Democracy for Howard County

Well, this is disappointing

Net Neutrality, if you don't know what it is, click the link. Essentially, if you don't want the big corporations and telcos owning the internet you should be all for it. Yesterday when I heard that a bill to preserve net nerutality was defeated in the House, I wasn't too suprised. When I heard that a lot of Dems voted against it again, I guess, I wasn't that surprised. The Culture of Corruption has a lot of tenticles. What did surprise me is who in the Maryland delegation DID vote against it. Al Wynn predictably was against. Cardin voted aye (yea!). As did Hoyer (huh?). But Cummings vote really dissapointed me. He voted against.

His contact info is here and his Baltimore phone number is (410) 685-9199.

John Nichols: Measure T takes aim at corporate power

Madison Capital Times

Sopoci-Belknap is absolutely right when she portrays today's vote as nothing less than the beginning of "the process of reclaiming our county" from the "tyranny" of concentrated economic and political power.

Surely Tom Paine would have agreed. It was Paine who suggested to the revolutionaries of 1776, as they dared to challenge the most powerful empire on the planet, that: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of the new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months."

It is time to renew the American experiment, to rebuild its battered institutions on the solid foundation of empowered citizens and regulated corporations. Let us hope that the spirit of '76 prevails today in Humboldt County and that it spreads until that day when American democracy is guided by the will of the people rather than the campaign contribution checks of the corporations that are the rampaging empires of our age.

Carole Fisher sends me an email

[Besides our own Meetup (see above) there is...]

Monday-April 24, Ellicott City Senior Center, next to the Miller Library, 7pm, Doug Duncan conversation, free.

Tuesday-April 25, Elkridge Library, 7pm. First District Democrats, Courtney Watson, 7pm, Ben Cardin 8pm. Come out and support the Elkridge Democrats, we are going to win back this Council seat with Courtney. Support her on Tuesday. And Ben is one of our best friends.

Team O'Malley-Brown's Howard County Organizational Meeting

O'Malley for Governor

Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

Location: Central Library in Columbia
10375 Little Patuxent Parkway
Columbia, MD 21044

Time: 6:00 p.m.

Action needed NOW!!!!

The 2006 election is at stake. Whether or not Maryland uses Diebold machines in the next election will be decided very shortly. PLease contact your State representatives and ask them to please support a bill identical to HB 244 (paper trail) in the Senate.

Email from Dawn

At our meeting on the 19th, we'll also talk about other "activism opportunities" including plans for further efforts to raise awareness about the "true costs" of Walmart, and our work to ensure that Ehrlich's veto of the Fair Share Health Care Act is overturned. Please join us! To RSVP, go to www.dfalink.com/howardcounty (as usual, we'll be serving pizza, so your RSVPs are appreciated to help us estimate how much we need!).

For those of you who already had December 12 (our normal meeting night) "blocked off" on your calendar, we have another suggestion! Please join us at the MD for Healthcare/SEIU offices to do some phone banking in support of the Fair Share Healthcare Act. The vote on the veto override is looking VERY close, and your efforts could truly make the difference! We'll be meeting at 6:30pm for a brief training, and then we'll start making phone calls at 7pm. They have enough phones, so we won't need to use our own cell phones. The office is located at 3700 Koppers Street, in Baltimore/Halethorpe - 21227. It's conveniently located near Route 95, just off of Caton Avenue. For Mapquest directions, go to www.tinyurl.com/9mpps. We'll probably order pizza or some other type of food, so again, RSVPs are much appreciated. Please email me at dpopp@justemail.net or call me at 443-285-1109 for more info or to let me know that you plan to help out that night.

Finally, while we're on the subject of the Fair Share Health Care Act, I urge all of you to plan to take the day off on January 11 (the day the veto override vote is expected to occur) to be part of a major visibility/activism event in Annapolis. This is a chance to really make a difference, and an exciting opportunity to be part of something BIG. Please join us! Let me know via phone or email if you plan to join us, and please be sure to include your t-shirt size. I'll contact everyone with more info including meeting times and parking/carpool info as we get closer to the date. (We're trying to plan this WELL in advance so that people will be able to take the day off from work, make childcare arrangements, etc.)

Thanks, and I hope to see all of you soon!
Dawn

Call to Action: Paper Records for Every Election

(from the Democracy for Maryland site)

This is a critical time to make our voices heard AND TO MAKE CERTAIN THE ISSUE OF VERIFIABLE VOTING IS ADDRESSED APPROPRIATELY IN THE 2006 LEGISLATIVE SESSION THAT BEGINS IN JANUARY.The leadership of the MD General Assembly is setting the agenda for the upcoming session in Annapolis right now. Please reach out to EVERYONE YOU KNOW and request the following:

1) Write a brief one paragraph letter and/or e-mail THIS WEEK (doing both is best) to your state delegates and senators, asking them not only to SUPPORT a voter-verified, auditable, paper record for all elections, but also to actively urge the leaders in the House and Senate to move legislation forward EARLY in this next session, guaranteeing this process. (To find your delegates and senator, http://www.mdelect.net/ OR google their names.)

2) VITAL FOLLOW-UP: Call and/or visit your elected officials within the next 2 weeks and make sure they know how much you care about this issue. Ask them for a copy of the letter they sent to the leadership, urging support for this paper record.

3) Send your own letters and/or e-mail directly to the leadership:

HOUSE:
Speaker Mike Busch
michael.busch@house.state.md.us,
(410) 841-3800, (301) 858-3800

Delegate Sheila Hixson (committee chair) sheila_hixson@house.state.md.us,
(301)-858-3469

SENATE:
President Mike Miller
thomas.v.mike.miller@senate.state.md.us,
(410) 841-3700, (301) 858-3700

Senator Paula Hollinger (committee chair)
paula.colodny.hollinger@senate.state.md.us,
(410) 841-3131, (301) 858-3131

4) If you would like me to compile these letters, which I would LOVE TO DO, please send a copy of your letter to angirapp@aol.com. I would like to see just how many letters and phone calls we can generate on this issue this week. Please get friends, family, co-workers, and activists in other groups to do the same. I have offered a brief sample letter at the bottom, but it's critical that we each write our own unique letters. The key message is: We need a voter-verifiable and auditable paper record for all elections. We need PAPER. We need to be able to do recounts based on paper documents that the voter verified when casting his/her vote.

I hope to present these letters to the legislators who have been working so hard to protect our votes. They need to know we are out there working with them. Finally, if you are actively associated with the Democratic party (i.e. precinct chair, central committee member, etc.), please mention that in your letter.

Thanks so much!

Gina Angiola
angirapp@aol.com

Sample letter:

Dear Delegate (or Senator) ________,

As your constituent, I am urging you to take a leading role in advancing legislation which will guarantee voters that each of their votes is recorded and counted accurately. A voter-verifiable and auditable PAPER record is the only acceptable solution. I am asking you to support legislation to ensure that our voting system can and will be audited, and that our votes can be recounted by hand using a paper record that was reviewed by the voter prior to casting the official ballot. In addition, I am requesting that you write letters to the leaders of the General Assembly, urging them to make this a top-priority issue for the next legislative session.

Respectfully,

____________

**************************

Dear _________ (customize greeting for each of the leaders),

As a concerned Maryland voter, I am urging you to take a leading role in advancing legislation which will guarantee voters that each of their votes is recorded and counted accurately. A voter-verifiable and auditable PAPER record is the only acceptable solution. I am asking you to support legislation to ensure that our voting system can and will be audited, and that our votes can be recounted by hand using a paper record that was reviewed by the voter prior to casting the official ballot. Please make this a top-priority issue for the 2006 legislative session.

Respectfully,

Bush's Iraq War is Weakening America

By Sen. RUSSELL FEINGOLD

From the Floor of the United States Senate, September 29, 2005

I rise once again to comment on the deeply disturbing consequences of the President's misguided policies in Iraq. I have spoken before about my grave concern that the Administration's Iraq policies are actually strengthening the hand of our enemies, fueling the insurgency's recruitment of foreign fighters and unifying elements of the insurgency that might otherwise turn on each other.

But today I want to focus on a different and equally alarming issue ­ which is, that the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq are making America weaker. And none of us should stand by and allow this to continue.

Continue reading "Bush's Iraq War is Weakening America"

DFH goes to Washington

Click image for larger version.

Health Care Premiums Surpass Minimum Wage Salary

(From The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR)
California's leading nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization)

Santa Monica, CA -- A report released today that found the cost of health insurance for family coverage is now more than the annual salary of a minimum-wage worker is the "signal that out-of-control health insurance profiteering will reduce health care to a commodity that only the wealthy can afford," according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR).

