Rosenstrasse (Dir. Margarethe von Trotta)
Rosenstrasse (Margarethe von Trotta's new film Rosenstrasse tells a little known story of the 1943 protest of thousands of non-Jewish German women who had resisted the Nazi pressures on them to divorce their Jewish husbands, demonstrated when their husbands were finally rounded up, and, most importantly, succeeded in securing their release): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/rosenstrae.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
¡Chávez No Se Va! ¡VOTA NO!
¡Chávez No Se Va! ¡VOTA NO!: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/chvez-no-se-va-vota-no.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
One Vote, One Party, NO Choice
One Vote, One Party, NO Choice: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/one-vote-one-party-no-choice.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
James E. McGreevey and the Political Closet of the Democratic Party
James E. McGreevey and the Political Closet of the Democratic Party (Embodied within McGreevey's career are contradictions of the Democratic Party): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/james-e-mcgreevey-and-political-closet.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Code Red: John Kerry's Neighborhood Terrorist Watch
Code Red: John Kerry's Neighborhood Terrorist Watch (Copying Bush and Ashcroft, Kerry calls on Americans to do more to protect themselves against terrorism by setting up neighborhood watch groups. Plus, my brand-new color-coded advisory system that allows liberals and leftists to evaluate Threat Conditions and take corresponding Protective Measures against the Democratic Party's Republican copycat attacks): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/code-red-john-kerrys-neighborhood.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Greens For Nader Update: Rigged Convention Divides Green Party (Sign and Forward This)
At 1:03 AM -0400 8/11/04, Michael Hoover wrote: The best way to highlight unequal/unjust ballot access procedures is to actually run a campaign that runs afoul of them -- then, there is a practical struggle. Who cares if ballot access procedures are unequal and unjust if there is no candidate other than the Democratic and Republican ones to begin with? of course, my point was that nader people have not - and will not - raise equal protection matter (although they'll - no doubt, and rightly so - complain about being exluded from prez debates)... Have you actually looked into all the lawsuits that the Nader campaigns have filed? Here are a couple of lawsuits (probably among many more) that the Nader campaigns this year and in the part have filed, singly or jointly with other parties: blockquoteV.T.C.A., Election Code §§192.032(a), 192.032(b)(3)(A), 192.032(c), and 192.032(d), as applied to the Plaintiffs herein for the 2004 Texas General Election and all subsequent General Elections in Texas, and the facts and circumstances relating thereto, are illegal and unconstitutional, in that they are violative of the rights of the Plaintiffs under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and Title 42, United States Code, § 1983, in that the aforesaid statutes are not framed in the least restrictive manner necessary to achieve the legitimate State interests in regulating ballot access for a Presidential election, particularly as relating to the fact that the relatively earlier filing deadline for the current election year (viz.: May 10, 2004), shorter petitioning time, and higher number of required petition signature of 64,077 for Independent presidential candidates as opposed to the later petition signature deadline for the current election year (viz.: May 24, 2004), longer petitioning time, and lower petition signature requirement of 45,540 for recognition of new political parties in Texas constitutes an invidious discrimination against Independent presidential candidates in violation of their rights and the rights of their potential supporters under the equal protection clause to the United States Constitution, their right to political association for the advancement of political beliefs, and the right to cast their votes effectively; and, as applied to Independent presidential candidates, Texas' relatively early signature deadline, combined with the significantly higher signature requirement for Independent candidates as opposed to new political party candidates, and other particular circumstances herein, establishes an unreasonable and undue burden on Independent candidates for President of the United States seeking ballot access in Texas. http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/nader/nadertxsuit.html/blockquote blockquote1. This is a civil action for declaratory and injunctive relief arising under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiffs challenge the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's requirement at 25 P.S. §§ 2873, 2911, 2913, and 2914 that all candidates for elected office pay a filing fee in order to gain access to the ballot, with no provision for a waiver of such fee or alternative means of ballot qualification. This filing fee system violates Plaintiffs' fundamental rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. http://www.nvri.org/library/cases/Belitskus/Belitskuscomplaint.pdf/blockquote blockquoteOhio had authority to list the name of presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the November 2000 ballot without his Green Party affiliation, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. Ohio officials said the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling upholds the state's position that it has authority to impose reasonable requirements for ballot listings to ensure orderly, fair elections. The Green Party and Nader had argued that keeping the party's designation off the ballot violated their constitutional rights of free speech, free association and equal protection of law. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=4245/blockquote As a matter of fact, in his writing, Nader indicted violations of the equal protection clause as early as in 1958 in the context of noting the court's turning a blind eye to them: blockquoteFor example, the Illinois statute states that a petition to nominate candidates for a new political party must be signed by at least 25,000 qualified voters, including at least 200 from each of the 102 counties in the state. The New York statute compels even greater omnipresence. It reads:An independent nominating petition for candidates to be voted for by all the voters of the state must be signed by at least 12,000 signatures of whom at least 50 shall reside in each county of the state The Illinois law was challenged by the Progressive Party just before the 1948 elections. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court where it
Re: Economics and law
At 9:32 PM -0700 8/10/04, David B. Shemano wrote: Even taking your example into consideration, let's imagine a lack of economic coercion. Actually, I can't imagine it. In any event, let's assume that the law requires every car have the safety of a Lexus and everybody can afford a Lexus. Fine. But then a new car comes on the market that is safer than a Lexus, but costs a lot more. Conceptually, you are right back where you are today, where the poor can buy a used Pinto. Right back where you are today, in terms of relative deprivation due to the existence of classes (as more safety regulations do not abolish classes as you note correctly), but in the hypothetical scenario that you mention, at least the minimum standard of safety for all have gone up, including for the rich who can now have products of even higher safety standards than products of already high standards that they had at their disposal before the advent of stricter safety regulations. That sounds like a virtuous spiral of progress of technology for all, whether you take a capitalist or socialist point of view. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Iraq Veterans Against the War
(A new group of veterans just got organized: Iraq Veterans Against the War. Great! On the other hand, Marine Lance Cpl. Abdul Henderson is in trouble because of his appearance in his service dress Alpha uniform in Fahrenheit 9/11. Let's support him.): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/iraq-veterans-against-war.html Yoshie Furuhashi
Re: Corporate Democrats
The lesson here is to remain militant in the streets, not to back a bourgeois politician. Ironically, this is, itself, a flawed analogy. Militant in the streets is lingo from an era of ascendant working class interests -- in particular, radical lingo from the 60s-70s. (Militancy, itself, is older than that, of course.) By trying to mechanically employ tactics of another era, one can do more damage than good. (Militant in the streets, today, in North America, usually reduces itself to theatre and marginalism.) At any rate -- We are all grown ups and can ally with whatever we wish at any strategic moment and not fear having to lose sight of the reason we gave a shit in the first place. Ken. I've seen folks here and elsewhere contemptuously dismiss an independent electoral challenge to the Democratic Party from the left (Nader/Camejo and Greens who support them), an attempt to make voices for peace heard inside the Democratic Party (Kucinich and those who supported him), and now even protests (militant or theatrical) in the streets. I've yet hear them present what they believe to be worth doing, let alone see them actually doing it. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Corporate Democrats
At 12:18 PM -0400 8/10/04, Doug Henwood wrote: Why isn't it better to have a bourgeois politician in office who owes a few favors to people like us rather than someone who hates us with a passion? Expecting the Democratic Party elite to think that they owe working-class Democrats a few favors is like expecting fraudsters to think that they owe a few favors to their marks. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Corporate Democrats
At 12:52 PM -0400 8/10/04, Marvin Gandall wrote: But to imagine you can create strikes, demonstrations, and other forms of mass activity in the streets through the sheer power of ideas, where the conditions for those ideas to take root are largely absent, strikes me as -- well, idealism. You are setting up a straw man. No one has suggested here that we can organize a mass action even when and where there is no desire for such an action on the part of people. My posting was in response to the remark that militant demonstrations in the streets are tactics of another era and that protests that are more theatrical than militant are merely marginal. At 12:52 PM -0400 8/10/04, Marvin Gandall wrote: I can't speak for others, but I've indicated previously that I think the most meaningful mass political activity which is currently taking place in the US is among rank-and-file Democrats and others you (contemptuously?) refer to as ABB'ers. The current election has the character of a referendum on US economic and foreign policy, which distinguishes it from the usual run-of-the-mill electoral entertainment in liberal democracies, and the unusual intensity of feeling between the Democratic and Republican ranks, and within the left, testifies to the importance attached to it. A minority of workers, intellectuals, and capitalists probably think that [t]he current election has the character of a referendum on US economic and foreign policy, but that doesn't make it effectively so in practice. At 12:52 PM -0400 8/10/04, Marvin Gandall wrote: But the objective conditions clearly don't exist for that, and your efforts to build support for such a movement through tireless propaganda do, alas, appear mostly frenetic and incomprehensible -- and antagonistic -- to the overwhelming majority of well-intentioned intellectuals and workers who have consciously determined that a repudiation of the economic and foreign policies of their government requires throwing out the Bush administration. I don't think you'll ever persuade them that goal can be realized by voting Green as opposed to Democratic. I don't believe that Nader/Camejo this year will be able to persuade the well-intentioned intellectuals and workers who are committed to voting for Kerry or Bush to do otherwise, nor do I think that persuading them to change their mind in time for the November election is the task of this year. It will be politically significant, however, if all who have said that they support Nader/Camejo -- to say nothing of all who have said that they consider voting for Nader/Camejo -- will actually be able to vote for them, and I intend my remarks for this sector of the working-class population -- roughly 2-7% of the voting-age population, even if we count only those who have actually expressed support in the polls, which is to say, approximately 4.4 to 15.4 million people. At 12:52 PM -0400 8/10/04, Marvin Gandall wrote: Finally, I don't think participation in this process is in contradiction to organizing parallel antiwar actions among antiwar Democrats and ABB'ers, as you suggest. It would, in fact, complement such efforts. All indications are that those who want to elect Kerry at all costs have made conscious efforts to silence voices against the occupations, keeping Nader/Camejo off the ballots, toning down the DNC protests, etc. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Whither the Fed?
