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Liberal Label no Liability The fact that the press is calling Dean "Too Liberal" to win in the general election highlights the short term memory loss of the media. No one even mentions that Gore would have beaten Bush in 2000 if he was more liberal and did not alienate the voters who turned to Nader. Dean is the only candidate who can unite Democrats with the independent Nader voters. Such a characteristic would be unbeatable in 2004. Tom Tucker Kucinich Fought Blackout Electrical Co Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was cautious in his statements Saturday about the First Energy plant in Ohio that may have been responsible for the massive blackout affecting more than 50 million people across North America. He did not immediately point an accusatory finger at First Energy, emphasizing that the first priority must be to restore power and water to those who have lost it. Even the concerns he expressed about First Energy were carefully prefaced by the words "recent press reports indicate" and "if press reports are accurate," indicating his willingness to give them a fair shake, something that they were less than willing to give him 25 years ago. Dennis J. Kucinich first made his name in politics by becoming the youngest mayor of a large city, when in 1977 he became the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio at age 31. He took over a city that was deeply in debt but, as these things tend to go, was soon blamed for the city's financial crises. The city tried to negotiate the renewal of $14 million worth of notes held in local banks. A rollover, it's called, and it's usual for banks to agree. Not this time. The banks had a get-rich-quick scheme up their sleeve. They wanted Mayor Kucinich to sell the city's electric company, MUNY Light, to Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company whose parent company nowadays is, you guessed it, First Energy. Why did these bankers want that? Well, of the eleven directors of Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, eight were also directors of four of the banks. And five of the banks held almost 1.8 million shares of CEI stock. So the banks pushed the city into default and Kucinich lost his next re-election bid because of First Energy's greed. But in 1998, the Cleveland City Council honored him for "having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city's municipal electric system," saying he had saved Clevelanders more than 300 million -- that 300 million that they would have paid to CEI if Kucinich had caved in. But he didn't. That doesn't seem to be his style.
Dr. Catherine Dong
The California Recall I feel that those supporting the recall are looking superficially at the problem. Governor Gray Davis is not the issue. He did not cause the problems in the budget. Budget deficits are mainly due to volatile economy with the bust of the dot-coms in California, leading to lower personal income taxes -- a major source for state's income due to Prop 13 minimizing property taxes. The resulting decline in revenue is more of a contributor to the deficits than the Governor's policies. Governor Davis, in an attempt to remedy this, is only recommending raising the Vehicle License Fee, a major source of additional income, to its 1998 levels, which date back to Republican Governor Pete Wilson's era. This is nothing radical or drastic. Additionally, Republican Legislatures had voted for tax increases under previous Republican governors. There are really no other options anyway since Wall Street has made it clear to California that it will not lend any money unless California enacts tax increases proposed by Governor Davis. Wall Street has also warned us that California's credit rating will continue to fall as long as the budget uncertainty looms. Something needs to be done about this financial peril, hence the necessity of tax increases.
