you’ve come a long way to get nowhere, baby

Today is supposed to be a special day for women, it’s Women’s Equality Day: on August 18, 1920, after 144 years of losing and then struggling to regain the right to vote, the Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified by Tennessee, and becomes law on August 26th. Naturally, this means I will wake up and find emails in my inbox celebrating the history of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States from 1776 to 1920, boasting that the women’s movement has been the “LARGEST civil rights movement in the HISTORY of the world.” Gee, should I feel proud to be a beneficiary of this movement?

I will refrain from wondering too much here about what it has really gotten us in terms of, you know, am I able to leave my house and go to work on my bicycle without being told I have “a fine ass, bitch”, or how much I make someone “want to be a bicycle seat, baby” (this one in particular has had the effect of causing me to have to pull over a safe distance away from its speakers to prevent myself from vomiting [never quite sure what a "safe distance" is since I can't keep such disgusting words from echoing in my head the rest of my way]), or even having to regularly experience real intimidation and fear when I realise that car circling around the block to get a better look is starting to look familiar…; heck, I’ll even turn the other cheek for a moment on the phenomenon that by entering the workforce women did not swap roles or responsibilities in the family with their male partners, but in fact took on instead what is called “the third shift”– housekeeper/cook (unpaid), caregiver/teacher (unpaid), worker (underpayed)– leaving no time or energy for personal actualisation or social progress-building at the end of the day. (See Turning Back the Clock? Women, Work and Family Today if you are interested in the details of that discussion.)

But I do wonder what good my vote is when I’m still made aware every day that I’m little more than a thing for sex and a thing to attend to any product of sex– with or without my consent. The way things seem to be these days, the most perspicuous “right” women have “achieved” seems to be the right to be more naked more often in more places, media and contexts. It isn’t too difficult to figure out why this is, given who really benefits from it– albeit superficially and short-term– or even why many women are satisfied to have and exercise such a “right,” given the superficial and short-term benefits of doing so. What I mean to say is no one is necessarily getting along better or feeling safer or finding greater connection, love, or happiness out there. Something remains unlooked at and unaddressed regarding the women’s civil rights movement, and I think the answer is found in something very simple Joe Strummer said: “You have the right to free speech– cuz they don’t think you’re stupid enough to actually try it.” The women’s civil rights movement has achieved only that which did not, does not, too much upset what society gains by keeping the sexes clearly delineated and in conflict– with each other as well as with their own (internal) better natures.

So my sisters could vote, and because they could vote, I can have an abortion if I want to. But what if I don’t want to; what if I want to say hey, I want an economic situation that assures this kid is going to always have a roof over its head and food in its belly, I want equal pay and equal ease of access to jobs that don’t involve sex industries or aren’t gendered and devalued for being “care-giving” professions; I want a societal situation where my job will still be there if I take leave to have and spend some time with the new one; I want a gender situation where little boys are raised to understand that they will someday be fathers and know what responsibilities they will have so when the time comes, dads won’t grow distant, challenge or nit-pick child support judgements, or bail outright; I want a gender situation where men aren’t made fun of in popular culture for being “sensitive” and “wimps” if they want to be primary caregivers; I want a comprehensive sexual education programme and free access to preventatives, cuz you know what? No one really wants to have an abortion. It’s physically invasive and humiliating, and there’s no way to predict or control the potential for feelings of regret or guilt. But this is crazy-talk isn’t it. We’re still living in a world where I can’t even talk about equality and women’s rights, let alone live my life a little more free of gender restrictions than most women, without some small-minded person supposing I’m a “prude.” That this is almost laughably far from the truth, no one cares; after all, I can vote and have an abortion, beyond that I should shut the fuck up about things like internet porn and the rise of “raunch culture” in girls and young women. Behind every achievement of the civil rights movement there is a knock back down somewhere else in women’s lives (and often also a convoluted manifestation of gender restrictiveness in men’s lives too). It’s not quite a case of “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” but rather something more akin to the surreal, elongating hallway common in nightmares: the further and faster you run, the faster and further away the end becomes.

Now, there are two ways of looking at this long struggle for civil rights, above and beyond the question of whether or not it has meant much or resulted in anything more than symbolic concessions. I imagine that normal people would today give a few celebratory moments of thought to the successes and achievements gained by the hard work of all those women who made it possible for the likes of me to participate in electoral politics, however shallow the act of voting has become for most Americans; but the way I see it, and I grant that this is perhaps just my personal problem or flaw in how I see, what, really, is there to celebrate about the struggle for civil equality taking as long as it did, 143 years just to get back something we already had before? Why must we fight, and fight and fight to get where we’ve already been? I don’t like to fight and struggle, and the fact that I have to makes me feel defeated from the outset. Because doesn’t this all still just say, “you’re second-class, and a threat to the status quo, and no matter what you do, as the entirety of history has shown, you will never get where you deserve to be; we are mightier: we are stronger, we have more money, more power, more unity, more freedoms, and we are better organised and fortified than you. So get used to fighting, baby, bitch, cuz like everyone before you who wanted a little sameness, you’re going to be doing it til the day you die; and, like everyone before you, so will your children, and your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren, until one by one y’all give up when you realise we’re never going to let you win.” For example, from the timeline I received today:

“1884 Belva Lockwood runs for president.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve never heard of this person ever; worse still, I’ve somehow been given the impression that Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton were firsts in some way. I think that’s all at once interesting, sad, wrong and revealing… shouldn’t American children know her name just as well as Washington’s (“Our Nation’s first _____.”)? It gets me down to think we haven’t come such a long way after all, or we’ve gone too long, or the road shouldn’t be so long in the first place… where’s the finish line, when do we “arrive”? Though it was a loaded (and therefore often misinterpreted) statement, I think Marx and Engels were right: when women are liberated, that will indicate that all have been liberated; ie, we’ll be the last.

So call me an ingrate, but a measly little day of remembrance that won’t even be heard of except by a few radical weirdo boat-rockers most interested in feminism and electoral politics– a day of remembrance that says 232 years of one step forward, two steps back is something to celebrate– doesn’t make me feel very good. Looking today at this long, long battle for even one kind of equality, its rejections and denials, its sublimations and subversions, I wondered, “Dear World, why do you hate us so much?”

“unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

Current mood: disappointed

The only person I can think of who can properly be defined as “a great American.” Add more quotes or thoughts to the comments if you like.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

_________________________

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

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And I am a better patriot because I criticize my country. I criticize my country because I love her, and want her to stand as a moral example for the world.

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There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don’t have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.

_________________________

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

_________________________

For nonviolence not only calls upon its adherents to avoid external physical violence, but it calls upon them to avoid internal violence of spirit. It calls on them to engage in that something called love. And I know it is difficult sometimes. When I say love at this point, I’m not talking about an affectionate emotion. It’s nonsense to urge people, oppressed people, to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. I’m talking about something much deeper. I’m talking about a sort of understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men.

_________________________

If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, if we are trampled over every day, don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love. We must have the compassion and understanding for those who hate us. We must realize so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate. But we stand in life at midnight, we are always on the threshold of a new dawn.

