The First Hundred Hours and the New Congress: Let’s not Forget Energy!

Nancy Pelosi will be our Speaker of the House in just a few days and has already promised 100 hours of legislative initiatives. Let us, while keeping our big picutre firmly in mind — peace, a healthy working America, real democracy, a just wage and fair trade, as well as environmental stewardship — but not ignore our message of energy independence and the promotion of research of alternatives to nuclear, coal and other fossil feuls. A campaign of a very diverse group of governmentalal watchdog agencies, the Dept. of Energy itself, along with environmental educational and activist organizations, as well as alternative energy technology industries are urging a change in our current budgeted energy policies.

Right now much more public money is being spent to “improve” coal standards, develop deepwater drilling technology and a new generation of nuclear reactors and a highly suspect nuclear-hydrogen program’s development to the detriment of increasing conservation, creating an advanced solar, geothermal, wind turbine, and tidal energy non-polluting energy policy.

One agency, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, issued the following letter urging immediate action in the new Congress regarding our federal energy policy:

Dear Friends:

We are working to build new coalitions of renewable energy groups and trade associations, safe energy and environmental groups, businesses and others to redirect our nation’s energy priorities away from nuclear power and fossil fuels and towards the renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies that can cleanly and sustainably power our future and at the same time address the global climate crisis….

…Our first effort is below: a letter to Congress seeking a budget shift from nuclear and fossil fuel programs to renewable and efficiency programs in the Fiscal Year 2007 federal budgetrces for renewable and efficiency programs for FY 2008.
Because the new Congress intends to act on FY 07 budget issues very quickly, we intend to get this letter to Congressional leaders next week!
We encourage all national, regional and local organizations to sign on. Please let us know by 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, December 26. Please reply to this e-mail with your name, organization, city and state.
Thanks for your help and support!
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org 301-270-6477

Indeed, as Mr. Mariotee notes, time is fleeting for FY 2007 budget changes and to begin addressing the 2008!

A remarkable coalition of researchers, advocates and policy experts have joined together to address the budgetary concerns for the First Hundred Hours. These are: Cascade Associates, Environmental and Energy Study Group, Geothermal Energy Assoc., Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Public Citizen, SUN DAY Campaign, and the US Combined Heat and Power Association. In a letter due to be released on 27 December to every member of Congress, they urge the following:

In general, we support what we understand to be Congress’ intent to fund programs in FY’07 at the FY’06 level as being a good starting point for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) sustainable energy programs.
We believe that it is essential to sustain funding at or above historic levels (i.e., FY’06 and earlier) for the core renewable energy and energy efficiency programs in DOE as well as in other federal agencies.
We also note that as work progressed during this past year on the FY’07 appropriations bills, consensus was reached between the Congress and the White House to expand a number of sustainable energy programs as well as launch several new energy efficiency and/or renewable energy initiatives. We believe these programs and funding levels should be a part of the final FY’07 appropriations bill.
However, we recognize – and fully support – Congress’ desire to not increase overall spending limits and, in fact, to move towards significantly reducing the size of the federal budget deficit.
Therefore, we recommend that any increases in the funding levels for the federal energy efficiency and renewable energy programs be offset by commensurate, or greater, reductions in selected fossil fuel and commercial nuclear power program accounts.
We believe that a shift in federal funding from mature and/or polluting technologies to cleaner, safer, and sustainable energy sources offers the best option for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing oil imports, and addressing the nation’s other pressing energy and deficit-reduction needs within the constraints of a very tight federal budget.

PDA certainly endorses these moves. Not only are many of the present DOE endorsed projects are just continuations of existing technology that are potential polluters and greenhouse gas emitters, but due to their nature, set to further enlarge the tremendous commercial energy corporations’ coffers at the public’s expense.

PDA urges all to contact their representatives and their staff along with the senators and their staff to support a green conservative DOE budget aimed at alternative fuels and saving energy, not continuation of the same failed policy that is geared towards commercial fossil and nuclear corporations.

PDA: Building a New Alliance

The people spoke at the polls in November 2006: we are tired of war, nonresponse to crises actual and pending, and business as usual with an agenda set out by the “Usual Suspects” in Washington alongside their corporate and special interest allies and enablers. The Democrats sent a majority to the House in November, and Nancy Pelosi has been elected Speaker of the House. We Democrats sent a bare majority of one (counting three Independents who will caucus with the Democrats) to the Senate. The fragile majority is threatened by a single Senator crossing the aisle to the Republican side or falling unable to carryout her or his duties. Even in many of the contested losing elections, Democrats came unbelievably close to gaining House and Senate seats, demonstrating the political pendulum swing we are witnessing.

The Senate right now is extremely important in 2008, as is the Presidency and keeping control of the House. Right now the House can hold up all money bills. In the Senate, however, we are left to the 100 ladies and gentlemen there who have the ability not only to approve treaties and Presidential appointments, but to override Bush vetoes as well. During the less than two years we have left before the General Election, it is imperative that PDA continue its mission of growth while continuing its ongoing agenda of education, action, and support for Progressive candidates.

