Special report: global warming.
Special report: George Bush's America

When George Bush was Governor of Texas, he called upon the big oil companies, such as Exxon-Mobil, to draw up a draft for the state's Clean Air Act. They came up with a Bill allowing them to regulate themselves. Just as Bush was signing it into law, in December 1998, the town of Odessa - a few miles from his birthplace - was engulfed by a black, toxic smoke so thick that drivers had to use their headlights during daytime.

The President they call 'the Toxic Texan' took office on a platform pledging to turn his gubernatorial principles into national policy - to make America a 'greater Texas'. And last week Bush began his attempt to make the world environment that of a 'greater America'. He 'declared war on the environment' - in the words of Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer, both at home and on the international stage.

Defying his European allies and many Third World countries, Bush in effect killed off the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 - by which more than 100 nations undertook to reduce emissions of 'greenhouse gases' that cause global warming - turning the US, for environmentalists, into a greedy, polluting pariah. On the domestic front, meanwhile, a series of brazen measures has provoked an outcry from even the most moderate and established of environmental groups.

Withdrawal by the US from Kyoto tolls a death knell for the treaty, because although it accounts for only 4 per cent of the world's population, it is responsible for 25 per cent of the emissions of gases that cause the greenhouse effect. Half of America's industrial might still burns fossil fuels and belches out fumes, while Americans themselves drive heavy trucks and cars further than any other people - to the mall and across the infinite landscape - and even the average household boasts 2.8 television sets and a wealth of electrical appliances.

The story behind the singular determination of Bush to fly in the face of world opinion, the sentiments of most Americans and even many in his own government reveals adherence to ideological rigour and a payment of debts to the business interests that helped him to the White House - above all, oil and coal. Oil runs through every sinew and vein of the Bush administration; rarely, if ever, has a Western government been so intimately entwined with a single industry. When Bush assumed office, however, oil and other energy industries were in the political cold after eight years of Bill Clinton's environmental record. Prompted by his keenly environmentalist deputy, Al Gore, Clinton had cautiously recommended ratification of Kyoto, but it was flatly rejected in the Senate.

Clinton nevertheless put more wilderness under federal protection than any President since Franklin Roosevelt and decreed a sweeping series of anti-pollution, clean air and clean water measures, facing down formidable constituencies such as the timber industry, sugar barons, big utility and automotive lobbies - and, above all, Big Oil and King Coal.

Determined backing for Bush was thereby assured from these quarters. According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, $10 million out of $14m in political contributions from oil and gas companies to the last election went to Republican candidates. The Bush family has roots in the oil business, and the President began his own career with a series of unsuccessful drilling ventures bailed out by bigger oil com panies. He was backed by most of the big names in oil, especially Texaco and Exxon-Mobil, in his campaigns for Governor and later President. Bush has now charged his Vice-President Dick Cheney - the pivotal power in the White House - to compile an overall energy policy document due for publication before the completion of his first 100 days in office. Cheney's connections to big oil have been close-knit and especially lucrative.

The Pentagon chief under Bush senior, Cheney used connections forged by the Gulf war to open up valuable business for the giant Halliburton Company, of which he was made chief executive in 1995, and which does 70 per cent of its $15 billion sales to Arab governments. Bush's Commerce Secretary, Don Evans, is a long-time personal friend from the President's home town of Midland, Texas, and a man raised in oil. His father was a manager for Shell and he is chairman and chief executive of the Midland-based Tom Brown oil company which, before the Eighties crash, was worth $2bn - equivalent to the Ford Corporation.

Among the less well known oil connections are those of America's ambassador to London, Doug Farish, who went into politics as an aide to Bush senior in 1964 and is described by former First Lady Barbara Bush as 'one of the family'.

Despite his reclusive image as a rancher who sold horses to the Queen, Farish is a Texas oil magnate from a Texas oil family. His grandfather founded the Humble Oil and Refining Company, part of what is now Exxon, and later became president of Standard Oil. Farish's own dealings in the oil state have not only been in liquid gold but also gas exploration and mining. Bush's break with world opinion on Kyoto was debated and contested within the administration, with Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Treasury reportedly eager to leave a door open to join Britain and other nations in a commitment to reduce 'greenhouse gas' emissions.

