OlsonOnline

Of politics and parties

Blue Oregon's Kari Chisholm remarked awhile back that,  rather than non-partisan elections,  he wanted to see more parties step into the political fray.

Well, it looks like he's going to get an approximation of what he wished for in Oregon's gubernatorial election this November.  With the expected nomination for Governor of former Portland newswoman Mary Starrett by the Constitution Party of Oregon, the field has swelled to at least four party candidates, plus one independent. 

Let's get this "party" started!

The problem is, as I pointed out here, the Constitution Party has very little to do with the Constitution, and a lot to do with the Bible.  So unless voters follow the issues carefully, which they would have to do in a non-partisan election, they could easily be misled by the party label. 

I'm not prescient enough to predict whether many parties --or no parties-- would be an improvement over the stale and stolid two party system that we seem to be stuck with.  But I do know that some sort of truth in labeling provision should accompany the creation of any political party.  The Constitution Party, if it wants to call itself that, should not be a party that actually wants to impose Biblical law on the electorate.

Bu then, how many voters are going to read the platforms of the Green Party (sounds vaguely environmental), the Democratic Party (tax and spend!), or the Republican Party (shrink the government!)?   Independent Ben Westlund, on the other hand, is well, independent, meaning that he's not beholden to either of the two major parties, which may be enough in itself to entice people to vote for him.

A thoughtful voter, however, might just have to pay attention to the issues Westlund raises.  Party-afilliated candidates don't bear that same burden.  The party label speaks for them.

So here's the question?   Wouldn't it be better if all five gubernatorial candidates ran as independents?  That would surely wake the voters up!

Why I am (almost) NOT a Democrat!

Let's begin with Chuck Butcher who raised the issue in the first place with his blog post, "Are You a Democrat?"

Here's part of his response to my anti-gun Second Amendment analysis a couple of weeks ago:

"What it actually comes down to is that you are quite willing to infringe upon guaranteed Rights in search of your version of security, how is it exactly that you differ from GWB and his ilk? Your arguments are identical and your disdain for the citizens of the US is evident."

As a registered Democrat, I don't take kindly to comparisons with "GWB and his ilk", especially over the issue of gun control.  After all, I have called Bush a liar, a draft-dodger, and the worst President in history.  Look it up.  Have you ever heard any so-called "Democratic leader" call Bush a liar and a draft-dodger? 

For that matter, have you heard any of the leading Senate Democratic contenders for the party's Presidential nomination, with the exception of Russ Feingold, denounce the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq?  They're all warmongers, enablers of the neoconservative doctrine of preemptive military action against any country that may pose a threat to American security, however imaginary. 

Hillary Clinton may be the worst and the most opportunistic of the neoliberal centrists, but she isn't alone.  In the latter post, I quote David Sirota who accuses national Democrats of "selling out" rather than "standing up":

"The 2008 Democratic presidential candidates this week are busy genuflecting at Corporate America's altar -- otherwise known as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

And I include this from Joshua Frank:

"It's way past due for progressives to hold the Democrats accountable for their failures. They have turned their backs on labor and the environmental community for decades." 

Ask me what I stand for as a progressive Democrat, and I'll tell you -- "a just, democratic society in which everyone can lead meaningful and rich lives free of fear or basic wants", a society that concerns itself with the well-being of all the people, not just the privileged and fortunate few. 

But don't ask me to rubber-stamp the policies of centrist D's just because they carry the party's imprimatur --(D).    Solidarity only goes so far before principal takes over.

Memorial Day: UPDATE

Russ Dondero echoes much of what I wrote yesterday in his review of last night's PBS American Experience special, "Two Days in October":

"What's personally saddest to me is that if we are to stop the 'loss', or make meaning of 'death', [it] is only possible if we learn the lessons of history: that war as an institution is never heroic, it is wrapped in lies (on both sides) and in virtually all cases it could have been prevented."

In the comments section to his post, Dondero adds:

"I just get tired of the cliched eulogies. War brings out the worst in everyone - it's dog eat dog where all the geo-political platitudes go out the window as combatants on both sides just try to survive by killing 'the other'. War is the failure of politics."

Speaking of "cliched eulogies", yesterday George W. Bush said in the obligatory ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:

"In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war."

Since the end of World War II and the emergence of the United States as a military superpower, this country has been anything but reluctant to wage war.  From 1946 to the present, the federal government has used, or threatened to use, military force on at least 70 different occasions.

It's time to put to rest the false image of America as a "peace loving" country.

War and remembrance

On this Memorial Day, it is fitting to reflect on the horrors of war and its carnage --the dead, the maimed, the murdered, the psychologically shattered.  Ignore the false images of glory and heroism.  War is  a 'blunt instrument' bringing  death and destruction.  One letter writer in today's Oregonian said this about war:

"Although there may be honor in death, there is never honor in war.  It is a brutal, final indignity that diminishes us all."