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The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

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Currently listening :
Orphans by Tom Waits

In case you missed it…

Current mood: silly

So France is considering going from a 35 to a 40-hr workweek in order to “increase productivity.”

People in this country with desk jobs know that all this is going to do is increase the number of French people who are skilled in the art of slackassery.

Next thing you know slack-havens such as myspace and quizilla will be full of accents aigu, grave and circumflex.

Then what will we do?? Huh??

America is the greatest slackforce in the world, and we should not allow this reputation to be threatened by the French!

Boycott heavy cream sauces!

Todd, of course, had this to say:

the only thing good that came out of france is threesomes and kissing.

I conclude further that the French are responsible also for cooties, a plague that has afflicted boys and girls worldwide for decades!

Currently watching :
Bus Stop (1956)

Triplets of Belleville

Current mood: pissed off 

I just saw this movie for the first time. Of course, I’ve known a shit-ton of cyclists who consider this the best movie ever, but I’ve never been in a hurry to see it *just cuz* it revolves around bicycling—I mean, just cuz I ride a bike doesn’t mean I have to celebrate everything that has a bicycle in it. I have other interests, I’m multi-faceted, I can think outside my little bicycle universe, and I just have to say…

That’s some racist shit. In the first couple minutes there’s a dancing naked black woman wearing a necklace of bones or teeth and a skirt of bananas!

In the dvd special features there’s a little segment with the (white) animator sketching a basketball player, “a tall black man from New York who kind of moves like this,” he says as he moves his arms as if he’s walking on his knuckles, and the figure he draws has a face like a sock monkey.

I’m totally appalled that I’ve never heard a single criticism of this. I mean, it’s never been lost on me how white “bike culture” is, but I thought this was the 21st century and representing black people like this was totally unacceptable. In my mind, the “coolness” of bikes does NOT override the offensiveness and wrongness of racism (no matter how brief), and the next little-hat wearing jerk I hear blathering about how awesome “The Triplets of Belleville” is, is going to get a recommendation from me to watch “Bamboozled.”

Currently watching :
Bamboozled (2000)

A 9/11 Attack Every Nine Days

Current mood: uncomfortable 

Car deaths 400 times greater than terrorism: study
Wed Nov 30, 2005 7:13 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) – Deaths from car crashes in developed countries are nearly 400 times greater than those resulting from international terrorism, according to a study published on Thursday.

As many people die every 26 days on U.S. roads as were killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks, and politicians should bear this in mind when allocating resources to combat two “avoidable” causes of death, researchers said.

Their report, published in the journal Injury Prevention, compared the number of deaths from international terrorism with car crashes between 1994 and 2003 in 29 countries from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Overall it found that the annual average death rate from road deaths was 390 times that from terrorism, which had caused 3,064 deaths in 33 attacks in 10 of the OECD countries.

Of the countries suffering attacks, the United States had the lowest annual ratio of road to terrorism deaths at 142 times higher, while in Poland the car death rate was 55,300 times greater.

Across all the 29 countries, deaths from car crashes were the equivalent of a 9/11 attack every nine days, the researchers from Otago University in New Zealand said.

The report’s authors added the evidence suggested that “the number of Americans who chose to avoid flying following 9/11 and lost their lives in road accidents was higher than the total number of passengers killed on the four fatal flights on 9/11″.

Although recognizing that terrorism had a widespread psychological effect with a substantial political, social and economic impact, the authors said the scale of difference between the two causes of death could not be ignored.

“Policy makers need to consider these issues when allocating resources toward preventable interventions that can save lives from these two avoidable causes of mortality,” they said.

Currently reading :
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century
By James Howard Kunstler
Release date: 10 April, 2005

The Third Most Loathsome Person in America

Current mood: Autonomous

From The 50 Most Loathsome People in America:

3. You

Crimes: You gaze idly at the carnage around you, sigh, and go calmly back to your coffee and your People magazine. You can’t stop buying useless crap, though you’re drowning in a deepening pool of debt. You think you’re an activist because you bitch all day on the internet, but you reelect the same gangsters at a 99% rate. You consider yourself informed because you waste a significant portion of your life watching the same three news stories cycle over and over again on your gargantuan, aerodynamic television set while you eat processed food. You really thought everything would be okay if Kerry won. Not only do you believe in an invisible man who magically farted out the universe, you also excoriate and marginalize those who disagree. You have a poorer understanding of your country’s foreign policy history than a third world peasant, but you can’t wait to see what Julia Roberts will be wearing at the Oscars. You cheer as Ukrainians challenge an election based on exit poll data, but keep waiting around for someone else to fix your problems. You can’t think, you can’t organize and you won’t act. This is all your fault.

Smoking Gun: You’re fat.

Punishment: You’re soaking in it.

I disagree: You is more loathsome than all other 49 list-makers, whose success, fame, wealth and/or ability to hold public office You are responsible for. I do, however, find your punishment entirely appropriate. It’s too bad, though, we all have to suffer for your crimes, I must say.

Currently listening:
More Specials by Specials

Why “Not One Damn Dime Day” doesn’t work

Current mood: chipper

If on January 20th people participated in this boycott on the scale it would take to actually make a noticable difference in the economy, people would just buy more on the 19th & 21st to prepare/compensate, thus contributing to two days of greater than average consumer spending.

I have my own “Not One Damn Dime Day”s at least ten days out of every month. If you live in poverty, you already know you have no choice. Otherwise, just stop wanting shit you don’t actually need. It just takes a moment’s self-reflection before you reach your hand out to pick some thing up.

Bicyclists & pedestrians show their opposition to oil wars, commitment to the environment, community, personal health and safety with every step or revolution of a wheel. If you carry your groceries home from a neighbourhood market, for example, you may make your body stronger and healthier, you won’t buy more than you can carry (and that means no excess, and that probably means less junk food—and that probably means less dependence on the medical industry later in your life, etc), you won’t pollute the air, you may meet your neighbours, you might be supporting local business as well, and not a single person will be sent overseas to kill or be killed so that you could travel from point A to point B and back again.

I believe revolutionary acts are more found in small and seemingly mundane activities.
 
 
 
The boycott, as it is being circulated on the internet:
====
Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don’t have the moral courage to oppose it, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is “Not One Damn Dime Day” in America.

On “Not One Damn Dime Day” those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.

During “Not One Damn Dime Day” please don’t spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases.

Not one damn dime for nothing for 24 hours. On “Not One Damn Dime Day,” please boycott Walmart, KMart and Target.

Please don’t go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don’t buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter).

For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down.

The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it.

“Not One Damn Dime Day” is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.

“Not One Damn Dime Day” is about supporting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm’s way. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan – a way to come home.

There’s no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On “Not One Damn Dime Day” you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed.

For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.

Please share this email with as many people as possible. I am an Army wife and I’m sick of this, we need to be heard… I am affected by this on a level some of you can understand but most can barely comprehend… Thank you for forwarding and participating… it’s only one day!

Currently listening :
The Hurting by Tears For Fears

WWWD?!

Current mood: apathetic

No, not “What would Wellstone do?” but “Where was Wellstone, dumbasses?!”

I finally saw “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and while I always knew (and was more than willing to inform blinded Democrats) that Al Gore had rejected the Congressional Black Caucus’s complaint regarding the 2000 election results, I did not know before that their complaint could only be heard if signed by at least one senator. Just one. That was all they needed.