"The U.S. is experiencing the health care equivalent of bread lines while HMO profits skyrocket and top executives receive 9-figure golden parachutes. The fact that working families can no longer afford the price of health insurance should be a wake-up call to politicians who have allowed private health insurers to drive the health insurance system into the ground," said Jerry Flanagan of FTCR. "Continued rate increases mark the the beginning of the end of the health care system as we know it because patients won't stand for further cutbacks and employers can no longer shift costs on to workers."

Read more

Worst disaster in the history of America

Buses/Carpools for the Peace Rally on 9/24

This is from the Coalition for Peace and Justice

Please note the 9/19/05 deadline for checks to be received.

Say NO to the U.S. war on Iraq!

March & Rally against the war Washington, D.C. Saturday, September 24th. Bus transportation and car-pooling available from Columbia. The Howard County Coalition for Peace & Justice (HCCPJ) is organizing bus transportation and car-pooling from Columbia, Maryland, for the national antiwar demonstration being held in Washington D.C. on Sat., Sept. 24th. Bus riders will assemble at the Broken Land Park & Ride west lot (intersection of 32 & Broken Land Pkwy) at 9:30 a.m. The bus will leave D.C. at about 5:30 p.m. The cost is $15 per person round-trip. (Call 301-774-3636 if you need financial assistance.) To reserve a seat, we need to RECEIVE your money no later than Sept. 19. Please send a check to HCCPJ, P.O. Box 6446, Columbia, MD 21045. Write "9/24 bus" on the memo line. And -- very important -- give us your e-mail address and phone number in case we need to contact you with last-minute information.
To go with the carpool (to a Metro station), assemble at the same place and time. Cars will arrange their own return times.

For more info, go to or contact ForPeace@aol.com or M.E. Atkinson at 301-774-3636.

1000-2000 hurricane victims coming to Maryland!

I have been asked to put off delivery of hurricane supplies to DC until we know for certain, but the source is reliable. However, I will collect at the Labor Day picnic, my front porch, and at meetup. Give what you can.

Act Locally--- Ways to help in Howard County

Bring any of the following to meetup or to my house (see below)
Personal care items---soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, shampoo, feminine products, wipes, paper towels, kleenex
Kids stuff--coloring books, toys, books, games
Baby items- new bottles, New blankets, unopened bottled water in baby bottles, diapers, baby wipes
Clothing-- new underwear, t-shirts, sweat pants (all sizes for kids and adults)
New canvass bags, luggage

September 10th--Host or attend a Hurricane relief "party". Go here for details.

September 12th- Bring food donations to meet-up. Donations will be distributed to the local food bank and to victims of Katrina by the Howard County Muslim Foundation.

Read and Weep

(I received this from a friend. -MB)

For those of you with friends or family in the New Orleans area, or even an interest in efficient, responsible government, read the following time line and try not to let your blood pressure rise.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

CHRONOLOGY.... Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration:

January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."

December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management.

March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.

2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."

June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.

--

Henry Breitrose
Professor of Communication
Department of Communication
Stanford University
Stanford, California USA 94305-2050
+650-723-470

Help Victims of Katrina

Network for Good
This site provides links to numerous agencies.

Radioactive Wounds of War

from In These Times

Tests on returning troops suggest serious health consequences of depleted uranium use in Iraq
By Dave Lindorff August 25, 2005

Gerard Matthew thought he was lucky. He returned from his Iraq tour a year and a half ago alive and in one piece. But after the New York State National Guardsman got home, he learned that a bunkmate, Sgt. Ray Ramos, and a group of N.Y. Guard members from another unit had accepted an offer by the New York Daily News and reporter Juan Gonzalez to be tested for depleted uranium (DU) contamination, and had tested positive.

Matthew, 31, decided that since he'd spent much of his time in Iraq lugging around DU-damaged equipment, he'd better get tested too. It turned out he was the most contaminated of them all.

Matthew immediately urged his wife to get an ultrasound check of their unborn baby. They discovered the fetus had a condition common to those with radioactive exposure: atypical syndactyly. The right hand had only two digits.

So far Victoria Claudette, now 13 months old, shows no other genetic disorders and is healthy, but Matthew feels guilty for causing her deformity and angry at a government that never warned him about DU's dangers.

U.S. forces first used DU in the 1991 Gulf War, when some 300 tons of depleted uranium--the waste product of nuclear power plants and weapons facilities--were used in tank shells and shells fired by A-10 jets. A lesser amount was deployed by U.S. and NATO forces during the Balkans conflict. But in the current wars in Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq, DU has become the weapon of choice, with more than 1,000 tons used in Afghanistan and more than 3,000 tons used in Iraq. And while DU was fired mostly in the desert during the Gulf War, in the current war in Iraq, most of DU munitions are exploding in populated urban areas.

The Pentagon has expanded DU beyond tank and A-10 shells, for use in bunker-busting bombs, which can spew out more than half a ton of DU in one explosion, in anti-personnel bomblets, and even in M-16 and pistol shells. The military loves DU for its unique penetration capability--it cuts through steel or concrete like they're butter.

The problem is that when DU hits its target, it burns at a high temperature, throwing off clouds of microscopic particles that poison a wide area and remain radioactive for billions of years. If inhaled, these particles can lodge in lungs, other organs or bones, irradiating tissue and causing cancers.

Worse yet, uranium is also a highly toxic heavy metal. Indeed, while there is some debate over the risk posed by the element's radioactive emissions, there is no debate regarding its chemical toxicity. According to Mt. Sinai pathologist Thomas Fasey, who participated in the New York Guard unit testing, the element has an affinity for bonding with DNA, where even trace amounts can cause cancers and fetal abnormalities.

Dr. Doug Rokke, a health physicist at the University of Illinois who headed up a Pentagon study of depleted uranium weapons in the mid '90s after concerns were raised during the Gulf War, concluded there was no safe way to use the weapons. Rokke says the Pentagon responded by denouncing him, after earlier commending his work.

No one knows how many U.S. soldiers have been contaminated by DU residue. Despite regulations authorizing tests for any military personnel who suspects exposure, the U.S. military is avoiding doing those tests--or delaying them until they are meaningless.

"When we asked to be tested at Ft. Dix, they wrongly told us we didn't have to worry unless we had DU fragments in our body," says Matthew. His buddy, Sgt. Ramos, who exhibits symptoms resembling radiation sickness and heavy metal poisoning, adds that at Walter Reed Medical Center he was grilled for hours about why he wanted to be tested and was then branded a troublemaker by his own unit. Matthew says Walter Reed "lost" his sample.

At the war's start, the United States refused to allow U.N. or other environmental inspectors to test DU levels within Iraq. Now the United Nations won't even go near Iraq because of security concerns.

"It doesn't seem right that we are poisoning the places we are supposed to be liberating," Ramos says.

The Pentagon continues to insist, on the basis of no field evidence, that DU is safe. To date, only some 270 returned troops have been tested for DU contamination by the military and Veterans Affairs. But even those tests, mostly urine samples, are useless 30 days after exposure, because by that time most of the DU has left the body or migrated into bones or organs.

Gonzalez and the Daily News paid for costlier tests for nine Guardsmen--tests that could pinpoint uranium inside the body and identify the special isotope signature of man-made DU. Four of the nine tested positive for DU; all had symptoms of uranium poisoning.

Even harder evidence may soon arrive. Connecticut State Representative Pat Dillon (D-New Haven), a Yale-trained epidemiologist, has crafted state-level legislation that Connecticut and Louisiana have unanimously passed, authorizing returned National Guard troops to request and receive specialized DU contamination tests at the Pentagon's expense. This approach bypasses the Pentagon's feet-dragging because National Guard troops fall under state, rather than federal, jurisdiction.

"This was not a Democratic or a Republican issue," Dillon says. "These are our kids and someone needs to protect them." She says that since passage of her bill, which takes effect this October, military groups and family organizations, state legislators, and even National Guard unit commanders have contacted her for copies of her bill to promote in their states. Bob Smith, a veteran in Louisiana who got hold of Dillon's bill and spearheaded a successful effort to pass similar legislation in Louisiana, claims that 14 to 20 other states are considering similar measures.

If enough Guard troops avail themselves of the testing--and start testing positive for contamination--it seems likely that reservists and active duty troops and veterans will demand similar access to rigorous tests, which can cost upwards of $1000 per person.

One way or another, the Pentagon will pay a price. "DU is a war crime. It's that simple," Rokke says. "Once you've scattered all this stuff around, and then refuse to clean it up, you've committed a war crime."

