Jean Brookbank
Marianne Torres
eblacas@aol.com
Date: Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:23 am
Subject: Re: [spokaneprogressives] "Isn't Bush worse?"
I enjoyed this article. However, there is no five year limit on food stamps.
There is a five-year limit on TANF, which the system and the people involved can and do find ways around. Welfare reform was not about "welfare reform," it was about finding a way to inject millions of low-wage workers back into the economy when the roaring economy suddenly needed them again. Now that the economy does not need them....
Paula.
From: "tayacan2004" <
Date: Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:19 am
Subject: Thank you Al Sharpton--Confronting Conservative Democrat Party by OutFoxing Them
Thank you, Al Sharpton, for defying the Democratic Party censors, vetters, and apologists to deliver YOUR speech, 15
minutes too long, 2000% too powerful and honest, and delivered right down the throat of the party of Clinton, Gore, Kerry,
Locke, and Barbieri. Thanks for bringing out all the contradictions and papered over issues like the war-plans of Kerry.
Thanks for making it clear that the party masquerading as the middle class presents no real hope to the much discussed
"underclass". Thanks for making it clear that this is all business as usual. Thanks for pointing out the con job. Thank you,
Al Sharpton.
Now, onward and Kerry-ward, spokaneprogressives.
From : < ">chucktin4@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:59 am
Subject: Re: [spokaneprogressives] Thank you Al Sharpton--Confronting Conservative Democrat Party by OutFoxing
Them
Well I finally got a chance to see the Reverend Sharpton's speech, and a great one it was. It is indeed fasinating how our own biases and filters skew our interpretation of such events, I, and my biases, did not see Sharpton delivering a contrary message "shoved down the throats of Clinton, Bore, Locke, and Barbieri."
There does seem to be an obviously factual error in your post my friend. Al spoke for 20 minutes. He was probably given 15 minutes, give or take, by the PTB, same as many other speakers and ex-candidates. So he spoke FIVE minutes beyond his expected time, not FIFTEEN minutes, unless you are argueing he was only given 5 minutes to speak, if so, where's the evidence?
Let's look at a few of Rev. Sharpton's quotes, and see how they square with your belief that America is the primary evil in the world:
"Throughout the history of this nation, Americans have fought to protect our freedoms at home and to secure our nation against foreign and domestic threat."
Hmmm, no mention of the US imperialist intervention, designed to promote white elitist hegeomony over the oppressed people of the world. Guess Al's a sell out on that issue, eh?
"I have come here tonight to say, that the only choice we have to protect and preserve our freedoms at this point in history is the election of John Kerry as the president of the United States.
"I stood with both John Kerry and John Edwards on over 30 occasions during the primary season. I debated them. I watched them. I observed their deeds. I am convinced that they are men who say what they mean and mean what they say."
Hmmm, sounds like a ringing endorsement of Kerry/Edwards, and a reputiation of the idea that they are just elitists in populists clothing attempting to fool the "colored" masses.
And so, as many have asked here on this list, what should we do? Al answers that question:
"I am also convinced that at a time, when there is a vicious spirit in the body politic of this country that attempts to undermine America''s freedoms -- our civil rights, and civil liberties -- we must leave this city and go forth and organize this nation toward victory for John Kerry and John Edwards in November. This is not just about winning an election, it''s about preserving the principles upon which this nation was founded."
And what about the long term consequences of Shrub retaining office?
"It is frightening to think that the gains of the civil and women''s rights movements of the last century could be reversed if this administration sits in the White House for four more years."
The Reverend goes on to say how it was the Democratic party that passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and other legislation which guarantees the rights and representation of minority people.
Finally, Al talks about the great Ray Charles, one of my favorite musicians:
"I recall that a few days after the September 11 terrorist attacks I was in a radio station that played ""America the Beautiful,"" as sung by Ray Charles.
As you know, we lost Ray several weeks ago, but I can still hear him singing: ""Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain.""
We must leave here committed to making Ray Charles'' song a reality and to making America beautiful for everyone.
Good night, God bless you all, and God bless America!"
Let's look at the last stanza of that song, shall we:
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!