Right now PDA is operating on a shoestring budget with only four paid full-time employees. Our volunteers staff many of the day-to-day efforts, such as all the State Caucus and Chapter work, as well as on the national level, doing, such tasks as research and action alerts. But, due to the dedication of our members, some 6000 members right now are donating around $8000 per month in direct credit card deductions! As a nonfederal PAC, PDA cannot take more than $5000 in individual contributions, but we do have a mechanism in place for larger donations.

PDA believes that all Americans deserve a widened and level playing field, in all areas of life from politics to health care. We believe most Americans do also. Our imperialistic military-industrial Pay to Play politics need to be made as obsolete as the policies of the Gilded Age of Robber Barons and political machines. A Healthy America, A Peaceful America, Fair Trade and Just Wage, Social and Economic Justice, and Environmental Stewardship is our message. Electing Progressive Democrats is our goal to achieve this. How can you help?

You can help by fighting for an America in which you can take pride again! A United States rooted in peace, a clean environment and an end of corporate control of the political process! How? By joining PDA and volunteering your time or financial resources to the effort to see the America you long for made manifest!

Action Alert — Stop Development of Zion-Mojave Wilderness

PDA
Action Alert

Urge your Representative, especially
those in the House Resources Committee to oppose the present bill HR
5769
This bill is suspect from environmental, conservation and
cultural reasons — Even the Bush Administration is in opposition!

HR 5769, introduced by Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) on 12 September 2006
and its companion bill, S. 3636 introduced by Sen. Bob Bennett
(R-UT)
on the same date has the short title of The Washington County Growth and
Conservation Act of 2006. Despite its stated desire to
“conserve,” in reality, the bill does while designating certain areas
of the environmentally sensitive Zion-Mojave area of Washington County,
Utah, protected areas, does much more than that. It seeks to
authorize — at government expense — “critical water, transportation
and utility corridors.” A similar proposed designation of lands
in Nevada (the White County
Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006) was
to be subject to public hearings on disposal of public lands, while
this bill allows over 20,000 acres to be gobbled up for such projects
as developers might see fit with no such public input required.
The Nevada bill also sought to help purify the waters of Lake Mead, and
promote water conservation and the development of affordable housing
through Nevada.

The full text of the bill(s) are available via GovTrack.us
(http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5769)

During initial subcommittee testimony against the bill, Jerry
Greenberg, Vice President for Regional Conservation with The Wilderness
Society on behalf of Friends
of Nevada Wilderness, The Nevada Wilderness Project, Campaign for
America’s Wilderness, Red Rock Audubon, and The Wilderness
Society spoke in opposition to the Washington County legislation.

“Greenberg noted that the Nevada and Utah bills are very different. The
Washington County bill has inadequate wilderness protection, leaves out
many of the most ecologically sensitive areas, and sets arbitrary
mandates on land sales. While conservationists have consistently said
they believe the acreage figure for land sales in the Nevada bill is
excessive, the parcels must be identified through the BLM’s resource
management planning process. The Utah bill mandates sales for
approximately 20,000 acres and does not require that those lands be
identified through a public planning process.” — Wilderness.org
(http://action.wilderness.org/wildernessII/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=2601348)

Not merely opposed by national environmental groups, but even by
President Bush’s own Bureau of Land Management, the bill is seriously
flawed. Chad
Calvert, the Principal Deputy Asst. Secretary, Land and Minerals
Management, US Dept. of the Interior, noted the danger in the bill in
its present form in testimony before the House Subcommittee on
Forests and Forest Health on 16 September 2006. Calvert noted
that not only would the sale of the nearly 25,000 acres “effectively
require the Treasury to borrow more funds to pay this interest” on the
sale, but that the parcels proposed for sale were unacceptable to the
BLM since “the density of unique and special cultural resources in the
identified area is exceptionally high.”
(http://www.blm.gov/nhp/news/legislative/pages/2006/te060914.htm)

This bill, while protecting a certain percentage of public lands in
Utah, also is a handout for developers who are seeking corporate
welfare to produce more housing in a fast-growing area adjacent to some
of the most environmentally sensitive and culturally significant wild
regions in the West. The “development” portion of the bill’s text
would effectively allow the City of St. George, already the
fast-growing city in Utah to be additionally overdeveloped by the
utility, water, and transportation corridors proposed. Rather
than seeking to conserve electricity and water and fossil fuel use in
the Zion-Mojave area, this bill seeks to encourage it — at public
expense.

