Carter Gets It – But Will His Electoral Commission?

The best news coming out of the first hearing of the Carter-Baker Commission is that the co-chairs recognize that Americans are losing faith in their democracy, and that even in the 2004 presidential election – among the most passionate elections in recent history – 40% did not vote and, increasing numbers of voters lack confidence that their votes were counted as cast.   The bad news is that a corporate conflict of interest of one member of the Commission raises doubts that they will recommend the common sense necessity – voter verified paper ballots.

National Day of Prayer is May 5, 2005; BFC Empowers you to Take Action

The National Day of Prayer is set for May 5, 2005. This particular event is controlled by right-wing extremist James Dobson and his wife Shirley. Mr. Dobson is the leader of Focus on the Family, a right-wing organization that among other things, is calling for Supreme Cout Justices to be impeached, is anti-homosexual and anti-choice, and so on. Despite their claims regarding the Bible anf God, neither James or Shirley are ordained ministers, nor do they have any theological education or training.

Here in our state, the "Ohio Restoration Project" is gearing up to begin their assault on our freedom and diversity. We need you to respond and what better way to do that than on the National Day of Prayer!  We need you to do the following:

1. Contact your local, state, and federal elected officials and tell them that you support freedom, diversity, and equality for ALL people and you expect them to do the same.

Capitalist Globalization and Resistance in Guatemala

On Jan. 11 Guatemalan President Oscar Berger spoke to a group of reporters in Guatemala City about ongoing protests against a World Bank mining project in the northern part of the country. He said that his government had to establish law and order.

“We have to protect investors,” said Berger.

Hours later the Guatemalan military and police forces armed in riot gear opened fire on protesters, murdering one man and leaving dozens injured. Berger’s comments about establishing law and order in Guatemala to protect investors and the ensuing violence and state repression that followed that day and in the following months are not isolated incidents indicative of that country’s democratic shortcomings. Rather they illustrates the violent forces employed to secure the expansion of capitalist globalization being forced on people through neoliberal reforms and free trade agreements pushed by transnational corporations, Northern governments, and international lending agencies.

All that glitters isn’t gold

John Bolton vote delay

AUSTIN, Texas -- Good news! If there is a distinct possibility a Bush nominee is a vile-tempered, lying, ineffective bully, the U.S. Senate is willing to hold off on the vote for two weeks.

John Bolton was an amazingly bad choice for ambassador to the United Nations from the beginning. He has a long record of expressing contempt for and distrust of the United Nations. You may or may not consider that a reasonable position, but it is highly inadvisable in a diplomat. In addition, he was a notable failure as under secretary of state for arms control and international security.

A suicide in Kerala

SULTAN'S BATTERY, KERALA: To meet India's rural crisis face to face we drove along the lovely wooded roads of Wyanad, a district in northeastern Kerala, a state on India's southwest coast. To our east rose the Western Ghat mountains. The other night we stayed in Sultan's Battery, so called because it had been the last stand of the local sultan, when the British came three centuries ago.

Along this road the ancient forests have long since logged off and the state-planted young teak trees are usually cut, to judge by the piles at the side of the road, with the trunk at about 12 inches in diameter. Familiar follies of state-sponsored forestry have occurred. Some years ago, the clumps of bamboo, often 40 feet across and 50 feet high, were taken off the ridges and slopes of the western Ghats and eucalyptus globulus put in, the same way it was in California in the 1870s.

Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections teach-in

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH 11) will be fighting for democracy again on May 7th when she opens the CASE (Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections) teach-in in Columbus, Ohio. CASE, along with many watchful Americans, is convinced the full story has not been told about the elections in Ohio in November of 2004.  So they are working with other local groups (including Americans for Democracy) to bring concerned people together for this teach-in about Fighting for Election Justice and Integrity. The people who have led the battle for discovery and reform will work closely with concerned individuals to tell their stories. They will explain why they are concerned, what they have done, and how they have done it. They will ask that people in the workshop groups stay networked, keep informed, and continue to work with the workshop leader to broaden the work already begun. The plan is to build a more informed public core and enlarge the group of activists working on election issues.

