Unitarian Universalists for Kerry

McCain speaks out against Bush camp's anti-Kerry ads

2004-08-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

On CBS News, Republican Senator John McCain calls an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service "dishonest and dishonorable" and urges the White House to condemn it.

"I can't believe the president would pull such a cheap stunt," says McCain.

One of the veterans says in the ad "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry," but in fact none of the veterans who appear in the commercial actually served with Kerry. Of the six men who did serve with Kerry, five support his candidacy and one is deceased. McCain also said the ad "was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me," referring to a rumor campaign against McCain sponsored by Bush supporters during the 2000 presidential primaries.

Update, 9/4/04 (yes, I still exist... I moved in July and life got...interesting...)

On
About.com's urban legends site, it says:

Comments: All of the above quotes are authentic, so far as I can tell, but don't be misled by this partisan political screed. Though it is frequently forwarded under the header "John Kerry's Shipmates Speak Out," only one of the men quoted in the message, Steven Gardner, actually served under John Kerry during his stint as a swift boat captain in the Vietnam War.

Gardner's appraisal of Kerry, according to historian Douglas Brinkley, author of a book on the candidate's military career, is distinctly at odds with that of every other surviving member of Kerry's swift boat crews, not to mention Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Chief of U.S. Naval Operations during Kerry's tour of duty, who has stated: "Lt. Kerry's calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire were in keeping with the highest traditions of the US Naval Service."

Thanks to Brian McGroarty for pointing out this inaccuracy!

Boondocks takes on the undecided voter

2004-08-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

A commentary on the psychology of the undecided voter...

My favorite one line review of Kerry's acceptance speech

2004-07-31T01:58:00.000-07:00

From a friend who prefers to remain anonymous:

"Dang! If this guy had been in the primaries, I'd have voted for him!"

*heh*

Seriously, what a good speech! I hope he continues to write his own
material if this is what it produces!

*gryn*

Speak for yourself, John!

2004-07-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

Peggy Noonan, in the WSJ Opinion Journal, muses on the transformative possibilities of John F. Kerry's acceptance speech next Thursday.

Greg Palast speaks hopefully of Kerry/Edwards campaign

2004-07-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

If you're not familiar with Greg Palast's work on the theft of the 2000 election, go study up. And then read this article where my favorite US ex-pat British journalist speaks hopefully of the Kerry/Edwards campaign's future with the black community:

The man who would be President is first trying out the 'D' word in front of the friendly natives at the NAACP. But still, it's a step: mentioning out loud the massive, systematic Disenfranchisement of the Black vote.

But the real change won't come until Kerry can say the 'D' word in front of say, a gathering of the members of his wife's country club, and until he confronts the boys holding the electoral lynching ropes in both parties.

I have a dream. I imagine John Kerry taking this message to the floor of the convention next week, proclaiming, "Three decades after Martin Luther King's murder, one million African-Americans cast ballots never counted. This will not stand!" Imagine it: at that moment, for the first time in a generation, the Democratic Party will have nominated a democrat.

Say "amen" somebody!

Play Contractopoly!

2004-07-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

Play Contractopoly at the Center for American Progress.

Contractopoly is the new interactive game that lets you win billions in sweetheart deals from the Bush Administration as you rebuild Iraq.

Collect information about the top private contractors in Iraq as you advance around the game board. Learn how Halliburton's political connections earned it billions of dollars. Find out the latest about the Administration's attempts to turn sovereignty over to the Iraqi people. Journey with Iraqi-exile Ahmed Chalabi as he flees Jordan to escape prison, passes fake intelligence to the Pentagon, and trades secrets with Iran.

"We put more hours of research and hard work into producing Contractopoly than the Administration did in planning for post-war Iraq," said Robert O. Boorstin, Senior Vice President for National Security. "Then again, that's not saying much."

Here are some of the exciting things that you will be able to experience:

Visit the No-Bid Zone and watch Halliburton receive billions in taxpayer money!

Pass the Oval Office and make a required $2000 donation!

Go to Corporate Ethics School with Professor Henry Waxman!

Land on CPA Pot Luck and try your hand at winning hearts and minds!

Join Northrop Grumman and train the new Iraqi army!

Shell Baghdad and then mount a beautification campaign!

Happy Birthday, Georgie boy!

2004-07-06T03:25:00.000-07:00

With the help of the folks that brought you Republican Survivor, here's a special birthday card just for you. I hope it's your last in the White House!

Independence Day -- via Barbara Ehrenreich in the NYTimes

2004-07-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

"...Today, those who believe that the war on terror requires the
sacrifice of our liberties like to argue that 'the Constitution
is not a suicide pact.' In a sense, however, the Declaration of
Independence was precisely that.

"By signing Jefferson's text, the signers of the declaration were
putting their lives on the line. England was then the world's
greatest military power, against which a bunch of provincial
farmers had little chance of prevailing. Benjamin Franklin wasn't
kidding around with his quip about hanging together or hanging
separately. If the rebel American militias were beaten on the
battlefield, their ringleaders could expect to be hanged as
traitors.

"They signed anyway, thereby stating to the world that there is
something worth more than life, and that is liberty. Thanks to
their courage, we do not have to risk death to preserve the
liberties they bequeathed us. All we have to do is vote."

-- Barbara Ehrenreich, in an op/ed "Their George and Ours"

Kerry on college opportunity

2004-07-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

One of the things that's most excited me, as a single mother scraping by, is John Kerry's plans for service for college. In this program, two years of VISTA-like service would get you free four-year tuition at a state school.

However, the National Review claims that the number of kids prepared for college is slightly less (!) than the number of kids currently being admitted, so this program is moot.

Now, the NR is William F. Buckley's baby, and most of the folks who work there probably are paying full tuition at Yale, since they don't qualify for any need-based aid.

So I suppose they've never talked to the kids I have, in our public schools, who don't DREAM of going into a college prep track, because they KNOW they can't afford to go. Instead they take a light load, and many of them work 20, 30 or 40 or more hours helping their families.

Now for any of you who are saying "Kids aren't allowed to work that many hours," I have to point you to the laws about family businesses and farms, and the stats on black market labor -- it's not just for unregistered aliens anymore... Kids who can, in this economy, are working under the table. They are working long hours for their family's business without any compensation. They are working and reporting LEGAL hours, and working unpaid overtime to keep their jobs.

A lot of these same kids are smart and obviously disciplined workers, but know they can't hope to pay tuition because all their labor is required to help their families, or maybe get them to a position where they can support their own new or upcoming family.

Service for college is the answer to build a modern workforce for the US, and the conservatives need to get off their butts and into the schools in poor and blue-collar neighborhoods and start doing some damn mentorship programs if they want better prep for college from our "hoi polloi."

Bush is no liar...he just can't tell the truth consistently...

2004-07-02T23:53:00.000-07:00

I love this retort of Kristoff's Bush-isn't-quite-a-liar apology in the NYTimes.

American Muslims favor Kerry, 56%, Nader 26%, Bush 2%

2004-07-01T03:09:00.000-07:00

In an article entitled Nader: White House is Israel's puppet in the Jerusalem Post, today, we learn:

Nader spoke Tuesday in Washington at the release of a survey of American Muslim voter opinion, commissioned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The survey of 1,161 voters this month showed that the majority of voters, 56 percent, supported the presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry, and 26% favored Nader, more than five times the percentage Nader has received in nationwide and statewide polls.

Strikingly, only 2% said they would vote for President George W. Bush, even though 55% of those polled said they had cast their vote for him in 2000. Fourteen percent remained undecided. CAIR said it had no estimate of the number of Muslim voters nationwide.

Kerry in his own words: 'Next economy' skills -- math/science/higher ed/lifelong learning

2004-07-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

Read the policies too long to find in the broadcast or print media, from the candidate himself:

John Kerry Unveils His Plan for 'Next Economy' Skills; Math and Science, Higher Education, and Lifelong Learning for All Americans

Quote of the Day: LATimes: Civil (un)rest from outsourcing

2004-06-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

"...Unemployed people get into trouble. They go into politics or crime."

-- Software engineer Rohit Johri, commenting in the LA Times on why US work outsourced to Bangalore is making India a better place (and by extension, fomenting unrest here? ;)

I can testify to the "politics" part from *intimate* experience, m'self...!

Washington Post: Candidate Comparer

2004-06-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

This little flash backgrounder illustrates some of the stances of Bush and Kerry on some of the major issues of the campaign.

Of course, the stances are woefully abbreviated on both sides. I wish they had put more thought into the differences on Iraq and foreign policy, for example. But it's a good snapshot to begin your undecided friends with....

Sandra Day O'Connor: We must preserve our commitment

2004-06-30T00:31:00.000-07:00

Quoted in this opinion piece on the Guantanamo detainee decision from the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor speaks:

It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.

I'd feel better if I believed that we were, in fact, fighting for those principles overseas, but it's still a great sentiment.

NYTimes: Bush at all time low approval. 40% say: "Who's Kerry?"

2004-06-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

The new NYTimes/CBS poll says

President Bush's job approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll found Americans stiffening their opposition to the Iraq war, worried that the invasion could invite domestic terrorist attacks and skeptical about whether the White House has been fully truthful about the war or about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A majority of respondents in the poll, conducted before yesterday's transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government, said that the war was not worth its cost in American lives and that the Bush administration did not have a clear plan to restore order to Iraq.

The survey, which showed Mr. Bush's approval rating at 42 percent, also found that nearly 40 percent of Americans say they do not have an opinion about Senator John Kerry, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, despite what have been both parties' earliest and most expensive television advertising campaigns.

Among those who do have an opinion, Mr. Kerry is disliked more than he is liked. More than 50 percent of respondents said that Mr. Kerry says what he thinks voters want to hear, suggesting that Mr. Bush has had success in portraying his opponent as a flip-flopper.

There's lots more handicapping of the horserace in the article. Registering for the New York Times online is free.

In this age of scientific polling, what this means is that they talked to 1,053 adults, among which only 875 were registered voters.

Kerry house party a success -- in Kabul!

2004-06-26T00:35:00.000-07:00

In a Guardian report of an event I'll wager won't see any US coverage, Kerry is seeing great support from the US expat community:

In a handsome Kabul garden Franklin the Democrat Donkey gamely posed with the aid workers, UN staff and business people who had gathered to explain why they were backing the Massachusetts senator.

The Kabul event is one of many taking place outside the United States.

Iraq and Cambodia are amongst more than 70 countries where expat Democratic party supporters are organising to help Mr Kerry reach the White House.

"It shows there's fantastic support for John Kerry here in Kabul and I'm sure all across Afghanistan," said Karen Hirschfeld, an aid worker from Mr Kerry's home state.

Ms Hirschfeld works for an organisation dependent on US government funds, but she said that this did not present a problem.

"The great thing about America is that we live in a democracy, we are allowed to choose our presidential candidates as we see fit," she said.

"There is evidence there is a large percentage of Americans who want a change in both foreign and domestic policy.

So I feel quite comfortable working within a democracy to foster change."

She said she was not surprised that many Americans in Kabul did not support George Bush.

"I think that people working in the expat community are often very savvy about foreign affairs and I think that a lot of us here understand that the policies of the Bush administration has done nothing but alienate us from the rest of the world and it's time to reconnect."

Sharon Manitta of Democrats Abroad said that there are now committees of the organisation in 28 different countries and committees being formed in a further 43, including Iraq and Cambodia.

Pythonesque take on definition of torture

2004-06-26T00:28:00.000-07:00

Monty Python veteran Terry Jones, in the Guardian, picks up parenting advice from Donald Rumsfeld:

For some time now, I've been trying to find out where my son goes after choir practice. He simply refuses to tell me. He says it's no business of mine where he goes after choir practice and it's a free country.

Now it may be a free country, but if people start going just anywhere they like after choir practice, goodness knows whether we'll have a country left to be free. I mean, he might be going to anarchist meetings or Islamic study groups. How do I know?

The thing is, if people don't say where they're going after choir practice, this country is at risk. So I have been applying a certain amount of pressure on my son to tell me where he's going. To begin with I simply put a bag over his head and chained him to a radiator. But did that persuade him? Does the Pope eat kosher?

My wife had the gall to suggest that I might be going a bit too far. So I put a bag over her head and chained her to the radiator. But I still couldn't persuade my son to tell me where he goes after choir practice.

I tried starving him, serving him only cold meals and shaving his facial hair off, keeping him in stress positions, not turning his light off, playing loud music outside his cell door - all the usual stuff that any concerned parent will do to find out where their child is going after choir practice. But it was all to no avail.

I hesitated to gravitate to harsher interrogation methods because, after all, he is my son. Then Donald Rumsfeld came to my rescue.