But even in the State Department, big oil has its man moulding policy: Middle East guru Richard Haas who, with Powell and Cheney, has an aversion to unilateral sanctions that hurt business.

Haas hails from the Brookings think-tank, and has propelled America's preparedness to consider easing sanctions on Iraq with a document entitled 'Iraq: A Modified Approach', written by Meghan O'Sullivan, a researcher who worked under Haas at Brookings. The paper argues that embargoes are 'bad for particular businesses' - principally oil - and it emerges that much of Haas's project was funded by Conoco and Arco, with whom he has worked as a consultant. He also has a seat on the board of oil firm, Santa Fe International. With these and other connections in place, big oil was quick to move once Bush was inaugurated. The National Petrochemical Refiners Association lobbied first, for a rollback of clean-air standards for buses and big trucks decreed by Clinton.

The association's counsel, Bob Slaughter, said he hoped 'the administration would be more interested in balancing the energy supply and environmental concerns' - and it was: Bush put a moratorium on this and all similar decrees, citing a fear of fuel price rises. Bush had promised to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide, but two weeks ago he reversed this, citing a report commissioned last year by Republican Senator David McIntosh, saying that carbon dioxide restrictions could 'boost electricity prices and hurt coal-fired utilities'. Shortly before the announcement, Washington was blitzed by the 'Coal Based Generators' group to lobby for a reversal on emissions and tax breaks for 'clean coal' utilities.

Leading the group was Irl Engelhardt, chairman of Peabody, America's largest coal enterprise, who was also a major Republican contributor and energy adviser to the Bush-Cheney transition team. The same letter that disclosed the volte-face on carbon dioxide also announced the scrapping of new Clinton regulations reducing arsenic levels in drinking water by 80 per cent. The EPA's former administrator for water, Chuck Fox, who drafted the legislation, said: 'This action will jeopardise the health of millions of Americans.' And its backer in Congress, Henry Waxman, called the ruling 'another example of payback to industries that gave millions of dollars in campaign contributions'.

Fear of continuing fuel price rises and shrinking supply then dictated the White House's reaction to the energy crisis in California - ironically caused, said the Democrats, by the very deregulation policies favoured by the administration on a national scale. Bush's language - and his catchphrase that 'national security depends on energy security' - turned the crisis into a national emergency which dovetailed into the arguments that tranches of federal land protected by Clinton - including the vast and virgin Arctic wilderness in Alaska - should be opened up for prospecting and drilling.

These announcements - as well as Kyoto - have stirred even the most mainstream groups to exasperation, with the executive director of the Sierra Club - equivalent to the National Trust - predicting 'a very major fight'. Two entwined schools of thought form the core of the Bush administration: deregulation and decentralisation. The underpinning ideology is the injection of market forces into management of the public domain, and the belief that industry should police itself. Supporters of last week's decision include David Victor, fellow of science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Victor argues that Kyoto cannot work, nor can unrealistic regulations on emissions reduction.

Instead he argues for 'economic incentives that, over time, will slow the build-up of carbon dioxide without the imposition of binding targets for a far-off future'. This ideology is embodied by John Graham, whom Bush picked last weekend to head his Office of Management and Budget - which oversees all regulatory agencies - an appointment which thrilled lobbyists. Graham, regarded as the guru of cost benefit analysis, has a history of eco-scepticism.

Last week's decision to kill Kyoto did not enjoy full backing of the administration - some quarters of which saw it as a fait accompli from the White House and the National Security Council. Successive opinion polls show that the environment is a major issue for voters, and Bush's enemies are lining up for a PR battle. Even Republican Representative Sherwood Boehlert believes Bush is 'taking a risk' by issuing 'so many controversial decisions so early'. Mark Mellman, a Democrat pollster, said: 'Bush is creating a political disaster for himself.'
©2001 Ed Vulliamy

That wasn’t class warfare at all. Just plain old-fashioned cruelty.
©2001 Joe Conason

Tabloids Could Be President Bush's Undoing
by Gene Lyons

President Bush II's recent visit to Little Rock to attend a fund-raiser on behalf of Sen. Tim Hutchinson provides an occasion to review the new regime's most absurd claim: that Bush has "changed the tone" in Washington from rancor to civility.