Dave Lindorff, an In These Times contributing editor, is the author of This Can’t Be Happening: Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy. His work can be found at This Can’t Be Happen

Lord Help US!

Adam, Eve and T. Rex
Giant roadside dinosaur attractions are used by a new breed of creationists as pulpits to spread their version of Earth's origins.
By Ashley Powers
Times Staff Writer

August 27, 2005

CABAZON, Calif. — Dinny the roadside dinosaur has found religion.

The 45-foot-high concrete apatosaurus has towered over Interstate 10 near Palm Springs for nearly three decades as a kitschy prehistoric pit stop for tourists.

Now he is the star of a renovated attraction that disputes the fact that dinosaurs died off millions of years before humans first walked the planet.

Dinny's new owners, pointing to the Book of Genesis, contend that most dinosaurs arrived on Earth the same day as Adam and Eve, some 6,000 years ago, and later marched two by two onto Noah's Ark. The gift shop at the attraction, called the Cabazon Dinosaurs, sells toy dinosaurs whose labels warn, "Don't swallow it! The fossil record does not support evolution."

The Cabazon Dinosaurs join at least half a dozen other roadside attractions nationwide that use the giant reptiles' popularity in seeking to win converts to creationism. And more are on the way.

"We're putting evolutionists on notice: We're taking the dinosaurs back," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a Christian group building a $25-million creationist museum in Petersburg, Ky., that's already overrun with model sauropods and velociraptors.

"They're used to teach people that there's no God, and they're used to brainwash people," he said. "Evolutionists get very upset when we use dinosaurs. That's their star."

The nation's top paleontologists find the creation theory preposterous and say children are being misled by dinosaur exhibits that take the Jurassic out of "Jurassic Park."

"Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah's Ark? Give me a break," said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. "For them, 'The Flintstones' is a documentary."

Tyrannosaurus rex and his gigantic brethren find themselves on both sides of the nation's renewed debate over the Earth's origins and the continuing fight over whether Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" or Genesis best explains the development of life.

Science holds that dinosaurs were the Earth's royalty for about 160 million years. Their reign ended abruptly, possibly after a meteorite smacked into the planet, but they're considered the forebears of birds.

Unearthing dinosaur bones that are millions of years old "doesn't prove evolution, but it shows the Genesis account doesn't work," said Nick Matzke, a spokesman for the National Center for Science Education.

Drivers who pull off Interstate 10 in Pensacola, Fla., are told a far different story at Dinosaur Adventure Land. Its slogan: "Where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!"

The nearly 7-acre museum, low-tech theme park and science center embodies its founder's belief that God created the world in six days. The dinosaurs, even super carnivores such as T. rex, dined as vegetarians in the Garden of Eden until Adam and Eve sinned — and only then did they feast on other creatures, according to the Christian-based young-Earth theory.

About 4,500 years after Adam and Eve arrived, the theory goes, pairs of baby dinosaurs huddled in Noah's Ark, and a colossal flood drowned the rest and scattered their fossils. The ark-borne animals repopulated the planet — meaning that folk tales about fire-breathing beasts are accounts of humans battling dinosaurs, who still roamed the planet.

Kids romping through the $1.5-million Florida theme park can bounce on a "Long Neck Liftasaurus" swing seat; launch water balloons at a T. rex and a stegosaurus, and smooth their own sandbox-size Grand Canyons, whose formation is credited to the flood. A "fossilized" pickle purports to show that dinosaur bones could have hardened quickly. Got an upcoming birthday? Dinosaur Adventure Land does pizza parties.

"Go to Disneyland, they teach evolution. It's subtle; signs that say, 'Millions of years ago' " said evangelist Kent Hovind, the park's founder. "This is a golden opportunity to get our point across."

Carl Baugh opened his Creation Evidence Museum in the 1980s near Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas, where some people said fossilized dinosaur tracks and human footprints crisscrossed contemporaneously. The Texas museum sponsors a continuing hunt for living pterodactyls in Papua New Guinea. Baugh said five colleagues have spotted the flying dinosaurs, "but all the sightings were made after dark, and we were not able to capture the creatures."

Organizers at Creation Research of the North Coast in Humboldt County, Calif., dream of building their own reptile park but lack funding and acreage. So do leaders at Project Creation in Mount Juliet, Tenn., who would need to raise about $1 million to assemble 30 to 50 pterodactyl and brachiosaur replicas to mingle with live chickens and goats.

At the Institute for Creation Research museum in Santee, a San Diego suburb, officials plan to enlarge its paleontological offerings.

"We like to think of [dinosaurs] as creation lizards, or missionary lizards," said Frank Sherwin, a museum researcher and author.

A 50,000-square-foot Answers in Genesis museum and headquarters is under construction near the Ohio-Kentucky border, where the group hired a full-time dinosaur sculptor. When the facility opens in 2007, the lobby will spotlight a 20-foot waterfall and two animatronic T. rexes hanging out with two animatronic children dressed in buckskins.

The creation museums are riling mainstream Christian denominations that believe the Earth is billions of years old and that God uses evolution as a tool. This conviction makes modern science compatible with their faith in a creator.

"Taking the Bible as astronomy or physics is blasphemy. They're treating it as an elementary textbook and it's not," said Francisco J. Ayala, a UC Irvine evolutionary biology professor and ordained Dominican priest.

"We believe that God created the world…. They misread, misquote and misuse the Bible, but they will lose out to science," said Ayala, a past president of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist and founder of Reasons To Believe ministry in Pasadena, frets that "young-Earth theologians" damage the credibility of scientists who are Christian and push intellectuals away from religion.

"I'd put them in the same category as flat-Earth people and the people that think the sun goes around the Earth," he said. "They think they're defending the truth, but the young-Earth model has no scientific integrity."

Advocates of the intelligent design idea, who assert that certain features of life are best explained by a creative intelligence, bristle at being lumped in with young-Earth creationists. There's little question that the Earth is billions of years old, said John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a public policy think tank in Seattle that is critical of Darwinian theory.

"Critics would rather tar everyone with the brush of creationism," said West, who teaches political science at Seattle Pacific University. "I think the idea that Genesis provides scientific text is really farfetched."

Creationists defend their dinosaur museums and attractions as a way to teach a grander purpose: If the Bible's history is accurate, then so is its morality.

"If [evolutionists] convince people that dinosaurs are exotic, strange creatures, they've won right there, and the Bible looks like a book of Jewish fairy tales," said Sean Meek, executive director of the Tennessee group Project Creation.

In Cabazon, it was the apatosaurus' underbelly that first enticed an Orange County developer a decade ago.

Gary Kanter had driven to the desert to size up Dinny the dinosaur and the 60 surrounding acres of scrubland, with the idea of expanding the adjacent truck stop.

While gawking up at the dinosaur's tummy, Kanter imagined the beast's tree-trunk legs lumbering across the barren plain.

"He's like a movable Golden Gate bridge," he recalled thinking when he reached his epiphany: Dinny was the perfect pitchman for a higher power.

Kanter's development company bought the site from the family of the late Claude K. Bell for $1.2 million.

Bell, an ex-sculptor at Knott's Berry Farm, crafted Dinny from discarded steel and concrete in the 1960s.

The mayor of Cabazon at the time called the reptile an eyesore. The apatosaurus once sheltered two dozen people during a snowstorm and starred in an ad for an air-conditioning company that bragged about cooling the beast.

Bell eventually added Mr. Rex, a 65-foot-tall tyrannosaurus. The creatures' red eyes glare in tandem at nighttime drivers and on postcards that show Mr. Rex chomping a freeway sign. In 1985, actor Paul Reubens climbed inside Rex for the film "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," peering through 50 spiky teeth.

Kanter and his wife, Denise, are Christian home-schooling advocates who are hosts on a DVD titled "How to Home Educate with Ease." After the gift shop vendor's lease expired, Denise Kanter posted an essay on the Christian website Revolution Against Evolution, seeking volunteers for the attraction.

"Our national museums (that we fund through our taxes) leave millions of people with information that they are no more than an evolved rock," she wrote. "The destruction of millions of souls has been devastating."

Pastor Robert Darwin Chiles offered to transform the Cabazon Dinosaurs from tourist stop to place of worship.

The pastor and the Kanters now hope to turn Mr. Rex's innards into exhibits about cryptozoology — the study of speculative creatures, such as Bigfoot — and creationism. They will somewhat mirror those in Santee, which takes visitors from Genesis to modern times with placards that say Darwin "came at just the right time to be the catalyst for a revival of ancient paganism" and that evolution birthed Communism, racism and Nazism.