Additionally the Southern
Utah Wilderness Alliance is also fighting the drilling of gas wells
in the White River Wilderness Area along with the pork barrel aspects
of HR 5769. The BLM has planned for drilling and construction of roads
for access through this presently pristine wilderness surrounding the
New River. They seek input from the public at the above link to
show disapproval of this move.
(http://www.suwa.org/entry.php?entry_id=792)

Urge all your Representatives and Senators to oppose the bill, HR 5769
and to comment in opposition on the Bureau of Land Management’s plans
to develop the New River Wilderness.

Talking Points;
Environmental Conservation
Cultural Significance
Unsustainable Growth
Corporate Welfare

Free Trade or Fair Trade? What is Good for America.

In today’s Tompaine.com blog Common Sense, “Slowing The Free-Trade Bulldozer”, 30 November 2006 by Mark Engler, a most interesting post. The main points of which are that now during the Lameduck Session, the Progressive Democrats ought to strike against free trade agreements as a preemptive measure.

Engler’s main points are:

Long a bipartisan crusade in Washington, “free trade” is now set to face some overdue opposition. And there’s no better time to start the rumble than in the lame duck session of Congress. . . .

Whether the wave of revulsion against corporation globalization will propel a lasting change in Democratic policy-making will depend largely on figures like Rangel, incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is set to be chair of the Senate Finance Committee. These party chiefs may not be “free traders” like Bill Clinton, but neither are they leading fair trade activists like Brown and Sanders. Each has mixed record on trade issues; both Pelosi and Rangel voted in favor of the Vietnam trade legislation, which may yet be revived in coming months. Moreover, each of these senior Democrats has made rhetorical gestures toward bipartisanship since the election. . . .

More conservative officials at the Democratic Leadership Council hope that these overtures will morph into permanent middle-of-the-road stances. But this is not the kind of “moderation” that the rest of us should regard as a virtue. More exciting, and more laudable, would be if the Democrats come out swinging, taking down trade agreements that fail working families and clearing the way for a globalization built from the bottom up.

This is in total agreement with the position of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA).

How long are the workers of the United States to be held hostage by a New Gilded Age?  How long before neo-serfdom is the norm for all the world?  When will the voters simply drive the Corporate Party (Democratic- Enabler and Republican Branches) away from their statehouses, courthouses, Congress and the White House?

Not until enough sweat has been spilt upon the brows of men and women who are unable to meet their medical costs, rents or mortgages, or even travel to their jobs without a spontaneous burst of common revulsion has united us all in common cause.

What has any giant corporation ever done except for its chief officers?  Other than poisoning the air, soil and water, not paying its fair share of taxes, and taking jobs to Asian and Latin American wage  slaves that had been decent honorable US jobs, that is.

The money we spend in Congress without so much as a blink of an eye or a second thought in  the futile meddling in  Iraq’s civil war could fully fund any governmental single server health insurance scheme — yet the corporate control of our Congress makes it a dream for progressives and the common folk.  Every person who draws a government salary has envious health care insurance.  Odd that those who give it to themselves do not deign to cast a single crumb our way…

Cut and Run and the Ministry of Truth and Net Neutrality

This afteroon, 24 October 2006, London time, the
BBC reports that ” US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has said stabilising the country is possible in a realistic time-frame, despite ongoing sectarian violence” and that General Casey claims that “Iraqi security forces are 75% ready.”

However the BBC notes the following events as Khalizad and Casey spoke:

BBC World affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the thrust of the briefing was one of reassurance, perhaps to US voters as they prepare for next month’s mid-term elections.

As the two US officials spoke in Baghdad, violence continued across the country. Among the incidents:

* US soldiers shot dead four Iraqi firefighters they had mistaken for insurgents in the western city of Falluja

* A car bomb in Baghdad wounded 13 people

* Two policemen died in Amara, in an attack blamed on Shia militiamen

The same report continued: “At least 87 US troops have died this month – the highest monthly toll since November 2004.“

Meanwhile, back in Washington or Florida or wherever the Commander in Chief happens to be campaigning at present, the White House issued a lie, then a correction and then a clarification on “stay the course.” The phrase, when contrasted with the Democratic alternative of “cut and run” was of course, made popular by Bush himself along with cut and run. Now he denied saying it. Then when caught on tape, he denied denying it or something of the sort, and says that the problems facing his Iraqi War and his near-abandonment of Afghanistan construe a change in strategic, rather than tactical thinking…whatever that means.

What it appears to mean is that (1)Lindsay Graham, (2)the forthcoming Baker Report, (3) the fact that Warner and the a growing majority of both chambers do not care for “stay the course”, and (4) the all-too apparent likelihood of the Republican majority being lost in at least the House, if not the entire Congress, and (5)the enslaught of Republican pedophilia and corruption cases have combined to make Mr. Bush wake out of his stupor. Of course, lacking a Ministry of Truth, and having only Snow and FoxNews to clarify, we await an “official” statement from the throne or “signing statement” as to what constitutes a change from “stay the course.”