This feat he accomplished purely by virtue of party membership. With one of their own in the White House, GOP congressmen plan no investigations of Bush's very spotty business career. Crackpot tycoons like Richard Mellon Scaife are chortling over tax cuts instead of hiring private eyes. Pat Robertson hasn't called Bush the antichrist, and Jerry Falwell's not peddling videos accusing him of drug-smuggling or murder. Thanks to Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel law longer exists. So yeah, things are quieter in Washington. The GOP smear machine has shut down.

What's amazing is that something so obvious needs saying. With a Republican of impeccable social pedigree in the White House, reporters act as deferential as butlers. If only they'd spare us the bit about Bush's wonderful "family values." Show us a rich, handsome playboy who drank heavily until age 40, and we'll show you somebody with a lot of secrets. Lucky for him, there appear to be no Democratic operatives willing to pay for them.

Also, with the accursed Bill Clinton gone, the press wants to stuff the sex genie back into the bottle. Until a prominent politician ends up splashing around in the Tidal Basin at 4 a.m. with somebody nicknamed "The Argentine Firecracker," they think it's none of your business any more. The joker in the deck could turn out to be the tabloids. Celebrity sex sells, and TV has turned politicians into celebrities.

Not that we particularly want to know Bush's secrets. A bit of discreet hypocrisy is fine with us. Very few are in a position to cast stones, although we never noticed that it stopped them. Bush II's championing of Hutchinson, however, made us faintly nauseated. When you're talking about Hutchinson, you're not talking about a little bit of hypocrisy. You're talking world class. You're talking about a holier-than-thou Baptist preacher who condemned Clinton and did everything in his power to destroy him.

The man is a moral coward. No sooner did the Senate fail to remove Clinton from office than Hutchinson announced his divorce and remarriage to a former staffer who was kept discreetly out of sight during the impeachment fight. If he had an ounce of shame, he'd retire from the Senate.

Here at Unsolicited Opinions Inc., we'd have no opinion about Hutchinson's divorce and remarriage had he behaved with a minimum of integrity. But he didn't. As a woman friend whose opinions we particularly respect recently put it, "Family values, my foot. Bush wouldn't care if Hutchinson was sleeping with an armadillo or a possum. It's about money and power, period. It's never been about anything else."

While we're on the topic of Republicans and sex, we may as well admit that we got a hoot out of Bob Dole's new Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears.

For those who haven't seen it, the nubile Miss Spears--Louisiana jailbait if we've ever seen it--cavorts through a Pepsi warehouse with a team of male dancers, shaking her booty and pulling off clothing. Near the end, she strikes a pouty, provocative pose.

Cut to the Bobster sitting in front of his TV wearing a cardigan and patting a golden retriever. The dog woofs. "Easy, boy," says Viagra spokesman Dole with a rueful head shake. Maybe he's talking to the dog, maybe not. The girl is 18; Dole will be 80 on his next birthday.

Apart from the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, who invented the whole virgin-strumpet routine a generation ago, we've never seen a better example of today's conflicted Republican attitude toward human sexuality. Like the cheerleaders, Spears dresses like a Las Vegas call girl, but promotes herself as a virtuous maiden. Sort of.

A former Mouseketeer who gives interviews about her faith in God and her determination to preserve her virginity for marriage, Spears recently appeared on the Grammy awards clad in approximately six square inches of strategically placed gold lame. She strutted, gyrated and thrust her pelvis at the camera while singing "I'm not that innocent." Call us cynical, but we suspect she's not.

When Dole ran for president in 1996, he backed the same religious-right, "abstinence-only" sex education nostrums Bush II recommends. Last week, The New York Times reported that some health experts believe the administration is suppressing a report from the surgeon general concluding that the most effective way to prevent teen pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases is sex education containing frank, factual information while promoting "responsible sexual behavior" in part by providing improved access to contraception. Can't have that. Got to have more Viagra, more Britney Spears. It's the American way.

Back to Bush

Last week we suggested Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes" as a guide to understanding George W. Bush. That morning, Bush went on ABC News and stated that the United States would do "whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself" against a Chinese attack.

