Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
Recent
Stories
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
August 20, 2003
Robert Fisk
Now No
One Is Safe in Iraq
Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?
Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark
Ramzi Kysia
Peace
is not an Abstract Idea
Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway
John L. Hess
A Downside Day
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake
Up Call"
Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype
August 19, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen
Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South
Pacific
Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism
Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense
Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna
John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
Hot Stories
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
August
29, 2003
Howard Dean: the Progressive
Anti-War Candidate?
Some
Vermonters Give Their Views
By DONNA BISTER, MARC
ESTRIN
and RON JACOBS
(The Editorial
Collective of the Old North End RAG)
Howard Dean the liberal, anti-war candidate? The
laughter rings most loudly in Vermont.
As Dean's candidacy caught fire over
the summer, a number of articles have appeared on the net examining
his history and current stance on important national and international
issues. They all point to a Clintonesque Republicrat whose stances
are not far from that of the current administration.
Foreign Policy
Although he publicly opposed attacking
Iraq -- a smart political move setting him apart from the other
Democratic candidates -- Dean recently declared in a Washington
Post interview that he is now opposed to a pullout of US troops
from Iraq. According to the interview, he now feels we must stay
as a matter of national security, and not allow another anti-American
regime to develop. Of course, events on the ground seem to indicate
that the occupation itself is what is creating anti-Americanism
in Iraq, but most politicians wont acknowledge that. Deans basic
objection to the war was to the Bush administrations unilateral
approach, without UN approval. But what about Washington-driven
wars that are not unilateral? What if the Security Council were
arm-twisted into support? What about multilateral wars like the
war on Iraq in 1991, or the ones on Yugoslavia and Afghanistan?
Plain and simple--Dean supported them.
Although he would likely be more sparing
in its application, Dean has endorsed the Bush doctrine of preventive
war, saying that he would not rule out using military force to
disarm either North Korea or Iran. Dean has never voiced an objection
to the notion that it is Washington's prerogative to decide which
countries may have nuclear weapons, or its right to forcefully
disarm those who do not do so voluntarily. In addition, Dean
does not support cutting the defense budget, either for routine
military expenditures, now at over one billion dollars/day, nor
the extra supplementary appropriations to support the Iraq occupation,
currently at four billion dollars/month.
Dean's notion about the causes of anti-US
belligerence echoes that of the current administration. He has
gone on record saying as much: "I think our freedom is what
they find so threatening, our freedom and the power that I think
results from that freedom." This analysis can not honestly
address the real issues behind the antagonism the United States
currently incurs, and will consequently require ever greater
military funding to handle the global consequences. Sounding
very much like Bush, Dean has charged that Iran (along with Saudi
Arabia, Syria, and Libya) are "funding Palestinian terrorists
and fueling terrorism throughout the world." Do we need
four more years of this?
When it comes to Israel and Palestine,
Dean thinks the US should become more involved, but beyond that
have no fundamental objections to the Bush administration policies
in the region. He calls for an end to Palestinian violence against
Israeli civilians, but not for a cessation of Israeli violence
against Palestinian, nor an end to the Israeli occupation. He
ignores Israeli defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and
the Geneva Accords, and has been silent concerning withdrawal
from Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied territories
or even concerning a freeze on the new construction. His appointment
of Steven Grossman, a former head of the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC
and ex-chairman of the DNC, to a top campaign fundraising post
reflects his Zionist stance.
Domestic Policy
Dean the Democrat continued to pursue
much of the economic agenda established by his Republican predecessor,
Richard Snelling In short, this meant a tepid pro-business policy
under the guise of fiscal conservatism, often at the expense
of social programs serving disadvantaged populations. "One
of my most persistent activities during the early 1990s was trying
to fend off the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party,"
said Glenn Gershaneck, Dean's press secretary for nearly four
years and Snelling's spokesman for seven months before that.
Conservative Vermont business leaders
praised Dean's record and his constant effort to balance the
budget, even though Vermont is a state in which a balanced budget
is not required. While other Democrats fought against Clinton's
welfare reform, Dean gave it ardent support. His commitment to
a balanced budget would spare the Pentagon from any cuts. So
how would he reduce the deficit? During his Vermont tenure, he
tried to cut benefits for the aged, blind and disabled, spearheaded
a new workfare state law requiring labor from welfare recipients,
and has talked about moving the retirement age upwards -- some
indication on whose backs his budgets would be balanced.