I read in the New York Times last week that a memo had been prepared for the defence secretary on March 6 2003. It laid down the strictest guidelines as to what is and what is not torture. Because, let's face it, none of us want to actually torture our children, in case the police get to hear about it.

The March 6 memo, prepared for Mr Rumsfeld explained that what may look like torture is not really torture at all. It states that: if someone "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith".

What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in his anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only "torture" if the causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is something else - such as finding out where his son goes after choir practice - then it is not torture.

Mr Rumsfeld's memo goes on:...

...and so does Jones, with biting wit.

Cheney slips decorum in the Senate

2004-06-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

So Cheney confronts Pat Leahy on his comments on Halliburton, and Leahy retorts that he doesn't enjoy Cheney labelling him as a "bad Catholic" based on his voting record, and Cheney lets loose with the F-word at the junior Senator from Vermont.

"So what?" you say. It's nothing you wouldn't expect from most people when things get heated.

Something I haven't seen in ANY of the news reports on this -- probably because journalists are too damn ignorant to remember it -- is that Cheney as VP is *PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE* and his animosity to a particular member of the Senate is tantamount to harassment.

As WorldIQ observes in their description of the VP's role:

As President of the Senate (Article I, Section 3), the Vice President oversees procedural matters and is given the ability to cast a vote in the event of a tie. There is a strong convention within the U.S. Senate that the Vice President not use his position as President of the Senate to influence the passage of legislation or act in a partisan manner, except in the case of breaking tie votes. In fact, the Vice President is constitutionally prevented from voting except in the case of ties.

This makes Cheney's action the rough equivalent of a CEO cussing out a member of the executive committee in front of his peers.

Nader campaign welcomes far-right aid in gaining Oregon ballot

2004-06-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

The AP reports strange bedfellows in Oregon:

Two conservative groups have been phoning people around Oregon this week, urging them to attend Ralph Nader's convention Saturday in hopes of putting Nader's name on Oregon's presidential ballot.

The groups make no bones about their goal - to draw votes away from Democrat John Kerry and help President Bush win this battleground state in November.

"We disagree with Ralph Nader's politics, but we'd love to see him make the ballot," said Russ Walker of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a group best known for its opposition to tax increases.

The Oregon Family Council also has been working the phones to boost attendance at Nader's event - with the idea that it could help Bush this fall.

"We aren't bashful about doing it," said Mike White, the group's director. "We are a conservative, pro-family organization, and Bush is our guy on virtually every issue."

[snip]

The head of Nader's Oregon campaign, Greg Kafoury, said he's had no contact with the two conservative groups that have been calling people this week. But he said he's not bothered by their actions, either.

NPR: Nader: "Go to my rallies, but vote for Kerry"

2004-06-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure that that is the straightforward message Ralph Nader gave to NPR in this 11+ minute audio interview. But the headline is NPR's so I'll keep it, even though it represents manipulation of Nader's message by NPR... I never heard that quote in his interview.

Nader confirms in the interview that he is a manipulative man. Where he says he "owes it to his volunteers" to run in the swing states where he has support, his supporters are not considering him to be running to "refine" the message of the Democrats, and few of them -- I suspect -- will vote for Kerry.

His attitude is disingenuous. He is trying to please everyone, to show that he is passionate to his base, and to show that he is politically sophisticated to the press. He's not "flip-flopping" -- he has developed a strategy that insists that you accept his inconsistencies as virtues.

I think he is very much self-deluding on this.

He says he needs to run for office to have the same voice in public affairs he had as an activist in years past. Could this be because he doesn't understand modern media? The man still writes on a manual typewriter, and avoids computers entirely.

Nader in 2004 -- unsafe at any speed.

*sigh*

Senate defends us from expletives on the radio

2004-06-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

OK, so this is really getting absurd...

As reported in the Seattle Times, among others:

The Senate voted yesterday to substantially increase fines for broadcast indecency, responding to months of public outrage over racy radio and television broadcasts that culminated with the exposure of one of Janet Jackson's breasts during the CBS telecast of the Super Bowl halftime show in January.

An amendment attached to a Defense Department authorization bill likely to be voted upon today would give the Federal Communications Commission authority to increase the maximum fine for each incident of broadcast indecency from $275,000 to as much as $3 million a day.

The House has passed a similar bill that would set fines at $500,000. Differences between the two bills must be worked out.

Mind you, this is *indecency* (swearing -- the "seven bad words"), not obscenity.

This is on the defense appropriations bill? "Ah yes, Senator, I'd like you to vote for my "Rider of the Purple Rage" Rider. We want to get them Air America types to stop saying that Bush f***ed up." "How patriotic, Senator!"

And here among folks who listen to NPR and Air America, I'm thinking...wow...what a stupid law. I mean, this is a fine that goes to the radio host regardless if it's a person who calls in or what... So suddenly the hosts are going to be putting their radio engineers on triple lattes on those morning shows to keep their finger over that button to bleep callers.

And the left wingers call into Rush and say that they want to discuss how horrible Kerry's hair is, and then let loose with a string of invective as soon as they get on.

I mean, hey, it's per incident right? So that means if three people get through a day, it could be $1.5M out of Rush's pocket.

Not being a great fan of most of Air America either (the ad hominem language is really really wearing and *not* nonviolent), my only hope is that this will cause the complete demise of AM talk radio, from all political stances entirely.

Sorry, Al Franken. Been nice to know you!

Where do these fines go to, anyway? General fund? Inquiring minds want to know...

*sheesh* Who could make this stuff up?

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail

2004-06-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

The Rocky Mountain News quotes Kerry at a Colorado fundraiser earlier this week:

"I know a lot of you are nervous and questioning and sort of wondering what's going to happen these next days in my future," Kerry told a packed Westin ballroom. "So I thought, as a result of my Aspen experience . . . (to) offer you four words to put you at ease: Vice President Hunter Thompson."

Kerry bought three copies of Fear and Loathing and visited Hunter at his home to get them signed while he was in Colorado this week...

Where's my attorney? *gryn*

Smart people vote Kerry

2004-06-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

Well, 48 votes won't carry the election, but when all 45 are Nobel Laureates endorsing Kerry, maybe that will bring a few more votes along with them.

More lies from Nader...

2004-06-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

I am so disgusted. Here's the note I just dropped at Nader's web site:

At the Howard Zinn biopic yesterday, in front of the Cinema 21 Theater on NW 21st in Portland, a young woman handed me a flyer (and a poster with the same info was posted inside) that claimed that "Kerry and Bush both support...pre-emptive war." As a Kerry supporter I was outraged. Kerry has been SLAMMED by the right:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040217-084607-5853r.htm

...for categorically denying the doctrine of pre-emption. How can you spread this stuff with a straight face?

The young woman told me to come to your website for corroboration. Please PUT UP OR SHUT UP. I am about to write to the Oregonian's letters page to propose that people protest your lies at your convention. In the public interest, so to speak.

Nader 2004 -- unsafe at any speed.

I am so disappointed.

Shava Nerad
vote traded for Nader in 2000
sorry I did.

Instant benefit!

2004-06-22T13:42:00.001-07:00

Here in Portland, Oregon, we're having a special benefit to go see Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 movie on Friday, and after the movie we're inviting folks to a salon at a saloon (well, brewpub, but who could resist the wordplay) for everyone to debate and rant on the movie and the events depicted.

The money we raise from this event will allow canvassers -- some of which have have time but no money to duplicate or buy campaign materials -- to cover their neighborhoods on behalf of Democratic candidates, including Kerry! It took us two days of calling around to put this together and it's a real help, especially to our youth canvassers.

You can put something together in your area like this. It's easy! Email me for advice if you like, I'd be happy to do what I can!

Kerry falls behind in swing states, says Zogby

2004-06-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

John Zogby reports that in the last two weeks, with beheadings and the canonization of Ronald Reagan at the top of the news Bush is pulling ahead in key "battleground" states.

Lots of data on Kerry (and most anyone else in office!)

2004-06-22T01:39:00.000-07:00

I was sad when Project Vote Smart moved from Corvallis, Oregon to Montana -- I always sort of thought I'd like to work there...

They have lots of info on Kerry that you might enjoy, from his ratings by various interest groups (Arts 100%, choice 100%, Humane Society 100%, American Shareholders 0%, US Chamber of Commerce 55%, USPIRG 95%,...) to the name of his yellow canary (Sunshine... As in "good morning, sunshine?").

This is a great site which is underpublicized. Plug in your zip+4 to get detailed information on your local office holders!

Enjoy!

Kerry on World Refugee Day -- stop genocide in Sudan

2004-06-21T00:39:00.000-07:00

On NewsWire today, the Kerry campaign posted a transcript of Kerry's statement on World Refugee Day, bringing to me the details of a crisis in Sudan of which I had no real awareness.

Watch the news and see if this makes any press at all. Bet it's not considered "newsworthy."

This year we focus on places refugees call home - be it homes they once left or new homes. Our nation has always drawn its strength of character from the knowledge that America - as Abraham Lincoln spoke of it - is the last best hope of earth. Through our history, millions have found their own hopes fulfilled in America. Today it is fitting that we give careful pause to remember the circumstances they have left, while we recognize that they have enriched our nation as they have come to call it their own.

The responsibility attached to Lincoln's words does not end at our shores. Across the world, refugees need our assistance and our support. They look to America's voice and leadership to champion their plight. And perhaps nowhere is the need for leadership greater than in Sudan today.

Sudan's western Darfur region demands the world's immediate attention and action. Rampages against defenseless civilians by government-sponsored militia have caused the deaths of as many as 30,000 people, and more than one million have been made homeless. The US government estimates that at least 300,000 more are likely to die and, in the worse case, up to one million innocent civilians could perish. Now is not the time to debate whether to call this catastrophe a genocide. Now is the time for swift and strong action.

The United States must lead the UN Security Council to immediately impose tough and effective sanctions on the government of Sudan, unless it moves without delay to act on its stated commitment to disarm militias and allows full, unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance. The Security Council should also provide authorization, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, for an international humanitarian intervention. Advance authorization will signal to the Sudanese government that the international community will not acquiesce in continued dying in Darfur and would help accelerate preparations for intervention, should that prove necessary.

Because of the urgency of the crisis we must also be ready to take additional measures to pressure the Sudanese government: time is not on the side of those displaced by the violence. The coming rains will further limit humanitarian access, and disease could kill hundreds of thousands in crowded camps.

For more information on this growing Sudanese crisis, check Google News on the subject.

George Says...

2004-06-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

This is a riot!

Go to George Says and choose a pose, background, and give George a quote, and you can generate a cartoon -- which if you like you can turn into a $5 fridge magnet.

Here's my modest effort:

Enjoy!

Partisan Politics as a Spiritual Path -- Re-weaving the Web

2004-06-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

[presented as a summer service at the West Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Father's Day, 2004]

When I was younger, a friend of mine taught me to blend the Sufi dance, the Dance of Universal Peace, with the image of the chalice that is the symbol of Unitarian Universalism.

I want every one of you to imagine that you are a lit chalice. Every one of you is a light – that’s what the chalice symbolizes to me, that flame that transforms the world through the actions that flow from the open and clear heart.

I’m going to open up with a song we would sing at LRY camp, if you can follow along with me:

This little liberal light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine (3x)
Let it shine all the time let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel?,”NO!

Nobody’s gonna PHFT it out

This little liberal light of mine…

Now, I know there are probably Democrats, Greens, Independents, maybe even Republicans and Socialists, who-knows, in this congregation. But there’s a strong liberal streak in our congregations that I am speaking to today, even for those of you cultural creatives – like me – who have stances that don’t cubbyhole easily. Bear with me, please.

This is an apt tribute I'll offer on Father's Day, acknowledging my dad, the Reverend Joseph F. Nerad. My father, a UU minister, was deeply involved in the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King. I remember seeing him off, to go march in Selma, like seeing him off to go to war. I don’t think John Reeb was dead yet, but we all knew, even I at 4 years old, how dangerous this work was, if how necessary.

I remember asking my father why, why, why it was that people just didn’t see what was right, that the old ways were wrong, and that they should learn to live together and be good. And my father crouched down to my height, and told me, “You have a gift for knowing what is right, and if you could just speak to every one of these people, one at a time, then they would understand.”

Then he stood up, and sighed, and said, “Meanwhile, I have travelling to do.”

I felt a Truth in what my father said there, although really I don’t think he thought of it as a moment of epiphany or even importance. It’s something that many of us tell our children at tender ages, laying on them an obligation to dash their youth on the rocks of an idealism that we struggle with as adults.

I have struggled with that for forty years now, and I’ve modified my perspectives.