In 2002 when Wellstone bit the big one, here in Minnesota he became an immediate saint, champion of world peace & justice, and what Wellstone “would have done” appeared within hours of his death on professionally printed T-Shirts, lawn signs, and stickers, and even in speeches and on campaign materials for Walter Mondale, the replacement candidate in that election.

Well we might not know what he “would have done,” but we do know what he DID—supported the anti-queer Defense of Marriage Act, the Patriot Act, and every single military action (including sanctions on Iraq) during his entire time in office with only 2 exceptions, among other not-so-saintly acts– and now come to find out that he also dropped the ball on strong concerns presented on behalf of the African American community, which typically votes Democrat without question and represents a HUGE voter base that often gives a Democratic candidate the edge over competing Republicans, I really have to wonder… when are people going to wise up and stop turning the other cheek? Wellstone, “what the Democratic Party is really supposed to be about,” was a shining example of how really very fraudulent and hypocritical the Democrats are, and how unquestioning and uninformed constituents choose to remain. The 2000 election wasn’t “stolen,” it was given away, and Minnesota’s beloved Wellstone should have been held as responsible as anyone else.

Quit yer whining

Current mood: aggravated

Apologies for the harsh tone, but my frustration lies not in who won a popularity contest, but in my disappointment with the masses that they seem to have genuinely believed the outcome of their relatively tiny act of voting would have changed everything overnight. No wonder you all feel cheated and duped and wronged and depressed.

I’m sorry, but changing the world/your government/society requires more than a half-hour stand in line and filling in a bubble. Y’all wear the goddamned “I voted” sticker longer than you spend in the polling place. You were all MISTAKEN if you invested all your hopes and dreams into this one EVENT, and maybe that is why beginning at bar close after the election I suddenly become everyone’s “political friend” on aim and have to hear for the next 24 hours from people all over the country what a “sad, sad day” it is today.

Well guess what. It has been a sad, sad PROGRESSION to the state of affairs this country is and HAS BEEN IN for a long, long time. More than 4 years, I will tell you that! It is easy to imagine that had the outcome been different, everything in this country (and by process of meiosis the WORLD) would be all birdies and rainbows, but that is only because there is no EVIDENCE to the contrary. With this in mind, it is also easy to imagine that there would have been no change whatsoever, or perhaps things can have become even worse. NO ONE can argue with validity that our country/the world would be any better or worse with one figurehead in place or another, because the other is never given the opportunity to be just as much, if not more so, insidious than what we already have. The other can remain the ideal, because the other never became the REALITY that erodes either more or less severely the ideal.

I will say that 4 years ago I had little qualms about who became our president. George Bush? Great! Now maybe people will get organised! To some extent I believe this happened, especially in the anti-war movement. And still I saw this movement decline into a mass of weak and fear-driven bowls of oatmeal who inexplicably came to believe that death tolls will subside simply by voting for a man (Kerry) who not only voted IN FAVOUR of the war on Iraq, but promised to continue supporting it AND promised to do it “better” (!). The strategy of scaring Americans with the constant threat of “terrorism,” which most people identify with the Bush administration’s Ministry of Propaganda, can be considered a rousing success—for when anti-war activists and those in the peace and justice community concentrate their message into one day and the one act of voting, then the necessarily constant effort to build non-violent families, communities and countries will (and did) fall by the wayside. It could be said that by giving up the daily resistance in favour of the one-shot resistance “event,” Bush got exactly what he wanted, with bonuses. No more anti-war movement to contend with eh, cuz Kerry was gonna do it all for them!

Maybe I am glad Bush is president again, maybe I could care less. I haven’t decided yet. But in the spirit of Einstein’s “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” I think it can’t hurt in making people GET SERIOUS and START FUCKING WORKING on “being the change you want to see in the world” (Gandhi). Yep, sorry, that is going to require that you get the fuck off myspace once in awhile, you turn off the goddamned tv once in awhile, you spend less time at the bar once in awhile, and you CONTRIBUTE your time, your energy, your ideas, and maybe even your money, and you ORGANISE, and you WORK, and you CONNECT with people, and you SUPPORT existing efforts, and you FIGHT city hall, and you REFORM elections and political structures, and you do what it takes— if you really want it THAT badly—to change yourself, the way you live your life, your relationships and interactions with others and your community and your governments.

If you really think a single election is where all the change is going to happen, then I recommend you go to fairvote.org and teach yourself about things like Instant Runoff Voting, Parliaments, alternative methods of increasing voter education and turnout, campaign finance reform, and what efforts are already underway to eliminate the Electoral College, and start participating in making these ideas which contribute to an increase in participation (and therefore bring us closer to the ideals of democracy) a reality where you live.

I’ll take the Bush administration any day over whatever we =may have had= with Kerry (yes, you can hunt me down and burn me at the stake for saying so), because at least with the Republicans, you have to credit them with being obvious (painfully) and straightforward with their agenda– and don’t you know, the first step in overcoming a problem is having the ability to IDENTIFY IT. I’ll take 4 years of fighting for positive change over 4 years of complacency any day. You have more power than you think here, people. Take advantage of it.

[Blame me, I voted for Nader. Maybe that is why I didn't wake up today feeling like I sold out my values, or that I voted for "not Bush" but still got Bush anyways, so you won't hear me saying I'm going to run away to Canada or any of that nonsense. I am staying right here, cuz this can go 2 ways: people are gonna stand up and get busy, or, after the "shock" wears off (come on, was it really that much of a surprise?), get back on the internet, get back in front of the television, smoke some pot and chill out, and continue on with their pleasure-seeking little lives—in which case, take some responsibility and blame yer fuckin selves.]

Our American President, a Hollywood Star, won’t bring our country back…

1 Reason some of us will mourn Reagan:

His election revitalised American punk rock and may be solely responsible for the existence of hardcore; since it was just so damn absurd that we had a president who not only was a Hollywood movie star, but whose most famous role had him co-starring with a chimpanzee, youth culture was immediately politicised with a healthy infusion of humour and satire through art and music. Every time I see his face, it just makes me laugh. I have Reagan to thank for making me who I was, and who I am today: an anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-materialist, political activist, environmentalist punk kid. My dream was always to make a mix tape of every punk rock song ever written about him, and include every album cover with him on it, and send it to the White House– but I quickly realised I would never have enough time and money to generate such a massive collection, ha. Now on to the real Reagan:

26 Reasons some of us won’t mourn Reagan:

1-Nicaraguan contras. Reagan called them the “moral equivalent of our founding fathers.” U.S. created terror army in Nicaragua murdered tens of thousands of people and destroyed a social revolution; today majority of Nicaraguans live in poverty in the 2nd poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti.

2-PATCO. 11,000 union air traffic controllers fired by Reagan, opened and encouraged a new era of union busting by employers and anti-union policies.

3-Reganomics, as Papa Bush called it “voodoo economics,” how to carry out the biggest tax cut for the rich and biggest military buildup in decades while maintaining a balanced budget. It didn’t work.

4-Afghanistan. CIA created, trained, funded, and armed “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden, to fight the Soviets.