Meanwhile, the unitary executive, whatever that is, grinds on. I imagine it to largely be something cooked out of a recipe book by either Stalin or Hitler, myself, or else a concept brought to light by a self-appointed “President for Life” or “Supreme Leader.” In his latest ploy, Mr. Bush seems to think that after signing the budget bill, he is able to single handedly appropriate monies as he sees fit within the DOD. Why stop there? Why not declare the right to tax or void tax at will or else to solely declare the constitutionality of laws, Mr. Bush?

Meanwhile, back in DC, a series of unfortunate corporate hacks posing as Congress refused to allow continued deregulation of the internet. Evidently, the Republican House and its DemocraticEnablers (aka the Corpopublicrats) have dashed down any hope of maintaining status quo in 2006. The ACLU and the Christian Coalition have actually joined forces with Google and other parties to attempt to preserve what we presently have.

But what has that to do with the war in Iraq? Everything. If the corporate media in the USA continues to report by rote all the soundbites as fact coming from the Pentagon and White House and money determines whose blogs get read, then where is the voice of the people and the independent media? Second rate, just as would be any voice of inquery and accurate analysis. We would be turned into minions of a corporate Ministry of Truth where only those who paid get to play, we could read the news from The Guardian, The Independent and Observor and listen to Amy Goodman and the BBC on Pacifica and the shortwave, but where would we see it in print with a huge variety of nuance in individual analyses if the internet became a play to pay toy for the corporations? In a sad place is where.

A sad place indeed, almost as sad as Iraq or the Pentagon or a military family’s notice of the death of their son, grandson, nephew, husband or friend.

$100,000 USD per hour towards Iraq; Civil War in Iraq and Congress.

Besides the Republican sex scandal in Washington which has DC and the talking heads abuzz, several recent developments are definitely worthy of comment. We refer not to the latest Enabling Act of the BushCo, Inc. administration re: habeus corpus and unitary executive legislative/executive power, two other events are especially pressing. While many might not immediately assume that the two are directly connected, they are in more than a mere cursory manner. These two are the cost of the Iraqi debacle, known as the “War on Terror” and the US Congress playing politics and local funding politics at that over an international issue, the full and equitable funding of the FY 2007 Ryan White Care Act.

The Los Angeles Times article by Mark Mazzetti and Joel Havemann, entitled “Iraq War Costing $100,000 per Minute,” via the Seattle Times on 3 February 2006 reports the following:

WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that it plans to ask Congress for an additional $70 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, driving the cost of military operations in the two countries to $120 billion this year, the highest ever.

Most of the new money would pay for the war in Iraq, which has cost an estimated $250 billion since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

The additional spending, along with other war funding the Bush administration will seek separately in its regular budget next week, would push the price tag for combat and nation-building since Sept. 11, 2001, to nearly a half-trillion dollars, approaching the inflation-adjusted cost of the 13-year Vietnam War.

At the same time, the intercine civil war in Iraq is claiming as many as 150 victims of torture and murder in a 48 hour period, even during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. News reports of as much of $9 Billion missing from the US Iraq reconstruction project are scandalizing the Iraqis, the US general public and the entire world.

At the same time that all this money is seeming to be the equivalent of keeping out rats by stuffing the holes with paper money, a catfight erupted on the floor of the US Senate and between HIV/AIDS advocacy groups over the funding of the Ryan White Care Act. Hillary R. Clinton (supposed D, NY) took to the Senate floor to basicly say three things: (1) Leave Metro NYC funding alone, since (2)it is the fault of people moving to NYC for HIV treatment from other states that we have the highest case load in the country and (3) that maybe someday soon the other more rural states will get what they need, but NY can’t lose a dime. She does reiterate the fact that a shift in priority needs to occur in the country regarding HIV/AIDS care and that Medicare should be offered as soon as a person presents HIV positive, but that Congress doesn’t seem too interested…

However, as she pointed out, NY doesn’t want to lose any money, claiming that the higher cost of living and more per capita cases in New York means that more monies are required. But what she neglects to mention is that there is a wealth of HIV/AIDS social service organizations that are well funded and organized offering a wide range of services that a smaller city, such as Huntsville, Alabama or Columbia, South Carolina lack.

Sen. Clinton held up the bill for a while, but caved in once the compromise was reached. Had she been more for HIV funding and less for New York, she would have held her breath until she turned blue, ready to filibuster until she fainted from exhaustion.

One blog,
“From the Left,” notes via Jeffery Birnbaum’s WP article on 23 August 2006 that:

Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she opposes the measure because it would lower funding for her home state. But some AIDS groups also see broader political motives at work. Other states that would lose out include California, Florida and Illinois — all places Clinton would need to win if she seeks the presidency. Her critics also note that many of the states that would receive higher funding under the new formula are rural and Southern, which tend to vote Republican.

