UNDERNEWS Oct 30, 2000 THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW Washington's most unofficial source Editor: Sam Smith 1312 18th St. NW #502, Washington DC 20036 202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WEB SITE: http://prorev.com READERS FORUM: http://prorev.com/bb.htm ----------------------------------------------------- WORD He speaks to me as if I were a public meeting -- Queen Victoria of Gladstone MORNING LINE While George Bush retains a narrow lead in the electoral vote, the number of states in which Ralph Nader is playing a possibly crucial role has risen. The Democrats are looking better in Senate races than they have all year. They currently stand to pick up four seats while the GOP stands to pick up only one, and is vulnerable in five others. http://prorev.com/amline.htm FOR SALE "Al Gore's Soul" - E-Bay auction item #479162197 NADER AND GORE * * * THE MEDIA DISCUSSIONS OF RALPH NADER are reminiscent of a Stokely Carmichael appearance on "Meet the Press" The reporters were advising Carmichael, questioning his strategy, ponderously considering its effects. Finally, Carmichael told them in a mild voice that he didn't really think they were in the best position to tell blacks how to run their revolution. So it is with the Gorey media, which has been working overtime on the theme that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. Notably absent, of course, are any journalists with the slightest empathy for what Nader and the Green Party are about. Hence the assumption that the Nader campaign is only reactive rather than building something new; hence the ignorance of third party history; and hence the near total emphasis on what the situation means to Gore as opposed to what it means to the Greens and to America. Interestingly, the arguments the Gories use are remarkably similar to those made during the impeachment of Al's mentor, WJ Clinton. If you will recall, we were told then that right-thinking people should ignore the evidence, behave like good hack politicians, and support the Democrat come hell or high water. Which is why, perhaps, we now find the same Silicon Valley types who raised $13 million to defeat members of the impeachment committee at the forefront of the get-Nader campaign. One of the co-founders of this operation was responsible for a 13,000 e-mail spam attack on Nader's headquarters. The Gories have also tried to sell the absurd notion that Democrats in safe Gore states should trade their votes by promising to cast a ballot for Nader in return for someone promising not to do so in a tightly fought state. This, of course, works on the honor system, with which Gore and the Democratic Party have little familiarity these days. In fact, it was not long after this scam got underway that one Democratic operative was sending around an e-mail suggesting that people trade their votes not once but up to a hundred times. After all, it was pointed out, who will know? Apparently, the Democrats not only consider the Naderites dangerous radicals but rubes as well. Happily, there is no evidence that any of this is working. In fact, all of us who have written on the subject, suggests reader George Cotner, may have misjudged the situation. He sends along a UPI article that states, "The Nader campaign says half of the candidate's supporters are disenfranchised or independent voters who would not be likely to vote for either Bush or Gore if Nader was not in the race. Another 20 percent of Nader's support is Republican, the campaign claims, meaning that Nader is not having a disproportionate impact on potential vote results for Gore." Whether Nader is really hurting Gore or not, what the latter seeks from the Nader voters is precisely the sort of political cynicism that has driven so many away from the Democratic Party and that we can expect to see more of should Gore be elected. How bad is this cynicism? Pretty bad, judging from the upcoming issue of Esquire with a Bill Clinton smirking on the cover in a spread-leg come-hither-Monica pose. Inside it doesn't get any better. Clinton even declares that Republicans owe him an apology for the impeachment. Don't wait for any of the campaign press to ask Gore whether he agrees. Nonetheless, Gore's troubles are far more rooted in Clinton than in Nader. This election is, among other things, the second impeachment trial with Gore as the stand-in defendant. The Democrats could have avoided the problem by nominating an honest candidate unsoiled by the scum of the last eight years. And Gore could have minimized the problem by setting himself free of Clinton a long time ago. Instead, Gore and the Democrats have created yet another myth: that it's Ralph Nader's fault. And in their squalid attacks on the honest and idealistic people who support Nader, they have proved themselves once more unworthy of public office. * * * JOHN STAUBER, CENTER FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY: Democratic big business lobbyist Toby Moffett, a Monsanto vice president until recently and now a consultant, is one of the so-called progressives coordinating the effort to attack Nader and his supporters. Moffett and the rest of Monsanto's lobbyists love Al Gore because, while Gore did not invent the Internet, he is the techno-pol responsible for shoving Monsanto's inadequately tested, possibly dangerous and definitely unlabeled genetically engineered foods down the throats of American eaters. Now Toby is trying to shove Al Gore down voters' throats but that's going over about as well as milk from Monsanto's hormone-injected cows . . . * * * COUNTERPUNCH: A vote for Nader is first and foremost a vote for Nader. And since the programs of the Democratic and Republican candidates are pretty much the same on issues ranging from