Like some of you, I grew up steeped in this environment of social action that's afforded by the Unitarian Universalist congregations. And like some of you, I have spent a good deal of my life at arm's length, well away from the tangled webs of political circles. To me, there always seemed something clear and virtuous about devotion to a cause. Partisan politics was just ikky.

Civil Rights, Peace, Environmentalism, Civil Liberties, Digital Divide activism, the rights of sexual minorities – these are all causes I’ve been involved in over the years. It is always easy to be crusader for a cause – in your mind, you can always shape what you are fighting for.

Politicians, on the other hand, will always say something that will make you want to curl up in a corner and die of embarrassment.

So most of my forty years of activism I have reserved my energy for issues, not for parties or candidates. I’ve learned a few things – the more you know, the less clean an issue is. Environmentalism comes at the cost of jobs in the short term. Peace, if one is not careful, can come at the cost of turning your back to genocide, or the abuses of dictatorship, or the covert actions of your own government. You must learn the concerns of your opposition to craft good process, good compromise in the public sphere, and what you learn can slow you down – but it has to.

We need to understand all sides. Martin Luther King specifies six principles of nonviolence from his first book, Stride Toward Freedom. Here’s what you need to embrace:

1) Nonviolence is not passive, but requires courage;
2) Nonviolence seeks reconciliation, not defeat of an adversary;
3) Nonviolent action is directed at eliminating evil, not destroying an evil-doer;
4) A willingness to accept suffering for the cause, if necessary, but never to inflict it;
5) A rejection of hatred, animosity or violence of the spirit, as well as refusal to commit physical violence; and
6) Faith that justice will prevail.

From this, The King Center distills six steps for nonviolent social change:

(1.) Information gathering and research to get the facts straight;
(2.) Education of adversaries and the public about the facts of the dispute;
(3.) Personal Commitment to nonviolent attitudes and action;
(4.) Negotiation with adversary in a spirit of goodwill to correct injustice;
(5.) Nonviolent direct action, such as marches, boycotts, mass demonstrations, picketing, sit-ins etc., to help persuade or compel adversary to work toward dispute-resolution;
(6.) Reconciliation of adversaries in a win-win outcome in establishing a sense of community.

This is my beacon in all of my actions in the public sphere. It works pretty well in family arguments, too…

Now you may imagine by now that I grew up in a family that wasn’t averse to bantering issues. I had a conversation with my mother, not so long after 9/11. My mother is in her middle 80’s, and frail, but in 2002 we were still sharing long rants about politics and international affairs. I forget what Ashcroft had done – something to erode democracy further, some act of many.

And my mother burst out, “I think it’s time we brought the F word back into politics.”

Now I was a little shocked. My mother doesn’t use bad language. But she went on:

“I am old enough to remember the rise of fascism in Europe. Everyone thinks of Hitler, but it started first with Mussolini and Franco. And you know, Benito Mussolini was a fat good old boy in the hip pocket of business, and a paragon of banality. And no one reminds me of the man’s character so much as this young Bush.”

Well, I was even more shocked. I mean, “fascism” isn’t a political system, is it? It’s an epithet. It’s that word you throw into a political conversation to stop dialog – in fact I can see a couple people here shut down now, just from my saying it.

But fascism is a system of unholy marriage between corporations and government, popularly supported by a propaganda-controlled citizenry rallied by patriotism rooted in nostalgia for some “lost golden age,” and controlled by fear of the Other.

I am not saying that the people in DC are fascists. I am only saying that the comparison makes me far too uncomfortable. In 2002, it made me think. In 2003, it moved me to action.

Now, I’m fond of third parties, but there is no third party that’s going to turn Bush out this fall. I started out thinking that the Democrats had got to field a candidate that I could support. I love Dennis Kucinich, but I believed then and now – even though I voted for the man in the Oregon primary – that the nation is not ready for Dennis’ message. Politics is about compromise.

But I grew up in Vermont, and in late 2002, I heard that Howard Dean was running. Dean was never governor when I was living in Vermont, but my parents liked him, and there are people who I would trust to raise my son, back home, who believe that the man is a man of great integrity. The first candidate for the presidency with such integrity since Jimmy Carter.

But already the media was painting him with the broad brush of “Rockefeller Republican” – fiscally conservative, socially progressive. You know, I can live with that… It’s a message that isn’t so harsh in the face of deficits, war, pollution, and the loss of rights and liberties.

As a result, I figured I could support him, even though I thought the man would get eaten alive. At least he’d be heard.

Much to my surprise, a couple things happened. First, I found – attracted to Dean – the most beloved, brave, organized, wide awake and enlightened set of liberal activists I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with on any issue or campaign whatsoever. Second, the Dean activist and Dr. Dean managed to change something fundamental in American political activism. We’ve scared the crap out of some folks high up in the Democratic Party. In a good way.

And that’s why I’m here today talking to you.

Dean didn’t make it to the Democratic Convention, but he is making a difference in the respect people give to grassroots organizing, and especially the relationship of new media to the grassroots. He’s woken up the DNC to the power of liberals in an age when 100 $20 contribution can cost less to raise over the net than one $2000 contribution from some fat cat. Less in dollars and less in ethics. Democracy. Who’d a thunk it.

Howard Dean also used the Internet to give his volunteers permission to represent his ideals, and tools to empower us to bring his message out to anyone we could reach, by whatever seemed best locally.

We organizers were given basic ideas and materials and told – go do what you know how to do. We were not given strictures, and sometimes not even given much guidance. But we were given tools. And we developed leadership.

That leadership has now revitalized the Multnomah County Democrats, and we are leaning behind Kerry’s caboose, even though we don’t all love him the way we loved Dean.

But let me tell you about that.

The day I agree with a candidate for public office 100%, it means I’m running for office myself, and just shoot me. As a mom, I won’t tell my son fondly, “Someday you could grow up to be President.” What a curse! To find someone of decent character who’s willing to go through the crap we put candidates through… It’s amazing we get anyone decent at all, ever.

Kerry is, I’m convinced, a decent man. More than that, I’m convinced he’s listening to the grassroots, and he’ll be responsive (certainly more than Bush!) to the will of the people. He has good ideas, even if he doesn’t project well – I’ve seen him in small groups now, a couple times, and he’s really a fine man in person. I think he’s afraid of crowds… And the media does him no favors.

Issues are easy – you can make them what you want, and if the folks running your nonprofit of choice screw up, it’s about them not about the cause. But if a candidate screws up, it’s about the candidate. Why is that? Why don’t we give a candidate slack? Is it a contagious media feeding frenzy that sweeps us up?

Why is it that when we see the right wing yahoos threatening the Sierra Club or public broadcasting, we feel a call to action, but when we see the Democrats moving to the right we throw up our hands? Why don’t we get involved, instead?

All politics is local, people. Properly, in a democracy, the candidate is the delegate of the people, the spokesperson, and we shape his or her message. But we don’t believe that any more. And our lack of belief is self-fulfilling.

Time to take back our democracy.

We know, in social action circles that life in the public sphere is about compromise. We understand, every time we appeal to our allies in government, that they are constrained by compromise built into the system at every level. Yet when a candidate compromises a message so that he or she can get elected and act on our behalf, we distrust it.

One reason is that, the day after the election, we feel powerless. Why is that? Because no one has ever taught us UUs how to work directly on the political system the way we know how to work on nonprofits. Well, I’ve been learning fast, and you can too!

Our UU principles say that we support “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.” This year, I believe that the center of your social action – whether you believe in aiding the homeless, in improving education, in preserving the environment, in peace and positive international relations, in GLBTQI… rights and marriage equity – whatever it is that you believe in, you must work to remove the Bush administration from office.

But Sinkford and the UUA will not say this. Why not? Because they can’t legally. Our denomination and our congregations are restricted under section 501[c][3] of the IRS code to neither speak for nor against any candidate for public office. It’s part of the separation of church and state that is ignored by the Christian Right with apparent impugnity. But we believe as a denomination, as do many of our allies on the religious left (the society of friends, liberal episcopalian and lutherans, many more liberal Jews, and so on) – we believe in that separation of church and state. So you will not hear our professional leadership call for you to work against Bush. Not from Beacon Street, and not from professional clergy.

So what did I learn from the Dean campaign? Do what you can to organize locally.

I learned that I thought it was an issue of personal conscience to avoid politics, but it was just a lazy habit. Worse it’s a habit subtly ingrained in many of us by years of sensational media, and not the result of personal experience.

If it was good enough for Mohandas Gandhi, I just have to believe it’s good enough for me.

I learned that the local Democrats are a bunch of generally disorganized socially minded activists not much different from any fringe nonprofit I’ve been involved with. Most of us, in our UU congregations, do not live in places where the Democratic Party is a bunch of old rich white dudes chomping cigars in a back room, making decisions in closed session – if those places still exist.

I also learned that the Democrats are the folks who place decision makers in office, who I have to appeal to when I need support for whatever social action cause I’m working on. So I can work all my favorite progressive issues at once by making sure the Dems toe the liberal line.

Hard work, but someone has got to do it. The more people of good conscience who get involved, the healthier the process.

Now, some of you probably voted for Nader last election – I vote-traded with a guy in suburban Atlanta myself, so the Greens got one more vote but I (as a registered independent then) could vote for Gore in this swing state. And some of you probably believed at that time, Nader’s message that there is no difference between the two major parties.

But I do not believe that President Gore would have gutted environmental laws, sent us to Iraq, and done the damage to the constitution that this administration did. Corporatism in the Democrats is a symptom of a lack of popular grassroots support. We proved that with the Dean campaign. No PACs, no big corporate donations. Just $20 at a time over the net.

We have a huge store of resources and experience and leadership in our congregations, as do the Friends and many other of our allies who have built up social action savvy over the years. This is the year for us to organize those resources to turn the Bush administration out of office.

It will not come from the pulpit. It must come from us. Working with MoveOn and such is fine, but direct action will come through the local Democratic Party and the Kerry Campaign. I want you to get offline, and get out your walking shoes. Don’t mourn, organize!

This year, it’s vitally important that all our US congregants – here at WHUUF, at First Church downtown, in Eugene, all over Oregon, and all over the US – that we network peer-to-peer within our congregations to organize the religious left, in our own denomination and among our friends and allies in social action circles.

To this end, I’ve started a weblog, Unitarian Universalists for Kerry, that has information on how to revitalize the local county parties, the Kerry campaign, how to organize within a congregation peer to peer, and across the internet, and within your workplace and neighborhoods and schools.

But it can’t be just “anybody but Bush.” Listen, every one of you knows how we keep local politicians held accountable. It’s not just through elections. Yes, it’s through holding them accountable for individual votes and actions.

It’s also through showing them that we are their base. That’s influence.

People of conscience, people of principle, people of good will and good works, need to become the political base of the Democratic Party again. So that we are the guidance that trickles up. So our contributions become more powerful than those of any corporate lobbyist, as they did during the Dean campaign. We are millions, and we know how to walk the walk even if we do talk the talk a bit too much. And we know how to put our money where our mouth is.

Here is our mouth:
We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote

* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

So, this year, help me organize the religious left. I’m one unemployed single mom, short on time and energy. I can’t push things to happen. I can only shine one liberal light on the process – together we can light a fire under this democracy, and burn it clean.

But there’s another song I’d like to revive in this current year, if you would stand as you are able:

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.

We are not alone, we are not alone
We are not alone today.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.

We're on to victory, We're on to victory,
We're on to victory someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We're on to victory someday.

We'll walk hand in hand, we'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We'll walk hand in hand someday.

We are not afraid, we are not afraid,
We are not afraid today;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We are not afraid today.

The truth shall make us free, the truth shall make us free,
The truth shall make us free someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
The truth shall make us free someday.

We shall live in peace, we shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall live in peace someday.

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.

Go forth and do good work. Thank you.

My first blog review!

2004-06-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe this is more a personal review, but there you go... My friend Matt Sweeney, in Maryland, started his new blog with this entry:

The one and only

Land of Mu started with word that the legendary Shava Nerad had entered the blogging sphere.

This site, will now begin with word that she's really gotten ahold of something with her new blog Unitarian Universalists for Kerry. Witty, insightful, a perspective you hadn't considered before, all the classic things that make this woman someone that EVERYONE should listen to.

She has been called The Emma Goldman of the Information Age for a reason.

*blush* Thanks, Matt!

Emma kicks ass. Although, if I'm the EG of the IA, I want to impress upon folks that I'm tempered with a lot of Gandhi/MLK-style nonviolence.

Bill Moyers: This is the fight of our lives...