I expect that part of Al's speech made you gag, David, as if you ever were made to sing "America the Beautiful", you would not doubt choke on your own vomit in revulsion to this celebration of (insidious) American patriotism, imperialism, duplicity and hegemony.
Chuck
From : "Travis Coletti" <
tcoletti@landscouncil.org >
Date: Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:14 pm
Subject: NADER VS THE FUTURE, no apologies-addendum
SENTIMENT WITHOUT ACTION IS THE RUIN OF THE SOUL"
~Ed Abbey
Belching pseudo-intellectual tautologic diatribes is a waste of your, and most importantly, my time. Whilst you whittle away hours of precious life beating the dead horse of a Naderdream, or who's "more progressive than thou", real people are participating, and engaging in real action for real change. Whilst you dream the green dream and castigate the Dems, the GOP are action-ready, organized, and most importantly, united in tight cohesion.
Ride the frays of leftist ideology, fight the good fight in never-never land, and wake up November 3rd to 1,460 more dark days of neocon madness; only to look back at yourself in the mirror, and wonder what the hell went wrong. Your rainbow bubble will have popped one day too late, and reality will soon sink in, in waves, as our education, healthcare, civil rights, environment, and jobs slowly go down the drain even faster that before (a bush-appointed Supreme Court appointment is even more threatening. One more conservative on the bench, and you can say good-bye to Roe V Wade).
On the bright side, there is still time to realize the error of your ways, exorcise the Nader Delusion, and put forth the needed energy and commitment to oust the most destructive and reckless administration in history. Can you do that? I think you can, just try a little harder, and think about what will happen with four more years of this administration that hasn't re-election to worry about.
Think very hard about that reality.
Now, do something about it.
TC
From: "Rod" <
rodstackelberg@comcast.net >
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:20 pm
Subject: Re: [spokaneprogressives] Re: Frank and Bart, Fraudulent Censors Extrordinaire
Tom, Since it was apparently my criticism that proved to be the last straw for Justin, I want to make it clear that I neither sought, recommended, or requested, either privately or publicly, his removal from this list (maybe I'm paranoid, but as you used of the term "troika," I suspect you think I had something to do with this decision. Who is the third person you are referring to?). I did not and do not favor his removal, and I agree with you that he has been far less rude and slanderous than David Brookbank (although since Bart and Frank were usually the targets of J.'s barbs, I can understand why they may have less patience with him than we do. How do you keep up a conversation with a person whose only argument is insult?). I am also glad to see that Frank and Bart have left Justin the option to reapply, and I hope he does. I actually strongly agree with his often repeated opposition to "humanitarian" military intervention, at least unilaterally by the U.S., even in Dafur.
However, Tom, since you yourself are the model of courtesy, maintaining civility even in your very hard-hitting posts, it occurs to me that you may have no real experience what it's like to constantly be the target of personal insults (although I do seem to remember that you reacted with understandable sensitivity to what you regarded as a personal insult in public against you by a member of the administration at Gonzaga this spring.) Anyone who has followed this list for any length of time is aware of the barrage of calumny and aspersions to which I have been subjected by David Brookbank, to the point where he has effectively shut me up. As you may have noticed (or not), I have ceased responding to his posts. Since he is in your ideological camp (and I will have more to say on "ideological camps" in a future post), you are conspicuously tolerant of his mud-slinging. Even when you come to my defense as you have on several occasions (more so than anyone else on this list), you seem loath to confront him directly (for which I don't blame you). The point here is not my feelings, which are not important, but that under these conditions conversation and dialogue become impossible. But isn't that the point of a list like this? I, too, regret that I cannot talk to David anymore, as I used to be able to do, but I don't know how to respond to insults without just making things worse. Chuck is very adept at responding to insults in kind (you may recall the running battle he had with David some months ago which led, if I recall, to a vote on whether David should be banished, but nobody voted, which was just as well). When one's arguments are constantly met by insults, one loses interest, to put it mildly. That's the real problem we face on this list. I think everyone recognizes it, and the action against J. seems to have been a rather misdirected effort to try to cope with it.
I look forward to continuing our conversation on politics in a future post.