"It's what we call marketplace ministry. I bring the Gospel to the people," said Chiles, who runs a nondenominational church at the attraction, inside Bell's rickety old home.

Kids flock to the huge statues. "And it's not like they're crying, 'Oh, mommy, take me out, I'm scared.' They're drawn to it," Chiles said. "There's something in their DNA that knows man walked with these creatures on Earth."

The Kanters intend to spend $2 million to $3 million to add a giant sand pit where kids would rummage for fossils, a center that would contrast creation and evolution arguments, a maze and a replica of Noah's Ark. All that alerts visitors now is a cryptic sign that asks, "Is evolution true?"

Parents glanced past it on a recent afternoon as their children raced toward the growling dinosaurs. Boys wedged their heads between a smaller carnivore's teeth, or smacked its mouth with toy swords. Toddlers hugged Dinny's legs while one family crowded under his tummy in party hats, unwrapped presents and bonked a stegosaurus piñata.

Douglas Bant and his wife ushered their kids from gift shop to minivan for the trip back to Scottsdale, Ariz. The couple teach their children about Jesus, but Bant was miffed about a dinosaur trying to do the same.

"Who thinks, 'I'm going to open a gift shop and convince people this is church'?" he said. "Why would you turn a toy for kids into some sort of religious crusade?"

Corina Shreve had pulled off the highway with her son and daughter.

The family, from Westminster in Orange County, drops in on Dinny maybe twice a year. Shreve said a staffer recently piled pamphlets about creation onto her 6-year-old son Aeron's hands and told him to pass them to friends.

When Aeron asked his mom during this year's visit for a T-shirt, Shreve balked at buying the only one in his size. It read "By Design and Not By Chance."

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

Is Judge John Roberts worth a fight?

Roberts's Chill Heart

by BRUCE SHAPIRO

[from The Nation August 15, 2005 issue]

Is Judge John Roberts worth a fight? That's the question Senate Democrats and civil rights lobbyists were asking as the amiable nominee made his let's-get-acquainted rounds on Capitol Hill. To put it bluntly: With Judge Roberts's reputation as a skilled and unimpeachable Supreme Court litigator, with his long bipartisan list of Washington friends, with George W. Bush sure to appoint another conservative if he's defeated, why bother?

Call as witness Ansche Hedgepeth, a 12-year-old girl who in 2000 made the mistake of eating a french fry on the Washington Metro while police were in the midst of a quality-of-life crackdown. Officers arrested Ansche, handcuffed her, threw her in the back of a squad car and kept her in lockup for three hours. This big-government approach to childrearing offended Ansche's mother as well as the conservative Rutherford Institute of Virginia, which sued on her behalf. The case ended up before Judge Roberts, who refused to expunge her record. Why? Arresting Ansche, he wrote, advanced "the legitimate goal of promoting parental awareness and involvement with children who commit delinquent acts."

How will this judge, who endorses the manacling of a youngster over a snack, rule when confronted with the profound civil liberties challenges of the "war on terror"? We don't need to speculate. The day after his interview with Bush, Roberts and two other Reagan/Bush appointees on the DC Circuit reinstated military tribunals at Guantánamo--ruling that courts have no authority to review the White House's determination to deny those prisoners Geneva Convention protections.

Together these two very different cases give the lie to any suggestion that Judge Roberts lacks a track rec­ord. Enthusiastic expansion of the power of the executive branch, whether in the guise of policing or the presidency, is the most consistent thread of Roberts's career. In this sense he's no conservative; he's an apostle of big and often unreviewable government--the perfect nominee for a White House that excluded military lawyers, the State Department and even John Ashcroft's top aides from the inner circles of post-9/11 justice policy. The Guantánamo ruling was a stunning embrace of the Administration's expansive view of presidential power, placing the Guantánamo tribunals beyond reach of Congress or courts. It is a refutation, as well, of international law, stripping courts of the ability to enforce a treaty, with backwash over other key cases destined for the Supreme Court. Detainees in Guantánamo held without charge have cases coming before the DC circuit in a few weeks, and José Padilla, the American held in the brig as an "enemy combatant," is not far behind. No wonder Roberts--wired for life into the GOP patronage network--became the Administration's top choice.

Another lie about Roberts's nomination is the notion that his most contentious statements should be written off as a lawyer's responsibility to his clients, not reflections of personal conviction. Exhibit A in this argument is Roberts's now-famous footnote in Rust v. Sullivan, the 1991 health clinic "gag rule" case in which he argued as deputy solicitor general that Roe v. Wade was "wrongly decided and should be overruled." Just doing my job, just reflecting Administration policy, Roberts said in his 2003 confirmation hearing as an appellate judge--a line repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike in recent days. In fact, the Rust v. Sullivan footnote went so far and so enthusiastically outside any argument relevant to the case that Roberts might fairly be accused of politicizing his briefs. But leave that aside. The real issue is that Roberts was hardly a passive receptacle, a mouthpiece without conviction. At the time of Rust v. Sullivan Roberts had been designated by Ken Starr as his "political" deputy--running interference on sensitive policy issues that otherwise would have been left to career officials. It was a job that didn't exist in either the Carter or Clinton administrations. The White House and Starr trusted Roberts not just to reflect legal policy but to make it.

Which gets us to another lie. At this writing the White House has agreed to release some historical documents from the Reagan years, but it claims that Roberts's memos as deputy solicitor general are a matter of attorney-client privilege. But attorney-client privilege ends where policy-making begins. The Judiciary Committee has every reason to wonder about the role of the political deputy. Senators have every reason to inquire about the language Roberts used when crafting that argument against Roe. The reasoning a Supreme Court nominee brought to fighting against strong Voting Rights Act enforcement, to ending school desegregation and to stripping Congress of oversight of federal environmental enforcement are all matters of public concern.

Roberts's professional biography suggests that every political choice he has made has been partisan and often rigidly ideological, from his clerkship with William Rehnquist through his role as a Republican adviser in Bush v. Gore. (Memo to Judiciary Committee: There's nothing out of bounds in asking Roberts's view of that case and whether he thinks the Supreme Court majority's ruling amounted to judicial activism.) Vigorous opposition to Roberts offers a powerful lesson on the intersection of politics and law in Bush's Washington. Bush may not have had a "litmus test" on Roe v. Wade, but he was precise about the political chemistry of his nominees. It's revealing that virtually all those floated as Supreme Court finalists were members of the Federalist Society. Roberts may not--or may--have been a member (at this writing the White House uses the deniable "no recollection" to explain why his name shows up in the group's confidential leadership directory for 1997-98), but between 1999 and 2003 his main professional association was with the fiercely antiregulatory National Legal Center for the Public Interest. As a judge he's written that the Endangered Species Act should not apply to a California toad because it doesn't cross state lines--a view of federal authority so extreme it would prohibit the EPA from getting involved in purely local landfills or chemical dumps.

Is Roberts's confirmation a foregone conclusion? There are still several weeks before hearings and a likely Senate vote, and his would not be the first nomination to take an unexpected turn. At this point in 1991 the Clarence Thomas nomination seemed unassailable, and in 1986 few seriously believed that Robert Bork would go down to defeat. Roberts's record and his biography may yet reveal additional troubling details.

Is it worth expending energy, emotion and money to oppose Roberts? Let's return to Ansche Hedgepeth and her french fry arrest. It may seem absurd to suggest that such a trivial case disqualifies a judge from a seat on the Supreme Court. Yet Roberts, in that case as in others, embraces a quietly authoritarian vision of social control that should raise alarm bells on both the right and the left. Managing to wring out of the law any vestige of sensible, pragmatic humanity, Roberts saw instead only the imperative to maintain ideological consistency. This is not "compassionate conservatism." If "advise and consent" means anything, it is that senators and the constituencies that agitate behind them have every reason to oppose a lifetime Supreme Court appointment for that kind of chill heart.

Vacationing Bush Poised to Set a Record

washingtonpost.com

With Long Sojourn at Ranch, President on His Way to Surpassing Reagan's Total

By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; A04

WACO, Tex., Aug. 2 -- President Bush is getting the kind of break most Americans can only dream of -- nearly five weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time.

The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening for a stretch of clearing brush, visiting with family and friends, and tending to some outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush's 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford -- nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush's time away from Washington even further.

Bush's long vacations are more than a curiosity: They play into diametrically opposite arguments about this leadership style. To critics and late-night comics, they symbolize a lackadaisical approach to the world's most important day job, an impression bolstered by Bush's two-hour midday exercise sessions and his disinclination to work nights or weekends. The more vociferous among Bush's foes have noted that he spent a month at the ranch shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when critics assert he should have been more attentive to warning signs.