Jim wrote: I would guess that the Fed -- led by Dubya's close friend Alan, who visits the White House more than weekly -- is going to surprise the financial markets by standing pat on August 10th. (I'll be out of the country, so I won't be able to stop them.) The Fed raised the rate today. How committed are they to this course of action in the next 12-18 months? -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Greens For Nader Update: Rigged Convention Divides Green Party (Sign and Forward This)
At 1:07 PM -0400 8/9/04, Michael Hoover wrote: nader people might be of greater help to polity in general (of course, this is electoral campaign which, by definition, has narrow focus) by highlighting unequal/unjust ballot access procedures, state by state rules are clear violation of 14th admendment equal protection... The best way to highlight unequal/unjust ballot access procedures is to actually run a campaign that runs afoul of them -- then, there is a practical struggle. Who cares if ballot access procedures are unequal and unjust if there is no candidate other than the Democratic and Republican ones to begin with? At 1:07 PM -0400 8/9/04, Michael Hoover wrote: carcasses of 'minor' parties across u.s. political landscape Minor parties -- the Liberal Party, the Free Soil Party, etc. -- are destined to die, but they are among the important political arenas through which people network, gain experience, and accumulate knowledge, and I'm interested in what individuals who are trained in struggles that cannot immediately achieve their goals learn and what they will do with what they have learned. We need to keep learning from major failures and minor successes until we encounter objective conditions that may allow us to make use of our experience and knowledge. At 1:07 PM -0400 8/9/04, Michael Hoover wrote: reform party line is absolutely irrevelevant in states where party has ballot status save two - florida and michigan (drum roll please - so-called 'battlegrounds') It would be ironic if Cobb/LaMarche are on the Green Party ballots in one-party states and Nader/Camejo are on the ballots in battleground states. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
The Libertarian Party
[lbo-talk] Re: lbo-talk Digest, Vol 8, Issue 83 Tommy Kelly tkelly15450 at charter.net, Tue Aug 10 17:28:55 PDT 2004 snip What happens to the 2004 numbers if you add Libertarian Party's candidate Michael Badnarik? blockquoteDemocratic strategists have long fretted that Ralph Nader could draw votes from their presidential candidate. But a new survey suggests that President Bush faces a potential threat of his own from a more obscure spoiler: Michael Badnarik. In the survey, conducted in three Midwest battleground states, some voters who said they would choose Bush over Sen. John F. Kerry in a two-candidate race also said they would pick Badnarik, the Libertarian Party nominee for president, if he were added to the ballot. The survey was conducted in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin by the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. It will be made public today. The numbers for Badnarik were small: He drew 1% to 1.5% of the vote in a four-way race with Bush, Democratic candidate Kerry and Nader, an independent. But analysts said the results suggested that the small-government Libertarians could attract enough conservatives disaffected with Bush's leadership to swing a tight race, just as Nader attracted discontented liberals in 2000. This shows us that there is a small, but potentially very significant, number of upper-Midwesterners who are interested in voting for the Libertarian Party, and that they appear to be hailing from the wings of the Republican Party, said Lawrence Jacobs, a Humphrey Institute political scientist, who directed the poll. The survey suggested that the Libertarian had potential to steal support from Bush where it could hurt most: among much-coveted independents. In Wisconsin, the survey showed that 8% of independents would back Badnarik. That cut Bush's performance among independent voters in the state from about 50% to 43%. Those voters, without even knowing the candidate, are so upset with Bush they are willing to say, 'I'm going to vote for a Libertarian,' Jacobs said. The telephone survey, conducted June 21 to July 12, had a margin of error of 4 percentage points. It included 589 registered voters in Minnesota, 575 in Wisconsin and 614 in Iowa. Of those states, Badnarik has secured a place on the ballot only in Wisconsin. But ballot access is so easy in Minnesota and Iowa that the Libertarians are all but certain of success there, Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, said. Since there have been Libertarians, there has never been a presidential election where the Libertarians were not on the ballot in those two states, he said. Nader has drawn far more attention than Badnarik, 49, a computer programmer from Austin, Texas. In the Humphrey Institute poll, Nader drew as much as 5% of the vote in a four-way race, and he appeared to draw more support from Kerry than Badnarik took from Bush. But it is unclear how many state ballots will include Nader. Badnarik is already on the ballot in 30 states, Winger said, and the Libertarian Party says its candidate has made the ballot in all 50 states for the last three elections. The impact of third-party candidates has received renewed attention since 2000, when Nader ran as the Green Party candidate and won thousands of votes that many analysts thought would have gone to Democrat Al Gore, likely putting Gore in the White House. Republicans sought to discount a threat from Badnarik, noting that, even in the Humphrey survey, Bush won support from 90% of Republicans. Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is advising the Bush campaign, said the impact of the Libertarians would be so minimal that it fit more in the category of what the weather was like on election day. I have not been involved in a single discussion yet where the impact of the Libertarian Party has been raised as a significant risk factor, Weber said. (Peter Wallsten, Libertarian Badnarik May Cost Bush Support, Poll Finds, emLos Angeles Times/em, a href=http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/whitehouse/la-na-poll21jul21,1,4355572.story?coll=la-news-politics-white_house;July 21, 2004/a)/blockquote The Republicans don't appear to be too upset with Badnarik, leaving him alone, unlike the Democrats who have used everything from lawsuits to slanders to keep Nader off the ballots. Probably the Republicans are counting on Badnarik's obscurity, just as the Democrats do not fear David Cobb on the Green Party ballots and candidates of socialist sects, both of whom are completely unknown to nearly 100% of voters. Voters who would consider voting for the Libertarian Party candidate must be affluent white men who are socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and very strongly opposed to the occupation of Iraq. They can't be a large group, but they aren't non-existent. Badnarik, as a matter of fact, sounds pretty eloquent and clear-sighted on foreign policy, including on the matter of Israel and Palestinians, and I'd think
Re: ABK Comrades!
At 9:20 PM -0400 8/10/04, Michael Hoover wrote: maybe post header should have read: anybody but kerry and cobb, in any event, no need to limit oneself to left petit-bourgeois deviationism of nader, choose between several real-live socialists (commies even) Only Nader/Camejo represented a potential to threaten the Democratic Party's hegemony over the left side of the political spectrum by taking 2-7% of the votes, according to the polls http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/nader-2004-nader-2000.html -- hence the Democrats' well-organized attacks on Nader/Camejo. Among the parties that you listed, only the Libertarian Party, whose core supporters are well-to-do, will have its candidate on the ballots in all 50 states: blockquoteDemocratic strategists have long fretted that Ralph Nader could draw votes from their presidential candidate. But a new survey suggests that President Bush faces a potential threat of his own from a more obscure spoiler: Michael Badnarik. In the survey, conducted in three Midwest battleground states, some voters who said they would choose Bush over Sen. John F. Kerry in a two-candidate race also said they would pick Badnarik, the Libertarian Party nominee for president, if he were added to the ballot. The survey was conducted in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin by the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. It will be made public today. The numbers for Badnarik were small: He drew 1% to 1.5% of the vote in a four-way race with Bush, Democratic candidate Kerry and Nader, an independent. But analysts said the results suggested that the small-government Libertarians could attract enough conservatives disaffected with Bush's leadership to swing a tight race, just as Nader attracted discontented liberals in 2000. This shows us that there is a small, but potentially very significant, number of upper-Midwesterners who are interested in voting for the Libertarian Party, and that they appear to be hailing from the wings of the Republican Party, said Lawrence Jacobs, a Humphrey Institute political scientist, who directed the poll. The survey suggested that the Libertarian had potential to steal support from Bush where it could hurt most: among much-coveted independents. In Wisconsin, the survey showed that 8% of independents would back Badnarik. That cut Bush's performance among independent voters in the state from about 50% to 43%. Those voters, without even knowing the candidate, are so upset with Bush they are willing to say, 'I'm going to vote for a Libertarian,' Jacobs said. The telephone survey, conducted June 21 to July 12, had a margin of error of 4 percentage points. It included 589 registered voters in Minnesota, 575 in Wisconsin and 614 in Iowa. Of those states, Badnarik has secured a place on the ballot only in Wisconsin. But ballot access is so easy in Minnesota and Iowa that the Libertarians are all but certain of success there, Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, said. Since there have been Libertarians, there has never been a presidential election where the Libertarians were not on the ballot in those two states, he said. Nader has drawn far more attention than Badnarik, 49, a computer programmer from Austin, Texas. In the Humphrey Institute poll, Nader drew as much as 5% of the vote in a four-way race, and he appeared to draw more support from Kerry than Badnarik took from Bush. But it is unclear how many state ballots will include Nader. Badnarik is already on the ballot in 30 states, Winger said, and the Libertarian Party says its candidate has made the ballot in all 50 states for the last three elections. The impact of third-party candidates has received renewed attention since 2000, when Nader ran as the Green Party candidate and won thousands of votes that many analysts thought would have gone to Democrat Al Gore, likely putting Gore in the White House. Republicans sought to discount a threat from Badnarik, noting that, even in the Humphrey survey, Bush won support from 90% of Republicans. Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is advising the Bush campaign, said the impact of the Libertarians would be so minimal that it fit more in the category of what the weather was like on election day. I have not been involved in a single discussion yet where the impact of the Libertarian Party has been raised as a significant risk factor, Weber said. (Peter Wallsten, Libertarian Badnarik May Cost Bush Support, Poll Finds, emLos Angeles Times/em, a href=http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/whitehouse/la-na-poll21jul21,1,4355572.story?coll=la-news-politics-white_house;July 21, 2004/a)/blockquote The Republicans don't appear to be too upset with Badnarik, leaving him alone, unlike the Democrats who have used everything from lawsuits to slanders to keep Nader off the ballots. Probably the Republicans are counting on Badnarik's obscurity, just as the Democrats do not fear David Cobb on the Green Party ballots
Greens For Nader Update: Rigged Convention Divides Green Party (Sign and Forward This)
Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 03:04:28 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Greens For Nader Update: Rigged Convention Divides Green Party Greens For Nader Update: Rigged Convention Divides Green Party 2004.08.08 00:04:27 http://greensfornader.net/archives/2004/08/rigged_conventi_1.html Please forward and act immediately::: The nomination of David Cobb as the Green Party presidential candidate in Milwaukee was due to a well organized campaign to turn a minority view in the Green Party into what appeared as a majority decision at the convention. To correct this injustice, the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of California will vote on Monday August 9 on whether to hold a Special General Assembly to let California Greens decide if they want to put Nader/Camejo on the our ballot line. If you believe that the Green Party should continue to challenge the two-party duopoly and should not compromise it principles, then please sign the following proposal and email it to one (or all) of the CC members listed below. Time is of the essence! Peggy Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sharon Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gerry Gras [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michael Borenstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jo Chamberlain [EMAIL PROTECTED] Matt Leslie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alex Brideau III [EMAIL PROTECTED] PROPOSAL TO HOLD A SPECIAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO PUT NADER/CAMEJO ON THE GREEN PARTY BALLOT IN CALIFORNIA Whereas: 1. A grossly undemocratic process was used at the national convention of the US Green Party, as described in the article, Rigged Convention Divides Green Party, by Carol Miller and Forrest Hill (see www.greensfornader.net); 2 Each state Green Party should have the right to nominate candidates supported by a majority of its members because the results of the national Green Party Convention do not represent the views of a majority of Greens in California, indeed, they represent the views of a small minority; 3. An overwhelming majority of Greens in the United States and California support the presidential ticket of Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo; 4. The Democratic Party has devoted huge resources to harass canvassers, to keep Nader/Camejo off the ballot in California 5. Ralph Nader would hold fundraisers to support local candidates if nominated by the Green Party of California,. 6. Nader and Camejo are the only candidates supporting Green values that have a chance of getting in the national televised debates. 7. The Green Party of California is a recognized Party in California and has a ballot line; Therefore be it resolved that: We the undersign urge the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of California to show leadership and hold a Special General Assembly too place Ralph Nader on the California state ballot for President of the United States and Peter Miguel Camejo on the California state ballot for Vice President of the United States. Signed -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
California, Take Back the Green Party!