Best regards,
Rod
From : "Lisa Brown" < ">lisajobrown@comcast.net>
Date: Wed Jul 14, 2004 4:38 pm
Subject: Re: [spokaneprogressives] Nation article about Edwards
Tom and Rod,
I very much enjoy reading your posts - and knowing you both as sincere, principled left intellectuals (but not armchair intellectuals - as I have seen you on the streets! ) and friends, makes it even better!
I would hesitate to insert myself into your debate, except to make one comment. It seems to me that there ARE social movements with sufficient membership and activism level in the U.S to be interesting and relevant to this discussion. I would casually list the progressive wing of the labor movement, the women's and reproductive choice movement, the GLBT movement, the environmental movement, various human rights, civil rights, progressive religious, economic justice and racial justice organizations, and the anti-globalism, fair trade movement as constituting the potential for being organized into the mass social movement of which Tom speaks. It is precisely the positions of these groups and their members that interests me in the current election. There is plenty of diversity of political opinion, but I believe that most of these groups articulate some clear compelling differences between another Bush administration and a potential Kerrey administration that are of serious enough consequence to motivate them to action. Hence a good percentage of their members ( with a possible key exception of the anti-globalism movement which is working on a transnational level) are participating in either selected political campaigns and/or groups like Move on, America Coming Together, Democracy for America, Progressive majority, and other non-party organizations that are organized explicity to prevent another Bush administration.
Tom, I had the opportunity to hear SEIU president Andrew Stern and Emily's List and America Coming Together founder Ellen Malcolm speak recently in Washington, D.C. I think you would be impressed by their progressive and activist credentials, and you would find their analyses of how much is at stake and why Bush must be beat, provocative, if not compelling.
As long as I am saluting friends, welcome to the list Jean Brookbank! I appreciate your observations.
Lisa Brown
From :
Frank Malone < spokanelaw@yahoo.com >
Date: Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:27 pm
Subject: Dipole Moment
The following is my tribute to Tom. When I posted a reminder of Barbieri''s salmon feed in the Park (which was very well attended by the way), Chuck (I think) needled me about my trying to stir up the opponents of the "duopoly." By this I believe he referred to the obvious fact that either Don Barbieri or one of his Republican opponents will be our next Representative from the Fifth Congressional District of Washington. I don''t believe that I am so obtuse that I don''t understand the reasons why many (you know who you are) wish that such a result were not a forgone conclusion. Nor do I think that you are so deluded that you don''t understand the inevitability of this outcome.
I hope to avoid another stale discussion of the value or lack of merit in choosing a "lesser evil." So please don''t use this thread for that or a similar discussion. Lately, I have been leaning toward economic determinism as the prime explanation of historical developments. I hope to state my views and prompt a discussion of why the "duopoly" has maintained its hold on the American political system for the last 160 years. There must be something here from which we can all learn. I invite your thoughts.
The Whig Party fielded its last candidate in 1856. The emergence of the Republican Party to contest the 1860 presidential election with a divided Democratic Party was the casus belli for States'' Rights advocates justifying secession. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Republican Party was identified as the party which had saved the Union. Most Whites in the South were viscerally opposed to the Republican Party. Immigrants represented by their urban political machines were Democrats because they contested for power with the Republican economic elites. Thus began the current two-party division which is still the norm across the county and appears to have attained a systemic equilibrium like an electric dipole field . Yes there are exceptions, but they merely prove the rule.
My suspicion is that the force which has held the two parties in close juxtaposition for 160 years is the complex of federal and state governance. This system is managed by officials who must seek elective office. Game theory ala Nash holds that, " . . . each individual will strive to maximize (their) welfare . . . given the predicted behavior of others." It is a serious advantage for candidates to be carrying the label of an established brand and to obtain the support of incumbents. As long as the Republican and Democratic labels carry an image, e.g., "freedom of choice," candidates will tend to join their personal preferences with a competitive brand. More importantly candidates will also seek assistance to supplement their own resources. Major parties attract successful candidates because they can offer the advantage of a large number of elected officials who will work together in mutual support. Independents and minor party candidates do not have this benefit. Given the predictability of the current political system, candidates who see their welfare maximized by electoral victory will choose a major political party. Those who view their welfare by other criteria may but will not necessarily choose a major party. Thus, the "duopoly" is inevitable because it is inevitable and will remain inevitable until it ceases to be inevitable.