This contradicted 30 years of U.S. policy, which has always been studiously ambiguous to avoid being sucked into an Asian war by reckless actions by either side. Aides spent all day arguing that while Bush meant exactly what he said, American policy was unchanged.

That evening, former Reagan administration China hand Douglas Paal explained Bush's remarks as follows on PBS' "The Lehrer Report": The statements reflect the kind of nuanced change that comes with a new administration. . . . The president's first remarks to ABC News I saw as correct but incomplete. And when he subsequently was interviewed by further people such as John King from CNN, he made a more balanced statement . . . ."

Translation: Just because David Broder wrote a column wondering why Bush has nothing to say doesn't mean the White House needs to let that ignoramus go on national TV without a script.

Politically shrewd but ignorant, the president mistook a policy question for a "toughness" question. Good thing there's no real danger or the fool might suck us into World War III.
© 2001 Gene Lyons

Quotable Quote

I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
Abraham Lincoln - November 21, 1864

Which, of course, is exactly what Rosen and Bush really mean when they talk of bipartisanship.
© 2001 Michael Stark

We are legion. We are many. And Hell hath no Fury........
© 2001 Tally Briggs

Invasion Of The Individual Liberty Snatchers!
By James Higdon

The major problem with the current media trend toward providing Republican sponsored sound bites, so called news cycles, is that we are never allowed to go back to see if a prediction or observation was made that actually happened to play out. The media inclination to "stay in the moment" does not serve the public, but serves political and corporate agendas. Thank God for the Internet, where information is allowed to live over profit. I can remind you of something and not be told, "No, Jim. It's just not profitable. It's time to move on."

In a commentary that I wrote for Online Journal back in the middle of December (You ain't seen nothin' yet, 12/16/2000); back before the emperor of thieves was ingratiated as resident of the White House, I concluded with the following three paragraphs. Ask yourself if it doesn't sound a little familiar.

"Republicans have held up at least 60 percent of President Clinton's judicial appointments, refusing to even submit his appointments to Senate votes. The plain purpose is to save those appointments for the next Republican president, where choices will be made from the cookie cutter workshop of the Federalist Society. This society of ultra conservative lawyers and judges strives toward reinterpreting the Constitution of the United States of America in favor of financial interests. While Democrats wring their hands, fearing that such judges will overturn Roe v. Wade, the real threat is much darker and deeper.

"The Federalist Society seeks to reinterpret the Constitution to remove federal regulations regarding worker safety and pollution control, to eliminate civil rights legislation, and to upend the 'taking clause' of the Constitution to eliminate zoning, causing economic windfalls for property owners.

The Republican promise surrounding control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government is simple. If you think that there is a great chasm between the rich and the poor, that too few control too much of the wealth, that our environment is in danger, and individual rights are being eroded-you ain't seen nothin' yet!"

I bring this up because you are watching as this prediction comes to life. The Bushies have put the American citizens on notice that the executive office will no longer seek the guidance of the American Bar Association in recommendations for the federal judiciary. The reason cited by those close to the resident is that the ABA is a "liberal" organization. In this instance, the word "liberal" should be viewed in the same context as the "liberal" press.

Instead, recommendations will be sought from the Federalist Society, who hails as members the likes of Kenneth Starr, John Ashcroft, Gale Norton, and Spencer Abraham. John Ashcroft sits as attorney general today because Montana Gov. Marc Racicot (the most vocal of Republican advocates to dispense with counting the votes in Florida) was viewed as too liberal by these legal minds of the neo-fascist right. It's not that Racicot wasn't loud and clear in his advocacy towards ending legal abortions and forcing religious instruction into our schools, he just wasn't strident enough.

The funding for these judicial Brownshirts comes from a variety of extreme right wing sources, not the least of which is—you've heard this name before—Richard M. Scaife. As Grover Norquist, an ultra conservative activist admits, "If Hillary Clinton had wanted to put some meat on her charge of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy,' she should have had a list of Federalist Society members and she could have spun a more convincing story."

What does this society want? Well, it's primary objectives are the following:

1. An end to affirmative action. After all, even Clarence Thomas learned that he could go much further in life by selling his soul, than by having the government make sure that he wasn't discriminated against in education or the work place.