California, Take Back the Green Party! There's a little rebellion starting, [Peter] Camejo said this week. Camejo said in California, the bastion of Green registration, it's a fact: The majority of the party wants to put Nader/Camejo on the ballot. (Carla Marinucci, Nader's Ballot Hopes Hinge on State's Greens, San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 2004). . . . The full text is available at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/california-take-back-green-party.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Whither the Fed?
... and make the next POTUS John Kerry a weak president without a big mandate at the same time.) Is there a subtle flaw here? If either Kerry or Bush is elected they will have a big mandate. It just won't be from the people, but the corporate purchasers. I fear the people's mandate can no longer be given through the present electoral process. Dan Scanlan The larger the shares of popular votes for the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, the bigger the next POTUS's mandate will be, though the mandate is more apparent than real, as you say. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Tariq Ali on the US election
From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Before getting to the point of actually being able to split the Democratic and Republican Parties, we need an intermediate goal: do what we can to make the next POTUS a weak president, rather than a strong one. To do so, we need to decrease the shares of popular votes that go to the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. -- Yoshie Fewer votes mean a weaker president? Dream on. GWB lost the popular vote, and that didn't stop him from being the rootin'-tootin'-est, sure-as-shootin'-est hombre north, south, east, and west of the Pecos once he got into office. Mandates are for girlie men, as the governor of CA might put it. Carl Actually, Bush was a weak president until 9/11/01: a big inauguration protest, Enron, unimpressive ratings, etc. According to Fox, for instance, Bush's approval rating during 1/24-25/01 was a mere 46%! FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Aug. 3-4, 2004. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3. Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as president? Approve Disapprove Don't Know % % % 9/19-20/01 81 12 7 8/22-23/01 55 32 13 7/25-26/01 59 25 16 7/11-12/01 56 30 14 6/6-7/01 59 28 13 5/9-10/0159 26 15 4/18-19/01 63 22 15 3/28-29/01 57 24 19 3/14-15/01 56 23 21 2/21-22/01 61 16 23 2/7-8/01 55 16 29 1/24-25/01 46 14 40 ABC News/Washington Post Poll. July 30-Aug. 1, 2004. N=1,200 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. Fieldwork by TNS. Trend includes polls conducted independently by ABC News and by the Washington Post. Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? Approve Disapprove Don't Know % % % 9/13/01 86 12 2 9/6-9/01 55 41 3 7/26-30/01 59 38 3 5/31-6/3/01 55 40 6 4/19-22/01 63 32 5 3/22-25/01 58 33 8 2/21-25/01 55 23 22 CBS News Poll. July 30-Aug. 1, 2004. N=1,052 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (total sample). Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? Approve Disapprove Don't Know % % % 9/11-12/01 72 15 13 8/28-31/01 50 38 12 6/14-18/01 53 34 13 5/10-12/01 57 30 13 4/23-25/01 56 29 15 4/4-5/01 53 35 12 3/8-12/0160 22 18 2/10-12/01 53 21 26 (a href=http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm;President Bush: Job Ratings/a) I do think that Governor Terminator got it right, his sexist expression notwithstanding: liberals and leftists in the USA are more lily-livered than our counterparts in Spain. Big foreign terrorist attacks happen in the United States, and too many US liberals and leftists cancel planned protests, get all defensive about our alleged deficiency in patriotism, wave flags, call for war (under a UN mandate, naturally) on Afghanistan, inveigh against other liberals and leftists whose convictions against imperialism do not weaken after terrorism, etc. Big foreign terrorist attacks happen in Spain, and almost all Spanish liberals and leftists get galvanized, organize a gigantic demonstration, vote out the party in power, and bring their troops home from Iraq. What US leftists need is a stronger backbone and a harder ass. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Nader 2004 Nader 2000
Nader 2004 Nader 2000 (The best kept secret of this presidential election year is that Ralph Nader has been polling better in 2004 than 2000, despite the relentless barrage of attacks by Anybody But Nader intellectuals. Compare the Gallop survey results in 2000 and 2004. Intellectuals who aid and abet the Democratic Party's crime of excluding Nader from the ballots and disenfranchising working-class voters on the left are committing the same crime as those who aid and abet the disenfranchisement of working-class voters -- especially working-class Black voters -- through criminal disenfranchisement laws. After all, voting rights mean nothing if voters are allowed to vote for only the candidates pre-approved by the power elite.) [Full Text with charts: Nader 2004 Nader 2000, http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/nader-2004-nader-2000.html.] -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: in defence of Tariq Ali
At 4:22 PM -0400 8/7/04, michael a. lebowitz wrote: Simply the breathing space that comes when the rulers are disrupted a bit. That makes sense, and I'm sure that in 2008 there will be another disruption, as John Kerry will be a one-term president. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Art Spiegelman: In the Shadow of No Towers
Art Spiegelman: In the Shadow of No Towers: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/art-spiegelman-in-shadow-of-no-towers.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Whither the Fed?
Whither the Fed? (Doug Henwood comments on US economy: just 32,000 new jobs, way way below both recent trend and expectations -- and earlier months were revised down. Is the Fed still committed to a series of quarter-point hikes -- including one in September -- over the next 18 months? Then, Alan Greenspan may accomplish what the anti-war movement and the Green Party failed to do: deliver the coup de grace to George W. Bush and make the next POTUS John Kerry a weak president without a big mandate at the same time.): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/whither-fed.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Whither the Fed?
I would guess that the Fed -- led by Dubya's close friend Alan, who visits the White House more than weekly -- is going to surprise the financial markets by standing pat on August 10th. (I'll be out of the country, so I won't be able to stop them.) blockquoteThe Fed holds its next interest rate policy meeting on Tuesday, and many economists, though disappointed by the employment report, said they still expect a quarter percentage point increase to 1.50 percent from 1.25 percent. The Fed still raises by 25 basis points on Tuesday; it's too soon to change course, said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida, referring to the Fed's just-started tightening cycle. So far the Fed has raised rates only once, in June, and has pledged a slow and steady series of rate hikes to return borrowing costs from rock-bottom lows to more normal levels provided there is no spike in inflation, which hurts growth. Other analysts were less sure about Tuesday's outcome, saying the payrolls report cast doubt on the Fed's mantra that the weakness in the economy in June would prove short-lived. It certainly will give the Fed cause to think about whether they are going to raise next week or not, and how they are going to approach the course of tightening this year, said Rick Egelton, deputy chief economist at the Bank of Montreal in Toronto. Futures markets reacted swiftly to remove the chance of one rate hike in either September, November or December, and economists said that both employment and consumer spending numbers would have to bounce back to justify the steady path of measured rate rises the Fed has said it plans. The implied fed funds rate for December was 1.87 percent, which assumes two more quarter-point hikes and a 50-50 chance of a third. Complicating the markets' reaction to Friday's unambiguously weak data was a report in the Wall Street Journal by Fed-watcher Greg Ip that said the Fed was unlikely to pull back from its tightening campaign despite signs of a slowdown. The timing of its publication just before the weak jobs report raised suspicions among bond traders. It's hard to believe the Ip article was accidental; in which case the Fed is telling us to ignore this data point. It's going to hike next week and probably in September as well, said Drew Matus, economist at Lehman Brothers in New York. (Victoria Thieberger, Wall St. Less Sure of Fed Hikes After Weak Job Data, a href=http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdgestoryID=5898547;August 6, 2004/a)/blockquote -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Remembering the Korean Atom Bomb Victims
Remembering the Korean Atom Bomb Victims (Among the 350,000 to 400,000 who were attacked by the atom bomb and/or exposed to the lethal post-explosion radiation, at least 50,000 were people from the Korean peninsula who had been forcibly sent to Japan as mobilized workers and soldiers, or who had left their villages following the devastation of Japan's colonial takeover of Korea in 1910. . . . ): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/remembering-korean-atom-bomb-victims.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Tariq Ali on the US election
TA: We're talking about the government which took the United States to war. Had Gore been elected, he would have gone to war in Afghanistan, but I doubt he would have gone to war in Iraq. This is very much a neocon agenda, dominated by the need to get the oil and appease the Israelis. Washington went to war mainly because the sanction on Iraq was unraveling, so I think that the Democratic White House would have been as belligerent toward Iraq as the Republican one has been, except a Democratic president would have given a bigger piece of action to the European power elites than the Republican one has. A Democratic president would have been more aggressive toward Russia and North Korea than the Republican one has been. DH: There are a lot of people who argue that personnel don't matter - that the war emerged from the inner needs of American capitalism, American imperialism. That it was the rate of profit, the oil price, that forced the hand, and whoever is sitting in the Oval Office is just a pawn of larger forces. Do you buy that? TA: I don't buy that. If you believe that's all there is to it, then you can give up politics. Just wait at home for the big catastrophe. The question doesn't make political sense, so the answer doesn't either. Before getting to the point of actually being able to split the Democratic and Republican Parties, we need an intermediate goal: do what we can to make the next POTUS a weak president, rather than a strong one. To do so, we need to decrease the shares of popular votes that go to the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Defrauding Women of Abortion
Defrauding Women of Abortion (an anti-abortion fraudster preyed on working-class women by promising them discount abortions and then cancelling appointments repeatedly, until it became too late for them to have abortions -- the fraud enabled by an anti-abortion myth that women who want abortions need extensive counseling about abortion's emotional and physical side effects): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/defrauding-women-of-abortion.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
The Manchurian Candidate: The Return of the Repressed
The Manchurian Candidate: The Return of the Repressed (If Fahrenheit 9/11 is a perfect filmic expression of the Anybody But Bush ideology of liberal intellectuals, The Manchurian Candidate unexpectedly -- despite the intentions of its creators -- serves as a cinematic vehicle for the return of the politically repressed: The chief danger to the republic . . . emanates not from the extremes -- a fanatical foreign enemy combined with a zealous administration -- but from the center, from the moderate wing of the opposition party and its corporate sponsors [A. O. Scott]): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/manchurian-candidate-return-of.html. Yoshie
Imam in Virgin Mary Drag in the Green Zone
Imam in Virgin Mary Drag in the Green Zone: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/imam-in-virgin-mary-drag-in-green-zone.html.
