Global

The corporate Democrats who greased Bill Clinton’s path to the White House are now a bit worried. Their influence on the party’s presidential nomination process has slipped. But the Democratic Leadership Council can count on plenty of assistance from mainstream news media.

     For several years leading up to 1992, the DLC curried favor with high-profile political journalists as they repeated the mantra that the Democratic Party needed to be centrist. Co-founded by Clinton in the mid-1980s, the DLC emphasized catering to “middle class” Americans — while the organization filled its coffers with funding from such non-middle-class bastions as the top echelons of corporate outfits like Arco, Prudential-Bache, Dow Chemical, Georgia Pacific and Martin Marietta.

I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. If this thing turns into Vietnam simply because that man is too vain and arrogant to admit that Gen. Eric Shinseki was right when he said we would need “several hundred thousand soldiers” over there, I hope Rumsfeld rots in a hell worse than the one he’s making.

Now is not the time to stand back timidly hoping it will work out well in the end. The population of Baghdad is broiling through the 115-degree summer without electricity or water for much of the time. Given the background poverty and generally hideous conditions, the place is a major riot waiting to happen.

While the mainstream media debates whether the President was misinforming, exaggerating or misleading the U.S. public, they miss the bigger story – their obvious complicity with the Bush administration’s Nazi-style propaganda prior to the war.

George W. Bush and his administration deliberately undertook a massive campaign to wage illegal and aggressive war against the people of Iraq. The narrow focus on one fraudulent claim in the State of the Union address regarding Iraq buying uranium from Africa ignores the much broader campaign of falsification used to whip the people into a war frenzy.

On June 26, 2003, Governor Bob Taft granted clemency for the first time in his tenure. Jerome Campbell, an innocent victim of the faulty justice system in Ohio, was not executed as scheduled in late June. Taft’s statement read as follows:

“First, Mr. Campbell presented significant new DNA evidence that was not available to the jury at the time of trial. Although this new evidence does not exonerate Mr. Campbell, it does contradict an impression that was left in the minds of some jurors during the trial. Second, attorneys for Mr. Campbell have presented evidence bearing on the credibility of two important prosecution witnesses. It is now apparent that two informants who were incarcerated at the time of their testimony were, in fact, interested in seeking more lenient treatment from prosecutors as a result of their testimony. This information was not presented at trial even though it would have enabled the jurors to more fully assess the veracity of the witnesses’ testimony.”

Columbus Free Press Editor Bob Fitrakis received 8042 votes, more than 6% of the votes cast in a 10-person field for Columbus City Council in the May 6 primary. Fitrakis came within less than 2% of the votes needed to knock off the endorsed Republican candidate John Jones. In modern Columbus history, the Free Press could not find any third-party candidate who has come as close to unseating an endorsed major party candidate. Fitrakis was endorsed by the Central Ohio Green Party and came in 9th, although only the top 8 candidates advanced to the fall election.

The mainstream media did not present the results from the perspective of a third party candidate nearly toppling an endorsed candidate of the Franklin County Republican Party, the Columbus Dispatch did provide straightforward coverage of Fitrakis’ policies as a Green Party candidate. The Alive provided the best in-depth coverage of the campaign. Both This Week and the Messenger publications provided fair and accurate coverage of the Green Party campaign.

Two thousand progressive leaders from around the country gathered in DC June 4-6 to take stock of their prospects to “Take Back America.” Co-Convener Robert Borasage also described it as an “idea primary” in which many of the Democratic primary candidates would speak. Absent were the two candidates most directly responsible for passage of the Congressional resolution for war against Iraq, Senators Joseph Lieberman and Congressman Dick Gephardt. (Gephardt sent a videotaped address.) Also absent was Ralph Nader, who had declined to throw his support as a Green Party presidential candidate in 2000 to Al Gore. Neither fostering war in violation of the UN Charter nor giving up on the Democratic Party as the opposition to the Republican Party, the Conference theme was unity in support of progressive politics.

Wes Boyd, one of the founders of Moveon.org, discussed the Internet as a “sticky medium.” Those who sign on to an Internet site tend to stay, he said, in contrast to those who see a TV ad. The Internet enables two-way communication and, therefore, a greater sense of involvement and opportunity for grassroots politics.

In case anyone in central Ohio didn’t know, the movement for marijuana law reform is alive and well. Two major cannabis liberation events happen this spring in Columbus, the Global March for Cannabis liberation and the 16th annual Hempfest. Both events were organized by The Ohio State University chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. The May 4th march saw two hundred people turn out on a rainy afternoon to rally at 15th Ave and High and then proceed down High to Goodale Park for a bonafide smokeout. A month later, on June 7th, over ten thousand festivalgoers flooded the South Oval for a day of political speakers and regional musical acts.

The experience of protesting Bush’s imperialist agenda on a military base was an eye-opener for some of us from Columbus -- freedom of speech may still be alive, but its voice is faint. The whole event at the Dayton Air Museum was orchestrated to give them the ability to keep us fragmented with the least visibility possible. Most certainly this is the reason that the event was moved at the last minute from Philadelphia, where United for Peace was planning a mobilization.

Progress with Economic and Environmental Responsibility, Inc. (PEER) announced that it will lead an Initiative Petition Drive to amend the Columbus City Charter. The Initiative will allow voters to elect an as yet undetermined number of district or ward representatives in addition to the current seven at-large council members. The goal of the Initiative Petition Drive is to ensure comprehensive representation for all of the neighborhoods within the City.

PEER supports a public policy agenda featuring truly representative government and efficient planning for Columbus and Central Ohio. PEER thus supports growth policies which allow for commercial and residential development but which also promote the reuse and redevelopment of the central city while preserving key environmental assets in the area.