Regards,
Frank A. Malone
Malone Law Office
509-325-2201 Office
509-326-7426 Fax
509-954-5725 Cell
From :BEVERLYAJEANNOT@aol.com
Date: Tue Jul 13, 2004 1:35 pm
Subject: Re: [spokaneprogressives] Nation article about Edwards
Hello, friends in the Spokaneprogressives. I don't think verbal abuse is ever appropriate. On the other hand, I think the
passionate expression of moral outrage is a good and salutary thing. There's a reason to be outraged!
I would like to work out a taxonomy of positions to take in opposition to the Age of Reagan. The classification I have in
mind falls out from a basic distinction regarding framework categories. One set of categories either presupposes or does
not challenge the legitimacy of our well established ways of conducting politics and social analysis. To invoke familiar
language, we can call this disposition "working within the system." Another set of categories does not presuppose the
legitimacy of "the system" or "the establishment" and in fact calls it fundamentally into question. A person who adopts this
disposition, challenging the system (the rule of "the way things are"), pays a price, namely, self-consignment to the
margins of mainstream political discourse. For those of us who have choices, whether to situate oneself on the margins is a
difficult personal choice, and speaking only for myself, living in the U.S., I appreciate the various reasons, ranging from
the social-scientific to the theological, why someone would not voluntarily render herself "irrelevant" to the dynamics of
social change (at least in a local and short-term sense). On the other hand, I do not take a casual attitude towards my own
choice to be "irrelevant." A says, "this is the way the game is played." B says, "I don't want to play that game." B's refusal
comes at a cost.
Either George Bush or John Kerry is going to be the next president of the United States. I imagine that if GWB is
reelected, our domestic circumstances will go from bad to worse. I also imagine that if Kerry is elected, some of the
bleeding will be stanched. On the other hand, I look forward to hearing what Kerry has to say about the Congress's failure
to amend the Patriot Act, aided and abetted by Washington's own Adam Smith (D)!
All of us work within the system to some extent if we have jobs and cash our checks. Some of us may take a celebratory
attitude towards this fact, others of us simply accept it as a more or less non-negotiable fact of life that secures our
voluntary complicity at least to some degree. Any scheme of social cooperation is rule-governed, and within such schemes,
some agents are authorized to make executive decisions. It is hard (but not impossible) to imagine how social life might be
organized in such a way as to legitimate no chain of command. On the other hand, a basic premise of democracy (to quote
John Dewey, as a "way of life," only secondarily denoting the political institutions of representative government) is that
government (whether in the so-called "public sector" or the "private") secures its legitimacy only through the consent of
the governed (I think this is true even in family life, is it not?). If none of us has a gun to our head and all of us more or less
voluntarily comply with the schemes of social cooperation in which we participate, acquiescing in some measure to the
rules and the chain of command, then it also follows logically that we are free to withhold our consent. This is where force
and violence come into play: we have to decide whether we are willing to pay the coercive price that comes from such
withholding. I imagine that most of us are not willing to pay that price. For example, working people confront a "work or
starve" proposition, and capitalists confront a "grow or die" proposition. These belong to the logical requirements of
capitalism; they confront us as system imperatives. I don't know who the capitalists are on this list, but I imagine that all of
us are workers. Social life is organized in such a way that we need income to meet our basic needs and support our
families. Within this constraint, we attempt to work out our vocational lives and realize some measure of the "pursuit of
happiness" with more or less satisfaction. But we play by the rules, and the rules are not of our own devising. We more or
less accept the framework conditions because we more or less have to, for the whole vast array of reasons that each of us
would offer for our own personal circumstances.
Political life to be sure is not the whole of life. Many of us would say it's not even close to being the most important part.