corporate welfare to Wall Street to the war on drugs to crime to military spending, a vote for Gore is actually a vote for Bush, and a vote for Bush is a vote for Gore. It was the same in 1996. Clinton or Dole? Vote for Clinton and you got Dole anyway. These waning days of the campaign there's a desperation to the alarums of the Gore people about the Nader. For one thing, they know that the Nader super-rallies in New York, across the upper midwest and in the north-west have had a hugely energizing effect on young people. There hasn't been anything like it since Jesse Jackson's populist bid for the nomination back in 1988. Back that time Jackson rolled in behind the Democratic ticket and rolled up his Rainbow, leaving hundreds of thousands of supporters with nowhere to go and nothing to do . . . Gore liberals such as [Gloria] Steinem, or Patricia Ireland of NOW, or Carl Pope of the Sierra Club have been trading in false currency for so long that they don't realise that as shills for the Democratic Party their credit was used up long, long ago. When Steinem of all people wags her finger at Greens and tells them that poor people don't have the luxury of voting for Nader, it doesn't take longer than a second to hear the response: "Then what about the welfare bill. Was that good for the poor?" And only middle class women enjoy the luxury of Roe v Wade since Gore and others voted down federal aid for abortions for poor women long ago. Listen to Ellen Johnson, an organizer for the Arizona Greens, who teaches at Arizona State in Tempe. "Since the onset of the Clinton presidency NOW's once stalwart support of many women's rights issues has eroded. While reproductive rights are important, so is quality child-care, a living wage, eradication of environmental toxins, and health care. Although Clinton/Gore promised to address these issues in '92 and '96, no acceptable plans for improvement have been implemented. COUNTERPUNCH http://counterpunch.org * * * PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, EAST LIVERPOOL, OH, SEP 28: When Ralph Nader rolled into this frayed town along the Ohio River yesterday, he became the first presidential candidate to visit this year. And probably the last, too. Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader arrives at East Liverpool School District administration building for a news conference and campaign speech. Texas Gov. George W. Bush has no plans to visit this blue-collar Democratic stronghold on the Ohio-West Virginia border, 42 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. And Vice President Al Gore pretty much wore out his welcome in the town once known as the "Pottery Capital of the World" after a 1992 campaign visit. That's when the vocal, longtime opponents of one of the world's biggest hazardous waste incinerators say he uttered what they have termed "the first big lie of the Clinton-Gore administration." Back then, Gore promised to stop the Von Roll-owned Waste Technologies Industries facility from opening and operating . . . "After seven years of double-talk and delay it's time to begin shutting down this incinerator," Nader said, adding that Von Roll should be required to give its 190 workers two years' severance pay. * * * JAKE WERNER, INDEPENDENT MEDIA: The media keep telling us that there are "sharp differences" between the policies of Al Gore and George W. Bush. Let's take a look at some of the issues on which the divide doesn't seem to be that large: - Neither candidate supports a fair trade approach to foreign trade policy -- encouraging or mandating respect for labor rights and the environment. - Neither candidate has proposed true health care reform, which would create a universal service-on-demand system. - Neither candidate will push for meaningful campaign finance reform: full public funding for all stages of all campaigns. - Neither candidate supports a minimum wage to match the cost of living or a mandatory living wage. - Neither candidate has a serious solution to the endemic poverty and hopelessness of the inner cities. - Neither candidate will contemplate drug law reform . . . - Neither candidate is committed to a massive reduction (or even a small reduction!) in military spending. - Neither candidate has a plan to make a high-end college education affordable for children from lower-class families. - Neither candidate is willing to commit sufficient resources to fighting the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa . . . - Neither candidate has proposed measures to address the skyrocketing inequality of wealth in the United States. - Neither candidate would work to end the corporate takeover of rural America -- a trend that is wiping out small farmers and replacing them with factory farms that damage the environment, mechanize animal cruelty, and destroy the standard of living of nearby communities. - Neither candidate has committed himself to a positive change on Iraq policy. - - Neither candidate has a legitimate plan to eliminate, or even substantially reduce, the incredibly high child poverty rate in the United States. - Neither candidate opposes the destructive and pointless embargo against Cuba . . . - Neither candidate plans to eliminate the massive government subsidies to business (corporate welfare), which cost much more than government aid to the poor ever did. - Neither candidate supports the right of gay or lesbian couples to marry . . . - Neither candidate will stop Clinton\'s massive aid package to Colombia . . . - Neither candidate supports a considerable reduction in the debts owed by most poor countries . . . - Neither candidate has any plans whatsoever to improve the lot of the Amerindian nations, the most disadvantaged social group in the country. - Neither candidate supports tough measures