2004-06-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

The incomparable Bill Moyers, in the keynote at the Inequality Matters Forum at NYU:

There's no question about it: The corporate conservatives and their allies in the political and religious right are achieving a vast transformation of American life that only they understand because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. In creating the greatest economic inequality in the advanced world, they have saddled our nation, our states, and our cities and counties with structural deficits that will last until our children's children are ready for retirement, and they are systematically stripping government of all its functions except rewarding the rich and waging war.

And they are proud of what they have done to our economy and our society. If instead of practicing journalism I was writing for Saturday Night Live, I couldn't have made up the things that this crew have been saying. The president's chief economic adviser says shipping technical and professional jobs overseas is good for the economy. The president's Council of Economic Advisers report that hamburger chefs in fast food restaurants can be considered manufacturing workers. The president's Federal Reserve Chairman says that the tax cuts may force cutbacks in social security - but hey, we should make the tax cuts permanent anyway. The president's Labor Secretary says it doesn't matter if job growth has stalled because "the stock market is the ultimate arbiter."

You just can't make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing.

This is a worthy call to arms -- not munitions, and not hugs, but arms with sleeves rolled up, and ready to work.

Liberals Like Christ

2004-06-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

Whether you are a liberal who should learn why liberals should like christ, or you are a christian who wants to find out how to be liberal like christ, this site is for you:

Liberals Like Christ

My favorite URL double entendre for a while. Subtle and satisfying!

Thanks to Dave Franzen for turning me onto this site!

Photo oops!

2004-06-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

Iraq is so complicated... But what could bring more glee to the liberals who are sweating under the strain of civility this week facing the political canonization of Ronald Reagan (may he RIP), than this photo of Donald Rumsfeld cordially shaking Saddam's hand, in his role as special envoy to Iraq for Reagan's administration.

This page, from GWU's National Security Archive, has plenty of context for the long-standing relationship between the US and Saddam, culminating in recent unpleasant events in Iraq.

I want to put the whole country on ginkgo to improve their memories...

To the National Review

2004-06-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

I read your editorial on Kerry's "Gas Bag" with huge frustration this week.

I'm not a Kerry ideologue, but I do believe he's the best we'll have this year. I feel a great deal of compassion for the man, having heard him in person three times now here in Portland, Oregon. The press simply doesn't cover what he says. They follow their adrenal glands, and cover what appeals to their basest instincts, to their nose for controversy and headline sidebars.

John Kerry wouldn't be obsessing on gas prices if it weren't for the media's insistence to obsess on one theme at a time. As I reported on my blog, Unitarian Universalists for Kerry (http://UUsforKerry.blogspot.com/), on 5/18/2004:

Later in the day, I check the internet for stories filed from the press on the morning meeting, but I am dismayed. From this intimate message of hope, there is only one sound byte that gets picked up. "Kerry will lower gas prices." That was a footnote! It had nearly nothing to do with the well-integrated job and education platform he presented. It was not a showcase for the warmth he showed -- in fact it might have been the geekiest moment in the whole presentation.

This is the filter of the press. This is why I urge you to read his stuff on the website and see him in person if you can.

A week later, he was here headlining gas prices (since that seemed to be the blood the press corps was hungry for this week) -- but his education and job programs were most of his presentation. Maybe he thought that if he headlined any particular idea, the press would glom onto another issue out of spite? But no, even with a great presentation on the difficulties facing public education (including funding bus transportation) and local government, and how we might be able to build jobs in a hard economy, support veterans, and so on -- again, the eight seconds on gas prices seized the headlines.

Kerry's campaign staff has been riding this horse until it drops. So long as the media reports on his "gas bag" issue, and nothing else he says, you'll harp on him for beating the horse to death.

Then, the press corps will find some other inconsequential non-issue to obsess on, and you'll criticize him for that.

But if he doesn't pander to the taste of the press corps, they cover nothing at all that he says, or start looking for gaffes.

Take the beam out of your own eye! We need press corps -- and editors/publishers -- that are willing to devote more than eight seconds to an issue, if you want real issues covered. You should be reading his transcripts, rather than the AP. Break out of the manufactured consent, and criticize your own industry! Now *that* would be news. Let's shame the daily rags for their current reportage, rather than waiting until after the NYTimes facilitates the next war.

If you want to have a service for your readers, why don't you collect the transcripts from all the public addresses made in a week by Bush, and by Kerry, so people can easily find what they are saying, not just these "press worthy" snippets?

I read the New Republic at Common Grounds Coffeehouse in SE Portland, or at the Multnomah County Libraries, as well as tnronline.

I know this is too long for publication, but in this case, I am truly writing a letter to the *editors*, suggesting that you rethink your position, rather than a 500-max-word snippet to your readers.

Thanks for a generally admirable product!

I come to bury Reagan...

2004-06-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

For once I disagree with Greg Palast, in tone at least. No president lives but has done some evil. It comes with the magnitude of the job. Let's see if we can vent our rage toward those who, living, exploit the myth of the Reagan years for their own benefit, and leave the dead in relative peace.

I agree that the canonization process has been distasteful over the past couple of days, yet I disagree with some of my liberal friends, for example, that Reagan had no regard for the poor.

Although I disagree strongly with the Reagan- and neo-conservative viewpoint that helping the poor through federal programs lets local communities off the hook. In Reagan's bio, his father was a local government welfare official, and when welfare was federalized, young Ron saw an inefficient bureaucracy with no ties to local communities or histories.

Now, some of us lauded the federalization of social programs because they removed local prejudices from the eligibility equations, but there is a baby-with-bathwater factor here, also.

Many of my friends are true old-fashioned conservatives. They saw Reagan as the last gasp of old-style conservative paradigms in DC, holding the breach against FDR-JFK-LBJ-... social experimentation that played theory against reality without a view to unintended consequences.

It's unwise for liberals to turn a blind eye to these factors. In doing so we look like damn ignorant fools, and we don't build any bridges.

For example, almost a third of the households with children in Oregon (including my own) are single parent households today, a proportion unthinkable before no-fault divorce was wedged into law. Do we want to go back to the bad old days of even more women trapped in abusive situations because of horrid divorce laws? But could there have been a third way? Who could say.

It is questions like these that conservatives and liberals don't seem to be able to address on an open and candid rational basis.

Reagan appealed to a majority of conservative voters who -- whether realistically or not -- saw him as a crusader for their values. Regardless of the corruption of his presidency or his staff or his greater administration, I will not smack his reputation upon his death, any more than I would expect my more conservative friends to be wondering if Clinton will be buried in a little blue dress. It's not seemly, civil, or gracious, and we need more of that in the world.

We do not build bridges by attacking the dead. Let's wait a seemly time, and history will sort it all out.

Likewise, I am disturbed at the ploy to canonize Reagan at this point because I see it as a graceless ploy by the neo-cons to glorify the connection (however tenuous) between the best and/or mythical aspects of the Reagan era with the Shrub. This sort of smarmy sentimentality is horrible.

Reagan was an ambitious man. "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."

You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

...well, maybe not. I had no special love for Reagan, but I see no need to tear him down. Rather, devote your efforts perhaps to expose the smarminess of the Bush administration as they capitalize on his death. Bush is not half the man of character as was Reagan, whether or not you honor either of their policies.

I don't want to wait until I'm dead to see my country at rest, in peace. Let us honor the dead in proportion, and castigate the living -- to the end that we improve our country. Let us build dialogue and respect.

How many Bush administration to change a lightbulb?

2004-06-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

From the vast Internet:

How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to
replace a lightbulb?

The Answer is SEVEN:

1. One to deny that a lightbulb needs to be replaced

2. One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone
who has questions about the lightbulb,

3. One to blame the previous administration for the need
of a new lightbulb,

4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to
have a secret stockpile of lightbulbs,

5. One to get together with Vice President Cheney and
figure out how to pay Halliburton Industries one million
dollars for a lightbulb,

6. One to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush
changing the lightbulb while dressed in a flight suit and
wrapped in an American flag,

and finally,

7. One to explain to Bush the difference
between screwing a lightbulb and screwing the country.

This day in history

2004-06-04T01:19:00.000-07:00

Ordinarily, I simply love Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac which airs on KOPB-FM at 10am on weekdays.

However, today, I was really struck by the list of historic anniversaries, in what is usually a list of "this day in literature" rather than "this day in history."

From today's entry:

It was on this day in 1989 that the Chinese government cracked down on students conducting pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square...

It was on this day in 1940 that British forces began the evacuation from Dunkirk...

It was on this day in 1942 that the Battle of Midway took place over the Pacific Ocean...

It was one this day in 1919 that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed by the United States Congress...

Check the link for a full rendition of these significant events (and a poem by e.e.cummings).

Let freedom ring!

Do I feel a draft?

2004-06-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

When Ashcroft and company scare the bejesus out of the American people over Labor Day without raising the chromatography of the threat level, I look for things that the news folks are missing.

I found it in the Guardian, of course, with an article on how extensive plans have become for reinstating the draft shortly after the election.

Of bills S89 and HR163, one admits to conscientious objectors and one does not. Neither admits higher ed deferrments. Both close the NAFTA borders to draft dodgers.

There is pending legislation in the American House of Representatives and Senate in the form of twin bills - S89 and HR163. These measures (currently approved and sitting in the committee for armed services) project legislation for spring 2005, with the draft to become operational as early as June 15.

There already exists a Selective Service System (SSS). All young Americans are obliged to "register for the draft". It has been a mere formality since conscription was abolished three decades ago, after Vietnam, together with the loathed (and much burned) draft card. SSS will be reactivated imminently. A $28m implementation fund has been added to the SSS budget. The Pentagon is discreetly recruiting for 10,350 draft board officers and 11,070 appeals board members nationwide.

Draft-dodging will be harder than in the 1960s. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a "smart border declaration", which, among other things, will prevent conscientious objectors (and cowards) from finding sanctuary across the northern border. There will be no deferment on higher-education grounds. Mexico does not appeal.

All this has been pushed ahead with an amazing lack of publicity. One can guess why. American newspapers are in a state of meltdown, distracted by war-reporting scandals at USA Today and the New York Times. There is an awareness in the press at large that the "embedding" system was just that - getting into bed with the military and reporting their pillow talk as "news from the frontline". The fourth estate has failed the American public and continues not to do its job.

The American public just wants the war to go away. One thing that would get their attention (but not their votes) would be their children being sent off to die in foreign lands. Best not disturb the electorate until after November, seems to be the thinking. There are, after all, more important things than wars: getting your man into the White House, for example. Kerry has clearly calculated that, as president, he too may have to bring in the draft. So his lips are also sealed.

I will be looking for a reaction from the Kerry campaign in the next short while. This is a shot over the bow! I would still vote for Kerry over Bush, but I would encourage him to enstate incentives to the volunteer forces rather than a draft.

another media ramble

2004-06-02T02:31:00.000-07:00

In the previous post I excerpted some of Kerry's remarks. If you read the whole speech it's well developed, a little grim (appropriately to the topic) but full of resolve in the way that military men can plan for peace (no really! You must understand war to plan for peace, just as you must understand disease to cure it!).

But the NY Times (requires registration) just can't report on the issues to save their life. This speech gets turned into a comparison of media campaigns.

It's so discouraging.

But wait! There's more...

Times reporter Adam Nagourney caught the eye of blogger Swopa, and his search of Kerry headlines with Nagourney's byline produced this little gem of a profile of a green-baiter journalist.

Green baiter? I'll say. Kerry's campaign colors are white and green -- appropriate for a man who consistently aces the League of Conservation Voters ratings, and got LCV's early endorsement in January!

“John Kerry is a man whose unparalleled record on environmental issues has earned him an extraordinary lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, and he is clearly the strongest environmentalist in the field,” said Deb Callahan, president of LCV. “John Kerry understands that the American people need a president who will never roll over to corporate contributors at the expense of the health and safety of the public."

But LCV is taking heat from some Republicans who say that Terry Heinz might have influenced the endorsement through her donations to LCV.

This demonstrates again the cozy relationship between these groups and Democratic candidates, and why the process needs to be transparent,” said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “After years of these groups trying to pass themselves off as nonpartisan, third-party organizations, it’s now become clear that they’re essentially working for the Democratic Party, and in this case John Kerry.

I guess it doesn't occur to this woman how transparent it is that the Republicans have been finding it expeditious to let corporations run rampant over environmental laws, and that the LCV favors Democrats because Democrats favor environmentalism.

Duh.

From the horse's mouth

2004-06-02T02:22:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the Kerry folks are seeing the same thing I am -- that his words aren't making it into the press. So he's now apparently releasing his prepared speeches via the Newswire service.

Here's some highlights:

Last week, I proposed a new national security policy guided by four imperatives: First, we must lead strong alliances for the post 9-11 world. Second, we must modernize the world's most powerful military to meet new threats. Third, in addition to our military might, we must deploy all that is in America's arsenal - - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas. Fourth, to secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Middle East oil.