To Bush and his advisers, that criticism fundamentally misunderstands his Texas sojourns. Those who think he does not remain in command, aides say, do not understand the modern presidency or Bush's own work habits. At the ranch, White House officials say, Bush continues to receive daily national security briefings, sign documents, hold teleconferences with aides and military commanders, and even meet with foreign leaders. And from the president's point of view, the long Texas stints are the best way to clear his mind and reconnect with everyday America.

"I'm looking forward to getting down there and just kind of settling in," Bush told reporters from Texas newspapers during a roundtable interview at the White House on Monday. "I'll be doing a lot of work. On the other hand, I'll also be kind of making sure my Texas roots run deep."

"Spending time outside of Washington always gives the president a fresh perspective of what's on the minds of the American people," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Friday. "It's a time, really, for him to shed the coat and tie and meet with folks out in the heartland and hear what's on their minds."

Just as Bush has made these August trips a regular feature of his presidency, so, too, have Democrats made a tradition of needling him about them. This year, opposition politicians are tying his departure from Washington to the CIA leak case that has swept up his top adviser, Karl Rove.

"The White House stonewalling operation is moving to Crawford for the dog days of summer, but they can't hide from the legitimate questions dogging the president and his refusal to keep his promise and fire Karl Rove," said Josh Earnest, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

Presidents have often sought refuge from the pressures of Washington and from life in the White House, which Harry S. Truman called the crown jewel of the American prison system. Richard M. Nixon favored Key Biscayne, Fla. Bush's father preferred Maine. Bill Clinton, lacking a home of his own, borrowed a house on Martha's Vineyard, except for two years when political adviser Dick Morris nudged him into going to Jackson, Wyo., before his reelection because it polled better.

Until now, probably no modern president was a more famous vacationer than Ronald Reagan, who loved spending time at his ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif. According to an Associated Press count, Reagan spent all or part of 335 days in Santa Barbara over his eight-year presidency -- a total that Bush will surpass this month in Crawford with 3 1/2 years left in his second term.

"The Oval Office is wherever the president of the United States is," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was Reagan's last White House chief of staff. "With the communications being what they are, the president can communicate instantly with whomever he wants anywhere in the world."

Bush will not return to the White House until after Labor Day, but his staff has peppered his schedule with events to dispel any impression that he is not on duty. He will visit at least seven states, mostly with quick day trips, including New Mexico, where he plans to sign energy legislation into law. He gets off to a quick start this week, with a speech Wednesday in nearby Grapevine, Tex., then he plays host to President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia at the ranch Thursday. His schedule is clear Friday through Sunday.

At some point, Bush told reporters Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will visit for consultations. "I have a busy couple of weeks down there," Bush said.

But he will make time for fun, or at least his idea of it. Bush rarely takes the type of vacation one would consider exotic -- or, to some, even appealing. His notion of relaxation is chopping cedar on his ranch or mountain biking through rough terrain, all in 100-degree-plus temperatures in dusty Texas where crickets are known to roast on the summer pavement. He seems to relish the idea of exposing aides and reporters to the hothouse environment.

"I just checked in with the house -- it's about 100 degrees," he told reporters Monday. "But no matter how hot it gets, I enjoy spending time in Texas."

Baker reported from Washington.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

War on Terror, Rest in Peace

By George Lakoff, AlterNet

The "War on Terror" is no more. It has been replaced by the "global struggle against violent extremism."

The phrase "War on Terror" was chosen with care. "War" is a crucial term. It evokes a war frame, and with it, the idea that the nation is under military attack -- an attack that can only be defended militarily, by use of armies, planes, bombs, and so on. The war frame includes special war powers for the president, who becomes commander in chief. It evokes unquestioned patriotism, and the idea that lack of support for the war effort is treasonous. It forces Congress to give unlimited powers to the President, lest detractors be called unpatriotic. And the war frame includes an end to the war -- winning the war, mission accomplished!

The war frame is all-consuming. It takes focus away from other problems, from everyday troubles, from jobs, education, health care, a failing economy. It justifies the spending of huge sums, and sending raw recruits into battle with inadequate equipment. It justifies the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. It justifies torture, military tribunals, and no due process. It justifies scaring people, with yellow, orange, and red alerts. But, while it was politically useful, the war frame never fit the reality of terrorism. It was successful at consolidating power, but counterproductive in dealing with the real threat.

Colin Powell had suggested "crime" as the frame to use. It justifies an international hunt for the criminals, allows "police actions" when the military is absolutely required, and places the focus and the funding on where it should go: intelligence, diplomacy, politics, economics, religion, banking, and so on. And it would have kept us militarily strong and in a better position to deal with cases like North Korea and Darfur.

But the crime frame comes with no additional power for the president, and no way to hide domestic troubles. It comes with trials at the international court, giving that court's sovereignty over purely American institutions. It couldn't win in the administration as constituted.

The abstract noun, "terror," names not a nation or even people, but an emotion and the acts that create it. A "war on terror" can only be metaphorical. Terror cannot be destroyed by weapons or signing a peace treaty. A war on terror has no end. The president's war powers have no end. The need for a Patriot Act has no end.

It is important to note the date on which the phrase "war on terror" died and was replaced by "global struggle against violent extremism." It was right after the London bombing. Using the War frame to think and talk about terrorism was becoming more difficult. The Iraq War was declared won and over, but it became clear that it was far from over and not at all won and that it created many new terrorists for every one it destroyed. The last justification - fighting the war on terror in Iraq so it wouldn't have to be fought at home -- died in the London bombing.

And so the term "War on Terror" had to go. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head man in waging war, said he had objected to the term, "because, if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as the solution" Instead, the solution is "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military."

That's what was said by those in the anti-war movement.

Donald Rumsfeld's spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, said that the change in language was "not a shift in thinking," like Nixon saying "I am not a crook." But when the war frame is crucial and evoked by the word "war," then dropping the "war" while addressing the public will result in a shift in thinking in the public mind: If the war frame is not evoked in the public mind, the failure of the president's war policy will be less visible.

Read the rest here.

Tha State of the Bay

From the Chesapeake Bay Foundation
July Survey Finds More than 1/3 of Bay is a 'Dead Zone'
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
By: CBF Staff

The 2005 dead zone is living up to predictions. Earlier this summer, EPA predicted problems for this summer and test results now show more than 36 percent of the Bay’s mainstem holding too little oxygen. And the problems aren’t limited to the mainstem; testing in many Chesapeake Bay tributary rivers has turned up “bad water” as well.

“It is alarming and depressing that dead zones are becoming a summer routine,” said Roy A. Hoagland, CBF Vice President for Environmental Protection and Restoration.

In Maryland, from Fort McHenry in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor down through the Magothy and Severn Rivers, dissolved oxygen levels are unhealthy to just plain gone. On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the Corsica River, Eastern Bay, and the Little Choptank River are all in poor shape for dissolved oxygen.

In Virginia, CBF staff have documented "bad water" in the Rappahannock, York, and Piankatank rivers and watermen have reported dead fish and crabs in pots in the Great Wicomico.

Like animals on land, nearly all of the Chesapeake Bay’s aquatic life, from worms and crabs on the bottom, to perch and striped bass above and underwater grasses in between, depend on oxygen to survive. Low dissolved oxygen levels can impair growth and reproduction and stress living resources, making them vulnerable to disease. Water with no oxygen will kill most aquatic animals.

"If we are to stop "dead zones" from appearing in the Bay, we need to invest in the Bay. That means our elected officials need to provide the leadership necessary to substantially increase funding to upgrade sewage treatment plants and to provide farmers the resources they need to reduce pollution from agriculture,” Hoagland said.

Unions reinvented
(from the LA Times)
The AFL-CIO has failed to recognize that times are changing and workers' lives are evolving. That's why the labor movement must split.
By Andrew L. Stern
Andrew L. Stern is president of the Service Employees International Union.

July 26, 2005

Our world is undergoing the most profound economic transformation in history. Corporations are changing, technology is changing, the political climate is changing, and as a result, workers' lives are also changing. To fulfill their mission for working people in the 21st century, unions must change as well.

Fifty years ago, when the AFL-CIO was founded, one in three workers had a union, and unions were an essential vehicle for achieving the American dream. A union job was a ticket to the middle class, and union wages and benefits helped raise every American worker's standard of living. But today, with only one in 12 private-sector workers in a union, the labor movement is not strong enough to ensure that work is rewarded throughout the economy.

Polls show that at least 50% of working people in the U.S. today want a union where they work. But U.S. labor laws, written for the industrial economy, are outdated, and employers use their excessive power to stand in the way.