Dean has recently vocalized what seems
to be politically motivated support of the death penalty. He
told the press after the vents of September 11, 2001: "As
governor, I came to believe that the death penalty would be a
just punishment for certain, especially heinous crimes.... The
events of September 11 convinced me that terrorists also deserve
the ultimate punishment." In subsequent statements he even
borrowed the phrasing from George Bush: "When someone gets
put to death for a heinous crime, I don't feel the least bit
conflicted about that."
There was a small, but telling, incident
back in 1996, when anti-death penalty protestors who were in
town opposing (the Pennsylvania governor) Tom Ridges approval
of Mumia Abu Jamals execution sprayed FREE MUMIA graffiti at
the Ethan Allen Homestead. The judge ruled, over the prosecutor's
objection, that the defendants could use a "necessity defense",
i.e. to speak of their motivations and analysis of Mumia's situation,
rather than just admit to spraying paint. Dean was disappointed
with that decision. "These guys are a bunch of hoods running
around our streets," Dean commented. "I don't think
this has anything to do with the necessity offense --imported
hoods I might add. People who spray paint and deface public property
are hoodlums not protesters with some higher purpose. I have
no patience for that." Reporter Peter Freyne, now one of
Dean's great supporters, asked his readers at the time to "Remember
[Dean's] the guy who once said 95 percent of people charged with
crimes are guilty anyway so why should the state spend money
on providing them with lawyers?"
Environment
As Governor, Howard Dean endorsed the
National Governors Association policy opposing the Kyoto Protocol
unless it included mandatory emissions cuts for developing countries,
and recommending that the United States "not sign or ratify
any agreement that would result in serious harm to the U.S. economy."
For environmentalists, EP, under Dean's leadership, came to mean
"Expedite Permits", rather than Environmental Protection.
Business leaders were especially impressed with the way Dean
went to bat for them against Vermont's stringent environmental
regulations. For more, read Michael
Colby's excellent review of Dean's environmental misbehavior.
* * *
But these are stories Counterpunch readers
are likely to know. In addition, we'd like to share with you
some details of Howard Dean's eleven-year governorship more familiar
to Vermonters.
Welfare reform
Under Deans leadership, Vermont started
welfare reform two years before the mandatory federal program
was put in place. Beginning in 1994, one-third of Vermont applicants
for cash assistance were subject to work requirements similar
to those eventually adopted nationally. (Another third received
financial incentives for getting a paying job, and the rest received
standard benefits without incentives or penalties). Was the plan
a success? Well, most welfare recipients (87%) got jobs on their
own during the six years of the Vermont welfare reform experiment.
Cash assistance payments went down, and more people were working
in the robust economy of the mid 1990s. But according to the
official evaluation of the project (published by the Manpower
Development Research Corporation in September 2000), total family
incomes did not change -- but families worked more hours for
a total earnings and cash assistance package averaging less that
$12,000 annually.
Howard Dean thinks that's success --
and it fits his arrogant and ultimately unfair view of welfare
recipients. What is that opinion? Well, in 1993, when defending
his welfare reform proposals during a weekly press conference,
Dean said: "Those recipients don't have any self-esteem.
If they did, they'd be working." While he later apologized
for these callous remarks, his policies remained firmly in the
"they won't work unless they have to" vein. Dean also
used his position as chair of the National Governor's Association
to promote "flexibility" in welfare reform at the national
level--a code word for removing then current federal minimum
standards and protections for recipients of public assistance.
In other words, states could be as mean as they wanted to be
towards those out of work and without income.
Health Care
Howard Dean gives passionate speeches
about universal health care as a moral imperative, not just a
policy initiative. Maybe, somewhere deep in his heart, he really
believes that people have a right to good health care. But we
sure aren't going to get there following the path he took in
Vermont: tiny increments -- adding insurance coverage for kids
in moderate income families one year, cutting back their benefits
and increasing their co-pays and premiums the next. Adding a
prescription drug benefit for low-income seniors, then cutting
many of the most commonly used new drugs out of the formulary
and forcing seniors back onto older medications with more side
effects. His national proposal is similar--not really universal:
it would extend Medicaid to people under 25, add a little prescription
drug coverage to Medicare, tinker with this, adjust that, don't
do anything to upset the insurance companies or big Pharmaceuticals.
Then, when the bill gets big, he would make the cutbacks in the
same incremental fashion. For example, began by defunding eyeglasses
for kids here, dentures for seniors there. You know, just a few
cuts; after all, everyone has to do his share.