Changing Sex, Changing Islam
Changing Sex, Changing Islam (In Iran, transsexuals, changing sex, have been changing Islam as well, under its still theocratic government): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/changing-sex-changing-islam.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: No Bounce for Kerry
If there's a great untapped reservoir of leftish populism in the American masses, why did Kucinich do so badly in the primaries, 1. Kucinich is nice, poor, and white. 2. Kucinich is short: 5 feet 7 inches. 3. 93% of Americans are still unsure about how to pronounce his last name. and why is Nader now down around 2%? 1. According to Gallup, Nader appears to have peaked at 5% in the June 3-6, 2004: img src=http://media.gallup.com/POLL/Releases/pr040713ii.gif;, so his inability to get on the Green Party ballots brought down his popularity. 2. Nader is forced to waste money fighting off Democrats' demagogy about Republican funding and legal challenges to his ballot accesses: blockquoteWhile Mr. Nader digs in his heels, the Democrats are trying to sideline him. The party has enlisted Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, who has declared an extraordinary emergency to stomp out Nader votes. And some former associates of Mr. Nader are organizing an extensive, well-financed national campaign against him. Organizers include Toby Moffett, a former congressman from Connecticut and onetime Nader Raider, who lost a close race for the Senate in 1982 after his former boss endorsed his opponent. Mr. Moffett, now a lobbyist in Washington, worked against Mr. Nader in six states in 2000, an informal effort that he now calls amateurish. With that experience under his belt, he said, we're vowing not to let it happen again. Mr. Moffett and others from labor and feminist organizations spent their time at the Democratic convention coordinating six or eight anti-Nader groups. Calling themselves United Progressives for Victory, they are raising money through an independent political committee known as a 527, named for the section of the I.R.S. code that governs it, and are working with other 527's that are already identifying sympathetic voters. (By law, such committees can raise unlimited amounts of money but cannot coordinate with the Kerry campaign.) The group is armed with a poll conducted by Stanley Greenberg, who was President Bill Clinton's pollster. The group includes Roy Neel, a former Gore associate who worked for Mr. Dean and is now preparing the computer model for finding the 2.8 million people who voted for Mr. Nader in 2000 and might vote for him again. Mr. Moffett said there was no chance that Mr. Nader would drop out, so the only way to stop him from throwing the election to Mr. Bush is to discourage his supporters. . . . . . . [For instance,] when Nader supporters learned that Mr. Nader had accepted help and money from Republicans to get on the ballots in various states, they dropped away. And one of the few public figures who has credibility with Nader backers is former President Jimmy Carter, who is perceived as not compromised by or profiting from the political system. So some of the group's officials say they have discussed redeploying Mr. Carter, who they say has indicated a willingness to help. The briefings in Boston drew dozens of donors, lawyers and activists, including Arianna Huffington, the columnist. . . . Mr. Moffett said that he and Elizabeth Holtzman, the former congresswoman from New York, were coordinating with election lawyers in several states to challenge Mr. Nader's ballot petitions. Their strategy, he said, is to try to undercut Mr. Nader strong not only in swing states where he could make a difference but in safe states, to drain him of resources and force him to spend his time and money./strong . . . Mr. Nader has raised $1.5 million, tens of thousands of it from Republicans, who also collected the signatures to get him on the ballot in Michigan. But he shrugged off the significance of their help, saying, We had nothing to do with it. . . . I wish Republicans who support us would send us some donations, Mr. Camejo said. In polls, 25 percent of our vote is from Republicans and only 5 percent of our money. (emphasis added, Katharine Q. Seelye, Convictions Intact, Nader Soldiers On, emNew York Times/em, a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/02/politics/campaign/02nader.html;August 2, 2004/a)/blockquote -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Nuruddin Farah: We No Longer Own Our Country
Nuruddin Farah: 'We No Longer Own Our Country' (Nuruddin Farah, a Somali novelist, writes of what it means to lose one's own country -- utterly): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/nuruddin-farah-we-no-longer-own-our.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Speaking Up about Our Abortions in Public
Speaking Up about Our Abortions in Public: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/speaking-up-about-our-abortions-in.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Have You Forgotten?
Have You Forgotten? (A Small Victory, a blog on the right, created a visual reminder of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I doubt that such a reminder will do the right any good at this point. Anyhow, I've photoshopped the image created by A Small Victory -- the slogan Have You Forgotten? superimposed on photos of the burning World Trade Center -- by adding George W. Bush's My Pet Goat moment to it): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/have-you-forgotten.html Yoshie
No Bounce for Kerry
No Bounce for Kerry: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/no-bounce-for-kerry.html.
Re: A Question for the Moderator
Chris wrote: Look at the post-Soviet situation in the early 90s. The Union falls apart, and you immediately start having all these bloody ethnic conflicts around its former borders: Armenians vs. Azerbaijanis, Georgians vs. Abkhazians and Ossetians, Romanians vs. Russians, Ossetians vs. Ingush... There are 34 distinct ethno-cultural groups in Dagestan, which is about the size of Maryland. There are villages of a few hundred people there that are the only representatives of entire languages. The potential for conflict is immense. Something similar happened earlier, when the Ottoman Empire was defeated during WW1. The Ottoman Empire could integrate an endless variety of groups into its multicultural empire, but the nation-state of Turkey with its centrality of Turkish culture could not do the same thing -- hence wars on Armenians and Kurds. The Soviet Union was defeated, as was the Ottoman Empire before it and Yugoslavia after it -- first economically, later politically (mainly from inside the the Soviet Union, its multinational elites acting against its multinational masses) or with a combined political, economic, and military warfare (Yugoslavia). Russia and Serbia today cannot be expected to play the same roles that the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia used to be able to play. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Guarding the Right to Leisure
Guarding the Right to Leisure (workers in Western Europe, who enjoy the shortest workweeks and longest vacations in the world, confront downward pressures on free time exercised by longer hours in the USA and cheaper labor in former socialist nations): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/guarding-right-to-leisure.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
The Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem
'The Museum of Tolerance' in Jerusalem (The Simon Wiesenthal Center is building a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem -- an ugly white elephant designed by Frank Gehry -- on a spot that once was an ancient Muslim cemetery, a museum which Palestinians in the occupied territories, blocked by checkpoints and elusive permits, will have a formidable time visiting): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/museum-of-tolerance-in-jerusalem.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
My Partner Had an Abortion
My Partner Had an Abortion (What about men owning up to abortions? How about My Partner Had an Abortion T-shirts for them?): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/my-partner-had-abortion.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: My Partner Had an Abortion
Jim says: I think My wife had an abortion or My life partner had an abortion makes more sense, since so many men have _business_ partners, who are often male. Only a tiny minority of men have business partners. In any case, that sort of ambiguity makes it even more interesting. Jello Biafra goes around wearing a T-shirt that says Nobody Knows I'm a Lesbian: http://www.columbusalive.com/2004/20040623/062304/images/06230401.gif. (How about a T-shirt saying I didn't treat every sperm as sacred?) With a picture of used kleenex below the slogan? -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: A Question for the Moderator
At 6:22 AM -0700 7/31/04, Chris Doss wrote: --- Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The question, I thought, was whether Kurds, Kashmiris, and Chechens (as well as East Timorese, Albanians in Kosovo, etc. from recent history) have the right to self-determination. --- Yoshie, upon a little reflection, I think this is a pretty naive way of considering the situation. Who gets to determine Chechnya's status? There is no a priori answer to the question. For instance, Palestinians are divided in several ways: those who live in Israel as its second-class citizens, those who live in Israel illegally, those who live in the occupied territories, those who live in refugee camps outside historic Palestine, those who are citizens or permanent residents of other nations. The levels of Palestinians' own struggle and international support for it will determine whether or not Palestinian refugees can return to their homeland, to take just one example. The same goes for every other national question: after all, what will be decisive is the levels of struggles on the ground and international support for them. Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Leon Golub's Disasters of War
Leon Golub's Disasters of War: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/leon-golubs-disasters-of-war.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
I Had an Abortion
I Had an Abortion (Barbara Ehrenreich argues that women should own up to our abortions in her New York Times column. Fortunately, Planned Parenthood has made beautiful I Had an Abortion T-shirts available, outraging anti-abortion right-wing groups. The designer of the T-shirt, Jennifer Baumgardner, is also making a documentary called I Had an Abortion that features women who don't regret having abortions): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/i-had-abortion.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: A Question for the Moderator
Michael Perelman, Some posters on this list have expressed their support for the breakup of Russia, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. I would like know what is your personal opinion in this matter. Ulhas The question, I thought, was whether Kurds, Kashmiris, and Chechens (as well as East Timorese, Albanians in Kosovo, etc. from recent history) have the right to self-determination. If Kurds, Kashmiris, Chechens, etc. exercised the right to self-determination, would that necessarily result in the breakup of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, India, and Russia? Presumably, they could very well choose to remain part of the countries in which they currently reside -- especially if most of the armed militants in Kashmir and Chechnya were indeed foreigners as you and Chris have suggested (on this point I am myself agnostic). -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Kashmir's Forgotten Plebiscite
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1766582.stm Thursday, 17 January, 2002, 18:16 GMT Kashmir's forgotten plebiscite By Victoria Schofield Author of Kashmir in Conflict When the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India in 1947, the then Governor-General Lord Mountbatten suggested that in view of India and Pakistan's competing claims for the state, the accession should be confirmed by a referendum, plebiscite, election. But determining the wishes of the people has been far harder to achieve than was ever expected. Fighting between Pakistani and Indian forces in 1949 left two-thirds of the state under the control of India, comprising Ladakh, Jammu and the Valley of Kashmir. One-third remained under the control of Pakistan, comprising Azad (free) Kashmir and the Northern Areas. In three resolutions, the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan recommended that as already agreed by Indian and Pakistani leaders, a plebiscite should be held to determine the future allegiance of the entire state. As a prerequisite they required Pakistani nationals and tribesmen, who had come to fight in Kashmir, be withdrawn. Plebiscite abandoned But in the 1950s, the Indian Government distanced itself from its commitment to hold a plebiscite. This was firstly because Pakistani forces had not been withdrawn and secondly because elections affirming the state's status as part of India had been held. After the outbreak of insurgency in the Valley of Kashmir in the late 1980s, militants and political activists claimed that they had never been able to exercise their right of self-determination and the issue of the plebiscite was again raised. Independence option But there was a split between those demanding a plebiscite in order to determine allegiance to either India or Pakistan and those who stated that a third option should be added: Independence. Pakistan has consistently called for the issue to be resolved by means of a plebiscite and has blamed India for reneging on its pledge. But although it supports the Kashmiris right of self-determination, Pakistan has never accepted the third option as a possible outcome. It is also now evident that holding a plebiscite that assumes Kashmir becomes a united state might not produce an equitable result, given its cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity. Diverse views The Muslim majority of the inhabitants of the state of Jammu and Kashmir live in the valley, but their demands are not universally shared by the minorities living in different areas of the state. The Buddhist population of Ladakh has never supported the movement either for independence or accession to Pakistan, nor has the majority Hindu population of the Jammu region. The inhabitants of the Northern Areas would, however, be most likely to support officially becoming part of Pakistan, as would Azad Kashmir. The contentious issue remains the status of the Kashmir Valley, whose inhabitants are divided between demanding independence or allegiance to Pakistan, with a proportion opting to remain within India. Because of the lack of unanimity among the inhabitants, it has been suggested that if ever the issue were to be resolved by a plebiscite or referendum, a fairer solution might be to hold the plebiscite on a regional basis. Those supporting the independence of the entire state reject this suggestion because it would inevitably formalise the division of the state which they want to see re-united as one independent political entity. To date, the Government of India has refused to reconsider the possibility of holding a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. Without, however, holding a plebiscite or referendum it is impossible to determine exactly what proportion of the people support which option. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: Chris Doss wrote: Reactionary is an understatement. This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. Lately the resistance in Iraq has mainly been killing people at open-air markets. The anti-imperialist content of this strategy is hard to discern. Doug Have you added up all the Iraqi civilians killed by various factions of Iraqi and non-Iraqi terrorists and compared the number to that of Iraqi civilians killed by US and other foreign troops who invaded and have occupied Iraq and by economic sanctions before the invasion and occupation? Americans who vote for John Kerry who will be the next POTUS, aka the biggest terrorist and war criminal, have no moral standing to pretend to be appalled by un-American terrorists. Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Heavenly Kashmir Is Still Mired in Hell as a Dirty War Gets Dirtier
Heavenly Kashmir is still mired in hell as a dirty war gets dirtier Sandra Jordan in Srinagar http://www.guardian.co.uk/kashmir/Story/0,2763,1185386,00.html Sunday April 4, 2004 The Observer The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday April 11 2004 In the article below, we said Abdul Hamid Hafiz and his wife, Atiqa, were detained and had now joined 'the ranks of Kashmir's 8,000 disappeared'. In fact, the couple's daughters have secured the release of Atiqa. Her husband remains in detention. In the Himalayan foothills, dotted with misty lakes and romantic boathouse hotels, the Kashmir Valley looks heavenly. And as Indian and Pakistani politicians embrace at cricket matches and congratulate themselves on agreeing on talks about talks it would be tempting to suppose the 15-year war in Indian-held Kashmir is over. But here, where up to 10 people die each day, whether army, militants or civilians, the only peace is in the grave. The violence is sporadic and indiscriminate. On the shores of Dal Lake, The Observer ran into a protest organised by village women and children, led by four girls, aged five to 13, whose parents had been dragged from their home the night before by a Special Operations Group. Abdul Hamid Hafiz, a postal administrator, and his wife Atiqa, were detained, and their daughters locked in a room. The eldest, Rifat, described how masked men burst into their house: 'They beat up my father with a gun. They said they would kill him. My father said, What's my mistake, why would you kill me? They said, Shut up, shut up.' Any charges against the couple remain a mystery. They now join the ranks of Kashmir's estimated 8,000 'disappeared'. The daughters demonstrated in desperation but, as they blocked the road with stones, armed police charged with sticks and tear gas. Girls and old ladies were thrown to the ground and savagely kicked. This is what happens to little girls in Kashmir. Half a million Indian forces have been deployed to suppress the separatist revolt of an estimated 5,000 militants, backed by Pakistan, that exploded in 1989 after India was believed to have rigged election results. Of the nine million people in the Indian-controlled Kashmir Valley, 95 per cent are Muslim and most want independence, although a few want to belong to Pakistan, which controls a third of Kashmir. The people of Kashmir are caught in the middle, often treated with brutality by both sides. Movement is curtailed by checkpoints every few hundred metres. Those who travel after dark risk being shot by drunken soldiers - empty rum bottles dangling on razor wire outside their bunkers are testament to the drinking culture of the Indian army. The troops are mainly recruits from remote parts of India, and do not mix with Kashmiris. As they are frequently attacked by militants indistinguishable from ordinary Kashmiris, they treat everyone as the enemy. More than 60,000 people have died in the conflict. According to the army, two-thirds were militants killed in shoot-outs, but locals claim many are ordinary people shot by security forces seeking promotions and financial awards to kill 'insurgents'. According to Human Rights Watch, thousands have been executed in extra-judicial killings. On the ground, it doesn't take long to discover this is a dirty war. In Umar Amad, a suburb of Srinagar, a shoot-out had just ended and the bodies of two militants were carried out of a bullet-scarred house. The first was Ghulam Rasool Dar, operational chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, the biggest militant group. His colleague was Fayaz Ahmad Dar, financial controller of the pro-Pakistani group. It was a coup for the Indian forces: two of Kashmir's most important militants dead - and, crucially, 'no collateral damage', explained Brigadier A K Choudhary of the Rashtriaya Rifles. He said the army had received intelligence of the men's whereabouts and went to arrest them. 'They fired at the first two of our boys who entered, then we had no option but to fire back,' Choudhary said. In the kitchen the floor was covered with pools of sticky blood, the scene all the more horrible for its domestic backdrop. Outside, neighbours gathered. 'This was a staged encounter,' said one man, making sure no soldiers were listening. The crowd murmured assent. 'There's no way both of the militants would have been in one room. One would have taken a position upstairs,' said another man. A few days later, Mrs Kanni, the woman of the house, cried outside her desecrated kitchen. 'Our honour is lost,' said her son Arif, 24. The Kannis emphatically denied giving militants shelter and said they had never seen the men before. They said the army had come to their home on the morning of the shoot-out, searched it, then herded the family into their business premises, a hostel at the front of the house. Later, peering through the curtains, they saw the army carry two unconscious men into the house. The army stands by its version, but the
India Turned Kashmir into the Bitter Place It Is Now
India turned Kashmir into the bitter place it is now BJP Hindu nationalism has made the conflict more dangerous Martin Woollacott http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,630975,00.html Friday January 11, 2002 The Guardian When sections of the Kashmiri crowd booed the Indian side and waved flags similar to the Pakistani flag at a match between India and the West Indies in Srinagar in 1983, the reaction in government circles in Delhi was fury. The Kashmiris, or, rather, the Kashmiri government, by not preventing the outrage, had failed the sub-continental version of the cricket test. Not many months afterwards, after underhand manoeuvres, the then Kashmiri chief minister, Farooq Abdullah, was toppled. Recounting the story in his book on Kashmir, the distinguished Indian journalist MJ Akbar notes that there was at that time no serious Pakistani-supported subversion in Kashmir. Instead, there was an established pattern of Indian subversion of Kashmiri institutions and leaders. From the beginning, the Indians could not bring themselves to leave well enough alone in a state that had acceded to the Indian union - even in the Indian version of events - on the basis of a document which gave its government full powers except in foreign, defence and fiscal policy. The story of Indian-held Kashmir had, from 1948, been of efforts to wear down and abolish the Kashmiri difference. There were periods when saner policies prevailed. But usually New Delhi wanted a crude mastery in Kashmir and it wanted Kashmiri leaders, notably Sheikh Abdullah and his son Farooq, to be utterly compliant allies. In this, it ignored the fact that any successful Kashmiri leader had to reflect to some extent the ambivalent feelings of part of the Muslim majority toward the Indian connection. It undermined and detained leaders when they failed to be as loyal as expected, and replaced them with worse men. Mrs Gandhi wanted Farooq out because he would not go along with what amounted to a merger of Kashmir's main party with Congress. The cricket incident was a useful tool in the campaign to unseat him. Rajiv Gandhi reinstated Farooq in 1987 but the rigged elections of that year reduced belief in the political dispensation in Kashmir, Islamic parties gained ground, the ranks of unemployed youth increased, and significant armed actions happened. New Delhi's reaction was to send in disastrously hard-line administrators. One of them famously said: The bullet is the only solution for Kashmir. In the resulting campaign, with its reprisals, rapes, and killing of innocents, the insurgents were damaged, but the population of the Vale was comprehensively alienated. The consequence was that, as Victoria Schofield writes: No political leader prepared to voice the demands of Kashmiri activists and militants would be acceptable to Delhi; any leader of whom Delhi approved would be rejected by the militants. In her careful and even-handed account she shows how the first phase of this deterioration preceded serious Pakistani intervention. Once it was under way, Pakistan certainly seized on the opportunity it saw, in both Afghanistan and Kashmir, to follow a forward strategy which would supposedly enable it to counterbalance India's much greater strength. But it was New Delhi which bore most responsibility for the dismal situation in Kashmir - first for the years in which normal politics in the state slipped into decline, and then for a counter-insurgency effort, which lacked the scrupulous care which alone brings a chance of true success in such campaigns. Indian governments later tried to repair the damage done in the early 1990s, even as Pakistani-supported subversion of a more Islamist character continued, with Afghan and foreign militants added to the mix. . . . Kashmir: Behind the Vale by MJ Akbar, published by Viking Penguin India. Kashmir in Conflict by Victoria Schofield, published by IB Tauris. Lineages of the Present by Aijaz Ahmad, published by Verso. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
At 11:05 AM -0400 7/29/04, Doug Henwood wrote: Have you added up all the Iraqi civilians killed by various factions of Iraqi and non-Iraqi terrorists and compared the number to that of Iraqi civilians killed by US and other foreign troops who invaded and have occupied Iraq and by economic sanctions before the invasion and occupation? Americans who vote for John Kerry who will be the next POTUS, aka the biggest terrorist and war criminal, have no moral standing to pretend to be appalled by un-American terrorists. Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. What a load of crap. Elections are about contesting for power, and often involve debased compromises; votes aren't symptoms of moral purity. And why is it impossible to hold two thoughts in mind at once? The sanctions were murderous and the war a horrible crime. There's no doubt that the U.S. and its very junior partners have killed far more Iraqi civilians than the resistance. But there are some people on the western left - some of them members of PEN-L, even - who can't acknowledge that a lot of the Iraqi resistance consists of jihadists and unreconstructed Saddamites, i.e., absolutely awful forces. As Christian Parenti said when he returned from his first trip to Iraq - there's no way anything good can come of this. Doug You have no moral right to be acting superior to terrorists, since you intend to vote for one. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Celluloid Diplomacy