2. Perversion of the "takings" clause of the Constitution's 5th Amendment. You know—the one that says, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." They want to use this phrase to justify overturning everything from municipal zoning, to environmental laws, to worker's compensation.

3. An end to workplace anti-harassment laws. After all, if your boss is constantly pressuring you to sleep with him, he's only exercising his own free speech.

4. An end to punitive damages because it is "a capricious, unpredictable, randomly destructive scheme of punishment." Besides, it does silly things like encourage lawyers to assert the rights of the poor, and makes corporations think twice before purposely putting lethally defective products on the open market.

5. An end to all civil rights legislation of the past 40 years. "If you don't want to allow 'those people' at your school, your business, or sitting at the front of your bus, you shouldn't have to let them." Trust me on this, disenfranchisement in Florida and Tennessee is just the first step back down the long spiral staircase toward the nether regions.

5. Shredding privacy rights because under the "orignalist theory" of constitutional law, the founding fathers never actually used the word privacy. If police had the power to do body cavity searches on demand, think what a dent that would put in crime statistics. It's for the common good, so don't complain if, one day, your daughter comes home from school crying. You can be pretty sure that the school is "drug free."

And yes, the right to privacy is that little issue upon which Roe v. Wade makes its home. Roe v. Wade recognizes that the government has no right to interfere with the private consultations between a woman and her doctor.

While in law school, one of my favorite professors had an interesting take on Roe v. Wade. He maintained that if you read the decision carefully, and I think he's right, that one can find genuine concern, on the part of the concurring justices, that if the government has the right to prevent an abortion, the government may also have the right to demand an abortion.

"Oh, that's just silly," I can hear you say. "That's just right out of Nazi Germany, and if the right-to-lifers are doing everything they can to prevent individuals from having an abortion, they'll institute an armed rebellion if the government demands one."

Uh, huh. Well consider this . . . You'd have to say that Pat Robertson (leader of the Christian Coalition) is a pretty staunch anti-abortion person, wouldn't you? Well, you'd only be partly right. Pat is only against abortion when it is the choice of the individual. During a recent interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Pat said of China's policy of prescribing abortions for women who already had one child, that the Chinese are "doing what they have to do" to curb population growth. He does not believe that the policy should be interfered with. So you can see his standard. As an individual choice, abortion is wrong, but it's okay for the state to demand it if it is doing what it has to do for the greater good. I guess it would be up to the likes of Pat and his ilk to decide what that greater good should be.

Up to this point, parents in China have been permitted to determine which births will be aborted. Because of the cultural preference for boys over girls, families have most frequently chosen to abort female fetuses upon the second pregnancy if their first child was a girl. That permits them to keep trying for a boy. Pat does think that the parent's folly in this instance is a mistake as well, and feels that the government might step in on that issue. Pat feels that by having so few girls, China may find that it doesn't have enough women, and will have to import them. This, he said, "will, in a sense, dilute the—what they consider the racial purity of the Han Chinese." Ah, the very important "racial purity" issue.

You're right! It is all something out of Nazi Germany. While I used to be one of the people who proclaimed it couldn't happen here, I don't say that anymore. If your congressional representatives haven't anything better to do with their time, you might ask them to take a very close look at the candidates that Bush nominates to federal judgeships. Most likely, all nominees will be soulless clones from the Federalist Society.

I am breathless with amazement. While I once felt that I was fairly moderate in my political beliefs as a mainstream Democrat, I am now told repeatedly by the "liberal press" that I am a member of the lunatic fringe. Members of the Federalist Society, Pat Robertson, and Freepers are all smack dab in the mainstream. Stand aside, Alice! A whole continent is coming through the looking glass. © 2001 James Higdon

Mr Bush Has Put US Credibility On The Line

Special report: George Bush's America
Special report: global warming

Leader

The Guardian

Suddenly, in the space of three short months, America, the "indispensable nation", begins to resemble the ultimate rogue state. George Bush's decision to trash the Kyoto global warming treaty is appalling. That it represents an enormous, possibly definitive setback for efforts to mitigate climate change goes almost without saying. America is now confirmed as the unrepentant outlaw, the dirty man of environmental politics.

