Global
It's time for the Kerry, Nader and Green campaigns to get locked in a room until they disarm the circular firing squad and focus on the real enemy, George W. Bush.
Especially in swing states like ours, the endless wrangling and rancor must stop. Every boring, suicidal attack harms our ability to beat Bush.
In light of his votes for war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and way too much else, it’s obvious President Kerry will be no messiah. But we doubt our democracy or our planet would survive four more years of Cheney-Rove-Bush.
So we may ask friends in safe states like Massachusetts and Hawaii to balance our Kerry votes here in Ohio with votes there for Ralph or for the Green Party candidate, David Cobb.
If Al Gore had met and worked with Nader in 2000 instead of attacking him, we might have been spared the horrors of these past four years. It’s inaccurate, unwise and self-destructive to continually blame Ralph for the Democrats’ “loss” when in fact Gore won the election. We are glad Kerry has had the good sense to meet with Ralph, and to refrain from attacking the Greens.
Especially in swing states like ours, the endless wrangling and rancor must stop. Every boring, suicidal attack harms our ability to beat Bush.
In light of his votes for war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and way too much else, it’s obvious President Kerry will be no messiah. But we doubt our democracy or our planet would survive four more years of Cheney-Rove-Bush.
So we may ask friends in safe states like Massachusetts and Hawaii to balance our Kerry votes here in Ohio with votes there for Ralph or for the Green Party candidate, David Cobb.
If Al Gore had met and worked with Nader in 2000 instead of attacking him, we might have been spared the horrors of these past four years. It’s inaccurate, unwise and self-destructive to continually blame Ralph for the Democrats’ “loss” when in fact Gore won the election. We are glad Kerry has had the good sense to meet with Ralph, and to refrain from attacking the Greens.
The most abhorrent thing found during my research has been the
discrepancy between the effects of prosecution of those who have stolen
from the federal and state governments versus those who have stolen from
individuals or other corporations. The most disconcerting fact is that
many of the corporations that have been convicted of anti-trust
violations, fraud, environmental crimes, as well as campaign financing
fraud are still in business. Many of the corporations are thriving,
because they were able to claim their fines and criminal penalties as
"net loss" and avoid tax liability. Others, the ones I call most devious,
used a calculated bankruptcy claim to avoid payment of the penalties
imposed. And, other devious corporate executives simply changed the name
of their corporation and avoided the public forum as well as the civil
and criminal obligations directed by the courts.
The recent occupation of Columbus City Hall grounds by Operation Save America was an unprecedented event, both for the city and OSA. Never in the history of this group, as far as we can determine, have they taken over such a public space for six days, twenty-four hours a day. In doing so they demonstrated exactly what we had written about them months before: that more than simply an anti-abortion and anti-gay group, they are, in the words of director Flip Benham, out to "kick the table over in the name of Jesus Christ and take over."
Fortunately for the rest of us, it isn't quite that simple. OSA, or as it was originally named, Operation Rescue, has long used abortion as a tactical vehicle, to give legitimacy to its underlying, dominionist purpose. By focusing on a matter of intimate, personal decision making, where personal preferences vary greatly across society, and then using their position as a method of gaining moral and political legitimacy, they, and similar organizations, have long used abortion as something of a proxy so as to receive a hearing in American secular society.
Fortunately for the rest of us, it isn't quite that simple. OSA, or as it was originally named, Operation Rescue, has long used abortion as a tactical vehicle, to give legitimacy to its underlying, dominionist purpose. By focusing on a matter of intimate, personal decision making, where personal preferences vary greatly across society, and then using their position as a method of gaining moral and political legitimacy, they, and similar organizations, have long used abortion as something of a proxy so as to receive a hearing in American secular society.
This article was co-written with Jeff Cohen
The U.S.-centric nature of American politics often affects the
U.S. left. It's hard to get out of USA mindsets long enough to grasp
the global implications of decisions made here at home. Yet the
effects of U.S. government policies are so enormous across the
planet that some people have suggested -- with more than a little
justification -- that every person on Earth should get to vote in
U.S. presidential elections.
On the international left, no one has more credibility as an
unwavering opponent of U.S. foreign policy than Tariq Ali. Raised in
Pakistan, he was a leader of Britain's Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
in the 1960s, and is now a prominent London-based writer and an
editor at New Left Review. His recent books include "Bush in
Babylon" and "The Clash of Fundamentalisms." As progressives in the
United States try to make sense out of the current presidential
campaign, Ali's perspective on the global significance of Bush's
electoral fate deserves serious consideration.
KANANASKIS, Alberta -- Make that a big Canadian, "Oh dear." These nice Canadians, whom George W. Bush once managed to triumphantly identify as "our most important neighbors to the north" are famous for their reticence. Canada, Land of the Understatement. I once proposed their national motto should be: "Now, Let's Not Get Excited." Not that I would ever generalize. I attribute their commendable phlegm to being too cold to waste much energy and regular ingestion of oatmeal.