5-”Trees Cause Pollution”. Said Reagan, removing thousands of acres of public land to hand them over to timber, oil and mining corporations.

6-Star Wars, MX “peacekeeper” missile, B-1 bomber. And other destabilizing weapons systems intended to foster a new arms race with the Soviets and create a new U.S.-first strike capability.

7-Bitburg. Reagan’s pays homage to Hitler’s most elite military group while visiting an SS cemetery, calls the SS victims of Nazism “just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.”

8-Antonin Scalia. Appointed by Reagan to the Supreme Court.

9-Angola. CIA funds and arms a terror guerilla army that kills millions in a two-decade war, with an ongoing legacy of the world’s most land mines.

10- Civil Rights. Justice Department slashes funding for civil rights enforcement.

11- “Aristocratic Movement”. As one historian put it. Ron and Nancy become patrons of aristocratic culture in fashion, communications, etc. “Dynasty” and “Lives of the Rich and Famous” become major TV shows.

12- Iran Contra Affair. Secret White House cabal sells arms to Iran to fund contras, subverting the Constitution and avoiding Congressional oversight.

13- Guatemala. Rightwing, evangelist dictatorship funded and armed, with frequent massacres of the indigenous population, and 1/8 of population displaced. Dictator Rios Montt says on national TV he had “declared a state of siege so we could kill legally.” Regan says Rios Montt had a “bum rap” on human rights abuses.

14- “Ketchup is a vegetable.” Dept. of Agriculture says ketchup can be counted as a vegetable for calculating nutritional value in school lunches to facilitate major cuts in public school lunch funding.

15- William Rehnquist. Appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Reagan.

16- Savings and Loan Scandal. Created by banking industry deregulation, costs U.S. taxpayers billions to bail out failed S&Ls.

17- Homelessness. Grows by the millions as “Reaganville” homeless camps are created across U.S. Regan says many are “homeless by choice.”

18- Conspicuous consumption. “Yachting,” “Gourmet,” “Architectural Digest,” and “Wine Spectator” are the fastest growing U.S. magazines, with the aid of the biggest tax cut for the rich in U.S. history.

19- Industrial wastelands. Mass shift of high-wage industrial jobs overseas, creating ghost lands in the industrial heartland.

20- South Africa. U.S. opposes divestiture and continues to back white rule in Pretoria defying growing worldwide anti-apartheid movement.

21- CIA drug running. CIA supports drug empires in Latin America,including Manuel Noriega in Panama and drug kingpins in Colombia to support U.S. policies in region, fostering growth of crack and drug crisis in U.S.

22- Ferdinand Marcos. VP George Bush salutes Marcos’ “commitment to democracy” as U.S. continues to prop up his dictatorship in the Philippines.

23- James Watt, Earl Butz, Ed Meese. Reagan cabinet members.

24- El Salvador. U.S. funded and trained death-squads and their government sponsors kill tens of thousands of Salvadorans, plus an archbishop and American nuns.

25- Income gap. Richest 10% hold 73% of country’s net worth following the Reagan years. Ratio of executive pay to factory worker pay goes from 42:1 in 1980 to 419:1.

26-AIDS epidemic prolonged by the Reagan administration as Reagan made sure the Center for Disease Control and other institutions were not funded to study and quarantine the virus that began in the gay population that later spread. Reagan saw homosexuals as immoral and did not mind their deaths. The deaths are in the millions and the virus continues to plague us.

Today, I must say, is one of the prouder moments in my life.

Contents (because this is so long):
I. Some background and explanation to the development of the animal rights platform, and what it means for the Green Party to have a Platform.
II. The animal rights proposal written by myself and Eric Makela
III. An article in today’s paper about our proposal.

I.
What: My friend Eric and I worked on a document for the Green Party of Minnesota (GPMN) which strengthens and promotes the protection of non-human animals in the GPMN Platform (full proposal below). It was adopted today at the GP state convention by a super-majority (75%- the GPMN believes a super-majority is more meaningful and better represents the will of voters than standard majority rule– 50% + 1– which still leaves a whopping 49% of voters unrepresented and unheard).

Why this matters: GP candidates are bound to a platform of positions, which is developed by any individual or group of individuals who choose to submit a proposal, which is then adopted, modified, or rejected by the GP membership. This means that anyone can participate in the development of the GP platform, a truly democratic method of ensuring voters’ and constituents’ positions are represented. All endorsed candidates of the GP while running and after taking office are required to represent the positions written in the platform, or else the GP membership may revoke that candidate’s or office-holder’s endorsement and/or GP affiliation. (The Dems and Republicans do not, as political parties, have platforms. Rather, individual candidates have positions, which they do call their platform, but, as has been seen a million times, these candidates are bound to no one and so can and do change their positions, what they vote in favour of or against, what they promote or introduce while in office, etc, according to self-interest. This is why no matter what a Democrat or Republican says on the campaign trail, candidates from both parties can, for example, be pro-life and pro-war without consequence once they take office. This is not so in the GP, where if a GP candidate voted in favour of a war action or legislation that restricts access to abortion services, their GP membership or affiliation can and would be revoked, because our platform is strictly anti-war and pro-choice.) In other words, when you vote for a GP candidate, you can be sure that this candidate HAS TO represent, at the very least, the positions outlined in the GP platform, and under no circumstances (unless they want to switch party affiliation!) can they work or vote against these positions while campaigning or while in office.

Regarding the platform changes which were adopted by the GPMN today, this means that any and all candidates or officeholders of the GPMN are required to vote, introduce, or support legislation in accordance with the positions outlined by the platform, and today, a tremendous boost has been given toward the rights of non-human animals.

II.
PLATFORM OF THE GPMN REGARDING NON-HUMAN ANIMALS
[...]
III. TITLE OF PROPOSAL/RESOLUTION: Animal Rights
[...]
V. WHAT REGION DOES THIS APPLY TO?: State, National

VI. AUTHOR(S):
Eric Makela [...] Minneapolis MN
[Me] Minneapolis MN

VII. TEXT OF PROPOSAL/RESOLUTION:
N. Animal Rights

The Greens recognize that: + Non-human animals exist for their own reasons. + Non-human animals have the right to live on a healthy planet. + Non-human animals have the right to live freely and in harmony with their nature, rather than according to human desires and exploitation. + Non-human animals have the right to not be treated as property. + Humans have a moral responsibility to uphold these rights and protect non-human animals from suffering whenever possible.

1.) Conscientious Objection. No person should for any reason be made to compromise their morals, values, beliefs or ethics concerning the lives and well-being of non-human animals. For this reason the Greens believe that:

1a. Students, faculty, employees and volunteers of institutions and businesses should have a protected right to refuse, without penalty, participating in or assisting others with animal experimentation, dissection, unnatural activities or other actions that would cause an animal pain, distress or death.

1b. Students, faculty, employees and volunteers of institutions and businesses should have a protected right to refuse, without penalty, handling, transporting, or otherwise coming into contact with animals living or dead when such handling is not explicitly part of their job description or program, and even when alternatives are not available.