Drug Policy
Howard Dean does not like drugs. He had
a bout with alcohol during his college years that seems to have
left him with the impression that since he couldn't control his
consumption of mood-modifying substances, then neither could
anyone else. Consequently, his governorship was a campaign against
reasonable approaches to substance abuse. Like much of the US
political establishment, liberal and otherwise, Dean does not
seem to believe that humans are capable of the discerning use
of intoxicating substances. Because he does not believe in such
a scenario, the only other option in his bag of tricks is tougher
penalties. He has endorsed fully the National Governors Association's
policy, which calls for increased involvement of law enforcement
and disavows any form of legalization not only as a policy but
also as a philosophy. In short, Dean not only believes in the
war on drug users, but also would like to see it intensified.
Despite his background in medicine, Dean
has consistently opposed the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Instead, he cites medical studies set up specifically with the
purpose of denying any medicinal properties to marijuana. In
addition, while heroin use has increased in Vermont, Dean did
every thing he could to oppose the introduction of methadone
treatment to the state. While there are certainly major flaws
in this type of treatment, Dean's opposition to instituting any
type of treatment plan into Vermont while law enforcement and
the citizenry were growing ever more alarmed at the growing heroin
problem illustrates an insensitivity to the very real sociological
reasons why people end up on these types of drugs.
While Dean vocalized his opposition to
methadone treatment clinics and decried any efforts to reduce
the penalties on marijuana use -- even labeling the latter as
a gateway drug (a statistically questionable claim at best) --
the population of Vermont's prisons increased to potentially
dangerous levels. There is a correlation between these two phenomena.
The more police go after individuals who use drugs, and the more
judges are instructed to put them in jail, the more prisoners
there are. Of course, Vermont is not alone in the increase in
incarceration. Indeed, it still ranks among the lowest in incarceration
rates per100, 000 inhabitants. However, according to the DEA,
the number of drug arrests in Vermont increased under Dean's
watch, peaking in the year 2001, with the imprisonment of women
increasing by over 140%.
Attitudes towards
Justice
Dean's approach to criminal justice is
regressive and draconian. Dean the governor was no friend of
the public's right to legal defense. According to various attorneys
in public defender's offices around the state, Dean underfunded
public defense, pouring monies into state's attorneys, police,
and corrections instead. According to the Rutland, Vermont daily,
The Rutland Herald, this meant that state's attorneys were able
to round up ever-increasing numbers of criminal defendants, but
public defenders were not given comparable resources to respond.
This, too, helped to fill the prisons. Its not that crime increased,
but that police had more laws that they could arrest people for
(and more resources with which to do so). As an illustration
of his opposition to a fair defense for all, Dean once stated
at a meeting of criminal defense lawyers that he believed his
job as governor was to make the defense attorneys' job as tough
as possible. He also tried to block a $150,000 federal grant
aimed at assisting defendants with mental disabilities.
Why would someone want to do that unless
he had doubts about the validity of the 6th amendment to the
US constitution? Is he motivated by a need to appear tough on
crime? As Governor he claimed the legal system unfairly benefited
criminals over prosecutors. According to his own words, he wanted
to "quickly convict guilty criminals,"(so much for
the presumption of innocence), and opined that the US needs a
"re-evaluation of the importance of some of our specific
civil liberties." John Ashcroft, perhaps there'd be a job
for you in a Dean administration.
Native American Issues
All Vermont schoolchildren learn about
Vermonts first people, the Abenakis, in their lessons about the
history of Vermont. Despite this acknowledgement of the Abenakis
special status, the Dean administration, released a 200-page
document in 2002 that was prepared by out-of-state consultants,
and without a request from the Bureau of Indian Affairs or anyone
else, concerning "The State of Vermont's Response to the
Petition for Federal Acknowledgment of the Abenaki Nation of
Vermont." This legal opinion asserted that the tribe does
not meet the criteria for recognition. The document has been
criticized by local experts -- Vermont historians and anthropologists
-- as being "highly biased and wildly out of date."
Because the legal opinion would have raised a ruckus among many
progressive Vermonters, it was released quietly in the final
days of his governorship.
Contemporary Abenakis are currently petitioning
the federal government for official recognition as a tribe --
which would give them legal minority status with access to relevant
civil rights laws, help them with grant-writing for schools,
scholarships and health care, and make available cultural grants
to help preserve the language and oral traditions. As the aforementioned
report indicates, Dean is opposed to this petition. This type
of vehemence towards Native Peoples rights does not bode well
for other First Nations within US borders. Even Vermonters are
mostly unaware of this gratuitous and mean-spirited attack.
