News of the Month

March 13, 2004

Oh, let’s start off by continuing our series on Republican Ethics. Hmph. That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Republican. Ethics. When I talked about this topic last month, little did I know (though I probably should have) that there would be a continuous stream of examples of unethical – or downright illegal – activities by prominent Republicans, all in the name of that god of all gods of the incumbent politician, Staying in Power.

Take, for example, the Political Action Committee (PAC) Texans for a Republican Majority. Here are some excerpts from a report on it in the Austin American-Statesman last month:

“During the 2002 elections, Texans for a Republican Majority was intent on getting credit for directing money to legislative candidates whether it was that group’s money or someone else’s. In fact, officials with the political action committee dithered so long over who would help a railroad company lobbyist distribute checks to 11 Republican candidates that Tom Craddick, who was then running for House speaker, was finally enlisted in the role of courier.

“It’s an odd image to consider: the man just weeks from being one of the most powerful officials in state government handing out checks for a lobbyist. The election season efforts by Texans for a Republican Majority, created by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugarland, might have been considered Politics 101 except that the group is under investigation on suspicion of using corporate money as campaign expenditures – a felony in Texas.

“A speaker’s race is a one-of-a-kind election with its own law. (This law) bars groups such as Texans for a Republican Majority or Union Pacific from trying to influence the internal House election – either directly or indirectly – with ‘things of value,’ such as cash donations. It also is illegal for a speaker’s candidate to knowingly accept a group’s help in that election.

“DeLay had created Texans for a Republican Majority to help elect more Republicans to the Legislature. The ultimate goal was to get elected the first Republican speaker in more than a century and to give DeLay a second chance of getting a more Republican-friendly map for the Texas congressional delegation. By August, DeLay’s Washington, D.C., fund-raiser, Warren Robold, had approached Union Pacific about supporting the political committee’s slate of 23 legislative candidates. The railroad agreed to donate money to 11 of them but insisted on giving the money directly to the candidates, and not through the Republican committee.

“Kathryn Blackwell, director of Union Pacific’s corporate communications, said Union Pacific wanted the candidates to know where the money was coming from. She said Texans for Republican Majority wanted to share the credit by having one of its directors accompany Union Pacific lobbyist Ron Olson with the checks. ‘Frankly, they wanted to appear as if they were responsible for that donation to those campaigns,’ she said. ‘They were not responsible for the donations.’ ”

Speaking of staying in power, our beloved Governor Goodrug is scrambling like mad to stay in power, working to suppress a particularly ubiquitous rumor going around about him. Austin’s news outlets are beginning to cover the rumor as rumor – because they know the Repugs will sue their pants off if they report it as fact. You’ve heard it, or read it in the Statesman or the Chronicle – that Governor Goodrug’s wife caught him in bed with someone else, and is pushing for a divorce. But the Statesman didn’t report the most interesting part of it all – the identity of the person he was supposed to have been found in bed with. According to everyone who knows the situation (including a private source of mine), it was Texas Secretary of State Geoffrey Conner (picture), a man whom the Guv himself appointed to that job last August.

What would it do to Republican “morality” if that turned out to be true? Hypocrisy? Noooo.

Another – seemingly unrelated – item: it seems that the Guv may have used campaign dollars to send himself, a lot of high-dollar Republican donors, and Mrs. Goodrug to the Bahamas late last month. Could it be that he’s trying to convince her not to “jump ship” over the incident? Look at the formal portrait of her from the Guv’s web site (picture) – beautiful, blonde, professionally coiffed, exquisite jewelry, top-quality makeup – the epitome of the politician’s wife. But did you see the candid shots of her last week in TV and newspaper stories? Hair loose and disheveled, no makeup or jewelry, and a look on her face that fairly screamed despair – not the way a governor’s wife (especially a Republican governor’s wife) would ever be allowed to look in public. She looked more like a prisoner who’s finally been “convinced” to sign a confession, and is let out for a moment to read it before being taken back inside, than anything else.

Mrs. Perry, I’m sorry; you don’t deserve this. Politics is an unforgiving god.