2.) Education and Research. Animal research and experimentation in education is all too common, often beginning in grade school and continuing through the graduate programs in the sciences. Other government-based institutions and private corporations continue to perform painful or unnatural research on non-human animals. The Greens believe that:

2a. Education, especially in the life sciences should communicate an awareness of, a respect for, and compassion towards all life on the planet.

2b. We should support the use of existing, alternative teaching techniques that enhance the learning of anatomy and physiology while instilling greater respect and compassion for life.

2c. The development of non-animal models of human disease should be funded and pursued at least as vigorously as is the development of animal-based models, until such time as these models can be abolished.

2d. Non-animal in-vitro testing methods should be vigorously supported by our government, universities and institutions.

2e. Product manufacturers and producers should be required to use ingredients or constituents recognized to be safe for animals and people.

2f. Companies that need to perform product or ingredient testing should be required to use already-existing alternative testing methods that do not use animals.

2g. Products which contain animal or animal-derived ingredients should clearly indicate to the consumer the use of such ingredients on the label. In addition, products which were tested on animals or which contain ingredients which were tested on animals should clearly indicate this on the label.

2h. Corporate and institutional animal use and care committees should include members other than those with a vested interest in the continuation of animal experimentation and should publicly disclose all non-proprietary business.

3.) Entertainment. Animals used for entertainment such as racing, gambling, zoos, circuses and the film industry are subject to abuses that are often hidden from the public. Forcing non-human animals to live lives that are unnatural or unhealthy to their species for the sake of entertainment is unjust.

3a. We support government regulations and funding that provide for the vigorous enforcement of minimum acceptable conditions for animal use in entertainment.

3b. We support vigorous enforcement of all current laws and the enactment of new, tougher laws prohibiting animal fights.

3c. Individuals using endangered species in entertainment should have their permits revoked and animals removed from their possession.

4.) Animal Agriculture. The current objective of corporate agri-business is to produce as much food as possible for the least expense, without regard to human or non-human animal life. The Greens believe that:

4a. Animal confinement systems that restrict an animal’s natural physical and social activity or those that cause physical or psychological pain or distress should be prohibited.

4b. The use of drugs and hormones to produce abnormally fast growth and/or production is both cruel, unnatural and unhealthy.

5.) Government Investment and Divestment. Federal, state and local governments often have financial investments in corporations which do harm to animals in the course of their business practices. The Greens believe that:

5a. Governments should completely divest from corporations which harm animals, and the ethical treatment of animals should be used as a criterion when selecting a corporation in which to invest.

6.) Wildlife and Habitat. Recreational hunting and fishing does not primarily exist to provide food, government programs sometimes favor recreational hunting and fishing over natural predator-prey relationships as means of controlling populations, and the natural habitat of wildlife is in a state of crisis due to human interference and encroachment. The Greens believe that:

6a. Whenever possible, non-lethal and educational approaches to human conflicts with wildlife should be used in place of deadly or painful methods.

6b. Wildlife advocates, non-hunters/anglers, and anti-hunters/anglers should receive proportional representation in the oversight of wildlife management agencies.

6c. Wildlife refuges should be established and maintained for the protection of both habitat and species, not for the production of game animals. These refuges should provide non-human animals the opportunity to live a natural and healthy life, favor natural predator-prey relationships ahead of hunting by humans, and encourage biodiversity.

6d. Current laws hold that hunters may enter private land unless a landowner has posted prohibiting such activity. These laws should be reversed, to require landowners’ permission to enter private property for the purpose of hunting.

6e. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources should be prohibited from all attempts to promote “new game species” and no new hunting, trapping or fishing seasons should be established.

6f. Public funds should not be used to promote or subsidize recreational hunting or fishing.

6g. Public funds should not be used to promote or subsidize sport trapping, commercial trapping or fur ranching.

6h. The use of trapping devices which often result in non-fatal mutilation or otherwise prolonged suffering, such as leghold traps, should be abolished.

7.) Companion Animals. Overpopulation of companion animals has reached epidemic proportions in the country. The Greens believe that:

7a. Governments should aggressively fund spay/neuter programs.

7b. Governments should provide financial assistance to local pounds and shelters, and encourage the development of no-kill shelters.

7c. There should be a moratorium on all companion-animal breeding until a balance can be achieved between the number of animals and the number of available homes.

7d. The importation and trade of wild or non-domesticated species for companion animals should be abolished.

7e. The mutilation of companion animals for human aesthetics or convenience, such as tail docking or de-clawing, should be abolished.

8.) Vegetarianism/Veganism. In addition to contributing to personal health and the health of the planet, a meatless or vegan diet is a valid expression of nonviolence, and it has a profoundly positive effect on reducing the suffering of non-human animals. The Greens believe that:

8a. We should abandon our present reliance on animal agriculture in favor of a peaceful and compassionate agri-system.

8b. The meat and dairy industry-funded nutritional information in schools must be replaced with scientifically-accurate materials from independent sources, and nutrition classes in schools should include information on meatless and vegan options.

8c. Government-funded organizations that provide meal programs, such as schools, prisons, hospitals and the military, should always adequately provide for meatless and vegan options.

8d. All food meant for human consumption which contains animal ingredients, including genetically engineered material from animal sources, should clearly indicate to the consumer such ingredients on the label.

[End]

III.
The GPMN convention was held in Bemidji, MN Saturday and Sunday. This article appeared on the front page of the Bemidji Pioneer on Sunday. Note: Tina Knudsen, quoted in the article below, is a member of the Wabasha/Goodhue County Greens, a local of the GPMN which submitted a proposal to largely eliminate animal rights from the GPMN Platform (which, in turn, became the inspiration for Eric and I to write the counter-proposal above). Interviewed for this article on Saturday, by Sunday, after she got a chance to read our proposal, she was in support of the positions written by Eric and I and voted in favour of it!

I also have to mention I am a bit disappointed that my name does not appear as the co-founder of the animal rights caucus and co-author of the platform proposal, and that Eric is given 100% credit for both– probably because he was able to attend the convention whereas I could not make it; in addition, he’s rather known to be a glory hound– it didn’t just “slip his mind” when talking to the reporter that I wrote a great deal of the entire proposal. That feels kinda crappy, but I guess the work I did wasn’t for personal recognition, but for the protection of animals, and that is more important.

Greens Discuss Platform Items
Sunday, June 06, 2004
By Brad Swenson
Staff Writer, bswenson@bemidjipioneer.com

“Non-human animals” deserve protection from exploitation, whether it be from sport hunting or performing in circuses, Minnesota Greens believe.

At least, that’s one of 250 issues before the Greens this weekend as they hold their state convention in Bemidji.

About 100 delegates, meeting Saturday at the Northern Inn, quickly agreed on what to do with about 150 platform resolutions, then spent the bulk of the day debating about 100 in 18 groups spread over three sessions.

The delegates, as a whole, will vote today on final resolutions, including a controversial non-human animal issues section which a group passed on after about 90 minutes of discussion.

The Green Party of Minnesota formally recognized in May an animal rights caucus, although it has been active since 2001, said Nick Raleigh, Green Party state chairman.

“The caucus seeks to strengthen the platform language for the support of animal rights,” he said. “But others want to make it more friendly to hunting and fishing.”