[snip]

I think of other great challenges this nation has set for itself. In 1960, President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon. Our imagination and sense of discovery took us there. In 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly brought the world to nuclear disaster President Kennedy called for a nuclear test ban treaty. At the height of the Cold War, he challenged America and the Soviet Union to pursue a strategy "not toward ... annihilation, but toward a strategy of peace." We answered that challenge. And in time, a hotline between Moscow and Washington was established. The nuclear tests stopped. The air cleared and hope emerged on the horizon.

When America sees a great problem or great potential, it is in our collective character to set our sights on that horizon and not stop working until we reach it. In our mission to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, we should never feel helpless. We should feel empowered that the successes in our past will guide us toward a safer, more secure world.

Vulnerable nuclear material anywhere is a threat to everyone, everywhere.

We need to employ a layered strategy to keep the worst weapons from falling into the worst hands. A strategy that invokes our non-military strength early enough and effectively enough so military force doesn't become our only option. America must lead and build an international consensus for early preventive action.

Here's what we must do. The first step is to safeguard all bomb making material worldwide. That means making sure we know where they are, and then locking them up and securing them wherever they are. Our approach should treat all nuclear materials needed for bombs as if they were bombs.

[snip]

The second step is to prevent the creation of new materials that are being produced for nuclear weapons. America must lead an international coalition to halt, and then verifiably ban, all production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for use in nuclear weapons -- permanently capping the world's nuclear weapons stockpiles.

Despite strong international support for such a ban, this Administration is stalling, and endlessly reviewing the need for such a policy.

In addition, we must strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to close the loophole that lets countries develop nuclear weapons capabilities under the guise of a peaceful, civilian nuclear power program.

The third step is to reduce excess stocks of materials and weapons. If America is asking the world to join our country in a shared mission to reduce this nuclear threat, then why would the world listen to us if our own words do not match our deeds?

As President, I will stop this Administration's program to develop a whole new generation of bunker-busting nuclear bombs. This is a weapon we don't need. And it undermines our credibility in persuading other nations. What kind of message does it send when we're asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons, but developing new ones ourselves?

We must work with the Russians to accelerate the "blending down" of highly enriched uranium and the disposition of Russian plutonium stocks so they can never be used in a nuclear weapon.

We don't need a world with more usable nuclear weapons. We need a world where terrorists can't ever use one. That should be our focus in the post 9/11 world.

Our fourth step is to end the nuclear weapons programs in states like North Korea and Iran.

This Administration has been fixated on Iraq while the nuclear dangers from North Korea have multiplied. We know that North Korea has sold ballistic missiles and technology in the past. And according to recent reports, North Korean uranium ended up in Libyan hands. The North Koreans have made it clear to the world - and to the terrorists - that they are open for business and will sell to the highest bidder.

[snip]

Next, we must work with every country to tighten export controls, stiffen penalties, and beef up law enforcement and intelligence sharing, to make absolutely sure that a disaster like the AQ Khan black market network, which grew out of Pakistan's nuclear program, can never happen again. We must also take steps to reduce tension between India and Pakistan and guard against the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands there.

So let it be clear: finally and fundamentally, preventing nuclear terrorism is our most urgent priority to provide for America's long term security. That is why I will appoint a National Coordinator for Nuclear Terrorism and Counterproliferation who will work with me in the White House to marshal every effort and every ally, to combat an incalculable danger.

We have to do everything we can to stop a nuclear weapon from ever reaching our shore-and that mission begins far away. We have to secure nuclear weapons and materials at the source so that searching the containers here at the Port of Palm Beach isn't our only line of defense-it is our last line of defense.

This is not an easy topic: it can be frightening. At this hour, stockpiles go unguarded, bomb making materials sit in forgotten facilities, and terrorists plot away. They sit in unassuming rooms all across the globe. They have their technology. They have their scientists. All they need is that material. But we can stop them. Remember. No material. No bomb. No nuclear terrorism.

We are living through days of great and unprecedented risks. But Americans have never surrendered to fear. Today, we must not avert our eyes, or pretend it's not there-or think that we can simply wait it out. That is not our history-or our hope.

Last Saturday, I attended the dedication of the World War II memorial. I had the honor to sit next to a brave man, Joe Lesniewski who was one of the original "Band of Brothers" from the 'Easy Company" of the 101st Airborne Division. He's part of the Greatest Generation and jumped into enemy territory during the invasion of Normandy. Like so many other young men that day, he looked fear in the face and conquered it. June 6th-this coming Saturday-marks the anniversary of that day which saved the free world.

Sixty years ago, more than 43,000 young men were ready to storm Omaha Beach. Their landing crafts were heading for an open beach, where they averted a wall of concrete and bullets. They knew there was an overwhelming chance that they might die before their boots hit the sand.

But they jumped into the shallow waters and fought their way ashore. Because at the end of the beach, beyond the cliff was the hope of a safer world. That is what Americans do. We face a challenge-no matter how ominous-because we know that on the other side of hardship resides hope.

As president, I will not wait or waver in the face of the new threats of this new era. I will build and lead strong alliances. I will deploy every tool at our disposal. I know it will not be easy, but the greatest victories for peace and freedom never are. There are no cake-walks in the contest with terrorists and lawless states.

We have to climb this cliff together so that we, too, can reach the other side of hardship and live in a world that no longer fears the unknowable enemy and the looming mushroom cloud on the horizon.

We must lead this effort not just for our own safety, but for the good of the world. As President Truman said, "Our goal is collective security...If we can work in a spirit of understanding and mutual respect, we can fulfill this solemn obligation that rests upon us."

Just as he led America to face the threat of communism, so too, we must now face the twin threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. This is a great challenge for our generation-and the stakes are as high as they were on D-Day and in President Truman's time. For the sake of all the generations to come, we will meet this test and we will succeed.

Gone fishin'

2004-05-28T23:43:00.000-07:00

The blog will be back Tuesday-ish, since in true UU style, I am running off to WHUUF's annual Camp MacGruder retreat. Since my personal budget is tight this year, I offered to cook for all 75 of us (or at least be meal planner, head shopper, and kitchen wrangler) in exchange for the scholarship Joseph and I would have gotten anyway. Besides, what better way to get to know a new congregation (I moved to SW Portland on 3/15) than to coordinate the kitchen at a weekend event?

Here's a sneak peak at some posts in draft that you might see emerge next week:

Weapons of Media Destruction
-- in which Slate and Shava take apart Judith Miller's NYTimes pre-war WMD reporting. Does the M stand for Moriarty?

Please reform welfare reform!
If your man dies, you get social security survivor's benefits for you and your kids. But if he ditches you, you are thrown into a living hell, and told to stick your kids into substandard childcare when their abandonment issues are raw and bleeding, and take the first job that you can get regardless of how it tears up your family logistics. Family values? So, as a modest proposal, maybe more of the bums should just show up in the East River... Yeah, that's the ticket... Yeah...

Shava's tips for phone banking
Think you can't get on a phone and ask a stranger for money? Be a telemarketer for progressive social change! I'll show you how to rationalize even deciding to try it, and give you some tips on how to kick ass and make friends shilling for political contributions.

For the elaborations of these and other vital issues of the day ("What about Naomi?") tune in next week for more UUs for Kerry!

Singing a song...side by side...

2004-05-28T23:37:00.000-07:00

So, the big question is, who will be John Kerry's running mate? For me, of course, one of the saddest bits is that Howard Dean will never even see a place on the ticket. Who is going to accept a ticket with two white liberal elite yankee guys?

McCain is right out, despite rumors. He's said "NO WAY" with enough vehemence, I thoroughly believe him.

Hillary Clinton? About 20% of the country loves her, about 20% think she'd gag a maggot. Too much potential swing in the middle, there, I think. Plus, female veeps don't have a good history.

If you can't tell the players without a scorecard, this article in Slate might be just the cheat-sheet for you.

We'll have to wait until my birthday (July 29th, the last day of the Democratic Convention in Boston) to find out who's the other half for this buddy movie.

Say it ain't so, Ralph!

2004-05-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

I grew up revering Ralph Nader, Nader's Raiders, the PIRG organizers. Last election I vote traded with a guy in Georgia so I could vote for Gore here, and still know the Greens were getting one more chad.

But this article in the Village Voice is really chilling.

I want to hear from Nader that this man has been fired, because I want to know that this is not Nader's base agenda:

Later I was introduced to Nader's closest adviser, his handsome, piercingly intelligent 30-year-old nephew, Tarek Milleron. Although Milleron argued that environmentalists and other activists would find fundraising easier under Bush, he acknowledged that a Bush presidency would be worse for poor and working-class people, for blacks, for most Americans. As Moore had, he claimed that Nader's campaign would encourage Web-based vote-swapping between progressives in safe and contested states. But when I suggested that Nader could gain substantial influence in a Democratic administration by focusing his campaign on the 40 safe states and encouraging his supporters elsewhere to vote Gore, Milleron leaned coolly toward me with extra steel in his voice and body. He did not disagree. He simply said, "We're not going to do that."

"Why not?" I said.

With just a flicker of smile, he answered, "Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them."

There was a long silence and the conversation was over.

Oh, Ralph... Oh, geez...

My bumper sticker for Ralph Nader this year:

Ralph Nader
...unsafe at any speed...

Ballot box gallows humor?

2004-05-27T00:28:00.000-07:00

So, it could be that you don't know about all the controversy about Diebold's (and others) voting machines. Perhaps you didn't hear that the CEO of Diebold -- a prominent Republican -- pledged to personally deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush. Through ardent activism. Of course.

But this guy has put together an AdBusters-like set of Diebold parody ads that has had me laughing until I'm about to bust something. A must see, but slow loading:

The Diebold Variations

My query letter to The Nation

2004-05-27T00:05:00.000-07:00

So, I've been having fun with this blog, writing every day -- and you don't see what else I write, in terms of email, journal articles, newsletter bits, whatever. I write fast, and I write all the time.

All my life I've wanted to be a writer, but when I was younger, I was always afraid of rejection. Writing was my art, it wasn't just what I do. Well, today, at 44, writing is more what I am than what I do. And I've got a decade or so of experience with major donor fundraising and consultative sales, membership organizations, and similar headaches.

If you remove the fear of rejection, it's just a marketing problem.

So here is the query I submitted to The Nation today:

Robert Putnam’s recent book, Better Together, praises Portland Oregon as the American paragon of civic engagement. Howard Dean came here to make his first whistlestop with John Kerry, meeting with two dozen of his key volunteers to ask how to bring the Deaners into the Kerry fold. We were, as usual, ahead of him.

From the unemployed executive who prepares organic picnics from the farmer’s market for visiting pols, to an aspiring National Nurse, to the team of peaceable insurgents who are revitalizing Portland’s Democratic Party – the Deaners of Portland are geared up for the road to Boston and the White House.

As a key volunteer with the Portland Dean campaign, I’ve seen my city come alive with Democratic activism from elderly south Asian widows to eleven year old boys. Portland is making political organizing history by mobilizing every every class, ethnicity, profession, age, gender and sexual orientation.

Hundreds of twenty-somethings attended a political gala to hear rock stars and see high electeds model fashions on a runway. “Shoeleather brigades” and the Bus Project deploy SWAT teams of canvassers. We’re signing hundreds of new precinct workers – and making precinct work cool with our Feet on the Street program.

“Little Beirut” has grown up – we plan to be a model for the country, leading the rest of the states in grassroots savvy in this online/offline campaign. We’ll teach every progressive in the country how to take back the country – and the DNC – over the next four years.

I also submitted half a dozen other articles on varying subjects to half a dozen other magazines. I'll tell you if anything comes of it.

John Zogby: "Score the first round for Kerry"

2004-05-26T23:32:00.000-07:00

Even before John Zogby published this, he's been my favorite political pollster ever since I started paying attention to his website after 9/11.

From his email today, to his many fans (and clients!):

If the election for president of the
United States were held today, Democratic
challenger John Kerry would win easily,
approaching the sort of lopsided electoral
college victories reminiscent of the
Clinton 90s and the Reagan 80s.

14 page report now available click the link below to learn more!
http://www.zogby.com/features/features.dbm?ID=212

The Zogby Interactive poll measured 16 states
individually that make up the battleground for
the White House this year. In those states, 177
electoral votes are up for grabs in the November
election. That this is the battleground couldn’t
be more clear: if Mr. Bush were to win the same
states in that group that he won four years ago,
he would reap 89 electoral votes, while Democrat
John Kerry would win 88.