But politics, of course goes on. We’ve reached the end of the qualifying rounds early this year, and pretty much know the major players in this November’s Super Bowl to determine who’ll be the ruler of the United States Empire for the next four years. How do these two stack up? Well, on the one hand, you have the rich child of power and privilege, a member of the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale, which is dedicated to gaining for its members the kind of power and influence that most Senators only dream about. On the other hand, you have a rich child of power and privilege, a member of the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale, which … wait a minute! They’re both Bonesmen? They’re both scions of rich, powerful families, with rich, powerful connections into the worlds of politics, business, and finance? Yup.

In last Sunday’s Statesman there was an article about the fact that both our “major” choices for President this year are squeezed out of the same mold. But what kind of mold is it? The article quotes Alexandra Robbins, author of a book on Skull and Bones, as saying:

”What’s so staggering about the fact that both presidential candidates are members of Skull and Bones is that this is a tiny organization with perhaps only 800 living members. This isn’t an organization in which a member can simply get an interview at some Joe Schmo law firm. This is an organization where members can call up presidents, Supreme Court justices, and Cabinet members and ask for jobs, power, money, or connections.”

In researching her book, Ms. Robbins interviewed more than 100 members of Skull and Bones. She asked which candidate they would rather have in the White House. She said, “The sincere answer to me was, ‘We don't care. It’s a win-win situation.’ ”

In other words, the “choice” we’re being offered this fall between the major candidates for President is, in fact, no choice at all. Of course, if you stop and think about it, that’s not all that surprising – I mean, where did Kerry come from, anyway? Early on, Dean was the obvious front-runner, with the race pretty well sewn up. Then, in primary after primary after primary, Kerry – coming up from nowhere, totally unexpectedly – defeats Dean. Not just once, but over and over again. Last month I read to you an observer’s report of how precinct caucus votes were stolen from Dean and allocated to other candidates – in one case, to a candidate who did not have any supporters present at the precinct caucus.

I’ve talked about this before, friends. It’s one of the most fundamental weapons in the arsenal of the political manipulators – a way of keeping you, the public, totally bamboozled about what’s really going on around you. They present you with a set of what look like valid choices – like the choice between Bush and Kerry. And there really are some differences between the two; one, for example, used his daddy’s money and power to avoid prosecution for desertion from the US military during time of war, and the other won three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star. One spent his young adulthood driving a series of businesses into the ground – mostly out of sheer incompetence – and the other spent his, serving in the US Congress.

But when you look at the situation – when you open your eyes and see what’s right there in front of them, you see that the so-called choice between Bush and Kerry is bogus. It’s smoke and mirrors to distract you from the fact that the real choice is not between the two Bonesmen, between Heads and Tails of the tired old coin of politics as usual. The real choice is between the old politics of money, power, and privilege, and the politics of the Constitution, of patriotism, of the people.

Now, the bogus choice has been around for a long time; it’s one of the most tried-and-true tools in the political manipulators’ tool bag. It’s never failed them before, and there’s every sign it’s going to deliver them the election yet again this year. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” “You can pick door number one or door number two. “Door number three? I don’t see any third door. What are you talking about? That’s not a door – that’s just those stupid Libertarians and Greens, over in the corner making trouble! They don’t count – they’re not even part of the political process. Why would anybody want to waste their vote on them?”

Why, indeed? Why would anyone want to exercise the free choice to vote for a candidate, or a party, or a position, or a belief that’s different from those “accepted” by today’s media bosses? It’s so easy just to say, “I’ll vote for side A,” or “I’ll take side B,” and it’s so hard to open your eyes, to see that bogus choice for what it is, and to throw it into the toilet where it belongs.

Do you want to be a part of putting the bogus choice where it belongs? Then “Have I got a deal for you!” The mainline politicos have knocked the Libertarian Party off the ballot this year – that is, we do not have “ballot access” this year because we didn’t get enough votes in enough statewide races in 2002. This means that unless we regain ballot access, neither you nor anyone else in Texas will even have the chance to vote for a Libertarian this year. So how do we regain ballot access; and what can you do to help ensure that the bogus choice isn’t the only choice available to the people of Texas this year?