to counteract the increasingly grave threat of global warming. - Both candidates support the economic liberalization agenda of the Treasury Department, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank . . . - Both candidates support a national missile defense program . . . - Both candidates support the huge American arms export industry . . . - Both candidates support standardized tests as a way to measure student achievement. This ensures that instructors will \"teach to the test\" and measures ability to perform on multiple choice questions rather than ability to think critically or understand general concepts. - Both candidates support the death penalty . . . - Both candidates enthusiastically support Israel . . . - Both candidates support the corporate media system, which excludes diverse programming and slants news coverage in favor of the powerful. INDEPENDENT MEDIA http://www.indymedia.org * * * MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD, PROGRESSIVE: Let's examine the Supreme Court argument a little more closely. First of all, it's not a given that George W. Bush will appoint arch conservatives who will vote to overturn Roe V. Wade. Republican presidents have appointed many justices who turned out to be liberal: George the First, W.'s dad, appointed David Souter. Ford appointed John Paul Stevens. Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade. And Eisenhower appointed William Brennan. But the doomsayers say we're in more ideological times today, and that Bush the Younger would never appoint another Souter. How can they be sure? Take a gander at Bush's appointments in Texas. The New York Times did a front-page piece on these appointments back on July 9, and here's what it found: "A look at Mr. Bush's record in Texas shows that he has appointed justices who have had a moderating influence on the Texas Supreme Court, often regarded as among the most conservative and pro-business in the country. He has appointed four of the court's nine justices and has been a political patron for a fifth." The Times cited one particularly illuminating example: "Earlier this year, the Texas Supreme Court stunned social conservatives throughout the state by issuing a 6-to-3 ruling that allowed a 17-year-old high school senior to have an abortion without telling her parents." That's right: George W. Bush's state supreme court upheld abortion rights! PROGRESSIVE http://www.progressive.org/wx102800.htm UNDERNEWS IRREGULAR BRUCE BARNI, PUGET SOUND: The Gore effort to undermine Nader hit the Puget Sound region this past weekend. Celebrities Alfre Woodard, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner, Christine Lahti, the candidate for US Senate, a former Democratic governor et al. blew into town to jazz up things, but they had to be disappointed. In Seattle, on a beautifully sunny fall morning, they managed to get only about 250 people out to see and hear the celebrities; in Tacoma several hours later they added the current Democratic governor to their group, only to draw maybe 60 people or so. In Seattle the Nader folks managed to get a good slice of the local television news coverage; in Tacoma there didn't seem to be any media around. FEEDBACK Official Secrets Act SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We need letters to the President supporting a veto, but most importantly -- this issue will not be killed by a veto alone -- we need every newspaper to raise the issue or explain their higher priorities. We need every citizen group to ask every congressional candidate their position on a US Official Secrets Act, particularly incumbents who in effect voted for it or acquiesced in its quiet passage. WASHINGTON POST http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15251-2000Oct25.html National ID Card JOHN Q PUBLIC SMITH: Was reading last night your last hard-copy edition with the signs of democracy in danger. I agree with many but not with the assumption that a national ID card in itself is a sign of decaying democracy. I have lived in three countries that require national ID cards for their citizens: Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Italy. Italy, as you know, is a feisty working democracy. Brazil is a struggling getting close democracy and Saudi Arabia is a repressive monarchy. I would say that national ID cards are a random variable in the democracy formula. Also, in our Social Security numbers we effectively already carry national ID cards. NATO VS. EUROPE TELEGRAPH, LONDON: Washington is ready to reduce its forces in Europe to a token presence if Paris gets its way in forging a new European military alliance at next month's European Union summit in Nice. The new alliance, which has been in the pipeline for some time, is in theory supposed to complement Nato. It is being seen across the Atlantic, however, as a move to undermine Nato and marginalise the United States in European security. The move could spell the end of Nato as anything but a talking shop, according to defence experts in Britain and America. The 15-member military alliance, a Franco-German brainchild, is designed to take over from the Western European Union as the first EU-commanded force, drawing substantially on European manpower, equipment, intelligence and command and control systems already allocated to Nato . . . The new EU military partnership is thought by some observers to spell the end of Nato as an effective alliance. A Nato insider said: "The Americans were going to pull out anyway over the next 10 years. This will accelerate the process. They could be out in all but a token presence by 2003." MEDIA MYTH UPDATE 'School Violence' JENNIFER EMILY & COLLEEN MCCAIN, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Despite parental anxieties about school