The group passed on, for the full convention to debate today, a two-page resolution that scopes out more fully the party’s position on animal rights.

It divided, however, on defining the circumstances under which hunting and fishing may be necessary for subsistence, a point argued by Audrey Thayer of Bemidji, state vice chairwoman.

The rights of the indigenous to provide food for subsistence must be respected, she said, as well as the need for low-income to feed their families in the same way.

“I have concerns over processing plants, as most of the poor have to eat chemically raised livestock,” Thayer said. People need options to feed their families, but she added that animals must also be protected. “We don’t see respect from the dominant society.”

Eric Makela of Minneapolis, who founded the animal rights caucus and authored the resolution, said that the Greens platform already recognizes the full sovereignty of American Indian nations, which would take precedence over animal rights restraints.

Still, the group recommended that over the next two years, better language be found to further define subsistence hunting and fishing, especially for indigenous peoples.

The proposal states that “wildlife and habitat recreational hunting and fishing does not primarily exist to provide food, government programs sometimes favor recreational hunting and fishing over natural predator-prey relationships as means of controlling populations, and the natural habitat of wildlife is in a state of crisis due to human interference and encroachment.”

Among provisions, Greens would have wildlife refuges managed for species protection and not the production of game animals, bar hunters from private lands unless the lands are posted as “open,” prohibit the state Department of Natural Resources from promoting new game species or establishing new seasons, and bar public funds from being used to promote or subsidize recreational hunting or fishing.

While Makela agreed that provisions allowing subsistence hunting and fishing can be written, he took issue with recreational aspects. He pointed to the Pioneer’s front page on Saturday, showing a photo of a $20,000 winner in a professional walleye tournament at Cass Lake, hoisting two walleyes.

“The photo of him with two fish, and with a shirt covered with corporate logos, is an obscene example of where things have gone in this country,” Makela said. “How can people consider animals as equals and hunt them?”

The two-page platform plank is too complex, said Tina Knudsen of Lake City, a member of the Wabasha/Goodhue County Greens, who advocated for more flexibility.

“The main issue should be that whenever possible to support the most ethical treatment of non-human life,” she said. “There should be the most ethical and respectful treatment of animals.”

But that’s all that is needed, Knudsen said, arguing that going beyond that may put the Greens in the same league as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which zealously protects animal rights, including protesting the use of animals for research.

“We don’t want to be connected to PETA because of their violence,” she said.

More flexibility is needed, Knudsen said, to gain people’s acceptance of overall Greens philosophy. “In order to lead, we need to gain the people’s trust. The platform is too constrictive and would not serve to gain the trust of the people.”

Limiting the issue to just the “most ethical and respectful treatment” of animals is too open-ended, said Makela, whose caucus believes that animals have the right to live on a healthy planet, the right to live free and in harmony with their nature and to not be treated as property.

“The platform does get specific, and this is what we think is ethical and respectful,” he said. “It gives concrete examples. I don’t want to leave this open-ended for what I believe may be abusive or unnatural treatment.”

Some of the other provisions include:

- Students, faculty, employees and volunteers would have a protected right to refuse without penalty to participate in animal experimentation.
- Promote the use of non-animal models for human disease research or product testing with goal of abolishing animal-based testing.
- Call for government regulations for the vigorous enforcement of minimum acceptable conditions for animal use in entertainment. “Forcing non-human animals to live lives that are unnatural or unhealthy to their species for the sake of entertainment is unjust.”
- Animal confinement systems that restrict an animal in agri-business should be prohibited, and the use of drugs or hormones to enhance fast growth “is both cruel, unnatural and unhealthy.”
- Government should fund aggressive spay/neuter programs for companion animals, and so-called “no-kill” animal shelters should be encouraged.

The platform also calls for promoting veganism rather than eating meat.

“In addition to contributing to personal health and the health of the planet, a meatless or vegan diet is a valid expression of non-violence, and it has a profound positive effect on reducing the suffering of non-human animals,” it says.

The Greens would abandon “our present reliance on animal agriculture in favor of a peaceful and compassionate agri-system.” They would call for information on meatless and vegan options in school nutrition classes and require government-funded organizations that provide meal programs to always include meatless and vegan options.

In addition to deciding on platform issues today, Greens will elect eight people to its coordinating committee before adjourning in early afternoon.

Content © 2004 Pioneer

“Anyone but Bush” = “Nobody but a Democrat”: 10+ Reasons Democrats Should Stand Down in 2004

Knowledge is power, do your research! Random facts to also consider:

+ In 2000, both George W. Bush and Al Gore received an equal approval rating from the National Right to Life Committee. See Abortion and the Supreme Court. Funding and access to abortion services were cut in 80% of counties in the United States during the Clinton Administration. Abortion may not have been illegal, but surely it was harder to get, most especially for rural and/or low-income women.

+ Democratic nominee hopeful John Kerry voted in favour of “Bush’s” war on Iraq, and has taken $30 million in corporate campaign contributions over 3 senate terms. Everything you ever wanted to know about money in US politics, http://opensecrets.org

+ The “economic expansion” during the Clinton Administration exists only statistically. Inequality in income during the Clinton Administration was higher than at any time in American history since before World War II. Bush inherited Clinton’s economic downturn, and Democrats walk away looking like heroes. See Income Report Highlights Vast Inequalities in US.

+ Occidental Oil, which has financed the Democratic Party for years and in which candidate Gore held 450,000 shares in 2000, destroyed Uw’a sacred land and worked with the Columbian government to attack and murder indigenous people and ecologists who supported their cause. Small children were murdered, people “disappeared.” Read this letter to Ministers of the European Union, asking for help and detailing this particular brand of the War for Oil, which you will not hear about on CNN. Brought to you by the FTAA, which was brought to you by the Clinton Administration.

+ While many are outraged by “Bush” bringing us the discriminatory and anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), this was actually signed by Clinton within the safety of the first year of his second term. Read the double-speak of his statement on DOMA. Please note that he speaks specifically to same-gender unions, telling trans- and intersex people they shall never be allowed to marry anyone, regardless of orientation.

+ When it began to become clear that black voters by the thousands had been discriminated against (voters wrongly listed on voting rosters as felons), intimidated away (police presences at polling places), and disenfranchised (votes thrown out entirely) after the 2000 election, Al Gore and the Democratic Party, indeed not even one Democratic senator, would support efforts by the Congressional Black Caucus toward legal remedies. In fact, Gore, as we may recall, conceded the election to Bush even after the Florida recounts. See Black Electorate for an article detailing these shenanigans, and some examples here and here of why some black Americans have given up on the Democratic Party.

Sadly, there is more, so much more that no one will be considering when panic-voting for “anyone but Bush.” I don’t care who you vote for, just please make an informed choice.
Brix
[pdf] Who Really Spoiled in 2000?

ZNet
2.25

Don Fitz – Democratic party?

Discussions of the 2004 presidential race often leave out the very important question of whether it is in the best interest of progressive movements for the Democratic Party to run someone for president. I believe that the Democratic Party should stand down in 2004. Here are 10 reasons why.

Reason No. 1. The Democratic Party was responsible for the election of George W. Bush in the 2000 election.