Given all the above we feel that -- except
for criticizing Bush's path into war -- Howard Dean departs little,
if at all, from the corporate-sponsored bipartisan doctrines
that now misrepresent our lives. To see him as a potential savior
from Bush & Co. is to delude ourselves, and, furthermore,
those on whom many of our states residents urge him.
And here the RAG collective dis-collects.
We each have different plans for activity in the 2004 election.
Ron:
I have never voted for a presidential
candidate. Indeed, the last one I even wanted to see in the White
House was George McGovern, but my 18th birthday came after the
1972 election. The only candidate I have consistently supported
for the presidency is the candidate managed in his first several
campaigns by Wavy Gravy: NOBODY. Why? Because I honestly believe
NOBODY really cares about the poor and the young, especially
when they don t vote. I also am truly convinced that NOBODY will
withdraw our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan unless they think
they will lose the election if they don't. And, last but not
least, NOBODY will legalize marijuana and cut the defense budget.
Of course, as one my friends in the Hog Farm used to remind me,
if NOBODY wins then nobody loses, especially the people.
Would I vote for Howard Dean if he were
running against George Bush? I honestly don t know. If the election
were held today, I think I would put a clothespin on my nose
and pull the lever for Mr. Dean. However, if he continues to
head down the path of imperial foreign policy and domestic repression,
I would reserve my vote once again for NOBODY. Even if I did
grudgingly vote for Dean, it would be because I believe it is
essential that Rumsfeld and Ashcroft become unemployed sooner
rather than later. As a resident of Vermont who has seen Howard
in action ever since I moved here in 1992, I know he is not what
he is claiming to be. Nuff said.
Marc:
Those of you who feel you must go Democratic,
should probably work uphill for Kucinich -- the guy who actually
is what Dean is supposed to be. But I intend to work toward the
longer-range goal of establishing a national political party
independent of corporate control, one embracing not less-evil
alternatives, but values I truly believe in: I will be working
to establish the Vermont Green Party.
My thoughts about the behavior of a Democratic
or Dean presidency are speculative, but I am not as convinced
as Ron, that it would necessarily be an improvement over that
of the current maniacs -- especially after another 9/11-like
attack. Democrats have always to prove they are not soft on crime,
defense, etc.: the Gore campaign proposed even higher military
expenditures than Bush's. It was a Democrat that gave us welfare
"reform", and suffocated habeus corpus, and wagged
many dogs worth of tonnage. I won't argue this here in detail.
I think the world must now get through a profound historical
moment of contraction -- of imperial reach, of economic coercion,
of environmental footprint -- and that the powerful of the American
status quo will fight these changes tooth and nail, be they Democrat
or Republican. But the changes we are experiencing -- in global
consciousness, in planetary pathology -- are ineluctable. Bush
& Co. are providing the clearest possible teaching moment,
which, for all we know, may shorten the time needed for change.
Another Clinton-like Dem, cloaking his malignancies in liberal
rhetoric, may slow these changes down. Who knows? It's going
to be bad, either way, for at least a generation. But if the
world gets through it, the US will need a politics that speaks
to a healthier future. Thus, I turn to the possibility of the
Greens becoming a strong public voice. See http://www.vermontgreens.org.
Donna:
I know that a lot of you are going to
vote for Dean -- he talks a good game; he can be charismatic
and charming. But I'm warning you. This man will tell you what
you want to hear, or at least tell you something that has some
little kernel of something that you can interpret as support
for the things that are important to you. But when the time comes
to stand up and lead on the issue, to take on the money interests
and backsliders in his own party, that stiff little spine will
turn into a slinky.
If you vote for him, it's your job to
stand behind him with a poker and keep him headed in the right
direction. Don't give him any honeymoon period, either--keep
the pressure on from the second you drop that ballot in the box.
The minute you relax, he's going to turn right back into what
he really is...a privileged, arrogant, middle of the road republican.
Put your political energy into getting some truly progressive
folks into the House and Senate, and into State legislatures
around the country so that there will be more pressure from more
directions. We need to get together our sophisticated progressive
thinkers to develop policy ideas in every area, so that we're
ready with real, well-thought out counter-proposals for the incremental
changes a Dean administration might put forth. If you feel you
must, support Dean, do--but then go do the work necessary to
make real change.
Ron Jacobs,
Donna Bister and Marc Estrin comprise the OLD NORTH
END RAG collective. The RAG is an agitational community newspaper
serving the Old North End of Burlington, Vermont. This neighborhood
is a primarily working class section of Vermonts largest city
that has a history of political activism. They can be reached
at: rjacobs@uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for August 23 / 24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
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