safety and highly publicized school shootings, crime has fallen overall in the nation's schools, according to a study released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice. Not only has crime decreased across the board, but also the number of students who reported feeling unsafe at school declined from 1995 to 1999, according to the study. The number of students who said they feared being attacked or harmed at school fell from 9 percent to 5 percent. Black and Hispanic students said they feared attacks more than white students did . . . The number of students who reported they were crime victims fell over the last few years. From 1995 to 1999, the number of students who were victims of crime at school decreased from 10 percent to 8 percent. There were 47 homicides in schools from July 1997 to June 1998. Local police also say they have noticed a decrease in crime, as well as gangs, in local schools. From 1995 to 1999, the number of students reporting street gangs in their schools decreased from 29 percent to 12 percent, according to the study. DALLAS MORNING NEWS http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/201027_schoolviolence.html The Social Security "Crisis" [Led by Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer, a small group including Robert Kuttner, Dean Baker, Robert Reich and your editor has been trying to make the point that assumptions about a Social Security "crisis" are badly flawed. This is the first mainstream article we've seen that lifts the curtain a bit] JOHN N BERRY, WASHINGTON POST: To listen to the national debate about the urgent need to "save Social Security," one would think the popular retirement-income program was going to be broke within just a few years. Actually, projections about the system's finances have improved so rapidly in recent years that some experts say there's no need to rush into changes that may or may not be needed. But that's a distinctly minority view. Most Social Security experts and many politicians maintain that the government needs to do something soon to restructure the system in preparation for the day when it is overwhelmed by the retirement of the enormous baby-boom generation. They point to projections by Social Security trustees that show the program eventually will be unable to pay promised benefits using payroll tax revenue, interest income from government bonds in its trust funds and eventual sales of the bonds . . . In 1995, the projections that have worried so many people showed that Social Security trust funds would grow until 2018, when they would peak with $3.3 trillion in assets, and then decline steadily--becoming unable to pay promised benefits after 2029. Since those forecasts were made, however, robust economic growth and other factors have pushed those dates further into the future. This year's report from the trustees estimated that the trust funds would keep growing until 2024, when they would have assets of $6.05 trillion. And the funds would not be exhausted until 2037. In other words, with the passage of five years of unexpectedly strong economic growth--without either payroll tax increases or benefit cuts--the system has gained eight years of solvency. This rapid shift in the system's fortunes highlights the inherent uncertainty of the actuaries' projections. [In other words, the whole basis of the debate has been wrong. And while the growth projections may have been unexpected to the sort of people the Washington Post interviews, read what Doug Henwood was writing in 1995: "Almost no one bothers to investigate the claim of Social Security's coming insolvency, which is based on projections in the annual report of the system's trustees. I did and discovered that the projections assume the economy will grow an average of 1.5 percent a year (after inflation) for the next 75 years--half the rate of the previous 75, and matched in only one decade this century, from 1910-20. Even the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression, saw a faster growth rate. What would happen if the economy grew at a peppier 2.2 percent rate? The trustees provide alternative projections based on that as well, and, gosh, the system remains solvent indefinitely. At 2.5 percent--still slower than the 75-year average--it runs a surplus. About the only other journalist to question the dire predictions for Social Security's future was Robert Kuttner, in his Business Week column."] . . . The system has been funded with some general revenue in the past. And it probably will be getting much more general revenue in the future. In 26 of the 63 years of Social Security's existence, payroll taxes haven't covered its costs and the shortfall was made up from other revenue sources. That happened as recently as 1995. [Isn't it interesting that this fact has been completely absent from the Social Security debate?] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35850-2000Oct28.html RICHARD DU BOFF, UNCOMMON SENSE: [Du Boff is a professor of economics at Bryn Mawr College] The economic burden of supporting retirees is often measured by what is called the "dependency ratio"--the number of elderly compared to the number of people of working age (20 to 64 years). This ratio is projected to rise from 21.4 seniors per 100 workers in 1995 to 35.5 seniors per 100 workers in 2030, as the number of Americans aged 65 and over grows from 34 million to around 70 million--and from 13 to 20 percent of the population. Thus, as the postwar baby boom generation reaches retirement age starting in 2012, it will have to be supported by the relatively smaller cohort born during the low birth-rate years of the past three decades. The problem here is that the working population must support all those who do not work--children as well as the