Madeline E Stacy
I found Fortunate Son in a Barns and Noble in Ann Arbor Mi. It had a B&N card in it that said READ THIS BOOK! I flipped through it a few minutes and said, "This is a book for me." I am encouraging every thinking person I know to read it. Thank you for your commentary on the book, the Bushes, and free speech. And congratulations to Hatfield for having the guts to write a book full of undeniable truths. Sandra Russell
Thanks for any help. Cindy Folkers
The November 6, 1942 Vesting Order against Union Banking Corporation led to the seizure of the company under the Trading With The Enemy Act. The grandfather of president Bush was a director of Union Banking, joining his father-in-law George Herbert Walker as a major fundraiser for Nazi Germany. A copy of the order can be found here. -- Editor
I always like your "quote of the day" better than the New York Times "quotation of the day." Thanks. Beth Grimes
"jerry7"
Alene Young
We now offer a quote of the day archive that is updated monthly and also has additional entries that did not appear on the Albion Monitor front page. -- Editor Ann Coulter's Many Wars In her current book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, which has carried her from the ghetto of political punditry onto the normally politically- neutered pages of People Magazine, Ann Coulter denounces all individuals who are Liberal, Moderate Republican, and Democrat as guilty of a capital offense; treason. I did not see a mention of Libertarians. But I am sure she also denounces them. Not that anyone pays much attention to Libertarians although when Ann tried to run for Congress as a Libertarian from her home in Connecticut, the motley Libertarians united in rejecting her. Ann went on to describe the group as nerdy types still sleeping on Star Wars sheets and living in their mothers' basements. True, but unkind. Coulter occupies a curious placement in the neo-con attack strategy. She is an attractive female who is registered Republican and is ready, willing, and able to take on search and destroy missions against other women. There are a few others, but Coulter is the Right's shrillest feminine voice for those who are the least rational and most inclined to hysterical belief in conspiracy theories of all kinds. According to Coulter, women should never have gotten the right to vote and should never enjoy equal rights. She was bounced as a columnist for National Review for calling on America to, "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," in one memorable moment of testosterone overload and collectivist excess.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Pentagon's Plans For Big Brother Database Total Information Awareness -- recently renamed the TERRORIST Information Awareness program -- is an effort to mine and correlate vast amounts of data about Americans and non-Americans alike, people here and people there. The program has been assailed for further eroding civil liberties already undermined by the Patriot Act, rights previously guaranteed by the constitution. I discussed this with two neighbors yesterday on a sunny lawn with late summer flowers in full bloom. One said she was concerned for what had happened to the America she knew. The other said she was too busy with her job and taking care of children to do much about it. Both felt helpless to do anything anyway, and that's the intention. Those feelings of helplessness are typical, I would guess, but there was something else in the conversation. "You'd better be careful," one warned. "You're probably on the list." Now, that's relatively new. The belief that there IS a list, the belief that with technological advances we can be tracked, databased and identified as enemies, the belief that we are so tracked, that the information will be used against us, that's new. Among middle-aged Midwest conservative people, that's new. Those beliefs, intermittently reinforced by stories of police or FBI questioning innocent people for speaking aloud their objections to Empire, is one means of control of mainstream citizens who "want to believe the American myth," as one put it, while evidence accumulates that the high moral ground is one more means for keeping us acquiescent and compliant. It was warm on the sunny lawn among those flowers, yet soon enough, shorn of our real history, shorn of constitutional rights, we'll be shivering like sheep in the first chill breeze of autumn. Richard Thieme
Lessons of Empire We would be wise not to ignore the lessons of empirical history: ruling the world (or attempting to) costs a lot of social capital. We haven't started gunning down each other with machine guns yet, but we're on that trajectory. The social rift over core values, morality, and yes, economics, is set to tear our country apart. Maybe it's inevitable in our culture of aggression. Maybe we'll endure a forty-year dictatorship (like Portugal) while our empire and society disintegrate. Maybe we'll get lucky. Jay Taber Sweatshop USPS We talk about the terrible working conditions overseas, however right here in the good ole USA, even the federal government is getting away with saving a dollar at the physical cost of employees. I myself while delivering the U.S. Mail have been shot at twice, with no action taken by my employer, the Post Office. And now employees are forced to work in a trailer with no air conditioning as the temperature swells to over 150 degrees inside. They also don't have acess for handicapped people in restrooms and often run out of soap and toilet paper for employees. They have rodents running around in the main office. Who do we contact to report these terrible conditions?