Our 'fallen heroes' in Iraq for the most part have died ignominious, not heroic, deaths, all the more so because they should not have been sent there.  So on this Memorial Day, close your ears to those who sent them.  And remember:

• The cold-blooded murder by U.S. Marines of 24 Iraqi civilians.
• The nearly 2500 killed U.S. soldiers, the 18,000 wounded, the countless  Iraqi casualties, and the unknown number of soldiers who will return home physically sound, but mentally and emotionally destroyed.
• The endless sectarian violence  engulfing Iraq.

On this Memorial Day, reflect on a veteran's refusal to march in Memorial Day parades:

"We have lost thousands, have many thousands more who have been maimed for life and an untold number who will suffer the psychological effects of this war for a lifetime. Our current leadership has also caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and destroyed the reputation and good faith we formerly enjoyed with other nations and that was earned by so many others we remember today.

"And somehow this president has found a way to make some Veterans ashamed to publicly observe Memorial Day, because doing so means indirectly associating ourselves with a hollow cause, a paper-tiger of a Commander-in-Chief and the man responsible for too many of the deaths we honor at the end of each May.

"So, I will stay away from the parades and the speeches today."

Finally, on this Memorial Day remember the lessons that should have been learned in Vietnam.  Henry Kissinger  learned them as early as 1972 when he acknowledged that South Vietnam was not worth fighting for.  Yet he allowed the war to continue for another three years. 

And for that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

School choice is NOT a civil right!

In a recent talk in Portland, Howard Fuller, head man of the Black Alliance for Educational Options tried to convince his audience otherwise.  But Barbara Miner's excellent analysis of the "school choice equals civil rights" argument demonstrates that it just ain't so.

Miner's piece takes a critical look at the claim that educational options, especially vouchers, further the "civil rights" of minority students.   Her conclusion?  A resounding no!

Miner examines both the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the faliure of vouchers to meet their stated educational goals, particularly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the original sponsors of the largest public school voucher experiment have called for its end.  Miner recalls how vouchers were used by white students to avoid compliance with the desegregation mandate of Brown v. Board of Education, how Black civil rights leaders are overwhelmingly opposed to vouchers, how right-wingers like George Will and John Walton have co-opted the language of civil rights to advance the cause of vouchers, and how the Black Congressional Caucus has opposed the Distict of Columbia voucher program by 38 - 1.  She concludes with this:

"At heart, the Civil Rights Movement was about expanding the government’s democratic commitment to protecting the rights of all. Vouchers are about getting the government to walk away from that responsibility and leaving everything to individual, private-sector solutions."

Vouchers, originally intended as part of the  No Child Left Behind legislation, are the most egregious form of school choice, effectively transferring money from public to "private" schools. But publicly funded charter and magnet schools have essentially the same effect.  They provide opportunities seized upon by the wealthiest and the whitest students while weakening the neighborhood schools they used to attend.  Those neighborhood schools have increasingly become the schools of the disadvantaged, a  poorer and darker-skinned demographic than students attending 'choice' schools.

It's worth noting what Miner's organization, Rethinking Schools, says in its mission statement about the purpose of public education:

"At a time when racial and class inequalities are growing in our country, we believe that any vision of schooling must be grounded in 'the common school.'

"Schools are about more than producing efficient workers or future winners of the Nobel Prize for science. They are the place in this society where  children from a variety of backgrounds come together and, at least in theory, learn to talk, play, and work together."

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

School choice involves issues of class as well as race.  Tensions between neighborhood schools and "alternative" options in Eugene remind us of that.  In Eugene, school choice has existed in some form since the 1970's.  And to activist parent Betsy Boyd, the effect on neighborhood schools is all too clear:

" A lot has changed in the last 30 years. We have a lot less money for students. We have significant educational challenges. The old policy of school choice has morphed into a destructive form of economic segregation. It's past time for change."    

Sounds a lot like Portland, which I erroneously said was the only district in Oregon that relied so heavily on school choice. 

Thanks to NSA member Lynn Schore for dredging up Betsy's Boyd's op-ed piece from the archives of the Eugene Register Guard.      

Bush: "The Great Communicator"

This example of Bushspeak from Russ Dondero might also help explain why George W. Bush may indeed rank as the worst President in history:

Bush Explains Medicare Drug Bill

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: "I don't really understand. How is the new plan going to fix the problem?"

PRESIDENT BUSH (Verbatim response):  " Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red ."

"Help solve the red?"  That explains it!

McCain derailed

So much for the "Straight Talk Express".  John McCain's political aspirations have run it right off the tracks.