Birnbaum’s article concludes that she was the only nay in the entire Senate… Quite a few comments came in to this blog, some most virulent towards Mrs. Clinton and the entire AIDS charity network. These include:

Sign the God damned bill Hillary, before no state, including your own, can get a dime of Federal money to treat the epidemic. Tweak it later, add appropriations to other bills, but get the God damned Federal money now before Bush spends every last cent in the US Treasury on Iraq!

and

What is the Gay Men’s Health Crisis thinking by supporting her? These silly queens must be swept away by the Cult of Hillary, just as they are by the Cult of Barbra, Liza, Cher and Mariah.

Time to wake up, gay America! Hillary Clinton is NOT our friend. Never has been and she never will be. Hillary takes care of Hillary.

In the interest of fairness, one must admit that there are defensive comments as well in rebuttal. However, the fact that it appears to be less than Lily White, does give us cause for alarm… Mrs. Clinton has the appearance of counting potential electoral ballots prior to nomination and of making an international crisis one of county lines.

Let us face fact, this Congress, collectively, doesn’t give a proverbial rat’s ass about HIV. If they did, they would fully fund Ryan White, and give up some of the $9 Billion they shat away in Baghdad to contractors that are not rebuilding Iraq and maybe a few hours of the Iraqi Adventure.

HIV funding should be national and not a hodgepodge of self-replicating mini-ministries. The funding should follow the cases and education and outreach should be universal — the same adverts should be in New York and Newark as are in Baton Rouge and Birmingham or Binghampton. The social service organizations and medical clinics should be funded by two criteria: that of case load and that of overhead, not by luck of geography.

The face of HIV is changing, and it is becoming darker and female. It is time for the United States to decide where we want our month of Adventure to go: to Bush’s gulags and fresh cannon fodder on the streets and in the markets of Iraq or to FULL FUNDING for not only Ryan White but active education and social and medical services whether in Brooklyn or Birmingham or Boise.

Noone should play politics with peoples’ lives. It is not only unseemly, but immoral, and just plain old-fashioned bullshit, whether dressed in a senator’s suit or a Talibangelist’s stole.

Iran, the Next Iraq?

Representative Dennis Kuninich yesterday sent an urgent email to his supporters warning us of the gathering war clouds in DC gathering towards the East. The text is as follows:

Urgent Letter from Dennis Kucinich
about Bush Administration Plans for a US War vs. Iran

Dear Friends,

The Bush Administration is preparing for war against Iran, using an almost identical drumbeat of weapons of mass destruction, imminent threat, alleged links to Al Queda, and even linking Iran with a future 911.

In the past few months reports have been published in Newsweek, ABC News and GQ Magazine that indicate the US is recruiting members of paramilitary groups to destabilize Iran through violence. The New Yorker magazine and the Guardian have written that US has already deployed military inside Iran. The latest issue of Time writes of plans for a naval blockade of Iran at the Port of Hormuz, through which 40% of the world’s oil supply passes. Other news reports have claimed that an air strike, using a variety of bombs including bunker busters to be dropped on over 1,000 targets, including nuclear facilities. This could obviously result in a great long term humanitarian and environmental disaster.

Earlier this year, I demanded congressional hearings on Iran and was able to secure the promise of a classified briefing from the Department of Defense, the State Department and the CIA. When the briefing was held, the Department of Defense and the State Department refused to show and are continuing to block any congressional inquiry into plans to attack Iran.

Just this past week, the International Atomic Energy Agency called “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated” statements relating to Iran’s nuclear program which came from a staff report of the House Intelligence committee. Other intelligence officials have claimed over a dozen distortions in the report which, among other things, said Iran is producing weapons grade uranium. The Washington Post wrote: “The IAEA called that ‘incorrect’ noting that weapons grade uranium is enriched to a level of 90 percent or more. Iran has enriched uranium to 3.5% under IAEA monitoring.”

I have demanded that the Government Oversight subcommittee on National Security and International Relations, of which I am the ranking Democrat, hold hearings to determine how in the world the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, viewed the report without correcting the obvious inaccuracies before it was published. Once again a case for war is being built on lies.

You will recall that four and a half years ago I warned this nation about the deception behind the build up to war against Iraq. Everything I said then turned out to be 100% right. I led 125 Democrats in opposing the Iraq war resolution in March of 2003. The very same people who brought us Iraq in 2003 are getting ready to bring us a war against Iran.

With your help, I will lead the way to challenge the Bush Administration’s march to war against Iran. Please support my campaign for re-election with a generous donation to help continue my work in the Congress. The plan to attack Iran, on its face, threatens the safety of every US soldier serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the countless Iranian lives at risk and the threat to world peace and environmental catastrophes.

With your support, I intend to continue to insist upon:

(1) Direct negotiations with Iran.

(2) The US must guarantee Iran and the world community that it will not attack Iran.

(3) Iran must open once again to international inspections of its nuclear program.

(4) Iran must agree not to build nuclear weapons.