What They Should Fight For

Harold Meyerson has an interesting article in the Spring 2005 Dissent Magazine called "Beyond The Consensus: Democrats Agree on How to Play Defense, but What Are They Fighting For?" (http://www.dissentmagazine.org/)  

Meyerson encourages Democrats to "go to war against Democratic Wall Street elites," to win back the white working class through progressive economic policies.  I completely agree, but want to quibble with how Meyerson proposes we do this.

Meyerson begins by claiming that Democrats are all agreed that they presented a strong unified front in last year's elections, that "minorities are not complaining that the party's voter mobilization efforts were insufficient," that "Kerry was surely the strongest candidate in the Democratic field last year." 

Already, before he's begun his argument, Meyerson has lost a lot of activists.  He goes on, quickly, before presenting data and arguments about economics, to prescribe positions on abortion, religion, and national security, without justifying them in any way. 

You have to pick your team

Every day presents infinite reasons to believe that change can't happen, infinite reasons to give up. But I always tell myself, "Sonya, you have to pick your team." It seems to me that there are two teams in this world. And you can find evidence to support the arguments of both. The trademark of one team is cynicism. They'll tell you why what you're doing doesn't matter, why nothing is going to change, why no matter how hard you work, you're going to fail. They seem to get satisfaction out of explaining how we'll always have injustice. You can't change human nature, they say. It's foolish to try. From their experience, they might be right.

Then there's another group of people who admit that they don't know how things will turn out, but have decided to work for change. I see Martin Luther King on that team, Alice Walker, Howard Zinn. I see my chaplain from college and my activist friends. They're always telling stories of faith being rewarded, of ways things could be different, of how their own lives have changed. They'll give you reasons why you shouldn't give up, testimonials why we've yet to see our full potential as a species. They

Cooper Stadium

Another example of corporate welfare. $55 million dollars of county money to take a baseball stadium away from loyal fans on the West Side and build a new unneeded one where the Dispatch wants it. This is at the same time when the government is cutting all kinds of programs (such as funding for the homeless and the mentally ill). That's $55 million dollars for MINOR LEAGUE baseball. The county commissioners have tried to explain this nonsense by saying that it will be paid off with bonds. Bonds--DEBT--must be paid off. The people of Franklin County will be left footing this bill.

Quite frankly, the Clippers are fine where they are. What this issue truly boils down to is this: 1. Yuppies and soccer moms think they're too good to drive their SUVs from Dublin to the West Side; 2. The Dispatch wants a stadium in the Arena District (which they are part owner of). What the Dispatch wants, the Dispatch gets.

I know that Bob Fitrakis was the man who defeated the 1990's Arena/Soccer stadium corporate welfare give-away. Hopefully he will tackle this issue as well. If this issue ever made it to the ballot, then the people of Franklin County would vote it down.

I like conservatives

AUSTIN, Texas -- Spring fever is taking a weird form this year. Politicians say nice things for political reasons and then revert with a vengeance -- a sort of political Tourette syndrome, they can't help what they say.

Tom DeLay, of all people, recently issued a fatwa on the need for good manners, a concept so bizarre there is no metaphor for it. It is itself a metaphor: "... as weird as the time Tom DeLay gave us all a lecture on manners."

In his new role as the Emily Post of politics, DeLay informed us, "It is unfortunate in our electoral system, exacerbated by our adversarial media culture, that political discourse has to get so overheated, that it's not just arguments, but motives are questioned." Did someone question his motive in taking an all-expenses-paid vacation from a lobbyist?

This would be the same Tom DeLay who said, "Screw the Senate," when he learned Bob Dole had cut a deal with Clinton to end the government shutdown caused by Newt Gingrich.

"We're in charge. We don't have to negotiate with the Senate." Same as above.

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