'My film is part of the peace process' After 40 years of hostility and embargoes, India's movie industry is opening its doors to its Pakistani rivals. Is this the start of celluloid diplomacy? Tania Branigan reports http://www.guardian.co.uk/kashmir/Story/0,2763,1146645,00.html Friday February 13, 2004 The Guardian It's a habit he shares with many film producers: he keeps less important mortals waiting, and arrives an hour after our interview was scheduled. Unlike most movie moguls, however, Afzal Khan turns up with profuse apologies and a proper excuse: he has been dealing with a break-in at one of his chemist shops. The 40-year-old Huddersfield pharmacist diversified into film just two years ago, yet his company, Paragon Pictures, is thriving. His first movie, Ek Chhotisi Love Story, has so far turned a profit of £1.25m. Any movie taking over £1m at the box office is, by the standards of the subcontinental film industry, a hit. His second effort, Larki Punjaban, proved equally successful, despite controversy over the Sikh-Muslim love affair at its heart. But his third, Jarga, is his biggest challenge to date. It not only tackles a controversial subject - honour killings - but aims to help end five decades of conflict between India and Pakistan, by uniting workers from the countries' film industries. Pakistan and India banned each others' movies from cinema screens in the 1960s, and so this is no small task. Workers have crossed the border since then, but have always operated under pseudonyms. And Pakistanis have repeatedly complained about the host of Paki-bashing action movies that emerged in the 1980s, painting them as fanatics and terrorists. But Khan is not alone. Just as the country's leaders have vowed to restore normal relations, so Bollywood and its smaller Pakistani counterpart - dubbed Lollywood after its base in Lahore - are seeking détente. Indeed, argue film-makers, their cooperation will spur on the wider rapprochement. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf have started the peace process and my film is going to extend it, pledged Mahesh Bhatt, an eminent Indian director, when he premiered his latest movie in Karachi last month. He also announced that his next film would be shot in Pakistan. It would be easy to dismiss such grandiose pronouncements as run-of-the-mill PR hype. But the Indian film industry has real influence, exceeding even the cultural clout of Hollywood in its 1930s heyday. Its geographical reach encompasses not just the subcontinent but the Middle East, US and Europe. I see the subcontinent region as a family; you have brothers and sisters and we bicker sometimes, says Rajinder Dudrah, lecturer in screen studies at Manchester University and an expert on the subcontinental film industry. It's a fractured family relationship, and Bollywood and Lollywood are part of that. We see tensions and rivalries which can be exacerbated by the films. But there are also artists and producers trying to reach out and balance that with dialogue. Curiously, much of the impetus for change is coming from the UK. Mahesh Bhatt's producer is another Pakistan-born Brit - Sevy Ali - whose Asian Pictures International hopes to beat Paragon to releasing the first Indo-Pakistan co-production to be screened in both countries. Bhatt and Ali have talked to the Pakistani minister of information, and are to meet President Musharraf next month to discuss overturning the ban. Bhatt was born to a Muslim mother and Hindu father, and has long promoted moves towards integration. Similarly, the director-producer PD Mehra launched the Pakistan India Performing Arts Forum to encourage artistic collaborations 15 years ago. Advertiser links Give Kids The World - Child Charity You can make a difference in the life of a child facing a... gktw.org Compassion - Sponsor a Child Online Sponsor a child online through Compassion's Christian child... compassion.com Children International - Sponsor a Child For only $18 a month, you can make a difference in the life... children.org One of the first attempts at celluloid diplomacy came last September with a publicity stunt for a new film, Pinjar. The Mumbai-based stars descended on the road crossing point between the two countries to deliver flowers to disconcerted Pakistani border guards. Meanwhile, the Indian actor Urmila Matondkar has filmed a documentary series in Lahore, and when her Pakistani counterpart, Reema, visited Mumbai last month, the Indian press dubbed her the Aishwarya Rai of Pakistan - no mean compliment, since the latter is the undisputed queen of Bollywood. Next month Mehra will lead a delegation of Bollywood stars to meet Pakistan's prime minister, Zafarullah Jamali, as well as leading figures from the Pakistani industry. The reconciliation is not as surprising as it first appears. Despite the deep-rooted tensions between the two nations, high-quality production values of Indian movies have proved irresistible in Pakistan and customers rush to video
A Stem Cell's Worth of Difference
A Stem Cell's Worth of Difference (the most eloquent speaker at the Democratic Party convention turns out to be Ron Reagan, because he alone didn't have to lie to distinguish Kerry from Bush): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/stem-cells-worth-of-difference.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Devine, James wrote: yoshie writes: Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. why so much emphasis on an essentially powerless and thus meaningless act, an individual vote? It's testimony to the powers of American assimiliation that several years of living in Columbus, Ohio, turned a Japanese Marxist (i.e., one who sees politics in terms of institutions and structures) into an American green (i.e., one who sees politics as a matter of individual moral gestures). Doug If voting is merely an individual moral gesture, why not make a better moral gesture than a worse one, such as refusing to vote for a terrorist? -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
yoshie writes: Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. why so much emphasis on an essentially powerless and thus meaningless act, an individual vote? jim devine Because, at bottom, it's a matter of avoiding a double standard of condemning terrorism committed by un-Americans and supporting American terrorists. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: India Turned Kashmir into the Bitter Place It Is Now
Chris wrote: --- Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: India turned Kashmir into the bitter place it is now Typical Guardian headline: Big country (fill in name of big country here) turned small country (fill in name of small country here) into the bitter place it is now. Small countries are by definition victims of other countries and share no responsibility whatsoever for the situation. It doesn't matter if it is typical. It matters if it is true. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
At 11:19 AM -0700 7/29/04, Chris Doss wrote: If voting is merely an individual moral gesture, why not make a better moral gesture than a worse one, such as refusing to vote for a terrorist? -- Yoshie How do you know Nader wouldn't be a terrorist? If he becomes one, we will fight against him also, but at this point, the difference between Kerry/Edwards's plan for Iraq and Nader/Camejo's plan for Iraq is night and day, and it is the latter leftists ought to support. At 5:28 PM +0100 7/29/04, Daniel Davies wrote: I don't want to sound patronising, nor like a single-issue obsessive, but all of these conversational gambits were tried on the British left during the Troubles and it's not obvious that they did a lot of good. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there has not been a similar terrorist attack in the mainland United States. If we let Washington continue its occupation of Iraq, however, more terrorist attacks will be definitely committed against Americans (and nationals of countries whose governments foolishly have allied with Washington) overseas, and perhaps even here. Politics is indeed a matter of compromise, and in 2004, we ought to compromise on card checks, stem cell research, and so forth, rather than on the occupation of Iraq. Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Security Fences: Palestine and Kashmir
'Security Fences': Palestine and Kashmir: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/security-fences-palestine-and-kashmir.html
Outfoxed?
Outfoxed? (If conservatives exaggerate liberalism of the corporate media beyond recognition, liberals, too, are hyping the power of the Fox News Channel far more than its actual total viewership warrants): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/outfoxed.html.
Adnan Abbas's Call to Humanity
Adnan Abbas's 'Call to Humanity' (about a young Iraqi artist): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/adnan-abbass-call-to-humanity.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Presbyterians Divest from the Israeli Occupation
Presbyterians Divest from the Israeli Occupation (the first US church -- and so far the largest membership organization -- to embark upon divestment from the Israeli occupation): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/presbyterians-divest-from-israeli.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
It's a Hollow Party
It's a Hollow Party (SEIU President Andy Stern calls the Democratic Party a party of stale ideas, expressing discontent that the activist base of the party will be in a weak bargaining position vis-a-vis the party elite after the election -- what if SEIU spent $65 million it's wasting on the John Kerry campaign on an initiative that would build up working-class bases of power independent of the Democratic Party?): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/its-hollow-party.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
At 9:19 PM -0400 7/27/04, Michael Hoover wrote: i've not suggested working through local dem branches as such nor working only on local issues... michael hoover What you originally suggested is the following: At 3:27 PM -0400 7/19/04, Michael Hoover wrote: maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another, show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties... Presumably, leftists who follow your suggestion will be working on local issues first of all till they succeed in wresting the control of the Democratic Party at the state level. At 9:10 PM -0400 7/27/04, Michael Hoover wrote: greens electing green mayors in all u.s. cities is itself maximalist That's more of a figure of speech than anything else, but conversations here indicate that we sure do live in the age of diminishing expectations, which in itself gives people fewer reasons to spend time on political activism. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
North Korea Goes Commercial Online
North Korea Goes Commercial Online (North Korea's net venture is merely one aspect of its slow but certain transformation into a capitalist economy): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/north-korea-goes-commercial-online.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Cyber One Korea
Cyber One Korea (more on North Korean online gambling and South Koreans' yearning to communicate with North Koreans): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/cyber-one-korea.html
In Venezuela, Failure Is Not an Option
In Venezuela, Failure Is Not an Option (Roland Denis on the August 15 referendum); http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/in-venezuela-failure-is-not-option.html Yoshie
Re: A critical look at Michael Moore
At 7:48 PM -0400 7/26/04, Louis Proyect wrote: Devine, James wrote: Mother Jones magazine, a magazine catering to Birkenstock-wearing, Sierra Club-donating, brie-eating liberals. hey, Louis, have you been channeling Dick Cheney? It sure sounds like him or someone in the neo-con crowd. Are the MJ folks cheese-eating surrender monkeys, too? Actually, I wear Birkenstocks myself. I think brie and Birkenstocks are cool. Sierra Club, however, is beyond redemption. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Carrol wrote: I think Yoshie has gotten a bit too wrapped up in the Greens (in the 2004 election). We cannot know the form that socialist activity will take in the future, but we can be fairly certain that it will not be electoral and will involve mass resistance to imperialist policies. Arguments against the Greens are equally arguments against paying any attention at all to elections at any level. The future of mass resistance to imperialist policies that you speak of, for all I know, may come, say, four years from now; it may not come in our lifetime, however. Whichever is the case, we have to do what we can in the meantime, and among the things to do in the United States is to challenge the Democratic Party, because it, unlike the Republican Party, commands the allegiance of a politically active layer (10-20%) of the American working class and thus is a more effective instrument of capitalist hegemony at home and US hegemony in the world than the Republican Party. The reason why Democratic Party operatives are *hopping mad* at Ralph Nader is that his campaign actually challenged the Democratic Party, becoming a factor in its electoral defeat in the election for the highest political office in the USA in 2000, it may do so again in 2004, and its supporters and sympathizers (choosing a more potent standard-bearer in the future) may do even better in the near future, eventually eroding the confidence of the aforementioned politically active layer (10-20%) of the American working class in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party operatives, in contrast, are not mad at anarchists, Marxist-Leninist sects, the Socialist Party, independent socialists, etc. at all, even though they, in theory, espouse more radical transformations of American society as their respective goals than Nader does. Why? Because they pose no practical threat whatsoever to the Democratic Party's absorption of organizers, activists, and voters on the left side of the political spectrum. There is another factor in all the discussions of the elections -- the failure of so many to see that social democracy is as dead as stalinism. Both were equally discredited by the events of the twentieth century. Both old-style socialism and social democracy are objectively things of the past, in that reforms that parties of either type propose today are, on the whole, reforms that bring down the living standards of the working class (whereas they could and did implement reforms that actually improved the living standards of the working class before the mid-1970s), but they are still subjectively alive, in that masses of people *consent* to live with the shadows of the old selves of such socialist and social democratic political parties. The subjective is as important as the objective, and as far as mass political actions are concerned, it is probably more important than the objective. At 11:05 PM -0400 7/23/04, Marvin Gandall wrote: Don't you think it will be necessary for the Greens to win a number of congressional seats before they can be seen as a potential alternative to the Democrats by the unions and social movements, and a durable third party in the country as a whole? For many people, that will be the case, but somebody has to be the first person to get things started, for otherwise nothing will ever get done. Unions as organized entities (as opposed to factions of activists in them) will be *the last* to join any third-party movement on the left that has an actual potential to grow powerful (that is, if they will ever join any such thing en masse at all -- very improbable), for most union leaders have so many things to lose and a precious few things to gain from such a movement's challenge to the Democratic Party. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: United Nations Human Indicators Index 2004