First, if you are a registered voter who didn’t – repeat: did not – vote in the Republicratic primaries last Tuesday, you can sign a petition that the Libertarian Party be given access to the ballot for the general elections this year. We need to gather 45,500 signatures in the 75 days starting last Thursday in order to make this happen. Whether or not you believe in the positions of the Libertarian Party, if you believe that the people of Texas deserve a real choice in the coming elections, not just the bogus choice between TweedleDem and TweedleRep, then please sign the ballot-access petition if you’re asked to – if you’re eligible to, of course.

Second, 45, 00 is not a lot of signatures, especially with the whole state to collect them from. If you’d like to participate in this effort, and gather some signatures yourself, then we’d love to have you join us. Send an e-mail message to our petition coordinator, Rob Fritsche, at ElectFritsche@aol.com,. Let me spell that out – “E l e c t F r i t s c h e @ aol.com”. Political action in a way that can actually make a difference – sounds good to me!

Next, let’s go from the state level to the global level. You’ve been hearing about US companies’ closing their doors, firing all their “high-priced” American workers, and moving their operations overseas, where they can get labor at … oh, about a tenth of what it costs here? What do you think of that corporate trend? Or have you been caught in it? (Odds are, if you worked for Dell, you were.) But what if the company in question were a US defense contractor, moving its defense-critical jobs and production overseas? And what if the country to which it moved those jobs and production facilities were mainland (so-called “Red”) China? What would you think then? Here’s part of a report by Jeffery St. Clair, from the Counterpunch on-line newsletter:

“Magnequench is an Indianapolis-based company. It specializes in the obscure field of sintered magnetics. Essentially, it makes tiny, high-tech magnets from rare-earth minerals ground down into a fine powder. The magnets are highly prized by electronics and aviation companies. But Magnequench’s biggest client has been the Pentagon. The neodymium-iron-boron magnets made by Magnequench are a crucial component in the guidance system of cruise missiles and the Joint Direct Attack Munition or JDAM bomb, which is made by Boeing …. Indeed, Magnequench enjoys a near monopoly on this market niche, supplying 85 percent of the rare-earth magnets that are used in the servo motors of these guided missiles and bombs.

“But the Pentagon may soon be sending its orders for these parts to China, instead of Indiana. On September 15, Magnequench shuttered its last plant in Indiana, fired its 450 workers, and began shipping its machine tools to a new plant in China. ‘We’re handing over to the Chinese both our defense technology and our jobs in the midst of a deep recession,’ says Rep. Peter Visclosky, a Democrat from northern Indiana. It gets stranger. Magnequench is not only moving its defense plants to China, it's actually owned by Chinese companies with close ties to the Chinese government.

“In 1995, Magnequench was purchased from GM by Sextant Group, an investment company headed by Archibald Cox, Jr. – the son of the Watergate prosecutor. After the takeover, Cox was named CEO. What few knew at the time was that Sextant was largely a front for two Chinese companies, San Huan New Material and the China National Non-Ferrous Metals Import and Export Corporation. Both of these companies have close ties to the Chinese government. Indeed, the ties were so intimate that the heads of both companies were in-laws of the late Chinese premier Deng Xiaopeng.

“At the time of the takeover, Cox pledged to the workers that Magnequench was in it for the long haul, intending to invest money in the plants and committed to keeping the production line going for at least a decade. Three years later Cox shut down the Anderson plant and shipped its assembly line to China. Now Cox is presiding over the closure of Magnequench's last factory in the US, the Valparaiso, Indiana plant that manufactures the magnets for the JDAM bomb. Most of the workers have already been fired.”

So what does this story say – really? That it’s OK to sell US defense technology to potential enemies, as long as there’s money to be made? Well, yes. Oh – one other fact for you to consider: George I, faced with a similar situation, actually intervened to prevent US defense technology from being transferred to China. Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana has asked George II to follow his father’s example, and intervene in this case. Despite the fact that Magnequench is the only domestic supplier of these tiny magnets, King George II has promised to look the other way and hold his breath until he turns blue – or until the Magnequench problem goes away.