But we're human beings, we inhabit a planet in a solar system in a galaxy, and the basic framework within we express our
inevitable sociality is established by the present political geography of the sphere that gives us life. Since roughly the
sixteenth century, the principle of that geography has been the nation-state (when European monarchies broke the grip of
medieval theocracy, the subordination of civil to eccleasiastical authority). Hence, like it or not, I live in the city of
Spokane, which belongs to Spokane County, which belongs to Washington State, which belongs to the United States of
America, which cohabits the planet more or less uneasily with the other nation-states. In turn, these nation-states
apparently require standing armies, arrayed against one another either offensively or defensively. In some societies, most
of the inhabitants don't have meaningful choices about this fact. But in others such as our own, relatively more of us do
have meaningful choices (and I imagine this includes all of the participants in Spokaneprogressives), and we choose for
whatever reasons to collude in the predatory violence that is a framework condition enabling our way of life.
(Perhaps we regard the ultimate unsustainability of this way of life as no concern of ours. Perhaps not.)
To return to the taxonomy that falls out from the distinction between working for progressive change within the system
and aspiring to social transformation beyond the system, it seems to me that there are four possibilities. My aim in writing
is to de-stabilize the third of them.
1. There are Democrat and John Kerry true believers. These people think that Kerry is a good candidate. They think the
two-party system is a good system. They think social change occurs through active participation in this system. They think
that apart from this system, nothing worthwhile can be accomplished.
2. There is an ambivalent camp. I think the nature of this ambivalent camp can be illustrated by the history of
progressivism in the U.S. People in this camp do not think that this is the best of all possible worlds. They understand that
meaningful social change typically occurs through grassroots social movements expressing the ideal aspirations of
democracy, justice, freedom, and equality. They understand that the leadership of such movements rarely arises from the
corridors of power and privilege. But they also think that the key to progressive change consists in leveraging such
movements to exert pressure on the established system's way of proceeding, so that change occurs lawfully in the last
analysis within the ways and means the system affords. The basic mentality at stake here could be represented by the
meliorism of John Dewey. Although Dewey supported Norman Thomas, he also acquiesced to WWI. I think Dennis
Kucinich belongs here, to the right flank of this view, and that it least in their public rhetoric, the Greens and Ralph Nader
belong to the left flank.
3. If ambivalence is a matter of degrees, a third camp is more ambivalent still. They raise critical questions about the
system itself, and they don't expect it satisfy ideal aspirations of democracy, justice, freedom, and equality. But the great
virtue of this disposition is its recognition of certain hard, cold facts. We can quote them like this: "the fact is that we're not
in a revolutionary situation"; "the fact is that either John Kerry or George Bush will be the next US president"; etc.
Ironically, the optimism or social hope of the second position leads it in practice to be further left of this third, even though
theoretically this third is to the left of the second. There is a certain quality of resignation or pessimism to this third
position. Lesser-evilism is taken to be the standing inevitability. This is the opening gambit of a game whose further moves
consist in making the most out of the facts about which all of us agree, that the reelection of GWB is so horrifying a
prospect that our best efforts should be directed to assuring that it doesn't happen. And so we find Noam Chomsky, the best
empirical (if not theoretical) critic of imperialism, endorsing John Kerry. A sad state of affairs to be sure, but the only
meaningful way to halt the Bush Doctrine in its tracks. I don't mean to argue ad hominem here, but I do think it's
noteworthy that Chomsky's appeal is principally to an academic left that is very good at unmasking, criticizing, and
demystifying, but not very good at providing intellectual leadership for an organized mass social movement, for example,
on the scale of the civil rights movement. One is free to point out, of course, that that no such organized mass social
movement as yet exists in the US.
4. A fourth position, if I may use the term, can be called revolutionary. Its starting point is the intensification of the critical
challenge to the system itself upon which the third position establishes its ground. In the light of the facts, this is a sobering
view to take. The facts of the matter rain down upon it like a cold shower. But once you've crossed this line, you become
noteworthy for a certain stubborn persistence. You believe on historical evidence that the system is broken down and that
its further breakdown is the real inevitability. This is just like gambling. It has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting
something to happen. Rather, it has to do with what assessment of the facts is best. In this sense, it's predictive. Therefore,
humility requires the frank admission that the diagnosis and prognosis might be wrong. It's up to the future and history
itself to decide. But it differs from the third position in perceiving the required mass social movement already to exist in
embryo. The further development of this mass movement will coincide with the further breakdown and untenability of the
system about which the basic claim is that it is beyond repair. This is the basis for a patience and an optimism beyond the
narrow straitjacket of Kerry v. Bush.