Pollster John Zogby: “ In virtually every state polled,
the polarities of support are remarkable. Kerry scores
nearly or above 90% support among Democrats, while Bush
claims the same percentages among Republicans. Kerry also
draws about nine in ten voters who say that the country is
heading in the wrong direction, while Bush claims the same
support among those who feel the country is headed in the
right direction. Both candidates are gaining the same
advantages among -liberals (Kerry) and -conservatives (Bush).

Score the first round for Kerry."

Dear Senator Kerry, good to see you today!

2004-05-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

I was the woman in the second row, Senator, who asked you the question, "What can you do for the 26% of our kids in Multnomah County who live in single parent households? What can you do for these families?"

It was good to hear you say that you want to fund afterschool, daycare options, and intervention programs -- on behalf of all working families. I also wonder, myself, if it isn't time for us to institute full-day school for most grades.

The days when parents could pick up their children at 3pm and go home and do chores or crafts or help them do homework before dinner are gone, on the whole. Most of us work (although at the moment, I'm out of work -- and possibly the best thing about this is the extra time with my son!) until dinnertime. Other parents work odd hours, and need better and cheaper daycare options.

In our state, it's a felony to leave a child under 10 years old unsupervised, and yet there are children of all school ages who are left as latchkey kids because of the economic realities of this world. It's that much harder for single parent families where there is only one income from which to skim childcare/afterschool payments.

But I'd like to bring up a deeper issue here. We talk about non-traditional families when we speak of single parent households -- yet today, over 50% of the children born will live in a single parent household before they are out of K12. We have a new tradition, and a new norm. Single parent households are a silent faction in civic life, especially low income single parents. You will rarely see these families represented at the PTA, on the school board, testifying before city council, active in nonprofits and civic affairs. What do we do with our children while we go to a meeting that runs past bedtime? How can we maintain the energy to put back into our community when we are trying to earn an income and be fair to our children?

On behalf of the 26% of the children in Multnomah County who live with single parents, I'd appeal to you to consider in your policies some ways to suggest to the states that the open meeting laws include childcare options (with notice, and perhaps even at a nominal cost). That meeting planners be obligated to record the proxies somehow of all the people who can't make the meeting due to childcare restrictions, timing, or the location of a meeting far away from public transportation access. All these circumstances are as exclusionary as lack of disability access to public buildings -- but they exclude over one in five parents.

When I was growing up, our idea of how to live was just different. In my own family, my mother never worked full time. My father raised three children and supported a wife on a rural minister's salary. We lived modestly, but we owned a thirteen room house with a big yard, and we had a new car every seven years or somesuch. I didn't know my family was "working poor" -- we were well educated people accepted in middle class professional circles.

But I remember the thrill when I was sixteen and had enough money (I think it was $8) from babysitting to buy the first item of new clothing I'd ever bought from a store that wasn't underwear.

This was a world where my mother was a full time mom and a key volunteer in so many church and other projects. She and many other ladies in our little town of Montpelier, VT were always doing something to make our community better. Children were considered a fact of life at these affairs, not an embarrassment and a burden -- because so much of the glue that held our community together consisted of stay-at-home moms doing good work for no pay.

Women's lives held our community together in a way that doesn't happen anymore. Folks like Robert Putnam have commented on this. If you want to see a stronger America, find a way to bring working parents back into civic life.

Sometimes I feel like the media has stolen the dignity of single parent families and the working poor. But there is much that policy can do to reinvolve us, and make us feel like full participants again -- and by extention, help us raise our children as good citizens and good participants in their own communities.

Please think about these things, programmatically, in your policy, and in the compassion you must maintain in the face of the huge pressures of your office. Remember the people like me and my son who are sacrificing time we can ill afford to help you gain high office. We are participating despite the odds against us because we know this election will transform our country, and we feeled called to duty as much as any candidate for office, to make things change.

Chuck Currie: Giving a rat's ass

2004-05-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

Chuck Currie is frustrated. And rightly so. One of his unchurched liberal friends thinks that any political or social opinion that originates with a church is subject to rude dismissal.

His friend writes:

Sorry, I must have missed something. Why should I give a rat's ass what a bunch of preachers think about when American forces should withdraw from Iraq, any more than I care what Jerry Falwell thinks about sex education or what the Pope thinks about stem cell research?

On Chuck's blog, I observed in the comments:

In most of our churches we have strong social action groups, from the Catholic Charities to the Friends Service Committee. These groups have always acted, often very modestly and quietly, to improve the lives of people around the globe. They may have very strongly worded internal political and social messages, particularly on political issues that avoid partisan politics.

However, all these organizations vary in the amount of demonstrated faith they require of the beneficiaries. A Catholic or Salvation Army shelter may require attendence at services. A Unitarian Universalist soup kitchen or Friends medical service corps may not.

Recently, criticism of "faith based initiatives" getting money from the public sector has somehow made all of these charitable acts suspect, and many liberals in particular look on any statement from the religious left, right, or center as equally suspect. Even more than before.

As that rare creature, the highly faith-motivated Unitarian Universalist, I straddle the divide. For many liberals who are not particularly religious, the idea of faith motivation assumes android-like adherence to some church authority's agenda.

To this putative liberal of little faith, if you are speaking as a person of faith on issues in the public sphere, you are either forcing the will of others into conformance with your ugly authoritarian agenda, or you are the dangerous victim of such an agenda.

There's very little understanding that many of us (duh) draw our liberal values, our progressive values, from our faith.

The American liberal is likely to think that the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh or Gandhi were cool, and that MLK is ok because he's dead and they have never really listened to any of his speeches for more than the 10-second slices played on the second Monday in January.

But western Christian religious leadership is something that scares the living crap out of many of us American liberals. Not me, though. I find that Christian political thought runs the entire spectrums of liberal/conservative and authoritarian/anarchist).

Unfortunately I am still stuck with the hard work of evaluating each person on the content of their character, rather than the color of their hymnbook.

It seems to me important that we make it OK to discuss our values as our motivations for action in the public sphere -- issue or partisan politics, education policy, and so on. And if those values are informed by our religious faith, or our spiritual set if you prefer, we should not feel that it is taboo to be open in that because it is as much of who we are as our family culture, our ethnicity, our gender, our sexual orientation, or any of the other aspects that shape our lives.

Yes, in fact, I think we should all be comfortable discussing sex, religion, and politics in the same paragraph. We must. These topics make us uncomfortable because they are both vital and inescapable. And if we don't take responsibility for them, they will control us utterly.

A visit to Multnomah County Elections

2004-05-24T21:14:00.001-07:00

Jim Robison, chair of the Mulnomah Democrats, and I made a field trip today to the Multnomah County Elections office. Situated in a bland institutional building in a mixed use neighborhood in SE Portland, the elections offices seem like one big room upstairs without a lot of cube dividers, filled with busy administrators.

A long counter runs along the length of the building near the public doors, with signs that say things like "No cell phone use in this building" and "No public restrooms" and "Visitors must check in." A cork board is festooned with public notices, county job postings, and important dates.

Overall, the first impression is bland and impersonal bureaucracy. But the people here work with a glint in their eye this time of year. It's ballot certification time.

Last week was the election, and the counts for the more prominent elected offices have long since been announced. But there's an important ballot count still going on in the basement.

After checking in, Jim and I are ushered through a low gate in the formica curtain wall that separates the public from the election workers, navigate through a series of swinging doors, down a wide stair to the ballot dungeon.

Where the upstairs office radiate blandness, the basement -- dim, cavernous, and permeated with the awful smell of hot asphalt from street construction outside -- feels like a 40's sweatshop. Dull concrete floors are dotted with filing carts and document bins.

In one corner, about ten long folding tables are set up, perhaps four or five in use. This is where the dungeon effect falls away. In this brightly lit corner, a dozen or so grey haired women sit in groups, three or four at a table, certifying the marked-up and write-in ballots for Precinct Committee Persons.

Somehow I had expected computer scanners, cube walls, bright expensive offices, brisk young professionals consulting printouts. But this looks more like a meeting of the elder contingent of the League of Women voters, armed with number two pencils and canary tally sheets where they tick off votes next to the printed and written-in names for each precinct, shuffling manila envelopes with sheafs of ballots. I feel like I've come through a very pleasant time warp, far from the shrill controversies over Diebold's voting machines.

One by one, tick mark by tick mark, our volunteers are elected by their neighbors. Here in Portland, the precinct worker is the lowest ranking elected official of the political system. You need three votes to get certified for an uncontested seat. Each precinct might have a maximum of eight or so precinct workers, evenly divided between male and female allocated posts.

We PCPs (yes, I had a problem with the acronym too...) are the infantry of democracy. We walk our neighborhoods registering voters, urging people to vote, informing our neighbors on candidates and ballot measures. In our state, only the Democratic and Republican Parties elect precinct workers on the public ballot -- the Pacific Greens, Socialists, Libertarians, and other parties have their own less formal structures due to their smaller organizations.

In Portland, some precincts are almost inherited seats. Generations of families share the precinct dueties, sometimes multiple generations out of single households. We have some PCPs who are not terribly active, but the Party has been part of their social life their whole adult life. Since most precincts aren't filled to the maximum count, there's no real pressure on these folks. This year, due to the re-entry or new entry of folks as activists in the Democratic Party, we have more PCPs filing for office, on the ballot, than ever. But for all those folks who didn't know to enter by the filing date, we've tried to tell them all -- just write your own name in and get two registered Democrats in your neighborhood to write you in, and you're in the club!

Here in a puddle of light in this dim echoing pit, cheerful women work at each table to certify the PCP votes, and squint to decipher the write-ins. Later in the week, Jim and I will be back when all the ballots are certified to check to make sure folks who informed us that they were trying for write-ins got elected, if possible. Sometimes, knowing that a person is running lets us help to decipher an otherwise barely legible vote.

If the person isn't voted in, they can't vote at our annual organizational meeting on the first of July when we elect officers for the year. But all year, people come to us and are appointed as PCPs for the remainder of the year at our monthly meetings, generally at the Hollywood Senior Center. These monthly gatherums are archaically designated as the "Central Committee Meeting" -- a phrase that evokes, to me, an image of some soviet-era smoke-filled room with six fat old men with a bottle of vodka, but is actually just our general monthly meeting replete with chat and munchies.

Next week, we'll be contacting our new and old PCPs to make sure they get their confirmations into elections before the annual meeting -- but today, we're observing. It's in this featureless basement that the volunteers and the professionals of the machinery of democracy meet, observe process, and smile at each other in the pool of light surrounded by darkness. Everyone here feels like they are helping to make things work better.

to NPR's Day to Day: Use critical thinking, regarding the national conventions, please

2004-05-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

Today at about 1:15pm on WOPB, I was listening to someone on Day to Day speak with a Slate political correspondent. They were talking about John Kerry's notion to defer accepting the nomination.

As a person active in Democratic politics this year, let me assure you that *we* do not think this is a "fake convention" because Kerry is strategically working the system for our best win. In fact, if you are going to talk about "fake conventions" -- then why are the Republicans having a convention at all? Their nominee was never in question. Perhaps you should think beyond the media feeding frenzy on this issue, and use your common sense.

I am so tired of the press -- and NPR folks should know better -- talking about the convention as though the only people who matter are the ones on the dias. Our political conventions are part of a significant national dialogue where activists of all flavors join to hammer out a consensus on platform issues, and discuss the future direction of the parties.

This year, at the Democratic Convention, an unprecendented amount of "new blood" will be calling for accountability, coming out of the Dean and Kucinich campaigns, and including many young people -- and older people -- who never felt the urge for political involvement before this year.

For shame on both of you! *THAT* is the story you should be covering, rather than sounding so professionally jaded and sophisticated as thought the whole thing were just a sham for your cameras and microphones.

All politics is local, and this is every American locale conjoining in one union, finding a voice. That should appeal to you. Cover *that*.

Sincerely,
--
Shava Nerad
shava@efn.org

Emerson essay for this week

2004-05-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

Every week, around Sunday, I'm going to try to include some material from a Unitarian or Universalist thinker to inform our perspective on current affairs.

This week, my selection is from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson's style may sound a bit stilted to the modern ear, but imagine this as an address given as a sermon -- read it aloud, if you would, and you'll hear the rhythms of it.

Much of this essay is couched as a dialog between a Conservative and an Innovator. Although much of the essay is meant as an apology and elucidation of the rationale of the Conservative, toward the end, the Innovator seems to be the hope for the future.
(In some of Emerson's work, he differentiates between conservatives and democrats, those being the two major party factions of his time.)

I'll say for myself that many of my friends are conservatives of the old school -- what I think of as "baby with the bathwater" conservatives who fear that we barrel headlong into change and lose more than we gain.

Liberals, of course, barrel headlong into the future with equal faith in the Progress of Man [sic].

Emerson in many of his essays identifies youth with liberalism and age with conservatism. "The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe and gone to seed."