Nice, polite, calm, reserved, chock full of common sense and living next to us -- what a fate. For them, it's like having the Simpsons for next-door neighbors. A few years ago, during the height of our national meltdown over Monica Lewinsky, a host on the Canadian Broadcasting Co.'s evening news program began an interview by gingerly asking me, "So, having another of your little psychodramas down there, eh?"
Nice, polite, calm, reserved, chock full of common sense and living next to us -- what a fate. For them, it's like having the Simpsons for next-door neighbors. A few years ago, during the height of our national meltdown over Monica Lewinsky, a host on the Canadian Broadcasting Co.'s evening news program began an interview by gingerly asking me, "So, having another of your little psychodramas down there, eh?"
It's time to draw a line in the sand of Wyoming's Red Desert. The White House is proposing to let some of their biggest campaign contributors in the oil, gas and coal industries drill more than 1500 wells across a wilderness that was once a famous passageway for the Pony Express - the Jack Morrow Hills in the Red Desert in Wyoming. The Hills are also home to North America's largest antelope and desert elk herds and the site of rare prehistoric rock art painted over 2,000 years ago.
I wish I could tell you that this proposal is just about drilling in one place, but it's not. It's a trial balloon to test our strength. If the polluters can get access to an area as historically and ecologically sensitive as the Jack Morrow Hills, they'll know that with enough political pressure and campaign donations, they'll be able to drill, mine, and log just about anywhere – even in national monuments.
I wish I could tell you that this proposal is just about drilling in one place, but it's not. It's a trial balloon to test our strength. If the polluters can get access to an area as historically and ecologically sensitive as the Jack Morrow Hills, they'll know that with enough political pressure and campaign donations, they'll be able to drill, mine, and log just about anywhere – even in national monuments.
We saw butterflies turning into bombers. And we weren't dreaming. At
the time when the Woodstock festival became an instant media legend in
mid-August 1969, melodic yearning for peace was up against the cold steel
of American war machinery.
The music and other creative energies that drew 400,000 people to an upstate New York farm that weekend rejected the Vietnam War and the assumptions fueling it. Thirty-five years later, the Jimi Hendrix rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner could still serve as an apt soundtrack for U.S. foreign policy, with bombs bursting in air over urban neighborhoods across much of Iraq.
A Woodstock reunion, scheduled for Aug. 20-22 in the town of Bethel, N.Y., comes while the gap between the nation's commander in chief and huge numbers of its citizens is enormous.
The music and other creative energies that drew 400,000 people to an upstate New York farm that weekend rejected the Vietnam War and the assumptions fueling it. Thirty-five years later, the Jimi Hendrix rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner could still serve as an apt soundtrack for U.S. foreign policy, with bombs bursting in air over urban neighborhoods across much of Iraq.
A Woodstock reunion, scheduled for Aug. 20-22 in the town of Bethel, N.Y., comes while the gap between the nation's commander in chief and huge numbers of its citizens is enormous.
In 1900, the great African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, predicted that the “problem of the twentieth century” would be the “problem of the color line,” the unequal relationship between the lighter vs. darker races of humankind. Although Du Bois was primarily focused on the racial contradiction of the United States, he was fully aware that the processes of what scholars today describe as “racialization” – the construction of racially unequal social hierarchies characterized by dominant and subordinate social relations between groups – was an international and global problem. Du Bois’s color line included not just the racially segregated, Jim Crow South and the racial oppression of South Africa; but also included British, French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonial domination in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean among indigenous populations.
It’s official. I’m a conspiracy theorist.
I’m probably one of thousands -- maybe tens of thousands -- who believe President George W. Bush will do anything to retain control of the White House. It’s not safe to have a healthy dose of skepticism like this these days. But this has to be said. I don’t believe the country is going to be attacked by al-Qaeda anytime soon. I don’t care how specific the so-called threat is. I don’t care how many targets have been identified. I don’t care how solid this new information is. I don’t buy any of it. What I do believe is whenever Bush’s approval ratings start slipping the president’s administration issues a terrorist warning saying an attack is imminent. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Consider the evidence.
This past Memorial Day weekend right through mid-June Bush’s approval ratings yo-yoed due to bad news coming out of the war in Iraq. By mid-June, 51% of Americans disapproved of the way Bush was handling the war in Iraq, up about four points from May, according to polling results from Zogby, Gallup and Pew.
I’m probably one of thousands -- maybe tens of thousands -- who believe President George W. Bush will do anything to retain control of the White House. It’s not safe to have a healthy dose of skepticism like this these days. But this has to be said. I don’t believe the country is going to be attacked by al-Qaeda anytime soon. I don’t care how specific the so-called threat is. I don’t care how many targets have been identified. I don’t care how solid this new information is. I don’t buy any of it. What I do believe is whenever Bush’s approval ratings start slipping the president’s administration issues a terrorist warning saying an attack is imminent. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Consider the evidence.
This past Memorial Day weekend right through mid-June Bush’s approval ratings yo-yoed due to bad news coming out of the war in Iraq. By mid-June, 51% of Americans disapproved of the way Bush was handling the war in Iraq, up about four points from May, according to polling results from Zogby, Gallup and Pew.