In the 2000 elections, the Green Party brought at least a million voters to the polls who would have selected the Democratic Party candidate as their second choice if they had been able to. For years, Greens have been advocating “Instant Runoff Voting,” (IRV) which lets voters rank order candidates and, if their first choice is not among the top contenders, transfers their vote to another choice. Since the Democratic Party knew that IRV is used around the world and that Green votes could be the difference in a close race, they knew that IRV could be the difference between winning and losing the 2000 election. [1]

But the Democratic Party power brokers also knew that if voters had access to IRV, tens of millions would have shown their disgust with Gore by ranking him below Nader. Thus, they decided they would rather risk losing the election than see this happen.

Democratic Party bosses concluded they had far more in common with George W. Bush than with Ralph Nader. They intentionally kept Nader out of the presidential debates, despite more voter apathy and a lower turnout. They refused to aggressively challenge the illegal disenfranchisement of African-American voters in Florida or even to demand that every vote be counted. They consciously put George W. Bush in the White House as their “lesser evil.”

Reason No. 2. The Democratic Party opposes Bush but does not oppose Bush’s political program.

During the US slaughter in Vietnam, many commented that World War II defeated Hitler but fascism won. The 2004 Democratic strategy is the same. The Democrats want to replace Bush, the personality. But they do not care if someone else continues Bush’s policies.

Their mantra “Anyone but Bush” blurs and confuses these two concepts. The average person thinks, “Stop the horrible things Bush is doing; anyone who replaces him will act differently.” But smoke-filled Democratic Party plotting sessions will select a candidate who can capitalize on anti-Bush sentiment and what he would do in office would be irrelevant. In fact, “Anyone but Bush” ignores that the Democratic Party is responsible for each and every one of the atrocities associated with the one they demonize.

If the Democrats are against the Bush program, why do they wait until the election to fight it? Why don’t they mobilize, as a party, [not as individual people, but as a political party] to demonstrate, strike, etc. to stop the Bush program now? Why would they tell us “Wait until the 2004 elections” to stop the Bush program?

Democratic candidates pretend to be less pro-war, more pro-labor, and more pro-human rights; then they move to the right to get the nomination, and further to the right to win the election. The Democrats only nominate a 2004 presidential candidate to lull voters into believing they are an alternative. Voters need an honest choice in 2004, therefore the Democratic Party should stay out of the presidential race.

Reason No. 3. The Democratic Party made Richard Nixon the most progressive president in the last 30 years.

The following occurred during the Nixon reign:

a. an end to the Vietnam War;

b. beginning of the Food Stamp program;

c. creation of the Environmental Protection Agency;

d. recognition of China;

e. passage of the Freedom of Information Act;

f. formal dismantling of the FBI’s COINTEL program;

g. decriminalization of abortion;

h. creation of Earned Income Tax Credits;

i. formal ban on biological weapons; and,

j. passage of the Clean Water Act.

These did not happen because Nixon and Kissinger tiptoed through the tulips concluding that warm fuzzy feelings beat genocide in Southeast Asia. They happened because corporate heads and agents in government were terrified of the convergence of anti-war, Black power, women’s and environmental movements and their potential impact on the labor movement. The Nixon years prove beyond a doubt that mass movements can force good things from horrible people in power.

The Democratic Party presidencies after Nixon prove that people in power without mass movements have no value no matter which party selects them.

No presidency since Nixon reaped so many progressive results. This is because the Democratic Party defuses mass movements and channels them into dead-end politics.

Reason No. 4. The Democratic Party is responsible for the non-stop attack on labor.

Lyndon Johnson was a Democratic President with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. For years the Democratic Party whined that this was what they needed to repeal the odious anti-labor provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. Yet they did nothing when they had the chance.

Throughout labor history, struggles were led by rank and file activists supporting “social unionism,” which is unions’ taking a major role fighting racism, sexism, war and environmental destruction. Workplace victories have often been co-opted by thugs advocating “business unionism,” the attitude that unions must be blind to society and restrict labor issues to wages, working conditions, pensions and health plans.

For over a century, the Democratic Party cultivated the business unionists, helped them destroy rank and file movements, and worked to extinguish any vision of social unionism in the minds of labor organizers. Backward union bureaucrats collaborate with the Democratic Party to create fake corporate “unions” in the third world which imprison, torture and kill social unionist rivals.

A symbiotic relationship exists between the Democratic and Republican parties. When elected, Democrats strengthen the labor bureaucracy, undermining the will of the rank and file to organize and resist. When Republicans are in power, they reap the benefits of the Democrats’ work by attacking and crushing the weakened unions. Then business unionists tell their members Republicans are responsible, therefore they must vote Democratic. The cycle repeats and union activism and membership decline.

Reason No. 5. The Democratic Party is responsible for cutbacks in social services at the federal, state and local levels.

Cutbacks began during the final years of the Carter presidency, not during the first year of Reagan, as is often claimed. The Democratic Party, over decades, designed, voted for and implemented cutbacks that destroyed jobs, pensions, medical coverage, public transportation and schools.

St. Louis has a Democratic Party school board a Democratic mayor and a Board of Alderman with 27 Democrats out of 28 members. This Democratic Party machine closed 16 schools (14 in predominantly Black portions of the City), fired custodians, secretaries, and half of all teachers aides, eliminated bus routes, packed up to 50 students in a classroom, attempted to raid the teachers’ pension fund, and paid over $6 million to management firms from outside the City to carry out the attack.

Many people with the best intentions work with the Democratic Party and some get elected to local and state offices. The Democratic Party sucks these organizers into accepting that “there are not as many funds as there used to be” and deciding which social services will be eliminated. The Democratic Party does not lead communities in linking up with others to demand an end to the destruction of essential services. It persuades local leaders to look out for their own neighborhood, and ignore other communities and the plight of the rest of the world by supporting candidates of war and plunder.

Reason No. 6. The Democratic Party is responsible for attacks on civil liberties such as the PATRIOT Act.

The Democrats wrote it. They voted for it. The PATRIOT Act was a bipartisan attack on civil liberties fully supported by the Democratic Party. It was a continuation of legislation from the Clinton years, and its history goes much further back.

The Democratic Party undermined civil liberties from Woodrow Wilson’s attack on the Wobblies through LBJ’s COINTELPRO campaign against Martin Luther King.

In the early 20th century, the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow. In the early 21st century, the Democratic Party is the party of prisons and the death penalty. Punching a card for the Democratic Party abets the execution of someone who cannot afford a good lawyer.

Reason No. 7. The Democratic Party is the Party of environmental destruction.

The Democratic Party co-opts environmental movements by cultivating Washington DC-based bureaucrats more interested in their own salaries than in stopping environmental destruction. Whether by supporting Clinton’s “salvage logging” or fawning over genetic engineering or supporting nuclear plants, nuclear transportation and nuclear weapons, Democrats destroy any meaningful distinction between themselves and the Republicans.

In 1992 Al Gore promised to stop the East Liverpool incinerator, whose poisonous fumes blew directly into an Ohio working class elementary school. After the elections, the promise was history.

In the 1980s, a flood washed dioxin-laced oil onto the working class town of Times Beach, Missouri. It was the second dioxin poisoning for those exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and the third dioxin poisoning for many who had worked in industrial settings. Democrats Clinton, Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, and County Executive Buzz Westfall helped ensure that they would be poisoned a fourth time by a dioxin incinerator in the 90s.