Many of you joined me three years ago as I ran for President to challenge the deliberate lies about WMDs, Iraq and 911, Iraq and Al Queda and the Niger “yellowcake” claims which put us onto the path of an unnecessary, illegal, costly war in Iraq. The Iraq war has caused greater instability and violence in the world community. In the meantime, our government has used the oxymoronic war on terror to trample our Constitution, rip up the Bill of Rights and rule by fear.

Please join with me as we continue our efforts for the end of fear and the beginning of hope, for international dialogue, for cooperation and for peace.

Thank you,

Dennis

Luckily, Ignacio Ramonet of Le Monde Diplomatique, see things differently. His editorial “Iran Atomique” of July 2006 declares that the US has had a “volte face” in light of the Iraqi debacle currently underway, the Big 5 of the Security Council and Sino-Russian negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ramonet concludes with the observation that :

Ont sans doute pesé également d’autres considérations. Par exemple, l’échec de l’occupation de l’Irak, où les chiites pro-iraniens sont, paradoxalement, les meilleurs alliés de Washington ; la menace iranienne de miner, en cas d’attaque, le détroit d’Ormuz, par où transitent 20 % de la production mondiale de brut ; l’intention de l’Iran d’exiger le paiement des exportations de pétrole et de gaz en monnaie européenne, après avoir déjà converti en euros la majeure partie de ses réserves en devises, Téhéran n’ignorant pas que, en ce moment, le dollar est le talon d’Achille des Etats-Unis…

Une escalade demeure bien entendu possible, mais les deux parties ont intérêt à chercher un compromis.

We hope that LMD is correct, and that the dollar is indeed the Achilles Heel of the USA’s war aims, and that a compromise can be reached as Dennis Kucinich so hopes.

The New C-word, or an open letter to the working people of the USA

The True C-Word

The actual “C word” which cannot be uttered on the radio, on the television, or appear in print has five, not four letters. It is, of course, class. We hem and haw at the concept of the United States even having classes, much less dare attempt to make political appeals to any save a tremendous mythic “middle class.” By contemporary standards, everyone who can make carfare to get to work and not sleep in the street is “middle class,” save a few “rich” and the “poor.” For some odd reason people who work for others see themselves as “middle class.” That is for two reasons: the first is based on our rejection of the titled Europeans as our “betters,” and the other is the fact that economically, most working people were once at a standard of living that rivalled the European middle class and the people were truly mobile, that is, a man who worked hard as a laborer could, indeed, see his children become middle management and his grandchildren become professionals. That day is over. There might still linger a Duke of Devonshire in England, but there is just as surely a Marquis of Microsoft, not merely in the United States, but with title good throughout the world: Forbes magazine is the new Almanach de Gotha.

And as for the “American Dream,” based on the proposition that hard work resulted in decent benefits as well as good pay, and thus upward mobility (if not for the workers, then at least for their children), it seems that we, the American worker, whether at the counting house or on the assembly line, are rapidly becoming “expendable.” The economy is booming! The numbers do not lie. Unfortunately, it is booming based on the sale of electronic trinkets sold here but made in Asia and clothing made of cotton grown here but spun into thread, woven into cloth and cut and sewn in Asian sweatshops instead of here. Our cars from Detroit are now compressed and placed onto cargo ships where the steel is melted down and turned into Asian models.

The vast majority of people in the United States and Canada are paid wages for work performed or else are pensioned. We do not live off rents received from property we own or dividends on investments while producing nothing but carbon dioxide. We do not practice one of the free professions. We get paid by an individual or a company or a corportion either for our time or by our commissions: we are the working people, but seem ashamed to call ourselves what we are.

It is time for that to change.

We must become what Jefferson, Roosevelt, Truman and Jackson, great Democrats, dreampt: a nation of the common folk, capable of governing ourselves and independent from the restraints of decaying European social systems. We however have reached an industrial base which Jackson and Jefferson never imagined — not that we do not still produce a tremendous amount of agricultural produce. In fact, we feed a large portion of the world. We now have new feudal masters, as surely as Pre-Revolutionary France. The new “betters” are the Lords of the Universe, the unholy alliance of big business and big capital. Our government revolves around their axes.

They have created for us a nation of unhealthy air, nonpotable water, and oil slicks befouling our shores. Mountains of garbage fill plots just beyond our cities, our public transportation remains in danger at a simple majority of elected officials’ whims and continued sufferance, and in many places is either entirely lacking or else nothing more than a vanity vestige of its former glory. The major population centers, of course, are excepted in the area of public transport, the workers simply being utterly dependent upon the trains and buses that enable them to get to and from work. The rest of us outside of Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles and a few other places are at the mercy of the automobile. Even rudimentary concessions such as bicycle lanes are missing from our public thoroughfares. We have abandoned our cities for auto-dependent suburbs and exurbs, increasing our pollution and dependence on foreign oil while ignoring all alternative fuels. The globe is warming, the ice caps of the Artic and shelves of the Antartic are melting while glaciers receed in South America, Greenland and Europe. Do we wish half of Florida to be under water in one hundred years or for grain and trees to flourish in Iceland?