Or, to quote a bumper sticker I gave my hippie brother when his only girl hit high school: "A conservative is a liberal with a sixteen year old daughter." I don't think it was Emerson who said that, but he might have!

So, with that introduction:

The Conservative

A Lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 9, 1841

The conservative party in the universe concedes that the radical would talk sufficiently to the purpose, if we were still in the garden of Eden; he legislates for man as he ought to be; his theory is right, but he makes no allowance for friction; and this omission makes his whole doctrine false.

The idealist retorts, that the conservative falls into a far more noxious error in the other extreme. The conservative assumes sickness as a necessity, and his social frame is a hospital, his total legislation is for the present distress, a universe in slippers and flannels, with bib and papspoon, swallowing pills and herb-tea. Sickness gets organized as well as health, the vice as well as the virtue. Now that a vicious system of trade has existed so long, it has stereotyped itself in the human generation, and misers are born. And now that sickness has got such a foot-hold, leprosy has grown cunning, has got into the ballot-box; the lepers outvote the clean; society has resolved itself into a Hospital Committee, and all its laws are quarantine.

If any man resist, and set up a foolish hope he has entertained as good against the general despair, society frowns on him, shuts him out of her opportunities, her granaries, her refectories, her water and bread, and will serve him a sexton's turn. Conservatism takes as low a view of every part of human action and passion.

Its religion is just as bad; a lozenge for the sick; a dolorous tune to beguile the distemper; mitigations of pain by pillows and anodynes; always mitigations, never remedies; pardons for sin, funeral honors, — never self-help, renovation, and virtue.

Its social and political action has no better aim; to keep out wind and weather, to bring the day and year about, and make the world last our day; not to sit on the world and steer it; not to sink the memory of the past in the glory of a new and more excellent creation; a timid cobbler and patcher, it degrades whatever it touches.

The cause of education is urged in this country with the utmost earnestness, — on what ground? why on this, that the people have the power, and if they are not instructed to sympathize with the intelligent, reading, trading, and governing class, inspired with a taste for the same competitions and prizes, they will upset the fair pageant of Judicature, and perhaps lay a hand on the sacred muniments of wealth itself, and new distribute the land.

Religion is taught in the same spirit. The contractors who were building a road out of Baltimore, some years ago, found the Irish laborers quarrelsome and refractory, to a degree that embarrassed the agents, and seriously interrupted the progress of the work. The corporation were advised to call off the police, and build a Catholic chapel; which they did; the priest presently restored order, and the work went on prosperously.

Such hints, be sure, are too valuable to be lost. If you do not value the Sabbath, or other religious institutions, give yourself no concern about maintaining them. They have already acquired a market value as conservators of property; and if priest and church-member should fail, the chambers of commerce and the presidents of the Banks, the very innholders and landlords of the county would muster with fury to their support.

Of course, religion in such hands loses its essence. Instead of that reliance, which the soul suggests on the eternity of truth and duty, men are misled into a reliance on institutions, which, the moment they cease to be the instantaneous creations of the devout sentiment, are worthless. Religion among the low becomes low. As it loses its truth, it loses credit with the sagacious. They detect the falsehood of the preaching, but when they say so, all good citizens cry, Hush; do not weaken the state, do not take off the strait jacket from dangerous persons.

Every honest fellow must keep up the hoax the best he can; must patronize providence and piety, and wherever he sees anything that will keep men amused, schools or churches or poetry, or picture-galleries or music, or what not, he must cry "Hist-a-boy," and urge the game on. What a compliment we pay to the good SPIRIT with our superserviceable zeal!

Try this fun word game!

2004-05-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

Take the letters in:

Project for a New American Century

Scramble the letters to create an upcoming headline!

Here's my favorite:

Can jury fete neocon war crime trap?

(OK, so I saw "neocon war crime" in the letters and the rest came with very little effort...I'm a wicked Scrabble player! ;)

Ken Burns speaks truth to power at Yale commencement

2004-05-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

Ken Burns spoke at Kerry and Bush's alma mater today, criticising the war in Iraq and our current rash of leaders (and all our attitudes about black and white, good and evil in politics):

"Steel yourselves. Your generation must repair this damage, and it will not be easy," Burns told the seniors.

Burns quoted famed jurist Learned Hand as saying, "Liberty is never being too sure you're right."

"Somehow recently, though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy," Burns said, to applause from the 1,300 graduates and their families and friends.

He criticized what he called a culture of censorship and intimidation that was intolerant of others, as well as a compliant media and a consumer culture that values the pursuit of money above everything.

"We have begun to reduce the complexities of modern life into the facile judgments of good and evil, and now find ourselves brought up short when we see that we have, too, some times and moments, become what we despise," Burns said.

-- AP, quoted in the Record-Journal (Meriden, CT)

Although Burns is cited as being critical of the war, I think he speaks to a polarization I doubt in myself. Can the neocons really be as crazed as they seem to me somedays? (But then I go back and review PNAC). Sometimes it seems hard to believe.

I wish I could talk to Burns directly about his historian's perspective on the affairs of the day!

Letter to the President of the Republic -- J'accuse!

2004-05-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

Who woulda thunk? This week, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 took the Palme d'Or, the highest honor at the annual Cannes Film Festival.

This is one we might be talking about in the history books, although I wonder if it can hold up as well as Zola's work.

The Cannes jury (headed by Tarentino, and comprised of four Americans and only one Frenchman) defends the award on the merits of the film per se, rather than its message.

Days ago there were doubts if Moore could find someone to distribute the film, as Disney has pulled their distribution and blocked Miramax and was delaying their owners from buying and distributing the film independently. Learn about the controversy surrounding the corporate distribution of the film here.

Some of the international press is murmuring how this documentary could be decisive in the race. However, there's a lot more reporting going on overseas than stateside at this point. Check out all the stories on Google News.

Horserace reporting and sources for news

2004-05-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

It's inevitable that most of the reporting on this race, regardless of quality, is going to be "horserace reporting" -- reporting on the odds of the election and its mechanics, rather than on the issues or the candidates themselves.

Even when I like the results, I have to put in a caveat -- every story you see like this is editorial material. Even if they limit themselves to statistics, the scope of a news story limits the reporter to reporting the statistics and a shred of analysis that reflects their idea of what's important -- i.e. bias.

If you want to think about the election, make sure that you read multiple sources. I like to browse through Google News to see what the world is saying about John Kerry. I also read the Guardian, home of Greg Palast, every night before I go to bed.

International perspectives are increasingly important to this race -- and international news relating to the US (i.e. the Guardian's "world coverage" of US elections, or the Iraq war) can enrichen your perspective. Many of the important reports on US issues from the international press don't make it to US corporate media -- or don't make it intact.

My family were interested in international politics when I was growing up. At the time, the best domestic newspaper was the Christian Science Monitor. Where the monitor is still a good paper on international news, relatively speaking, it doesn't have the budget (or the will, really, since restructuring back in the 90's) to really keep up with the international scene. The International Herald Tribune used to be another trusted source for me, but now they are owned by the New York Times, which, while a decent paper, seems increasingly nervous about risky reporting since editorial scandals smacked them around last year.

But to me, as noted on last Tuesday, one of the saddest things is the press corps that's following Kerry. Since then, I've been combing Google for news of Kerry's whistle stops. Invariably, local media is reporting on his full platform, as presented to their community. National press is picking one hot issue and blasting that. If it can't be made a sidebar on whatever is "top of the fold, front page" as their main news story, it's not worth reporting. So dog the net for local reporting if you want to hear a few tidbits of what the candidate is really doing.

In media, "caveat emptor," let the consumer beware.

Unitarian Universalist church in Texas denied religious status by state

2004-05-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

According to Knight-Ridder new service, the comptroller (tax authorities) of the state of Texas have denied the Unitarian Universalist church tax exempt status.

Questions about the issue were referred to Jesse Ancira, the comptroller's top lawyer, who said Strayhorn has applied a consistent standard - and then stuck to it. For any organization to qualify as a religion, members must have "simply a belief in God, or gods, or a higher power," he said.

"We have got to apply a test, and use some objective standards," Ancira said. "We're not using the test to deny the exemptions for a particular group because we like them or don't like them."

Since Strayhorn took over in January 1999, the comptroller's office has denied religious tax-exempt status to 17 groups and granted them to more than 1,000, according to records obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Although there are exceptions, the lion's share of approvals have gone to groups that appear to have relatively traditional faiths, records show.

But of the denials, at least a fourth include less traditional groups. In addition to the Denison Unitarian church, the rejected groups include a Carrollton, Texas, group of atheists and agnostics, a New Age group in Bastrop, Texas, and the Whispering Star Clan/Temple of Ancient Wisdom, an organization of witches in Copperas Cove, Texas.

Unbelievable. Some days when people use the term "culture war," I feel like they are paranoid, and then something like this happens.

Four more years of tolerance for this kind of nonsense?

2004-05-20T22:56:00.000-07:00

MoveOn PAC is trying to get John Kerry to open up his appeal to the left, rather than chasing the center. You can send a message via MoveOn PAC here. Here's the personal text I included in my message to the Senator:

It was truly a pleasure to see you in action in a small group this past Tuesday at the workforce development center in Portland. It's a pity all the AP could manage to cover was an aside on energy policy. If more people could see you, as I saw you then -- not an officer on parade, but as a man speaking to the people for whom he is working hard -- then more people would *get* what this campaign is about.

As a key Dean volunteer in this state, I stood in awe of Deans ability to include the Rockefeller republicans and the true scrappy lefties under one tent. You can do so if you can relax in front of a crowd. Open your stance, be at ease, and show people how you relate to each one of us, and bring us the message that you are bringing with a full heart, as well as square shoulders.

When MoveOn says, "Go Big! Ask More!" they mean that you should win by extending a left wing to the tent. But I think you can just truly go big and make that tent reach from the true, old-fashioned conservative all the way to the union families and our beloved tree huggers.

Take those strong shoulders and start driving tent stakes, Senator Kerry! We have a big tent to pitch before the end of July.

I hope I see you at the convention in Boston.

Why should we settle for the left or the middle? Let's include everyone. This year of all the past 50+ years, that's truly possible.

Josh Marshall (thehill) says: Step Back Kerry, let Bush Fall

2004-05-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

In today's issue of thehill.com
columnist Josh Marshall (of Talking Points Memo) advises Kerry that he's doing well by giving Bush the spotlight right now:

So what should Kerry be doing? Many Democrats are complaining that he’s AWOL from the campaign, that he’s not making his presence felt at just the time when the case against the president needs to be made.

On the contrary, letting Bush have all the spotlight now probably makes a lot of sense.

Think of this battle as a prizefight, with both men in the ring. If you’re up on points and the seconds are ticking down in the final round, what do you do? Simple: stay out of the other guy’s way.

Kerry gives props to Nader, urges perspective

2004-05-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

The UK's Guardian posted this article on Kerry's conversation with Nader yesterday.

But Mr Kerry asked Mr Nader not to judge him by his predecessors.

"I have fought with you. I have been with you on a range of issues and you should judge me by my record in the Senate," he said

But Kerry did not, bluntly, ask Nader to step down from his candidacy.

My opinion?

Nader for President 2004
Unsafe at any Speed

A more intimate look at the candidate

2004-05-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

At about 11pm, a friend calls: "How do you feel about an early morning?" At something before 8am, Gavin White, Joyce McGreevy and I are being wanded down and sniffed by dogs, and ushered into the small auditorium at the PCC Metro Workplace Training Center at NE 42nd and Killingsworth. The sidewalk is laced with cables from the media trucks, and there are a cordon of perhaps 25 motorcycle police briefing near where I park my car.

People in line for the secret service briefing murmur to each other, their eyes bright. Black women looking natty in dark business suits. Students. Camera men looking, perhaps, a little less jaded than usual. Some folks, in jeans, wondering if they belong here, waiting to see the next president of the United States.

We're ushered into a small round auditorium. People are whispering, chatting, greeting each other, bantering. Behind me, a GAO auditor is asked if he's here to audit the Kerry press corps. To one side, workforce trainers, and the seats in front of us are reserved for the PCC officials. The high stools for the candidate, Dr. Dean, and three more are no more than ten feet from me. Behind that, a riser is filling up with students ranging in age from perhaps early 20's to middle age.

When the room is full, there are perhaps sixty or seventy of us, including a dozen or more camera and sound crew. We spot Tom McMann, head of Democracy for America, come in to brief the room security. The candidate is here.

Kerry and Dean enter to a rising, clapping crowd. I hum "Hail to the Chief" in Joyce's ear and she smiles. This morning, Kerry looks fresh, rested, relaxed, and comfortable -- not at all the stiff figure I remember from yesterday on stage, or from the media. There is a twinkle in his eye, and I find myself anticipating enjoying what he has to say.