And, to tell the truth, it's not just employers who are to blame. Unions share responsibility by failing to have the focus, strategy and resources to unite more workers in each industry.

Helping more working people form unions can be done. Our union, the Service Employees International Union, decided nine years ago to transform itself to help working people organize unions in whole industries, markets or states. Our members voted to make difficult changes in priorities, including spending 50% of our national resources to help more workers organize and build unions. That meant reallocating money from traditional union services that were useful in the short run but did not contribute to workers' strength in the long term.

The result is that more than 900,000 new workers — homecare workers, janitors, child-care workers and security officers — have joined the SEIU and gained paychecks that can support a family, affordable healthcare and a retirement with dignity.

But unions, overall, continue to decline. And the AFL-CIO — the national labor federation for the last half-century — has failed to make the hard decisions and take the necessary steps to make the union movement grow again. For months, a group of major unions has been talking to the AFL-CIO leadership on how to reorder priorities and modernize the federation's strategy and structure. But to no avail.

That's why we at the SEIU and three other major unions declared over the weekend that we would not participate in the AFL-CIO national convention in Chicago this week. And on Monday our union — with 1.8 million members — along with the 1.4-million-member Teamsters announced we would withdraw from the federation, effective immediately.

The Teamsters and the SEIU have joined with five other unions — Unite Here, the Food and Commercial Workers, the laborers, the carpenters and the farm workers — to form the Change To Win Coalition, representing nearly 6 million workers. This is a dramatic step that we hope will open up opportunities similar to the surge in worker unity and organization when the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was created in the 1930s because the American Federation of Labor (AFL) failed to adapt to the changing economy of that era.

Union members can be effective partners with employers if they start from a position of strength and equality. In California, for instance, United Healthcare Workers West has united more than 140,000 healthcare employees to negotiate innovative agreements with hospital chains such as Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare West and Tenet on issues, such as safe staffing levels, that affect the quality of care.

We also are committed to acting independently from any political party — Democrats or Republicans — and being an aggressive watchdog for the public interest. In Los Angeles, for instance, at a time when the city has bold new leadership, unions must be a reliable voice for policies on issues, such as education and healthcare, that benefit everyone.

We live in a world in which companies, not countries, are making the global economic rules. No one is going to reverse globalization. But a global economy needs policies that benefit working people, not just giant corporations. Workers in global companies need global unions to negotiate agreements across borders that help raise living standards for workers, instead of continuing the race to the bottom.

These principles for change were at the heart of our unsuccessful talks with the AFL-CIO. The Change To Win unions intend to move forward to pursue new strategies at the national level, while continuing to work at the local level with effective labor councils such as the L.A. County Federation of Labor.

The next decade can be a time of innovation and energy that will bring to life a new American dream. But to ensure that work in today's economy is valued and rewarded, unions must have the vision and the courage to change.

For more information, links, or to comment go to the Unite to Win Blog.

Dear Red States,

Swiped from DC Media Girl

We’re ticked off at the way you’ve treated California, and we’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.

We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home.

We do wish you success in Iraq but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, CalTech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals than we lefties.

Sincerely,

Author Unknown in New California.

So Much News

There is simply too much going on to post one article, so.... if you have not yet visited The Huffington Post, do it!! Today's issue features two articles on our favorite senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum, who is not not only, in effect, robbing Pennsylvania schools of needed funds but also insulting all of Boston

I also recommend the blog archives where you can scroll through authors by name and catch up on all of your favorites. ENJOY!

Operation Yellow Elephant

Get your stickers and buttons...

here.

Dean backers find a grass-roots home in county

Baltimore Sun

By Larry Carson, Sun Staff

June 12, 2005

ALL THOSE eager volunteers in former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's presidential campaign didn't disappear after his effort flamed out last year -- they've morphed into a grass-roots group called Democracy for America, which has a local chapter.

"I got really excited by the idea that people who can write a $25 check instead of a $2,000 check are important," said Dawn Popp, 36, of Elkridge, a lawyer taking time from a career to raise her children.

She volunteered for Dean, but after the presidential campaign, she decided to use that enthusiasm and feeling that "we really need to get to work here" to pursue progressive, if not always Democratic Party, causes.

Continue reading "Dean backers find a grass-roots home in county"

Community Forum on Social Security

Please print this handout and pass it out. Thank you.

Memorial Day

Via the Memory Hole

Religious investors ask Wal-Mart to review social, economic policies

By Tracy Early
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- A group of religious orders and other investors is asking the retail giant Wal-Mart to assess the company's policies and practices in light of their "social, environmental and economic sustainability."

A resolution filed for shareholder action said Wal-Mart, which will hold its annual stockholder meeting June 3 in Fayetteville, Ark., is facing widespread "negative public perceptions" about its operations.

"Wal-Mart's business success is dependent on its domestic and global workers receiving a sustainable living wage to meet their basic needs, and the environmental viability of the communities in which the company operates," the resolution added.

The Shareholder Association for Research and Education, an agency based in Vancouver, British Columbia, said in a report earlier this month that Wal-Mart activity had drawn concern in Canada as well as the United States. The agency helps pension funds build sound investment practices that protect beneficiaries but also contribute to a "just and healthy society."

In reaction to union organizing efforts, Wal-Mart closed a store in Quebec after "a short round of negotiations" with "the chain's first North American unionized bargaining unit," the report said.

"The danger for shareholders is that some cost controls could undermine key relationships with employees, customers, suppliers and communities," according to the agency's director, Peter Chapman.

For the Wal-Mart resolution, the lead filer is the United Methodist Board of Pension & Health Benefits, and co-filers include the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Mich., the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of Charity, Benedictine Sisters, Congregation of the Holy Cross, Presbyterian Church, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and a Vancouver agency, Ethical Funds.

According to the Shareholder agency, Wal-Mart has asked shareholders to vote against the resolution. The company said it plans to prepare a report like the one requested but wants to do it "only in the form and at the time that is in the best interests of the company and its associates and the communities and customers we serve."

Religious investors also filed resolutions with Wal-Mart this year on equal employment and on the sale of violent video games to children.

Wal-Mart is not alone in drawing the attention of the church-related investors, but is only one of dozens of companies that are being challenged in stockholder resolutions.
More

Paul Krugman: America Wants Security

New York Times

It was a carefully staged Norman Rockwell scene. The street was lined with American flags; a high school band played "God Bless America."

Then, under the watchful gaze of Wal-Mart's chief operating officer, Maryland's governor vetoed a bill that would have obliged large businesses to spend more on employee health care.

The news here isn't that some politicians wrap their deference to corporate interests in the flag. The news, instead, is that Maryland's State Legislature passed a pro-worker bill in the first place. In fact, the bill passed by a veto-proof majority in the Maryland Senate, and fell just short of that margin in the House.

After November's election, the victors claimed a mandate to unravel the welfare state. But the national election was about who would best defend us from gay married terrorists. At the state level, where elections were fought on bread-and-butter issues, voters sent a message that they wanted a stronger, not weaker, social safety net.

Continue reading "Paul Krugman: America Wants Security"

The Working Poor

WAMU featured a series on the working poor back in March. Given the previous blog entry with FDR's Second Bill of Rights, I thought these broadcasts were appropriate. The first discusses health insurance and the second discusses problems faced by low wage workers, who are often new immigrants.

The Second Bill of Rights

Proposed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 11, 1944

Every American Is Entitled To:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries of shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

Roses and Thorns

Just in time for Mother's Day, President Bush announces a Social Security plan that's terrible for women.

By Amy Chasanov
American Prospect
Web Exclusive: 05.06.05

President Bush wants to give American women a Mother's Day present we'd be better off without: He's cutting our Social Security benefits when he promises not to, and making us repay more than our fair share if we choose to open a private account.

The president's plan for Social Security, which combines privatization with changes in the way future benefits are calculated, would cut promised benefits substantially.

Wait a minute, you're thinking: Didn't the president say that current benefit levels would be protected for low-wage earners? And wouldn't women's lower wages actually protect more of them from benefit cuts? Not really. Here's the problem. Yes, the president said that benefits would stay the same for workers who currently earn $20,000 a year or less, and that only the top 70 percent of earners would face cuts. But that's not exactly true.

Working women are more likely to be in the lowest 30 percent of the career earnings distribution. Despite their increasing presence in the labor force, they are still paid less than men for identical work; they are more likely to work in low-wage, pink-collar jobs; and they are more likely to work part time or spend time out of the labor force to raise children or care for elderly family members. And, because many women's Social Security checks are based on their husbands' earnings, not their own, they wouldn’t be insulated from the president's benefit cuts. So much for protecting low-wage women.