Let me appeal again to the portrait of Kerry's likely foreign policy in this month's Atlantic. Oftentimes appeals are made to
"what the American people think," based on polling data and so forth, whereas on further investigation what proves to be
the case is that the data reflects what the ruling class thinks. Let's recall that we live in a so-called democratic society in
which only one in four citizens casts a vote. These voters have certain investments in the established ways of conducting
business. They prop up what's called the conventional wisdom. It belongs to the conventional wisdom that Democrats are
"soft" on what we euphemistically call "defense" and national security. In order to appeal to the voters who will decide the
election, therefore, it is incumbent upon any Democrat candidate to overcome this appearance of being "soft." Any
president, it is said, who will be commander-in-chief, must be willing to use armed force abroad in order to protect what
are euphemistically called "national interests." By this way of thinking, no fundamental question can be raised in public
debate about the underlying logic of the military-industrial complex, Eisenhower's famous warning notwithstanding. For
example, there's no way in hell that Kerry, as the nominee, can afford to sound for a minute like he's really Dennis
Kucinich. You'll recall that this same reasoning is what led Dukakis to ride around in the tank, silly as it was (the only
thing sillier was Bush in that flight suit, since he's a known draft dodger who used all the family connections to avoid
military service in Vietnam, which is of course quite understandableâ  |).
I said I wanted to destabilize the third position I identified above. Their view is that the best move is to choke on Kerry.
But I don't think it's disreputable to refuse to swallow the pork. Like David, I'd like to work out a more systematic reply to
Bart's question. I don't have a crystal ball to tell me what the next four years hold in store. But if a catastrophe does not
happen, will we be having the same conversation in 2008? Haven't we been in version after version of this same
conversation for decades? But no one can be elected to high office in the United States whose credentials have not been
certified by the ruling class, especially in a climate where money buys politics. That is why it's foolish to think Kucinich
ever could have secured the nomination of his Party. A Department of Peace? Tell that to Adam "Patriot Act" Smith, the Democrat!
(What are the statistical odds that your life, limb, or property will be subject to a terrorist attack?) (Astronomically
unlikely, right? But more likely today after the War President than they were in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. However,
notice how Kerry panders to the fear we supposedly share of being subject to a terrorist attack.)
These quadrennial debates are really something, aren't they? Meanwhile, Lisa Brown will continue to give distinguished
service in the State Senate. Linda Stone and the Children's Alliance will continue to advocate as best they can for
children's needs. The rest of us will try to give our best to our families, the workplace, the neighborhood, and the larger
community. We'll go on living our ordinary lives. As I live mine, I accept my fate of consigning myself to the margins and
being irrelevant. I'm Chicken Little, and I'm here to tell you the sky is falling! ("What is to be done?")
Peace!
Tom
From : "Bart Haggin" <
bartmh4118@msn.com >
Date: Mon Jul 5, 2004 3:26 pm
Subject: Re: [spokaneprogressives] Re: Scathing Critique-- 'The Demise of the Green Party'...
I think there is a real need for further discussion. The issue of campaign contributions is fraught with controversy.
Remember that 98 percent of campaign contributions come from one percent of the population. That same elite are SHOCKED to find out that some foreign citizens are contributing to US political campaigns. They are not shocked when our government entities contribute to the campaigns of candidates in nations all over the world to influence election in favor of US policies.
It hasn't been too long ago when complete disclosure of campaign contributions was unheard of. Even yet the mainstream media is loath to report them and you can only find out about them, online. Somehow it just isn't news to report who is funding our elections. Astonishing, I call it.
Tracking campaign contributions, as inadequate as it is now, is still the best way to find out where a candidate stands. "Follow the money". What we need is complete, timely and well publicized disclosure. And public financing. The "green money" program in Arizona is under attack by the wealthy funders. Let's fight 'em.
Regards,
bart