Along with Dr. Dean and John Kerry, three retraining unemployed people sit on the stools in front. After introductions, they tell their stories. One is a programmer, competing for a few jobs a week with a huge unemployed tech force. Another woman was laid off from Boeing's plant in the east county right after 9/11 and is still seeking work. One gentleman, who notes that he started in computing when it was considered that only geniuses could be programmers, barely veils his frustration at going from a six figure salary to less than ten an hour.

These are the people John Kerry is here to help. He outlines his plans for keeping jobs on this shore, and repealing the programs that reward companies for sending jobs overseas. He talks about how his health plan will help. How he will fully fund K12 and continuing education. How he has seen, going from state to state, how all these things have put Americans into an environment of insecurity.

At one point he goes off for a few minutes on how the price of gas is killing us, and how, if he were in charge, that would be one of the first places he could make a difference, by working with diplomacy with OPEC, and manipulating our current reserves to control prices.

Then he goes back to jobs, social programs, bringing back an idea of the American dream for youth entering the workplace, education funding.

It's a good talk. It's interactive. He pulls in questions from the crowd, comments from Dean and the three unemployed people. He's joking around and playing the press. It's animated, intimate, and I begin to understand how some people could love this man. His demeanor has that possibly military formal reserve (in fact, his bearing in his torso is so stiff that to my yoga-trained eye, I wonder if there is some old clavicle or rib cage injury, rather than just mannerism) -- but in a group this small, he is dynamic. He's smiling, reaching to people, including us with his stance and his gestures.

This is the John Kerry I was hoping to see. It's marvelous! You can feel the warmth and sincerity from the man. He is at ease.

I realize that perhaps that's it. Before a large crowd, everything about the man is on the parade grounds. He declaims. He is stiff. But here in a circle of instant friends, he is at ease. He is a man among his people, not an officer rallying his troops.

I wonder if my own subconscious has been reacting to that officer's bearing his projects on the media, old hippy that I am. Food for thought.

Toward the end, I am sold, but I have a meeting with a potential client at 10:30am, and I have to run just as Kerry notes that he has to start wrapping up. However, I am well satisfied that, in my little professional marketing heart, this is a product I can promote with integrity.

Later in the day, I check the internet for stories filed from the press on the morning meeting, but I am dismayed. From this intimate message of hope, there is only one sound byte that gets picked up. "Kerry will lower gas prices." That was a footnote! It had nearly nothing to do with the well-integrated job and education platform he presented. It was not a showcase for the warmth he showed -- in fact it might have been the geekiest moment in the whole presentation.

This is the filter of the press. This is why I urge you to read his stuff on the website and see him in person if you can. Talk to the local Democrats or the local campaign office and see if you can come to a smaller event. It will be worth it. This is a man you wouldn't mind seeing in the West Wing.

UUsforKerry@yahoogroups.com

2004-05-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

I've created a new yahoogroup for UUs for Kerry. Go to our page on yahoogroups and sign up. Planning a canvass for your church? List it. Doing a summer service on the importance of democracy? List it! Let's see what's going on.

I'm going to leave this open and unmoderated for now, but PLEASE do not come on the list to flame or spam. If people can't be civil, I'll make it moderated, but I have better use for my time than approving posts and slowing down our conversation...!

Please sign up, and welcome!

A red letter day in Portland

2004-05-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

This morning, I sent email to my son's teacher and said, "Joseph and I are declaring a field trip. We have an opportunity to spend most of the day with Howard Dean, and then go to the Kerry rally." To her credit, Claire said that was fine with her, and would no doubt be educational. We went to a 300-person rally at Portland State, which at 1:30pm was filled with young people, with maybe 20% of us old folks (over 30...?) in attendence.

Dean was, as usual, direct, personable, connecting with the crowd, and otherwise frank about his current support for Kerry, and his urge for folks to support Kerry, and if they weren't working for Kerry to work for local progressives, and if not that, run for office yourself! ;)

Then a bunch of us who were key in the Dean campaign here got to meet with Dean in a more intimate setting, and discussed What Comes Next with our movement. Probably half the people in the room were working on Kerry issues already. Most of us are working on GOTV (Get Out The Vote) projects. (Now you know, when you see GOTV, it's not a cable channel! ;)

Then we went to the Kerry rally. We got in the mid-range section, in front of the press risers, behind the "VIP" section. It was lovely to see such a great crowd there.

There were a few opening acts including a musician from Everclear, Representative Earl Blumenaur (district 3 from Oregon, and a great guy on transportation issues amoung others), Barbara Roberts (former governor, and pepperpot -- I want to be her when I grow up!), and then Howard Dean, who got to say some pretty nice things about Kerry. Then a gentleman from the Oregon coast who was from Kerry's unit in Vietnam (Kerry saved his life and he nominated Kerry for a silver star, though Kerry got a bronze w/V). I didn't get his name, but he was a Republican until January, and now he's rousing up support for JK.

Kerry's address was good. He is a little wooden, even in person. He needs to do yoga, or pilates, I think. A lot of tension, beyond the possible stiffness of an old military guy. As a sometimes yoga therapist, it made me wonder if the guy had some old injuries that he hasn't healed right. And his face is not animated.

However, I found his address reasonably inspiring for content, and sincerely delivered. He covered the usual topics -- his policies on health care, non-interventionist foreign policy, human rights by example. It was not just about "I'm not Bush" but more about healing the damage done, and moving forward.

But my ABSOLUTE favorite bit that he pitched was this: Any kid graduating from high school who puts in two years of public service -- whether working with elder shut-ins, tutoring low-income kids, building playgrounds, whatever -- that kid gets four years of tuition free at a state 4-year college or university.

I want to see that -- it could make such a huge difference. It's like the VISTA GI Bill. Right now so many kids are signing up for military service because it's the only way they feel they can hope to get a degree.

Joseph -- my 11 year old son -- says his highlight of the day was hugging Howard Dean. But Kerry's proposal for free tuition for public service tops my list.

Getting the basic bio for John Kerry

2004-05-16T02:50:00.000-07:00

You can read John's take on it. Or you might enjoy his hometown paper taking him on.

Personally, I like his wife.

Some reasons to vote for John Kerry

2004-05-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

First, consider the alternative. Singular. Ralph Nader has about as much chance of being president as Lyndon LaRouche at this point.

Second, read what the man has to say. He writes better than he talks, which puts him a step above Bush who can only speak when someone's feeding him rhetoric. But the man doesn't seem to come off as well in the media as he does in "print."

Third, he can inspire a 14-year-old to burst into song. Ok, that's silly, but I had to include it...

Fourth, consider that when you elect a president, you elect a good slice of the executive branch, and influence the selection of supreme court and other high justices, "coattail" elections to Congress, and a zillion other things. How many of Clinton's cabinet did you hate? How did you feel about his appointments? Now, think on these names: Cheney. Rumsfeld. Ashcroft. Wolfowitz. How do you feel about those names? Think of the issues you've seen go radically bad in the last four years, like air quality. Consider if Democrats are likely to support amending the constitution in "defense of marriage."

Fifth, because the people you wanted to win the nomination probably are backing Kerry now. Even Dennis Kucinich, who I voted for in the Oregon primary, because I want to send a progressive message to the national party. But Dennis, Howard Dean and I (and many others) agree that the support must go to the nominee, and Kerry will be that nominee.

Sixth, because we need to engage the radical/religious right, which means we need to get off our duffs before they emanatize the echaton (try to bring on the apocalypse in order to hasten the second coming) on our butts. No kidding. Think we need to stay passive in this decorous age?

Seventh, "Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eighth -- I want Kerry to modify his stance on the war and a few other issues. I have a much higher chance of doing that if I'm a key volunteer than if I sit at home and gripe. All politics is local. Let's not trickle up -- let's give them a deluge!

Ninth -- you like ketchup with a kick!

More to come...

Democratic stuff 101

2004-05-16T01:34:00.000-07:00

Depending on where you are in the country, the words will change. If you are in Louisiana, you are organized by parish on a political basis, rather than a county. If you're in Boston you are part of a ward, and if you are in Oregon, you have a precinct. Here, we have a Central Committee, which is the general monthly meeting of anyone who wants to show up. If you're in Durham NC, everyone's invited to the monthly executive committee meeting, but only exec committee members can vote. The structure and divisions of labor will vary from place to place.

You're first assignment is to figure out what's going on in your state and county: here. Call, email, go to a meeting.

You may be lucky and have a great first experience. But you may not.

Remember that in any nonprofit with the kind of reputation as political activism, there are going to be geeks, fussy compulsive people, over-enthusiastic people with no lives, and power mongers.

Your second assignment (if necessary) is to transcend that for the common good. Get past the patriotic gatekeeper, or the apathetic volunteer coordinator, or the person who really thought that Lieberman should have been the nominee, or whoever.

Find the way to get plugged in. Remember that you are saving the environment, working for a more peaceful world, and inserting one more person of good conscience into the political process -- which means (all politics being local) that eventually we will turn this ship of state around and make it a better thing.

Be persistent. Be heroic. Be patient. Be friendly. Find allies. Go as a team with other like minded folks from your social action committee, YRUU group, or whatever.

Be brave. Remember that little flaming chalice and lay it like a seal upon your heart.

The basic business of a county party is to do a few things:

register and get out the vote by canvassing, phone banking, tabling at events, whatever
organize Democrats in the county by training and spreading news and holding meetings and delegating the business of the party
promote the Democratic party through outreach and events such as parades, presence at major civic and social and arts events, block parties, meetups, and whatever else someone is willing to do
endorse and support candidates for public office
develop leadership, and recruit candidates for office
raise money to be able to do all this through contributions and subscriptions, major donor solicitation, and fundraising events

Probably doesn't look too different from any of the other nonprofits you've been involved with. And just as there are a zillion different nonprofit cultures, each county party is a little different too.

Counties are generally organized on a level of precincts or wards. This is to make each area into some manageable chunk. In a rural area, these can be HUGE because they are generally divided up into chunks by population.

If you want to get involved by canvassing, you may want to become a precinct worker, which means you become part of a team (if you're lucky and there are other folks in your 'hood) who goes out and knocks on doors of your neighbors. This is incredibly important work. one study found that nearly fifteen percent more folks voted when personally canvassed. No other political action (phone bank, direct mail, media appeals) can match this.

Does the idea of canvassing make you cringe? Well, if you can...GET OVER IT. Would MLK have cringed and given up? So don't you, either. Respect the worth and dignity of the person who greets you at the door! Most of them will be nice -- some really happy to see you! -- and very few will slam the door in your face.

We spend a lot of time talking about this stuff, and very little time really working on it.

But if you are really shy and just can't do it, find something else to do. Most of us are talented folks. You may have skills at organizing events, legal issues, nonprofit administration, fundraising, or any number of things that you may even have learned at church. The Democrats can use all of them.

Don't take no for an answer. And don't say yes too often and burn yourself out.

Now go get 'em!

Register as a Democrat

2004-05-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

Not registered to vote? Then register. Not registered as a Democrat? Change your party registration. You can work for a campaign as an independent, but you can't get certain information (such as voter lists) from your local party office unless you are a registered Democrat.

Want to find out how?

Find out here>

Why I am no longer an independent

2004-05-15T23:53:00.000-07:00

Most of my adult life I've voted Democrat, but much of that time I've been a registered independent. Heck, when I was in Chapel Hill, I was registered as a Republican so I could vote against Jesse Helms twice.

But this year has been different. First, about a year ago, I got involved in the Dean campaign here in Portland, Oregon. Then I got involved in the Democratic Party of Multnomah County (basically, Portland).

Now, many of you may imagine that a county political party is a closed set -- and in a few places, maybe it is. But most places I've lived, the county Democrats are nearly indistinguishable from any enthusiastic nonprofit, at the grassroots level.

There are no fat white guys chomping cigars in smoke-filled back rooms here. There are a bunch of overworked volunteers wishing that the nation didn't think that there was something inherently ikky about political work.

Of course, most of us think that because there is. Face it, if you want to save the rainforest, it's ALWAYS going to be easier to make that issue black and white. The rainforest will hardly ever talk back. It will not get on TV and show that it's motivations don't match yours, that it's grammar is poor, that it's smearing the cattlemen and the slash and burn farmers, or that it has poor hygiene.

Candidates will always disappoint you. But that's only because you can imagine that issues are clean and neat.

Let me tell you, it's time to GET OVER IT.

Do you want to see another four years of Bush in office? No? Then consider that if you don't want peace and foreign relations and environmental policy and jobs to get totally flushed down the tubes, you need to work for Kerry.