Meanwhile, for the woman "lucky" enough to fall in the top 70 percent of earners, whether by virtue of her own earnings or her spouse's, the cuts would be progressively deeper over time. Eventually all workers would end up receiving about the same benefit, essentially transforming Social Security from its role today as a dependable, guaranteed retirement benefit into a bare-bones safety-net program.

For the American middle class, this plan means big cuts over time; an average earner born today would have her benefits cut nearly 30 percent. Middle-income workers can't afford it, as two-thirds of all retirees now get more than half of their income from Social Security. With employers offering fewer and leaner private pensions, future retirees will have even less income outside of Social Security.

When a worker no longer brings home the bacon due to retirement, disability, or death, Social Security provides baseline income security for not only the worker but also that worker's family. Wives (or husbands) of retired or disabled workers can receive 50 percent of their spouses' Social Security benefit if it's higher than the benefit they qualify for on their own. Because a wife's lifetime earnings rarely exceed her husband's, women are much more likely to receive spousal benefits as wives or widows.

In 2001, more than 6 million women had earned Social Security as workers but received higher benefits as a widow or wife. Their husbands are likely to be in the top 70 percent of the career earnings distribution. Not only would the husbands have their benefits reduced under partial price indexing, the 50-percent spousal benefit received by wives and widows (and children) also would be cut. That's why many women in the bottom 30 percent who are being promised that their benefits will not be cut are in for a nasty shock. This problem gets worse over time. The number of working women entitled to a higher benefit based on their husband's earnings is expected to grow from 28 percent of all women in 2000 to 38 percent in 2040.

That's not the only thorn on this rose. Private accounts would hurt women, too. Anyone who opens a private account would actually be borrowing money from the government. The government would keep lending you money to put into your account each year, and would keep track, just like a bank. At retirement, you'd have to pay back what you borrowed plus 3-percent interest and inflation compounded each year, leaving you with whatever -- if anything -- you'd been able to make above that.

Yale University financial economist Robert Shiller finds that, under a realistic rate of return, the life-cycle portfolio loses money 71 percent of the time. In other words, most folks lose the gamble and would have been better off never opening an account. But let's assume you're one of the lucky ones who made money. The government would convert your debt into a monthly repayment and subtract what you owe from the (already reduced, in most cases) Social Security check you get each month.

Workers who die sooner after retirement (read: men) wouldn’t have time to repay all they've borrowed from the government. Instead, workers who live longer after retirement (read: women) would pay the government back more than their fair share of what was borrowed.

I'm not sure how the lawmakers who are pushing indexing changes and privatization are explaining this to the mothers in their lives this weekend. I'd bet they're just sending roses.

Amy Chasanov is deputy policy director of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Amy Chasanov, "Roses and Thorns", The American Prospect Online, May 6, 2005. This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to permissions@prospect.org.

For additional information , please see American Prospect's Special Edition on Social Security.

In Praise of Prosperity

Excellent article from alternet!

Here's a brief sample.

The language of economic competitiveness is not ideologically neutral,
but instead designed to promote policies that serve the interests of
big corporations and their investors. If progressives want to reframe
the debate over America's future, they will have to reframe its very
terms. A first step: start talking about prosperity.

Social Security Forum

Democracy for Howard County will coordinate a forum featuring Cindy Hounsell, Executive Director of the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement, and Bob Rosenblatt of the National Academy for Insurance Security. There will be an opportunity for participants to dialogue with the presenters and community members.

June 23rd 7:00- 9:30pm
Owen Brown Interfaith Center

Al Gore's Speech to Move-ON

Read the speech and watch the video here.

Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts, Absolutely

I remember when I first read those words in 8th grade. I never dreamed that they would be coming into my head again as an adult in response to current events in the United States. Today Al Gore repeated them and reminded us all of what is at stake if the radical right manages to further erode the separation of the branches of our government by abolishing the filibuster. Most importantly, he reminded us of the consequences of living with a government that is not legitimately created with the consent of the people. The future of our democracy is in danger and its position as a safe haven for those of differing beliefs is now threatened. (strange, I've been thinking about the Salem witch trials a lot lately too).

The following is from AP. Click for the entire article
"What makes it so dangerous for our country is their willingness to do serious damage to our American democracy in order to satisfy their lust for one-party domination of all three branches of government," Gore said of the GOP in a speech. "They seek nothing less than absolute power."

The Senate is bracing for a showdown over Republicans' threat to use their majority to change the parliamentary rules to ban judicial filibusters — a tactic in which opponents can prevent a vote on a nomination with just 41 votes in the 100-member Senate.

Minority Democrats have used the filibuster to block confirmation votes on 10 of President Bush's appeals court choices, arguing that the nominees are too conservative for lifetime appointments.

Gore bemoaned the "outright threats and intimidations" of judges by some Republicans after recent court rulings, warning that independent judges would cower for fear of retribution.

He also cited recent comments from leaders of two conservative organizations — the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family — about disenfranchising certain courts or denying them funds.

"This aggressive new strain of right-wing religious zealotry is actually a throwback to the intolerance that led to the creation of America in the first place,"

I have a copy of the speech and will add more quotes--or the whole thing tomorrow.

Groups say bills push gay agenda

This article was sent to me by Ken along with the following information "The bills they're petitioning are SB796 (establishing a life partnership registry for medical decision-making purposes), HB692 (including sexual orientation within the scope of the state Hate Crimes law, HB1298 (extending a property tax exemption now limited only to married people to those who live together while unmarried), and HB407 (requiring that local school boards report incidents of harassment or intimidation to the state department of Education). They're also urging Ehrlich to veto all of these bills. Of them, two (SB796 and HB1298) failed to pass one body or the other by veto-proof margins.
Today is one bill-signing (or vetoing) day on the governor's schedule and May 10 and 26 are the others. What he doesn't sign or veto by May 31 goes into effect without his signature." Thanks Ken.

By Sumathi Reddy
Sun Staff

April 25, 2005

The legislative session may have ended, but a battle over several bills critics say further gay rights is reaching an elevated pitch.

Conservative and Christian groups are mounting a widespread effort - using e-mails and Web sites with often-fiery rhetoric - against four bills they charge promote the gay agenda.

"Pray that God's will be done and that all the churches rise up against these bills," says an e-mail distributed to members of the Christian Coalition of Maryland.

The bills passed the Senate and House of Delegates this session and are awaiting action - or inaction - from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. before becoming law.

Tres Kerns, executive director of VoteMarriage.org and Take Back Maryland, filed petition requests with the Maryland State Board of Elections last week to repeal three bills through voter referendums.

The legislation would add gays to the categories of people protected under the state's hate- crime laws, allow unmarried couples to make property transfers without paying state or local taxes and require schools to report bullying incidents.

"We don't feel that the citizens of Maryland have really had a chance to vote on whether homosexuality should be considered a special class of citizens or not," said Kerns, of Anne Arundel.

Kerns' groups, along with other organizations, such as the Christian Coalition of Maryland, Defend Maryland Marriage and the Family Protection Lobby, also are supporting Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr.'s petition efforts to repeal a bill to give unmarried couples medical decision-making rights, among other benefits.

That effort is a large and coordinated one, and includes help from lawmakers of both parties, according to Defend Maryland Marriage organizers who would not identify the participating lawmakers.

The loosely knit network of groups also is urging members to lobby Ehrlich to veto all four bills.

"I almost feel like I'm living in the '50s with the Red Scare," said Del. Richard S. Madaleno Jr., a Montgomery County Democrat. "But now we're living in the Pink Scare. It's gay people and gay marriage instead of communists."

To get referendums onto the 2006 ballot, opponents have to collect 51,195 signatures for each bill by June 30 of this year.

No more than half of the signatures can come from one county or Baltimore City, and one-third must be filed by May 31.

Once the signatures are filed, State Board of Elections employees would have 20 days to certify them and approve or reject the petitions.

A successful petition drive would suspend the laws until after the 2006 general election, when voters would decide whether to repeal it.

Success in this type of petition effort has proven to be a difficult task. Collecting the signatures is tedious, and those leading the efforts expect the petitions to be challenged in court.

In the past 14 years, petition efforts have been successful only once. In 1991, opponents of a bill to prohibit state interference in abortion succeeded in getting it on the ballot. But voters ultimately did not support repealing the bill.

In 2001, Kerns launched a petition effort to repeal a bill that added gays to the state's anti-discrimination laws. The petition was successfully challenged in court and did not make it onto the ballot.