The official moment of derailment occurred during his New University commencement address when a student yelled, "This speech sucks!"  But the actual "straight talk" became "political" talk when McCain accepted an invitation to speak at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. 

Remember that in 2000 McCain sharply criticized George W. Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University and pandering to the most extreme and intolerant wing of the Republican right. It was then that McCain said this:

“ 'Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right,' McCain said at the time."

It seems that McCain, in his bid for the Republican Presidential nomination, is doing just that --pandering to the "agents of intolerance."

More insulting to the students at New University, especially keynote speaker Jean Sara Rohe, was that McCain delivered the same speech to them that he gave to the students at Liberty University.  Rohe complained that it "had nothing to do with our graduation or anyone else's... ."

I can't help but think that if McCain had talked frankly --and honestly-- about his hawkish views on Iraq, he would have been respectfully received. 

It was his visit to Liberty, and his bow to Jerry Falwell, that did him in. 

The return of Portland's "Million Dollar Baby"

I'm no economist, so help me out here.  If PGE ratepayers aren't responsible for paying all of Peggy Fowler's million dollar salary, who is?  Does Portland's largest electrical utility have any other source of income?

And here's another question for Oregonian reporter Gail Kinsey Hill and her editors: 

Why were salary comparisons reported only for other privately-owned utilities, and not for the more efficient publicly-owned utilities in the region, like the Clark County PUD just across the river?  Did the Oregonian's well-known antipathy to public ownership of utility monopolies like PGE play any role in the reporting of the story? 

Since the Oregonian didn't provide the data, I looked it up.  Turns out that Clark County PUD CEO Wayne Nelson makes just a little more than one-tenth of what Portland's "Million Dollar Baby" is expected to pull in next year in salary, bonuses, and stock options.

So remind me again of the supposed advantages of the private ownership of utilities.  Who benefits, other than Peggy Fowler and friends?

Relentless: AuCoin and Hatfield

Relentless as this morning's rain.  Or, more pertinently, relentless as the unholy alliance of 'Saint' Mark Hatfield and Congressman Les AuCoin in their legislative efforts to eradicate all vestiges of the Northwest's remaining old growth forests and to rid the nation of the nuisance of environmental protections for endangered species.  And endangered habitat, like forest ecosystems.

I bring it up because of this post on Loaded Orygun yesterday.  And because of  this post Saturday on Les Aucoin's revisionist, born-again blog.  The hypocrisy of this former timber industry flack is too egregious to let pass without comment. 

Even AuCoin's supporters damn him with faint praise.  Self-described  environmental  "moderate"  Jeremy Rogers wrote in this Blue Oregon post that Aucoin was a great choice for the Oregon Forestry Board because, while  he represented the district containing the Tillamook and Clatsop Forests --tree farms, essentially--,  he  "... co-sponsored wilderness legislation as well as a bill to move massive amounts of federal timber out of the courts and into production."  In other words, he would have brought "balance" to the board. 

Excuse me?  Support of "harvesting" any portion of the remaining 5% of ancient conifer forests in the Northwest can in my view only be considered sacrilege, or ecocide, as Michael Donnelly put it.  Not balance.  Donnelly claims that AuCoin only saw the error of his ways, and became a "born again environmentalist",  when he needed "green" support for his 1992 Senate run against Bob Packwood. 

AuCoin's comrade-in-arms in the war on native forests, Mark Hatfield, played a key role in the 1990 appropriations bill that allowed the clear-cutting of ancient forests,  environmental laws notwithstanding.  Andy Kerr, the former director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, had this to say about Hatfield's environmental legacy:

"Hatfield built a very successful political career as a pacifist timber beast. He may have favored peace on Earth, but he was at war with the Earth. No politician did more to raise public land logging levels to unsustainable levels."

I suggest that something similar can be said of Les AuCoin.

 

Dump political parties? Hey! I said it first!

It's always comforting to know that you're not all alone on radical proposals for electoral reform. 

Take political parties.  I wrote a post about getting rid of them last January:

"So why don't we de-politicize state government, especially the state legislature, by making it entirely non-partisan?  I can think of little of substance that the legislature has accomplished in the last few sessions.  Why?  Electoral partisan gridlock, pure and simple.  If the D's are for it, the R's are against it.  And vice versa.  It's all about power, not policy."

So today I read on the front page of the Oregonian the same recommendation from an official "panel" charged with solving the problem of "partisan gridlock". 

The vote was 18-2, with ten members not in attendance.  But even if all ten missing officials had voted "nay", the vote would still have resulted in a super-majority in favor of de-politicizing state politics. 

Was the "panel" representative of the people of Oregon?  I don't know.  But it had to be more representative of the views of the rank and file than my lone voice. 

Who says there's no good news in the daily paper?