Lou wrote: Is now available at: http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/pdf/hdr04_HDI.pdf It is *highly* interesting that for the first time ever Cuba has made it into the High human development grouping that includes the G-8 nations, etc. Does that mean that Cuba's economy is more marketized and monetized than before -- hence a higher GDP per capita and a higher position in the UN Human Development Report? -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: HDI, GNP and the PPP factor
Indeed, it has been a little noticed trend that today most of the World Bank's 'public relations' type documents, most human development related documents, and most documents arguing for the success of the neo-liberal project use PPP *and only* PPP. Even where there findings would be utterly reversed by the once standard method. Even the introductory chapter to the World Bank's flagship statistical publication (cited above) uses ONLY the more favorable (and yet artificially constructed) version. Even the Human Development Index we have been discussing presents ONLY one version - and this radically changes many stated conclusions. It is not, as if the actual National Income Accounts are not used in other environments where that method would be more favorable to the Bank or the IMF's policy objectives. Indeed in some cases - such as those involving debt negotiations, foreign investment, or sectoral policies promoting the private sector, it appears (by purely casual observation) that *only* the non-PPP version appears. Paul Paul, why don't you put together your notes on the PPP factor that you've posted here and publish it as an article for the general audience? -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
At 4:31 PM -0400 7/21/04, Michael Pollak wrote: self-selected candidates often don't care whether they get local party support or not (and sometimes prefer not), surely progressive/left folks can do better than this with whatever shell of an organization exists... I think there is now a much more effective model available for affecting the nomination than taking over the party: the MoveOn model. MoveOn almost nominated Dean. I don't think that it was worth leftists' time to fight to have Howard Dean nominated, as Dean's agenda in some crucial respects (especially on Iraq) went against leftists', but, supposing that there were left-of-center liberal folks who really, really, wanted to nominate him as the Democratic presidential candidate, it's now clear that it takes much more than internet communication to win in the caucuses and primaries. Besides, the MoveOn model is strictly one-way communication from the center to the margins (unlike the Dean model), far more centralized and undemocratic than any other organization on the left side of the political spectrum. At 4:10 PM -0400 7/22/04, Michael Hoover wrote: partial example of what i've been trying to get at: harold washington's brief time as chicago mayor in the mid-1980s remains important because what emerged was a potentially powerful dialectical relationship between politicians and movement, politicos in downtown 'suites' were emboldened by activsts in neighorhood 'streets', political mobilization and organization operated 'outside of government' yet were linked 'organically'' to it worked to embolden policymakers. Results were, admittedly, limited (but achieved in face of white-dominated city council and under scrutiny of white local media), but included some shifting power and resources to neighborhoods (including creating neighborhood coops), fostering further mobilization of previously inactive folks (neighborhood orgs could review all city economic development programs and submit economic assistance proposals), and attempting some redistribution towards lower-income individuals/groups (considere no-no for municipal gov't because spending on the poor requires higher local taxes that are unattractive to potential investors), things imploded in aftermath of washington's (not necessarily my idea of appealing politician but that's not point) untimely death... And there is a reason why reforms and mobilizations did not last beyond Washington's death. At 4:10 PM -0400 7/22/04, Michael Hoover wrote: was underwhelmed by list of elected green party members, most had no links to them, number of links to some who did were apparently broken, and most sites i was able to access made no mention that folks were green party members, most offices held are probably nonpartisan with respect to ballot but i'd have thought these people would want to highlight/promote green party and their membership in it at their websites, no indication of concerted party efforts but rather individual candidates running conventional campaigns that have little real connection to one another (nothing wrong with this but not indication of party growth/strength)... The US-style electoral system strongly acts against party-building, but it's better to have a political party like the Green Party than a Washington-style campaign, which is doomed to remain in one location and destined to die with the person with whom mobilization is inseparably associated. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Suicides, Military and Economic
Suicides, Military and Economic (rising suicide rates of Israeli soldiers, Japanese workers, and Indian farmers): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/suicides-military-and-economic.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Michael Hoover wrote: responses to my initial post conveyed, by and large, varying degrees of maximalism, making quantitative leap from my modest suggestion all the way to presidential electoral politics (by such measures *all attempts will fail), pervasive problem imo... The questions of what we can do to improve local governance and what we can do to change national politics shouldn't be put in terms of minimalist vs. maximalist programs, I believe, because it is not the case that you can make even minimal changes in foreign policy by taking the city halls. Even if the Green Party were to succeed in electing Green mayors in all cities in the United States, for instance, an impact of such a dramatic change in local politics on US foreign policy won't be even minimalist -- it will be practically zero. The thing is that it is possible for us to make a lot more changes for better at the local level either by building the Green Party, or taking over local Democratic parties, or pursuing some other measures (we have viable tactics and successful models of various sorts here, lacking only in enough activists willing to put in time and energy), and we should be doing what we can, but taking on national politics is qualitatively (rather than quantitatively) different from working on local politics, and here we can use some innovative ideas. Yoshie
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Carrol wrote: even through contesting for power in local DP organizations. At the local level, what a Green politician does and what a really good left-wing Democratic politician does may not be so different anyway. (Real irreconcilable political differences make their appearance at the level above state representatives and senators, I think.) The reason I don't push for working through local Democratic parties is that the Green Party has already shown that it can elect its own candidates for local offices, so why bother trying the second best now? Even if the Green Party were to succeed in electing Green mayors in all cities in the United States, for instance, an impact of such a dramatic change in local politics on US foreign policy won't be even minimalist -- it will be practically zero. Not necessarily. One can't judge that _If_ as though in a laboratory where one element changes while all other elements remain constant. The conditions under which the GP could elect mayors in several hundred substantial (150k+ population) cities around the u.s. would be conditions which could not occur without profound reverberations elsewhere from the activities which brought about the electoral victories. You and I have both complained about those comments on revolution which presuppose that revolutionary action would occur with all other conditions (as now experienced) remaining constant. (E.g. someone once asked the silly question of how we could ask the working class to risk everything for overthrow of capitalism, when of course we would never ask that but conditions, now unpredictable and undescribable -- perhaps of rising expectations, perhaps of utter chaos, perhaps of something we cannot describe now--would do the asking.) I tend to agree that the local politics route to national power is illusional, but in considering it we can't consider it in a vacuum. That's a good point. But, all the arguments in favor of concentrating on local politics that are advanced now here and elsewhere, I think, come with a subtext: you, leftists, had better work on only local issues like zoning -- leave big national and international issues like war and peace to the Democratic Party, because you can't win presidency immediately anyway. To the contrary, war years are especially important years when leftists need to make interventions in national politics, including mounting electoral challenges through presidential elections. The question is how exactly to do that effectively, knowing that our candidate won't become the next POTUS. Yoshie
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Michael Hoover wrote: A person who puts forward a proposal should be prepared to act on it. Otherwise, others will simply conclude that, if the idea is not even worth the proposer's time, then, it's not worth their time either. -- Yoshie people do different things, as for doug, he's a reporter (he may think of himself in other terms), i've indicated number of times in past impact that i think this has on his perspective re. certain things, but above conclusion is not necessarily one of them, in any event, i made suggestion (hesitate to call it proposal) not him... michael hoover (who has actually attended local dem ex com meetings) I'm asking if anyone will be doing it, because it's not a new idea, and a lot of people -- from famous guys like Michael Moore to local activists -- have proposed exactly the same thing, but they never do it themselves, much less try to make it a nationwide effort (to do the latter, you need a solid nationwide organization that exists outside electoral politics -- otherwise, no coordination among local attempts). At 3:18 PM -0400 7/21/04, Doug Henwood wrote: I don't have a lot of time to spare anyway Most Americans -- 99.99% of Americans? -- feel exactly the same way as you do. In any event, the Green Party has proven that it is possible to elect a lot of third-party city council persons, aldermen, and even a number of mayors: http://www.feinstein.org/greenparty/electeds.html. It can continue to elect more of them, and it will probably be able to make inroads into statehouses by doing more of the same. The GP organizing has worked at local levels. The idea that we need is how to make the GP a political party that can elect its candidates to the highest levels of national political offices: representatives, senators, governors, and president. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Be All You Can Be
Be All You Can Be (the US military offers its personnel free cosmetic surgery -- including breast augmentations): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/be-all-you-can-be.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
An argument against it? You would actually try it yourself if it were really a good idea. Yoshie nah, doug's a journalist, he'd write about it... michael hoover A person who puts forward a proposal should be prepared to act on it. Otherwise, others will simply conclude that, if the idea is not even worth the proposer's time, then, it's not worth their time either. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Wages of Election-Year Rituals
Wages of Election-Year Rituals: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/wages-of-election-year-rituals.html
Killing the Future of Iraq
Killing the Future of Iraq: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/killing-future-of-iraq.html
Peter Camejo Speaks (Audio File)
Peter Camejo Speaks (San Francisco, July 16, 2004): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/peter-camejo-speaks.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
sorry. you are correct. but I would be happy to remove the troops from the US. Or bring all the troops home here and re-train them into an army of fitness instructors -- sorely needed in the fattest nation in the world. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
A Postmortem: The Anti-War Movement, September 2001-March 2004
A Postmortem: The Anti-War Movement, September 2001-March 2004: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/postmortem-anti-war-movement-september.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
FUD
FUD (a perfect term to refer to the tactic that the Democratic Party uses against third parties on the left): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/fud.html
The Ruling Class Dumps Bush