elderly. This "total dependency ratio" changes the picture: the ratio of all dependents to workers is projected to rise from 70.9 percent in 1995 to 78.8 percent by 2030 and 80 percent in 2050. Not only does this represent a much lower rate of growth than when only the elderly are included; it also reveals that total dependency at its estimated future peak will still be well below what it was from 1960 to 1975, when it averaged 89 percent of those working. Total dependency ratios are anything but irrelevant. In the United States, the costs of educating the baby boomers caused large, possibly unprecedented, increases in spending on education during the decades following the Second World War. At that time, our economic productivity was far less than today's. In real (price-corrected) terms, gross domestic product per capita in 1960 was less than half of what it was in 1998, and much less than what it will be in the next century. In other words, one worker today can produce far more than the same worker did four decades ago, and less than what his or her successor will be able to produce four decades from now. It seems safe to say that if we could afford to pay for the education of the baby boomers, we can afford to pay for their retirement. NATIONAL JOBS FOR ALL COALITION http://www.njfac.org/us21.htm THE MEDIACRACY [Quotes from Al Gore found on the same page of the New York Times by Smarter Times] "My home in Tennessee is on the edge of Appalachia. I've spent many a Saturday night filling out forms related to black lung. I've heard the stories, I've seen the faces." "My home in Tennessee is on the edge of Appalachia and my Congressional district that I started representing 24 years ago includes a big part of the district that is in Appalachia, with coal miners. I have spent many a Saturday night in a small courthouse filling out forms related to black lung." "My home in Tennessee is on the edge of Appalachia and my Congressional district that I started representing 24 years ago includes a big part of the district that is in Appalachia, with coal miners. I have spent many a Saturday night in a small courthouse filling out forms related to black lung . . . And I've heard the stories and I've seen the faces." SMARTER TIMES: http://smartertimes.com DRUG BUSTS RICHMOND POLICE CHIEF JERRY OLIVER, RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATH: With each massive drug seizure, evidence mounts that this country is sadly losing the war on drugs - not to drug cartels or drug traffickers over there - but to the dependably relentless appetite for illegal drugs created by our neighbors right here at home. Eighty-six years after Congress passed the 1914 Harrison Act that criminalized drugs, America's drug consumption thrives. Our nation's premier drug-war strategy of more police, more interdiction, and more incarceration is failing and the trajectory continues downward . . . Former Secretary of State George Shultz said recently that any real and lasting change that occurs in a democratic society is done through education and persuasion and not through coercion and force. Perhaps it's time to heed his sage advice and search for alternative approaches to our current drug-control strategies that will be more effective, fair, and humane in reducing drug usage and drug dependency; that will emphasize treatment, prevention, and education; and that will rely on our social and health systems more than on our criminal-justice systems. A growing number of thoughtful Americans across the political spectrum have strong doubts about the efficacy of the current drug war, its costs, its true impact, and its future consequences. They want to rethink our direction and possibilities. As a police officer on the front line, quite frankly I'm one of them. RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH http://www.timesdispatch.com/editorial/oped/MGBLC2FGKEC.html LOCAL HEROES NT TIMES: "Not everything should be for sale," Mayor Wellington E. Webb said this week - raising more than a few eyebrows, because what he does not want to sell could mean as much as $89 million for Denver and the surrounding five counties. What he does not want to sell is the right to name the $400 million football stadium under construction beside Mile High Stadium, the rickety home of the city's beloved Denver Broncos since 1962 . . . "My position is that everything in life is too unsettled," he said. "Utility companies want to deregulate. With phone companies, you don't know who's handling your calls - AT&T, MCI, Sprint, whoever. Banks change names so fast, the names on your checks don't correspond to who owns the bank. So for me, why would you sell an identifiable icon, even for millions of dollars? We're a Western city, a new city that doesn't have many icons. Once they're gone, they're gone." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/29/national/29DENV.html ---------------------------------------------------- REVIEW E-MAIL: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] REVIEW INDEX: http://www.prorev.com/ UNDERNEWS: http://www.prorev.com/indexa.htm UNDERNEWS SUBSCRIBE: Reply with "subscribe" as subject UNDERNEWS UNSUBSCRIBE: Reply with 'unsubscribe' as subject REVIEW FORUM & LETTERS TO EDITOR: http://prorev.com/bb.htm For a free trial subscription to Undernews and the hard-copy Progressive Review send your postal address with zip code. Copyright 2000, The Progressive Review. Matter not independently copyrighted may be reprinted provided TPR is paid your normal reprint fees, if any, and is given proper credit. Because of its quantity, TPR's mail is not always answered, but it is always read. The editor is cheered or remorseful as appropriate and posts some of the more interesting messages at http://www.prorev.com/bb.htm