Damon White
The Witch Hunt Of Michael Dini Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are far more important than Dr. Dini's criteria for getting a solid letter of recommendation. From reading his stuff, I'm not sure that I would sign up to learn under him either. It's quite clear that he requires not only an understanding of evolutionary concepts, but an adherence to them. This is NOT something he or anyone has the right to impose. I have seen other students given less than satisfactory recommendations, not because they did not understand science or evolution, but because their non-allegiance to evolution was seen as a fault that needed correction. That's discrimination, and it's illegal. I suggest you support our rights, and NOT the folks who are in the business of denying them as Mr. Dini appears to be. I sure don't agree with everything Mr. Ashcroft does, but let me tell you, Justice Department time and effort was well spent on this case. Kevin Wirth
Robert St. John, Peaceful Warrior I saw the PBS film, quite by accident while surfing the channels a few night ago. I am 65 years old, and had never heard of him, although I consider myself fairly well informed! What an amazing man; and, a truly well crafted documentary of his life! "Lanc"
Nothing Funny About Texas Legislature Hide And Seek During the 2000 campaign -- before the world went to hell under Bush-Cheney -- Rodney Ellis, a Democratic state senator in Bush-Cheney's home state of Texas, was asked by some national Democratic officials to travel around the country saying not-so-nice things about the dangerous corporate hack who now occupies the White House. Ellis, an African-American from Houston who once worked under the late Congressman Mickey Leland, one of many Democrats who have died in suspicious ways, said he would talk about Bush's rail-thin record, such as his opposition to a law strengthening action against hate crimes. But he declined to bash Bush personally. Now after Bush, Rove and other Republicans have led efforts to squash minority voting rights in Florida, Colorado, Texas and other states, Ellis wishes it was early 2000 again. "Now I regret I was so nice," Ellis said during a recent conference call with mostly Texas journalists. Ellis is one of 11 Texas senators who have remained in New Mexico since July 28 to effectively block a Karl Rove-Bush-Tom DeLay plan to steal even more seats in Congress. The Republican mafia has whipped out every dirty trick in the book to get Ellis and other Democrats to comply with their scheme. They have tried to arrest them using state and federal resources. They have fined them as much as $5,000 a day. They have hypocritically taken them to court as they bash courts and lawyers. They have called them negative names and said the situation was their fault because they refuse to "show up for work." Never mind that many Republicans refuse to show up for work, even when they are supposedly on the job. Never mind that Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst changed the rules in mid-stream by doing away with a long-standing rule that two-thirds of senators must agree for a bill to be debated. In short, Republicans have done everything they did in Florida in 2000 and more to get their own way in Texas. And Democrats have successfully held them off for months. It's important for people around the country to understand that what is happening in Texas and with the California recall election are not isolated incidents, but are part of a broader scheme by Rove-Bush-Cheney for Republicans to keep control of the country for decades. They don't care how many rules and laws they break in the process. Some Democrats in New Mexico, where the party controls the state Legislature, are discussing redrawing Congressional seats to combat the Republican efforts. Hopefully, Democrats in more states are making similar plans. I haven't heard of any real efforts to recall Republican governors, beyond petitions against Perry. But perhaps there are some efforts I haven't heard about -- I hope so. I sure hope that if Enron-Rove puppet Arnold Schwarzenegger prevails in California's recall election, Democrats there IMMEDIATELY implement a petition drive to recall the groping Robot Man. Almost 700 people have signed an Internet petition I began to recall Schwarzenegger. I sure hope that some Congress members initiate proceedings to expel dirty trickster DeLay -- almost 2,000 people have signed the petition against DeLay. Another positive sign is that even the mainstream late-night comedians like Leno and Letterman are becoming more aggressive against Bush and other Reps. Here's one from Letterman: "The White House says that the vacation in Texas will give Bush the chance to unwind. My question is, when does the guy wind?" Here's one from Leno: "Bush's economic team is now on their jobs and growth bus tour all across America. I think the only job they created so far is for the guy driving the bus." There is so much anger against Bush, even from supporters, that you can't help but think another Sept. 11 event will occur soon to divert people's anger. That's another diabolical way Bush and other Republicans plan to stay in office.
Jackson Thoreau Exposed, at last You're a bunch of whacko Liberals trying to pass yourselves off as Conservatives... what a joke! You're an easy read...
James Bradley
Albion Monitor Issue 113 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor) All Rights Reserved. Contact rights@monitor.net for permission to use in any format. |