The Green Party of the United States recognizes that our greatest contribution to peace in the Middle East will come through our impact on U.S. policy in the region. Our commitments to ecological wisdom, social justice, grass-roots democracy, and non-violence compel us to oppose U.S. government support for "friendly" regimes, both in Israel and in the Arab world, whenever those regimes violate human rights, international law, and existing treaties. Those same values compel us to support popular movements for peace and demilitarization, especially those which reach across the lines of conflict to engage both Palestinians and Israelis of good will.

1. We reaffirm the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis, whichprecludes the self-determination of one at the expense of the other. We recognize the historical and contemporary cultural diversity of Israeli-Palestinian society, including the religious heritage of Jews, Christians, Muslims and others. This is a significant part of the rich cultural legacy of all these peoples and must be respected. To ensure this, we supportequality before

Michigan State University received national notoriety as a result of a 1966 Ramparts magazine cover article that described it as a "University on the Make." The Ramparts cover depicted the wife of South Vietnam's dictator/President Diem, as an MSU cheerleader, with green garb and white pompoms.

When MSU invited Iraqi war strategist Condoleeza Rice to deliver its commencement address on May 7, the cheerleader image was resurrected. The cover of Lansing's popular alternative weekly City Pulse featured Condi Rice as a giddy MSU cheerleader on May 5th.

Throughout the past half century, MSU has continued the work of empire, in a manner as profound and arrogant as ever. Between 1955-62 MSU provided academic cover to CIA agents and provided police training and weapons to Diem's regime. Until a few months ago, the MSU president, who once was a minion to those pressing the Iran-Contra affair in the Reagan White House, was directly helping to run an imperial war in Iraq.

In May 2003, after President Bush came calling, the MSU Board of Trustees released McPherson to serve 130 days, to "oversee the economic

It's funny. I'd seen all this stuff before--I mean it isn't as if there was anything really new here for anyone who's been paying attention for the past few years. And yet, I cried. Maybe it's the deprogramming of having at least some of what we've seen replayed with any decent focus for One Brief Shining Moment, beyond the self-imposed straitjacket of a docile and dangerously inept US press. Maybe it's just the oxygen given to all those impulses so many of us have kept in check, all those shoots of anger, sadness and embarrassment blossoming into full blown consciousness.

My own thought process in response to Michael Moore's new film reminded me of one of those dessicated sponges you put in water-a few hours later and voila: your tiny piece of foam has bloated into a full blown fish, or frog, or palm tree ten times its original size. Or maybe like opening an archive, unzipping a million saved files at once. My brain fairly exploded with repressed anger going back to the Florida recount disaster: things I had known in much more detail before Moore scratched the surface again and brought it all flooding back..

In early July, the U.S. Senate will consider legislation that would make it much more difficult to hold corporations accountable when they deceive consumers, trample our civil or workplace rights, or pollute the environment. This bill - the falsely-named "Class Action Fairness Act" (S. 2062) - is backed by tobacco companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big banks.

Senator Bingaman (NM) plans to offer a pro-consumer amendment that will improve the bill. Unless the Senate adopts the Bingaman amendment, this bill will unfairly make it harder for consumers to have their day in court.

Please take a moment to ask your senators to support the pro-consumer Bingaman amendment and make the class action bill fairer. Then ask your family and friends to help by forwarding this e-mail to them.

Take Action: pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=6&id4=OHFreep

Background

Bob,

thanks for the great column about the Gipper.  For some reason I found myself cracking up when I read your column- great title!   Very refreshing to read something about WR Reagan with a little depth to it.  Way back when in high school I remember being scared to death that this guy might accidentally start a full-scale nuclear war (he was too easily confused by movie imagery).  But the really sad thing is that he was actually a much less threatening and dangerous person than our current president.  Ronald Reagan may have been mean-spirited at times, but he was generally not Machiavellian .  Unfortunately, Bush/Cheney/Rove seem to have memorized "The Prince" as their guide to success in politics.