This is a global problem, and it is rooted in the mismanagement of the stewartship given us by Nature’s bounty to the people. Yet it is not the people, per se, who have mismanaged the lands and airs and waters. Our individual contributions are small, yet it is our system of large corporations shaping our daily lives that bear the brunt of the fault. It is not a man or a woman or even a family who decided to denude the mountainsides of Appalachia for coal. It is not a single person who decided that a single hull was sufficient to contain a tanker full of crude oil from grounding, but a corporation. It is corporations that have fought tooth and nail in a primal brutish fashion all attempts at making public and universal our most basic necessities: health care and energy production.

Finally, it is corporations who furnish the 24 hours of daily fear and hate that blanket our airwaves. The Republican corporate party appear to answer only to corporations, because that is wherein their campaign funds lie. The tell us that dissent is “treason.” To question the morality of the Iraq war is not to “support the troops” when they send our boys into battle underarmored and bereft of armor; and when we raise the reasoning of American youth ambushed in a war that was based on falsehood in a country in civil war, they tell us “stay the course.” These are the people who blanket our airwaves: shills and pawns of megacorporations. We ask for peace and they give us war. We ask for health care benefits and a decent pension and a just wage and they tell us with rhetoric and sermon that we are ingrates, deserving only what bones are tossed to us and that we are lucky to even have jobs, as we are easily replaced to another continent. The Republican government provides us no relief from “free trade” or “outsourcing” or “drowning the Federal government in a bathtub” — what we get is tax relief for the wealthy and our sons and brothers making a choice between the enlistment lines or unemployment lines and money disappearing faster than it can be printed: record defecits and trade inbalance. The present Republican corporate administration tells us that “unemployment is down” but neglects to mention that one disappears from the unemployment list after six months time and that many of the “new jobs” are nowhere near the benefit and pay level that the newly reemployed once had. The government neglects to inform us of the hardship in Mexico that NAFTA has caused, with native agriculture falling to record low levels as people flock from their self-sufficient farms with corn surplus to the colonias, that delicate word that replaces “open cesspool, no benefits, foul aired urban proletariat border zone to where US manufacturing jobs have disappeared.” Pity the poor Mexicans who have become urban peons, with no insurance, no environmental enforcement, and only more hours of labor the next day for a few pesos as solace. Is this what we wish the United States to become?

There is an alternative: a party that preaches peace and prosperity; real security and not slogans; jobs at a living wage with guaranteed health care for all; freedom for one to worship as one wishes or not at all; a return to the heritage of Jackson and Jefferson, that is to say, to the people. That is the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the The Progressive Democrats of America the PDA, the wing of the Democratic Party that champions American workers, the party of Representatives Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers.  They believe that government should be as Lincoln described: for, of and by the people.  Corporations are not people.  Do you people who work and produce want a share of political power, to have your voice unmuffled?  If you want peace and not constant threat of war, an American economy centered on American workers and not abstract “corporate bottom lines,” if you want a safe home and a secure United States, then you have a choice: vote Democratic and Progressive Democratic whenever you have the chance.  Be proud of what you are: working men and women, the most noble calling in all of Creation, the first jobs: Adam who delved and Eve who span!

The Public Expression of Religion Act, or How the Right wishes to bankrupt the ACLU

 

 

1st Session H. R. 2679

To amend the Revised Statutes of the United States to eliminate the chilling effect on the constitutionally protected expression of religion by State and local officials that results from the threat that potential litigants may seek damages and attorney’s fees.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 26, 2005

Mr. HOSTETTLER (for himself, Mr. WAMP, Mr. NORWOOD, Mr. JENKINS, Mr. PAUL, Mr. DOOLITTLE, Mr. SODREL, Mr. WELDON of Florida, Mr. ALEXANDER, Mr. BACHUS, Mr. PITTS, Mr. INGLIS of South Carolina, Mr. OTTER, Mr. DUNCAN, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. KINGSTON, Mr. SMITH of Texas, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. POE, and Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

---

A BILLTo amend the Revised Statutes of the United States to eliminate the chilling effect on the constitutionally protected expression of religion by State and local officials that results from the threat that potential litigants may seek damages and attorney’s fees.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005′.

SEC. 2. LIMITATIONS ON CERTAIN LAWSUITS AGAINST STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS.

(a) Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights- Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1983) is amended–

• (1) by inserting `(a)’ before the first sentence; and

• (2) by adding at the end the following:

`(b) The remedies with respect to a claim under this section where the deprivation consists of a violation of a prohibition in the Constitution against the establishment of religion shall be limited to injunctive relief.’.