The decision is doubly appalling for what it says about the new man in the White House. Mr Bush, clinging to his "national interest" credo, seems incapable of seeing the big picture. He does not grasp the basic truth that America's national interest is inextricably intertwined with the global interest. America, for all its dominance, is but a part of the world we share. America's consumers depend for their unsurpassed living standards on shared global resources. America's greenhouse emissions are not confined to American airspace. Nor is the US immune from the negative impact of its national profligacy and international climate change. By this blinkered action, Mr Bush strengthens suspicions that he is just not big enough for his job.

But most appalling of all is the message, taken alongside similarly short-sighted, self-centred actions in the fields of defence and diplomacy, that this Taliban-style act of wanton destruction sends around the world. Instead of leading the community of nations, Bush's America seems increasingly intent on confronting it. Instead of a shining city on a hill, the world sees a dark smokestack belching fumes. From a nation that began by heroically trumpeting its belief in universal values common to all mankind comes a devastatingly different, divisive and nationalistic jingle: we do what we want, for ourselves, regard less of the consequences for you. And if you don't like it, well, tough.

Is this message sent on purpose? In other words, does the Bush administration actually understand what it is doing? For look at the record so far. It has dangerously upset the strategic balance by proposing a new national missile defence system while scrapping another treaty, the key ABM accord with Russia. It has attacked Iraq while signalling elsewhere, notably in the Balkans, that it will reduce its commitment to shared security, especially through the UN. It has gone out of its way to antagonise Russia and done much to convince China that it must ready itself for war. Its economic policy has meanwhile merely stoked fears of a US-exported recession.

Bush's America has all but abandoned, for now at least, its leading role in the Middle East and gone a long way towards scuppering detente on the Korean peninsula. On a range of fronts, not least over Nato and trade, Washington is also shaping up for conflict with the EU. And now, to cap it all, ignoring the Stockholm summit's direct plea, and at the very moment the German chancellor is crossing the White House doorstep, it tells Europe that Peoria's pocketbook comes first, so take your fossil fuel fuss and stuff it.

If Mr Bush does not intend the alarm all this is causing internationally, then he is even more inept than commonly believed. Christine Whitman, his environment agency chief, told him this month that global warming "is a credibility issue for the US in the international community". She is right and he had better believe it. In the end, America, big though it be, cannot go it alone. It needs friends. But that even the oldest friendships have limits is a lesson Mr Bush has yet to learn. Humility is another. Wisdom may be too much to hope for.
© 2001 The Guardian

Dead Letter Office

Heil Bush,

Dear Gruppenfuhrer Nelson,

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 years winner Volksjudge Wilhelm Rehnquist. With your vote to allow Herr Ashcroft to take command of the Gestapo we will soon certainly put those Darkies and Jews back in their place und make Jesus das King. Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross 2nd class presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala party in das Fuhrer Bunker, formerly the White House on 7-4-2001. We salute you Herr Nelson! Sieg Heil!

Signed,
Deputy Fuhrer Cheney

Heil Bush

Scary Talk From Shrub And The Veeper
By Molly Ivins

AUSTIN -- Back-to-back speeches by the Veeper and the only president we've got beggar the imagination. Let's have a new rule: If you pronounce the word "nukular," you shouldn't go around nullifying nuclear treaties. Or building nuclear power plants.

When in the course of human events a treaty becomes outdated, the smart country does not announce it is breaking the treaty. This is unpleasantly reminiscent of numerous chapters involving Native Americans. Instead, the smart country calls upon its dear ally (provided they're still speaking) to renegotiate the treaty. This has a less threatening effect on the ally.

I don't know if a National Missile Defense system will work, and neither do you. Most experts not employed by the defense industry are dubious about it at best, but you never know how far we could get if we spend enough time and money on it. If we spend the first $60 billion, we'll probably be a lot further along than we are now, thus justifying the next $60 billion.

The problem is, it's massively stupid in terms of national security. What's a bigger threat to the United States: North Korea or global warming? Our children will live to see the answer to that. It's their future we're playing with.

Hearing Dick Cheney make a speech that was outdated by the standards of the oil industry in the 1960s was eerie. Reactionary Texas oilmen are thick on the ground here, but Cheney is a throwback. Not since the late H.L. Hunt was crawling around (which he did -- crawl) have we heard such nonsense.

Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group -- two Texas oilmen, a CEO from the electricity-gobbling aluminum industry and a tool of the energy companies, all members of the Cabinet, meeting in secret -- is pushing coal -- hard. Unfortunately, it is the dirtiest source of electricity generation: The administration not only has reneged on its promise to curb coal pollution, but now it proposes to ease the pollution controls already in place.

Naturally, the group is also pushing oil and gas -- major contributors to global warming -- and, incredibly enough, de-emphasizing conservation. What kind of energy policy would abandon conservation, which is effective and costs nothing? OPEC is the only thing hurt by it. Under the Bush budget plan, renewable energy programs lose 36 percent of their piddly total funding of $373 million, according to New Technology Week.

Wind-generated electricity is already cheaper than nuclear-generated electricity. It's highly probably solar-powered photo-voltaic systems will also be cheaper before long: The city of San Francisco votes this fall on whether to back a $250 million bond issue for solar power. If we put $60 billion into researching and improving renewables, we'd not only save money, we could save the world. Quite literally.

One easy and simple way to bring down the price of gasoline is by letting fuel efficiency standards rise to where they already would be if the auto companies had not interfered via generous contributions to Congress. Some remarkable reporting by Jeff Plungis of the Detroit News reveals the auto companies have now wired the study being conducted by the National Academy of Sciences on fuel efficiency.

Nine of the 13 panel members have ties either to the auto or oil industries; are free-market economists who do not believe in government regulation; or have criticized fuel efficiency standards in a very public way. My favorite guy on the panel is the "safety expert" who claims fuel efficiency standards have killed tens of thousands of people by forcing them into smaller cars.

Meanwhile, back in the world, fuel efficiency is at a 20-year low, mainly due to the popularity of SUVs. Congress first passed fuel efficiency standards in 1975, when the average car got less than 14 miles per gallon. By 1985, under the required standards, that doubled to 27.5 mpg. It has since slipped to 24 mpg. Plungis reports that automakers have shifted virtually all their technological gains into bigger and more powerful engines, rather than improving fuel efficiency.

SUVs consume an additional 280,000 barrels of oil in this country every day. That is 15 percent of what OPEC cut in production in March 1999, according to news reports -- the event that nearly doubled the price of gas. Half the new cars sold are now SUVs. It is neither difficult nor onerous to improve their mileage: It would cost about $700 additional per vehicle, but with a fuel saving of about $2,500 over the life of the behemoth.

Speaking of campaign contributions, Time magazine reports Cheney's aides consulted with the West Virginia coal baron Buck Harless, a Bush pioneer (at least $100,000); Stephen Addington of AEI Resources, whose executives gave more than $600,000 to Republicans last election; and of course, our old favorites Peabody Energy -- the biggest coal miner in the country -- whose chairman gave over $250,000. Could this pay-off possibly be more obvious?
© 2001 Molly Ivins

Let's Get The U.S.A. Kicked Out Of FTAA For Violating The Democracy Clause!
By Rebecca Kaplan

Background:
With much fanfare, the group of "leaders" assembled in Quebec announced that they too do care about human needs, and therefore, have added to the FTAA a clause that says that only "democracies" can participate in the Free Trade Area.

Of course, we know this clause was put in simply as a distraction, because the whole purpose of the FTAA, along with NAFTA and the WTO is to side-step democracy. Multi-national corporations that profit by exploiting workers, busting unions, putting smaller local stores out of business, ruining the environment, and endangering public safety don't like local "democratic" laws that make it more difficult to do these things. Therefore, they use these global trade agreements to help overturn local democratically-enacted laws. (For more information about why the FTAA is harmful, visit http://www.stopftaa.org)

The Proposal:
Nonetheless, why not use their so-called claim for Democracy to help challenge the FTAA? The United States clearly is NOT a democracy, by any of a wide number of measures. Therefore, we should mount a united, transnational campaign to get the United States expelled from FTAA due to its violation of the democracy clause. This effort should involve all of those who are being hurt by "free trade," as well as all of those who are unhappy with the fact that the US is not a democracy, and would like to use this issue to draw attention to that fact. If the US were out of the FTAA, then the agreement would collapse (or change into something much less threatening).