Similar episodes fill volumes. If undeterred, the Democratic Party will turn the globe into a toxic wasteland.

Reason No. 8. The Democratic Party is the grand chef, the big cheese, the glory hog of international trade deals.

In the early 1990s, George Bush Sr. was not able to push NAFTA through Congress. So big business decided that a back-stabbing Democrat would serve its interests better than the iron-fisted Republican. Enough money poured into Democratic Party coffers to make Bill Clinton president.

Dick Gephardt of St. Louis supposedly led efforts to stop congressional passage of NAFTA. I wrote an article documenting that when Gephardt spoke in, Mexico, he said that he would help get NAFTA approved. It was a pleasant surprise when St. Louis’ corporate paper, the Post-Dispatch, published it. I waited for Gephardt’s denunciation. It never came. To this day, Gephardt has not refuted my documentation that he faked his resistance to protect his union base in St. Louis.

One can only wonder how many other “progressive” Democrats pretend to defend labor and the environment or oppose cutbacks in order to save their skins at election time while party bosses allow them to do so because enough votes are already lined up to win a victory for big business.

The Democratic Party spins the myth that, compared to the wicked Republicans, it is the “lesser evil” regarding labor, environment, and civil liberty issues and cutbacks. Yet, no one doubts that Democrats bear primary responsibility for international trade deals such as NAFTA, GATT and the WTO. The point of these trade deals is to undermine labor and environmental protections and civil liberties.

The Clinton regime was so incredibly successful at pushing trade deals to subjugate the global South to the greed of the US, EU and Japan that it rushed ahead of the mechanisms of violence needed to enforce those deals. Bush’s attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq warn the rest of the world that the US will back up the Democrats’ negotiated control of trade and economics with violence.

Therefore the brutal assaults of the Bush Republicans are the natural outgrowth of the slick deals of the Clinton Democrats. It is false to claim that George W. Bush breaks qualitatively from the Democrat preceding him or that his presidency is uniquely dangerous. One can only believe that falsity by ignoring what has gone on during Democratic administrations.

Reason No. 9. The Democratic Party is the party of war.

The Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to lead the US into war.

Those who disagree with this should remember Democrat Woodrow Wilson won reelection with the slogan “He kept us out of war” and then promptly went to war and jailed anyone who didn’t like it. They should remember that the only leader of any nation who ever ordered the use of a nuclear bomb was Democrat Harry Truman. Democrat Truman bombed Hiroshima after ignoring Japan’s attempts to surrender, and, just to see if plutonium worked as well as uranium, ordered the bombing of Nagasaki three days later.

Any who hallucinate that “progressive” Democrats are peaceful should remember that Democrat John Kennedy risked global nuclear war over USSR missiles in Cuba that were further from the US than US missiles in Turkey were from the USSR. They should remember that Democrat Lyndon Johnson won reelection ridiculing Barry Goldwater’s promise to bomb Vietnam back to the stone age and then attempted to implement Goldwater’s program.

The illusion of the peace-loving Democratic Party requires a failure to recall that the Clinton-Gore regime was responsible for the murder of 5000 Iraqi children per month by sanctions. As hideous as the current administration is, Clinton-Gore’s silent slaughter exceeded the number of deaths caused by Bush.

Reason No. 10. The Democratic Party matches the Republican party in treason while exceeding it in cowardice.

Any who find it severe to charge the Democrats and Republicans with “treason” should ponder the fact that current international trade deals allow secret tribunals of bureaucrats to trump US laws. Though “treason” usually refers to service to a foreign enemy, it makes sense to apply the term to those who destroy their country by making its air too foul to breathe, poisoning its land so crops will not grow, making international waters too contaminated to support fish and producing enough nuclear material to create genetic diseases for eternity.

When these are combined with increased extinction of species, accelerated global warming and an explosion of genetic pollution of animals and plants, it is clear that, at some point, the world will not support human life.

Republicans may well eliminate humanity in 10 to 30 years. The Democrats claim that they are far more reasonable, which means that their policies might result in human life limping along for 50 to 100 years. This is what we are supposed to be excited about.

The Democratic Party warns that we must not campaign against corporate power and for the complete reversal needed to stop the advance of biodevastation. They suggest that a Green program will “scare people” and get Republicans elected. Their basic plan is to accept destruction of the planet but try to make sure it doesn’t happen until we are all dead and gone, leaving the devastation for our children or grandchildren. That is the Ultimate Cowardice of the Democratic Party.

“A Seat at the Table”

The major parties differ in the way they dispense with opposition to corporate objectives. The Democrats co-opt organizational leaders to sign onto whatever they are maneuvering. They believe this will win wider acceptance. The Republicans believe it is more efficient to go directly to the public with rhetoric of nationalism and racism.

In outrage, the Washington lobbyist sobs, “Clinton and Gore heard us out, while Bush won’t even give us a seat at the table.” While they may be oblivious to the fact that both parties have the same ultimate goals, they are not blind to the bloated paychecks they get from Democrats for selling corporate programs to their constituencies.

There is no better example of the self-interests of Washington lobbyists than the seven “environmental” organizations that helped Clinton/Gore pass NAFTA. They preached to their members the necessity of accepting “regulated” clear-cuts, “acceptable” levels of toxic poisons, “the best-we-can-negotiate” labor give-aways, “unfortunate” slashes in social services, and bipartisan PATRIOT Acts.

A political party is more than the individuals it nominates for public office. A party is also its political program: both its formally declared program and its informal program consisting of its relationships with economic classes and social groups. The Democratic Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America.

One or two maverick Democrats campaigning for the presidential nomination do not alter the fundamental nature of their Party. One of them may get the nomination-if the country is desperate and if the candidate is sufficiently astute at promising left while delivering right. But if the mavericks do not get the nomination, they will still draw in local organizers committed to proving their sincerity by supporting the nominated Democratic candidate in the general election.

The huge social changes we need will not happen because people select the lesser of two evils whose careers depend on begging for financial contributions from the very corporations that profit from planetary destruction. To preserve life, we must replace corporate control. This includes building an electoral party outside the parties of big business. It means linking many movements against oppression with a vision of a new society. It means using elections as one of many ways to mobilize people and insuring that candidates belong to progressive movements and remain accountable to them.

The Democratic Party is not a vehicle for ending corporate control of our lives. It is an obstacle to building a new society.

This is based on presentations given by Don Fitz to a meeting of the Green Party USA at the New York Law School on November 8, 2003 and at Genesis House in St. Louis on December 3, 2003.

Note

1. The implication by Democratic Party apologists that all 2000 votes for Ralph Nader would have gone to Al Gore is dishonest in the extreme. Exit polls showed that if Nader had not been in the race, then of the almost 3 million who voted for him, 25% would have voted for Bush, 38% for Gore, and 37% would not have voted. Two things are clear: [a] the net gain from Nader voters for Gore would have been 13% (=38% – 25%), not 100%; and [b] Nader brought at least a million voters to the polls who Gore could not bring out and whose votes the Gore machine threw away by not endorsing IRV.