Dan Furmansky, executive director of Equality Maryland, a statewide gay advocacy group, said his group has already met with the attorney who successfully challenged the 2001 petition attempt and the American Civil Liberties Union.

"They can expect a legal challenge around every corner," said Furmansky. "We'll work to do everything we can to prevent these from making it onto the ballot."

Madaleno questioned the labeling of the anti-bullying bill, the Safe Schools Reporting Act of 2005, as an encouragement to minors to become gay.

"I guess the whole idea is a 14-year-old should be beaten senseless in order to be a straight person," said Madaleno.

Kerns and other opponents of the bill say they fear it would be used to discuss homosexuality in the classroom.

On the VoteMarriage.org Web site, the gay-rights agenda is described as working to "program future youth to be led as lambs into the dangerous and denigrating homosexual lifestyle."

But the bill was not part of the legislative agenda of Equality Maryland, which pushed for the Medical Decision Making Act of 2005 and hate-crimes legislation as top priorities this year.

"This is the rabid anti-gay movement that we're seeing throughout the country and in our state," said Madaleno. "These are people who obviously believe in violence against homosexuals. They want to make life hell for gay people so they'll be straight."

The Rev. Rick Bowers, chairman of Defend Maryland Marriage, stressed that the group's message is not one of hate or taking anything away from anyone.

"We're simply protecting marriage," said the Columbia resident.

Although his group opposes all four bills, Bowers said they are focusing their efforts on the Medical Decision Making Act, which would require the state to establish a domestic registry of participating "life partners," who could be gay or straight.

"I believe that it's the beginning of tearing the fabric of marriage," he said. "The kicker in this bill is the opening for civil unions."

Furmansky sees merits in the legislation.

"We're talking about allowing people to have autonomy over their health care decisions. We're talking about strengthening the state's hate-crimes laws. We're talking about bullying in schools and property taxes," he said.

"Not one of these bills brings us one step closer to Maryland giving out marriage licenses."

Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun

Happy Passover!

Workers (and community activists) of the World - UNITE!

Last night I participated in a conference call with DFA activists from around the country, Jim Dean,Tom Hughes, and SEIU's Andy Stern, Gina Glanz, and Emily Thorson (who welcomes comments about the purple ocean website). The topic was, of course, what can WE do about the "Walmartization" of our economy. Andy Stern, President of the SEIU, called in from India where he is working on forming partnerships with Indian groups thus creating the first global union, other than the wobblies, of course. To influence global corporations, we need global unions. Here in the US, we need to work with other like-minded groups in our quest for justice.

Please go to Purple Ocean and sign up. (You can even enter a contest to write an ad for Al Franken.)

In the Fall, SEIU and Purple Ocean will be sponsoring "Walmart Week". Please start thinking of some fun and effective activities for Walmart week. Think about groups we can contact, people who will join us, etc... As the SEIU slogan states, we are "stronger together."

Wake Up Walmart!

Wake Up Walmart is a new site devoted to organizing the grassroots so that WE can change Walmart. Please visit the site and sign up!

More villain than victim
By Joe Hansen, UFCW International Union President - USA Today
April 17, 2005
As America's largest company, with more than $285 billion in sales and more than $10 billion in profits, Wal-Mart has a responsibility to set the standard for customers, workers, families and communities. America's largest employer — with nearly 1.3 million workers — must reflect America's values.

Wal-Mart is not the victim of globalization, lower wages and lack of health insurance. More accurately, Wal-Mart's business practices created many of these problems in America today. Look at the record.

A company that reflects America's values doesn't pay below poverty-level wages to its workers. At 34 hours per week (full-time at Wal-Mart), the average Wal-Mart associate makes $17,114 per year, well below the poverty level for a family of four.

A company that reflects America's values doesn't have 660,000 of its employees without company-provided health insurance, forcing workers to seek taxpayer-funded public assistance. In fact, in 11 of the 12 states that have disclosed employers who have employees on Medicaid, Wal-Mart tops the list. In Georgia, for example, a state survey found more than 10,000 Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid — 14 times the next highest employer.

A company that reflects America's values doesn't ask taxpayers to subsidize its $10 billion in profits. A U.S. congressional study found that Wal-Mart costs you, the American taxpayer, up to $2.5 billion in public assistance. One newspaper editorial titled it, "Wal-Mart Welfare."

A company that reflects America's values doesn't put profits before its people, morality and the law. In the past few months, Wal-Mart agreed to pay a record fine for exploiting illegal immigrants and settled extensive child labor violations. It still faces the largest gender discrimination lawsuit, 1.6 million women, in U.S. history for unfair pay and unequal promotion.

Wal-Mart is not creating jobs in our communities. Wal-Mart's business practices simply exchange decent jobs with health benefits for lower-paying jobs and taxpayer-subsidized health care. The truth is Wal-Mart is forcing good-paying American jobs overseas. Wal-Mart is creating an America of lower wages, no health care and lack of retirement security.

We think it's time for Wal-Mart to wake up.

A Radical in the White House

April 18, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Radical in the White House
By BOB HERBERT

Last week - April 12, to be exact - was the 60th anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "I have a terrific headache," he said, before collapsing at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Ga. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the 83rd day of his fourth term as president. His hold on the nation was such that most Americans, stunned by the announcement of his death that spring afternoon, reacted as though they had lost a close relative.

That more wasn't made of this anniversary is not just a matter of time; it's a measure of the distance the U.S. has traveled from the egalitarian ideals championed by F.D.R. His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster. We're now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.

To get a sense of just how radical Roosevelt was (compared with the politics of today), consider the State of the Union address he delivered from the White House on Jan. 11, 1944. He was already in declining health and, suffering from a cold, he gave the speech over the radio in the form of a fireside chat.

After talking about the war, which was still being fought on two fronts, the president offered what should have been recognized immediately for what it was, nothing less than a blueprint for the future of the United States. It was the clearest statement I've ever seen of the kind of nation the U.S. could have become in the years between the end of World War II and now. Roosevelt referred to his proposals in that speech as "a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed."

Among these rights, he said, are:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

"The right of every family to a decent home.

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

"The right to a good education."

I mentioned this a few days ago to an acquaintance who is 30 years old. She said, "Wow, I can't believe a president would say that."

Roosevelt's vision gave conservatives in both parties apoplexy in 1944 and it would still drive them crazy today. But the truth is that during the 1950's and 60's the nation made substantial progress toward his wonderfully admirable goals, before the momentum of liberal politics slowed with the war in Vietnam and the election in 1968 of Richard Nixon.

It wouldn't be long before Ronald Reagan was, as the historian Robert Dallek put it, attacking Medicare as "the advance wave of socialism" and Dick Cheney, from a seat in Congress, was giving the thumbs down to Head Start. Mr. Cheney says he has since seen the light on Head Start. But his real idea of a head start is to throw government money at people who already have more cash than they know what to do with. He's one of the leaders of the G.O.P. gang (the members should all wear masks) that has executed a wholesale transfer of wealth via tax cuts from working people to the very rich.

Roosevelt was far from a perfect president, but he gave hope and a sense of the possible to a nation in dire need. And he famously warned against giving in to fear.

The nation is now in the hands of leaders who are experts at exploiting fear, and indifferent to the needs and hopes, even the suffering, of ordinary people.

"The test of our progress," said Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Sixty years after his death we should be raising a toast to F.D.R. and his progressive ideas. And we should take that opportunity to ask: How in the world did we allow ourselves to get from there to here?

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

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Social Security Community Forum

Featuring
Congressmen Ben Cardin and Elijah Cummings with an expert on this important issue, Dr Priscilla Chapman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

Monday, April 18th from 8:00-9:30 PM
Jeffers Hill Community Center
6030 Tamar Drive Columbia, MD 21045

Contact
melissa@melissaberger.com for more information

Tell Governor Ehrlich to sign the Fair Share Health Care Bill

(From Maryland for Health Care)
You made it happen! Maryland for Health was successful in passing Fair Share Health Care in Annapolis this year. Thousands of Health Care Voters sent countless letters and calls to elected officials. Your hard work paid off with the bill’s passage on Saturday, April 9th.

However, the work is not done as Governor Ehrlich has promised to veto it. Maryland for Health Care is circulating a petition to urge the governor to sign the bill.

Please sign the petition and urge your friends and family to sign it as well. We plan to share your signatures with the governor to let him know that Marylanders support Fair Share.
[sign the petition]

More on Walmart

Opponents of Wal-Mart to Coordinate Efforts
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: April 3, 2005

Led by Wal-Mart's longtime opponents in organized labor, a new coalition of about 50 groups - including environmentalists, community organizations, state lawmakers and academics - is planning the first coordinated assault intended to press the compan