Op-Ed
The Striking CWA Workers and their Student Allies
The clash between the increasingly corporatized and Republican-dominated OSU administration and the underpaid Communication Workers of America OSU employees and their student allies demonstrated that there’s still some life in central Ohio’s labor movement. Local 4501 President Gary Josephson provided able leadership by building bridges not only to the students but to the greater community. Fittingly, the strike started on May Day, and we hope it is the first shot in the battle for living wages here in Columbus. The organization built from the coalition of CWA strikers and their campus supporters, the Columbus Network, offers the possibility of a real progressive alliance emerging in our city linking the increasingly active campus-based activists to city politics. Once again, we applaud the CWA workers for proving that there still is movement in the frequently dormant labor organizations of Franklin County.
THE FREE PRESS SALUTES
Yoshie Furuhashi
Over the years, Republican policymakers have been fond of saying that they rely on divine guidance. Cementing his alliance with fundamentalist Christian groups, President Reagan loved to perform at high-profile prayer breakfasts and the like. All too often, political leaders -- especially conservative ones -- have tried to blur the separation between church and state.
Now, the Gore-Lieberman campaign has launched itself with a very public display of devout posturing. For them, the Old Testament has become fine grist for the centrist mill. The New Democrats are morphing into New Theocrats.
At the formal announcement of his selection for the V.P. slot, Lieberman declared that Gore "has never, never wavered in his responsibilities as a father, as a husband and, yes, as a servant of God Almighty." The vice president stood a few feet away, beaming.
I'm sure that all this will improve our characters, but in the meantime, we need to solve a few problems -- like the energy mess.
The Republican answer to energy problems is always: "Drill more! Open up the Arctic wilderness! Let us drill on the beaches! Give the oil companies more tax breaks! Free Saddam Hussein!" and other useful slogans.
The D's mutter about ratcheting up the mileage requirements on cars (a move stalled in Congress by auto lobbyists for the past five years) and gigging the auto companies to produce less pollution.
The environmentalists urge us to invest in renewable energy sources and ditch our SUVs.
None of this helps either electricity bills or the price of gas right now, though you'll never hear the pols admit it.
Which leads us to this story about Karl Rove, Bush's campaign manager and the man they call "Bush's brain."
Rove, as all the world knows, has been a Republican political operative in Texas for 23 years. During that time, Texas Democrats noticed a pattern that they eventually became somewhat paranoid about: In election years, there always seemed to be an FBI investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press.
After the election was over, the allegations often vanished, although in the case of Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, three of his aides were later convicted. The investigations were conducted by FBI agent Greg Rampton, who was stationed in Austin in those years.
Just a few hints to Gov. George W. Bush's speechwriter: When you go into the riff about "I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect," try putting it more than two paragraphs away from your last attempt to stick a shiv in the Democrats.
If it had come just a few grafs later, we might already have forgotten the seven paragraphs of jabs at Al Gore, including the one that worked, "He now leads the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but the only thing he has to offer is fear itself."
See? Just a little more separation, and you can have your cake and eat it, too. You can trash the D's and still call for "civility and respect" without being accused of hypocrisy.
Item Two: For eight years, the R's have been attacking Bill Clinton with a focus that often bordered on the maniacal. It is simply an obsession. And it has never worked.
I loved the blind mountain-climber giving the Pledge of Allegiance. (Hint to Dems: In South Texas, we have twin dwarfs with 12 fingers apiece who play the accordion.) Of course, everybody noticed that there were more black faces on the stage than in the audience, but that's nothing.
At the 1972 Republican convention, there was an Ethnic Night party at which I saw John Volpe, the Italian-American secretary of transportation, doing the frug while a Chinese girl sang "Never on Sunday" in Yiddish. Is this a great country or what? Except the Republicans have proved yet again the tragic truth that White People Can't Clap On Beat. Or is it just Republicans?
By the way, one quarter of the Republican delegates are millionaires, and fewer than 10 percent of them make less than $50,000 a year.
More than a few journalists were visiting Philadelphia -- in fact, about 15,000 of them arrived to cover the Republican National Convention. But midway through the week, an aide at the Ministry to the Homeless told me, not a single reporter had dropped by to inquire about the bedraggled spectacle.
"We feed homeless guys," the staff member said. "Yesterday, we fed 223." At least three-quarters of them, he estimated, were living on the streets in the City of Brotherly Love.
Is this kind of situation unusual for an American city? He shook his head. "There's homelessness wherever you go."
That night, I overheard a few delegates discussing news coverage of the convention. About the only negative theme emerging, they agreed, was that the event had been carefully staged. "If the criticism is that it's scripted," said one, "well, God bless it."
Gov. George W. Bush was complaining last week about attacks by Democrats -- he frequently does that -- and then he added, in his sunny, positive way:
"Secretary Cheney brought people together and helped win a war, which stands in contrast to Vice President Al Gore, who tends to divide people, to create war."
I like this pattern. Bush used it quite successfully against John McCain in the primaries, time and again. Bush would say something tacky about McCain, who would then say something tacky about Bush; then Bush would loudly protest that he was being attacked. "This is nothing but attack politics, and aren't we all tired of attack politics?"
He had a whole ad campaign complaining that McCain had compared him to Bill Clinton. Then he'd say something else tacky about McCain.
Cheney's voting record is slightly to the right of wiggy. Against a resolution to free Nelson Mandela after he had spent 23 years in prison? Against abortion to save the life of the mother? Against a ban on cop-killer bullets? Against Head Start and the Department of Education?
This was not in some prehistoric era when dinosaurs ruled Congress -- these votes were considered extreme at the time. Yet one hears commentators who dismiss Cheney's record as "irrelevant."
Speaking of the record, there's one that needs to be set straight. On a busy news day, an important education report by Rand, the California think tank, got relatively little coverage. That's a shame, because the study confirms hopeful news about how to improve the public schools. Rand says that smaller class sizes, enrolling more children in preschool, giving teachers more classroom materials and targeting additional money for poor children pay off.
Somebody should be ashamed. And now on to the topic du jour. It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.
The R's have been on a tax-cutting spree, intoxicated by the prospect of huge surpluses. In tax stories, you always need to read the second paragraph, or the ninth, or wherever they've hidden the Catch-22. The trouble with TV news is that they never have time to get to the second paragraph.
Here's the second paragraph: In a truly startling class warfare assault, the R's have rigged every one of their recent tax adjustments to favor the rich. You might think that's no skin off your nose, but the less that rich people pay, the more of the tax burden has to be borne by you. Duh.