WHY THE US IS NOT A DEMOCRACY:
- Complex ballot access rules that prevent third parties from competing equally, therefore preventing democracy by allowing only corporate-backed candidates to serve in government (for example, in many states, a Republican or Democrat candidate can automatically have their name put on the ballot, but a candidate for any other party must collect thousands of signatures -- violating the basic premise of democracy being an open & fair competition).

- Bizarre rules from our past that give the Presidency to the candidate who lost the popular vote, rules that are still used today despite modern communication technology that makes them unnecessary. (This system, the "electoral college" is also connected to the problem of racial injustice, since the system gives preferential weight to the votes in sparsely-populated, predominantly white states).

- Pervasive, blatant discrimination against people of color, including the recently documented exclusion of tens of thousands of African American voters in Florida. These voting rights violations included everything from demanding multiple forms of ID from African American (but not white) voters, to falsely accusing thousands of African Americans of being felons, and therefore not allowed to vote, to the fact that rickety old malfunctioning voting machines are disproportionately located in low-income areas and communities of color, while affluent and white communities disproportionately receive fancy new voting equipment that doesn't have any "chad" problems.

- Many more problems with the US electoral system, such as the heavy corporate funding of elections that prevents a level playing field and subverts the spirit of democracy. (I imagine most people reading this will think of a few more reasons why the US is not a "real" democracy).

So, how about it? Are you (or an organization you are involved with) interested in working to demand that the US be expelled from the FTAA for not being a "democracy?". Think about it..
© 2001 Rebecca Kaplan … rebeccak@igc.org

The Cartoon Corner

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

Shrub, Pretender

Sung to the tune of "Love Me Tender"
with apologies to Elvis Presley

Shrub, Pretender
Stopped defeat
Vote counts were ignored
Without Jeb, could not compete
Would have lost to Gore

Shrub, Pretender
Shrub, it's true
Campaign team was thrilled
Strangling our democracy
Supreme Court has shilled

Shrub, Pretender
Won't last long
Faking for the part
White House chair does not belong
To him, from the start

Shrub, Pretender
Shrub, it's true
Campaign team was thrilled
Strangling our democracy
Supreme Court has shilled

Shrub, Pretender
Shrub, it's clear
Telling you you're slime
You beat Gore, but in four years
You'll be out of time

Shrub, Pretender
Shrub, it's true
Campaign team was thrilled
Strangling our democracy
Supreme Court has shilled

VOTER RIGHTS MARCH (Saturday, May 19, 2001)

On Saturday, May 19, 2001, Voter March will sponsor the Voter Rights March at the Mall in Washington, DC from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm to voice our outrage over the fraud and disenfranchisement of voters in the latest Presidential election, to call for critically-needed voting and electoral reforms, and to protest the illegitimate President's right wing agenda to turn back gains in the environment, a woman's right to choose, and the separation of church and state.

BLUE JOINS ORANGE AND BLACK RIBBONS FOR NATIONAL STRIKE

BLUE RIBBON VISIBILITY is calling for a National Strike to coincide with The Voter Rights March.

The National Strike will begin on Thursday, May 17, and continue through Monday, May 21. The weekend will land in the middle of the strike, making it essentially a three "working day" strike.

This national strike will be called "Strike One", because it's just the start. If the first strike doesn't work, we do it again. Perhaps it will go to three strikes and Bush is out. The strike is to let our government know, and all the mega corporations who bought Bush the White House know that Al Gore got more votes in Florida and the USA. Since they had so much trouble counting our votes, and since so many Americans were wrongly prevented from voting, this strike will be another election where we cast our vote by not going to work; calling in sick. No matter how large and powerful a corporation is, it cannot exist without the people who work for it. Likewise, our government could not exist without the taxes that come out of our paychecks.

We The People are the fourth branch of government, which, by our consent, the other three branches may govern. It is our duty to help the other branches of government protect democracy. They cannot strongly act without our power visibly behind them.

TO OUR REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS

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

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

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

Standardized, easily understandable federal election ballots

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

Genuine campaign finance reform that bans campaign contributions from special interests

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

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

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

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

A Note of Protest:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make your voice heard,
Steven Capozzola
San Francisco, California