(b) Attorneys Fees- Section 722(b) of the Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1988(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following: `However, no fees shall be awarded under this subsection with respect to a claim described in subsection (b) of section nineteen hundred and seventy nine.’.

————————————————————————————————

That is the text of the noxious bill which was just approved by the House Judiciary Committee. Under the aegis of “religous freedom,” the Republican Unenlightened House seeks to undermine all acts of relief from abuses resulting from ignoring the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution.

The purpose of this proposed legislation is simple: to bankrupt the ACLU by making an enjoiner of the award of attorneys fees from any damages awarded by a court in an Establishment case. Injunction alone would be the award of any damages. In other words, one may sue over publicly funded prayer, Ten Commandment monuments, etc. as an individual or a group, but any fees from work on the case would not be awarded as part of the adujication. Once again, let us slip out of legalese:

What this basicly means is that a school in Deepest Darkest Wherever can have prayer in a public school, put an icon of Jesus Christ on the wall, and hire a religious teacher for “Biblical Literacy classes” — all out of the public coffers — and a parent or group of parents seeking relief must hire their own lawyers or handle the case themselves, or else hope and pray (no pun intended) that a civil liberties organization will take their case absolutely pro bono or at a diminished fee. “Winning” such a case would be simply a ruling from the presiding officer of “Now cut that out! Bad! Bad! Bad school! Bad! Bad!”

The number of such cases taken on by the ACLU would be absolutely cut into a fraction of the present number. To compound matters, school boards have been largely supportive of actions that breach Mr. Jefferson’s “wall.” Right wing organizations, such as the VFW, the AFA, and others relish the thought that the ACLU might be ultimately silenced effectively by this legislation.

This will make relief a privledge of the wealthy or the well-connected alone. This must be condemned by the House and never allowed to reach the Senate. But will it? One has to wonder if the last desperate gasps of the Talibangelists is not now being heard. Will it become absolutely pitch dark before the dawn breaks in the United States? This HJC vote is getting but small press, the small nonprofit NewStandard, excepted. Michelle Chen of NewStandard reports on 12 September 2006:

Groups like the ACLU, which represents plaintiffs in many church-state cases, say the attorney-fee awards in successful cases are necessary so that lawyers can offer their services to individuals without charge. Jeremy Leaming, with American United for Separation of Church and State, acknowledged that the bill could affect the group financially, since it has received court-ordered compensation in past cases it has litigated. Nonetheless, he pointed out that the bill does not propose comparable restrictions on attorney’s fees for individuals or groups that sue to defend religious exercise in government or public settings. The main problem, he argued to TNS, is that the bill’s supporters “don’t particularly like the way a lot of federal courts have ruled on church-state issues… and their intention is to see church-state lawsuits stop.”

We see it in a similar light. We urge all who love the freedom of religion in this country to join with us to decry the HJC vote and to preserve our heritage of Messrs. Jefferson and Madison. Two tiered justice is no justice at all. It is Unamerican, repugnant to the spirit of the Constitution, if not the Constitution and precedent themselves, and an agenda attempted to be foisted upon the People by a small group to silence dissent.

Suffer the Little Children, Cluster Bombs and the US Senate

On 6 September 2006 the US Senate had a rollcall vote on an amendment on the FY 07 DOD budget, the Feinstein-Leahy Amendment, which would restrict the usage of cluster bombs in civilian areas throughout the world. The amendment failed, the result of the vote was 30 ayes, all by Democrats and one Independent, and 70 nays, including all Republicans and a sizeable number of nominal Democrats.

Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Evan Bayh, supposed potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for President included themselves among the Nays. We must ask why.

Why was this most moral of all recent legislation rejected? Was it because it would have been an ex post facto condmenation of US use of bomblets in Iraq and Israeli use in Lebanon? One cannot imagine that a weaponette that looks amazingly like a toy and is frequently confused by children as a toy would not be condemned, save for that reason — unless the US Senate doesn’t care about Arab children’s lives or else loves war.

From the FAS, the Federation of American Scientists , a detailed illustrated technical synopsis of cluster bombs is available. Please note that the anti-personnel bomblets illustrated below appear to be amazingly similar to a ball — a child’s toy. Please note well Senators Bayh, Biden and Clinton:

We must ask, once again, why? One cannot merely blame the “blank check” given to Israel to destroy Lebanon, as the US use of these are well documented in the press worldwide in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the war against the Serbs. Senator Feinstein did not spare the delicate feelings of the Senate in her floor presentation, showing graphic photos of the damage these bomblets have done to children. Is the Senate too ashamed to face the evidence? I humbly submit to a candid world, yes. The number of supposed duds and pressure activated bomblets is well documented by FAS as well as the emergency wards of Baghdad and Beirut.

Here is the honor roll:

YEAs —30
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dorgan (D-ND)

Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wyden (D-OR)

All ScreechingRats can do is to urge that everyone remember these names and, more importantly, the names of all those who do not appear.