The Ruling Class Dumps Bush: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/ruling-class-dumps-bush.html
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Michael Hoover wrote: maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another, show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties... This sounds like a very good idea, or at least one worth trying. What's the argument against it? Doug An argument against it? You would actually try it yourself if it were really a good idea. Yoshie
Democrats Put Bush on the Ballot While Fighting to Keep Nader off It
Democrats Put Bush on the Ballot While Fighting to Keep Nader off It: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/democrats-put-bush-on-ballot-while.html
Re: [Fwd: Swans' Release: July 19, 2004]
Michael wrote: i've a hunch that some left interest in nader is reflection of absence of actual left alternatives, as panelist at forum i attended in ann arbor said yesterday: 'he's best known option, lousy way to develop actual left alternative... I think that those who are seriously interested in building a movement and political party capable of challenging the bipartisan consensus on the domestic and foreign policy ought to be able to think beyond the specific positive and negative attributes of Ralph Nader as an individual and think about who (among Green Party leaders, rank-and-file Green Party members, non-Green Party members, etc.) is supporting him and why, what we can do to work with them, and so on. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
At 9:57 AM -0400 7/18/04, Michael Hoover wrote: will plead ignorance re. lopov, saw name on poster, chuckled, thought to myself kinda funny, even thought 'group' might be joke, thought up by someone/small group with no serious intention of having legs for mass outreach, so my initial comments about 'rightous name' and 'growing group' were supposed to be irony (which often travels poorly in cyberspace)... I don't think that the League of Pissed Off Voters, aka the League of Independent Voters, goes anywhere by itself, but seen as a part of a larger phenomenon, it's interesting. On one hand, it's an indication of how embarrassing it has become to make a straightforward argument for John Kerry or the Democratic Party in general, among thinking young persons especially, so the Democratic operatives have to come up with a face-saving cover that lets them believe that they are still independent, albeit they will be voting and working for John Kerry. On the other hand, the League, MoveOn, and thousands of others like it (e.g., http://www.punkvoter.com/) have been very successful at re-creating the Democratic Party hegemony over not just liberals but also a sizable segment of leftists. The key tactic for them, whose faces are sunny and cheery, is to focus on opposing George W. Bush; not to mention John Kerry, because he is, well, unmentionable; and to say a kind word or two about some nice Green Party candidates in local elections. Nasty work is done by Democratic Party lawyers and politicians doing all they can to keep Nader and other Greens off the ballots and (if they still manage to get on the ballots) to make them win as few votes as possible. At 9:57 AM -0400 7/18/04, Michael Hoover wrote: fwiw: league rep at ann arbor forum yesterday argued for voting for anybody but kerry or bush, guess she's out of step with her comrades re. dem candidate... michael hoover I believe so, but what's her name? Perhaps, she'll join something more interesting some day. At 2:32 PM -0700 7/18/04, Craven, Jim wrote: Response Jim C: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. (Josef Stalin) In a nation like the USA, the saying may be, The people who pay for politicians' golden parachutes decide everything. Shane Mage and Doug Henwood say that the ruling class appear to have dumped George W. Bush, and I agree with them. Democratic Party front groups want us to think that the November election will be a referendum on Bush, but the ruling class know that it will be a referendum on Kerry. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
At 8:05 PM -0700 7/18/04, sartesian wrote: Dumped George Bush? Not hardly. Put 200 million into his campaign and he hasn't, and they haven't, started yet. Kerry? That's call hedging the position. You don't dump somebody by place a 200 million dollar bet. Dump Bush Oh no, they love this love-child of Ronald Reagan, and I do mean THEY, collective, plural, class. He embodies everything they hold to be self-evident, those natural virtues -- venality, vindictiveness, viciousness. There will be a rump faction that continues to support Bush, but the rest have probably already made the decision that Bush does more harm than good for them. I think that $200 million is not a particularly large sum for the ruling class. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Fahrenheit 911
Melvin wrote: It is one thing to privately believe that the rulers are America are greedy self serving criminals of the bourgeois order. It is a different matter to share this private belief as an experience in a public setting where no one can pretend they had not witnessed a crime. You summed up very beautifully the potential of a shared experience of watching a powerful documentary in public, as opposed to watching the same thing alone at home. Best regards to your wife. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/16/04 2:45 PM michael hoover (reporting from birkenstock, i mean ann arbor, where forum on third parties this weekend includes representative of the righteously named - and no doubt - growing group, league of pissed off voters) Isn't that another front group for the Democrats? Yoshie aren't they all, actually, i have it on good word that dems are front group for reps... michael hoover There are Democrats, and there are shamefaced Democrats, and the League of Pissed Off Voters is set up to appeal to the latter. When you look at their website http://indyvoter.org/, it uses two names alternately: the League of Pissed Off Voters and the League of Independent Voters. The League of Pissed Off Voters just had its national convention http://indyvoter.org/article.php?id=72 at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. From a friend of mine who ran into the League's national organizers at a bar tonight, I hear that about 250 attended the convention, but only 15 from Columbus itself. 15 is 15 too many. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Carl says: From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Frank's new book What's Wrong With Kansas argues implicitly that the Democrats lose elections because they are identified with the wrong side of the culture wars. This is the same sort of position that Michael Moore argued in the Nation Magazine in 1997 and that Richard Rorty put forward in Achieving Our Country. You get a more strident version of this in Todd Gitlin's The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars. Moving directly into the enemy's camp, you get Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society and Jim Sleeper's Liberal Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream. Somehow, this kind of economism that panders to white workers has been associated with Marxism in some circles. Frank himself would probably describe himself as a Marxist, but not on the Charlie Rose show--I don't imagine. In any case, this has little to do with the outlook of Lenin who urged that socialists act as a tribune of the people.) I think _What the Matter With Kansas?_ is a great book, but Frank doesn't really provide any explanation for conservatives' amazing, Lamont Cranston-style ability to cloud men's minds and substitute preposterous cultural issues for economic concerns that have life-and-death significance. Why *are* so many Americans so easily gulled, so mulish, so spiteful, so effing perverse? I was born in this country and have lived here for over a half century, but the basic weirdness of this place never fails to astonish me. In my opinion, mulish, spiteful, and perverse reactionaries are a great boon -- not to the Republican but the Democratic Party, which would lose even more of its post-60s constituencies (organized labor + Blacks + social liberals + leftists who fall for a self-fulfilling prophesy) if they did not exist, which is the conclusion that I got from the Thomas Frank op-ed piece: blockquote Of course, as everyone pointed out, the whole enterprise [the Federal Marriage Amendment] was doomed to failure from the start. It didn't have to be that way; conservatives could have chosen any number of more promising avenues to challenge or limit the Massachusetts ruling. Instead they went with a constitutional amendment, the one method where failure was absolutely guaranteed - along with front-page coverage Then again, what culture war offensive isn't doomed to failure from the start? Indeed, the inevitability of defeat seems to be a critical element of the melodrama, on issues from school prayer to evolution and even abortion. Failure on the cultural front serves to magnify the outrage felt by conservative true believers; it mobilizes the base. Failure sharpens the distinctions between conservatives and liberals. Failure allows for endless grandstanding without any real-world consequences that might upset more moderate Republicans or the party's all-important corporate wing. You might even say that grand and garish defeat - especially if accompanied by the ridicule of the sophisticated - is the culture warrior's very object. The issue is all-important; the issue is incapable of being won. Only when the battle is defined this way can it achieve the desired results, have its magical polarizing effect. Only with a proposed constitutional amendment could the legalistic, cavilling Democrats be counted on to vote no, and only with an offensive so blunt and so sweeping could the universal hostility of the press be secured. (Failure Is Not an Option, It's Mandatory, emNew York Times/em, a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/16/opinion/16FRAN.html;July 16, 2004/a)/blockquote There is one point in the Culture War that leftists, unlike liberals, might want to steal from conservatives: gun control. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Max wrote: Frank also says Clintonesque center-hugging on economics -- free trade, labor rights, privatization, etc. -- causes the culturally- conservative worker's decision to hinge solely on God, guns, and gays. That's a good point. Since the top Democrats are so economically neoliberal that the Republicans have nothing to talk about except culture to distinguish themselves from the Democrats. I haven't finished the book yet. So far Frank's argument begs the question of why we don't see politics that is culturally conservative and economically progressive, like the old populists 100 years ago. Capitalism has already changed social relations to the point where there is no going back. Even many Republicans who want to ban gay marriage say they support civil union and/or non-discrimination against gay men and lesbians, just like Kerry and Edwards! -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
michael hoover (reporting from birkenstock, i mean ann arbor, where forum on third parties this weekend includes representative of the righteously named - and no doubt - growing group, league of pissed off voters) Isn't that another front group for the Democrats? -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
The Future of the Green Party
The Future of the Green Party (it's the Greens for Nader and Green leaders like Peter Miguel Camejo, Matt Gonzalez, Jason West, Ross Mirkarimi, Donna Warren, and others who are the future of the Green Party): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/future-of-green-party.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Matt Gonzalez: Why Vote for Ralph Nader?
Matt Gonzalez: Why Vote for Ralph Nader?: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/matt-gonzalez-why-vote-for-ralph-nader.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Kerry/Edwards: Divorced from Gay Marriage
Kerry/Edwards: Divorced from Gay Marriage: (Kerry avoids Gavin Newsom to dodge the question -- also, Kerry and Edwards were the only senators who abstained from voting on the Federal Marriage Amendment) http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/kerryedwards-divorced-from-gay.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
A Letter to the Black Caucus from a Black Woman Living in South Central
This just in from the San Francisco Bay View (July 14, 2004) -- A Letter to the Black Caucus from a Black Woman Living in South Central by Donna J. Warren, supporting the Nader/Camejo Campaign: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/letter-to-black-caucus-from-black.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Two Americas of Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of the Christ
Two Americas of Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of the Christ: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/two-americas-of-fahrenheit-911-and.html -- Yoshie Furuhashi English Comparative Studies Ohio State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] 614-668-6554
Re: Kucinich delegates fold like a cheap suitcase
kucinich folks have to make decision at some point re. that They should be told to leave the Democratic Party and joing the Green Party. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Greens for Nader!
Greens for Nader! (circulating a petition to protest the campaign against the voters by Democratic Party operatives trying to keep Ralph Nader Peter Miguel Camejo off the ballot): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/greens-for-nader.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
July 14, 1789/1958
July 14, 1789/1958 Celebrate the French Revolution in 1789 and the 1958 Revolution in Iraq. http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/july-14-17891958.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