On a different topic, here are a couple of interesting numbers from the Austin American-Statesman of February 27. A study recently found that nearly 4,400 priests sexually abused nearly 11,000 children between 1950 and 2002. And the church … did its best to cover up those rapes by the people whom it placed into positions of trust from which they could carry out those rapes with impunity. How? It moved the felons to other parishes, where their names and crimes weren’t known, and from which they could rape still more boys with impunity. It’s all about power. Repentance? Naaah – that’s for the people in the pews.

Just to keep us aware, the nation of Israel hasn’t repented, either. They are still waging their brutal war of terrorism against the innocent as well as the guilty in Palestine – though for sheer brutality and savagery, our terrorist assaults on the civilians of Iraq eclipse Israel’s poor efforts by the thousands. We are approaching the anniversary of two particular murders by Israel – of Rachael Corrie and Tom Hurndall. Israeli soldiers murder Palestinians – men, women, and children – weekly; but Rachael and Tom caught our consciences because they are Americans, murdered by Israeli policy, supported by “our” country. Starhawk writes:

“In March of 2003 Rachel Corrie was killed as she was trying to stop an Israeli soldier from demolishing a home. The bulldozer driver saw her, and deliberately ran over her. She was twenty-three years old.

“Just a few weeks later, an Israeli soldier firing from a sniper tower shot Tom Hurndall as he was trying to save some children who were under fire. After nine long months in what the doctors call a ‘vegetative state,’ his body breathing but his mind and brain destroyed, Tom died in mid-January, just a day after his mother whispered in his ear that his murderer had finally been arrested. He was just twenty-two.

“Tom and Rachel were not unique in dying in Rafah. Palestinians are killed every day. A year ago, the toll was more than 250 dead in Rafah alone since the beginning of the intifada, more than 50 of them children. Now the count must be much higher. The same day Rachel died, Akhmed, a fifty year old street sweeper who lived with his mother, went out to sit on his stoop and smoke a cigarette. The soldiers gunned him down, for no particular reason, and his death made no international headlines, caused no controversy, evoked no words of condemnation from a shocked world.”

Friends, do you think just putting John Kerry in place of George W Bush is going to make the slightest bit of difference in United States policy of supporting Israel in its murders? Do you think a change of figurehead is going to make one iota of difference in the criminal behavior this nation is indulging in? The only way out – the only way – is to break free of the mind-set that says the bogus choices are OK, and toss the old politics – and the old politicians – out on their ears! It took an outside force to stop Nazi Germany from committing its crimes against humanity; I hope to heaven that we can stop it ourselves, before someone else has to.

Finally tonight, let me give you a little quiz. The following paragraph appeared on the front page of that same issue of the Austin paper:

“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved Avastin, the first drug to battle cancers by starving their blood supply, vindicating a 40-year-old medical theory once ridiculed as absurd. Doctors said the drug wasn’t a cure for colon cancer, the disease it was approved to treat, but the welcomed it as progress toward their long-range goal of turning cancer into a manageable illness.”

The question? What’s wrong with this picture? Think about it before I tell you what I see.

First, how about “the drug wasn’t a cure for colon cancer, the disease it was approved to treat”? Does that strike you as just a bit odd? “We designed it to cure colon cancer; but it doesn’t do that. We don’t know exactly what it does do, but there’s money to be made, so we’re going to sell it anyway!” Sound familiar?

But the big one is that phrase there at the end, “their long-range goal of turning cancer into a manageable illness.” Nothing at all about preventing cancer; just how to “manage” it once you have it. They’re not about to tell us how to spend tens of your dollars preventing cancers; they’re all about “helping” you spend thousands of your – and your insurance company’s – dollars on treatments, once you’re already sick and too scared not to. And we wonder why the cost of health insurance is always going up. Open your eyes, and see what’s right there in front of them!

Oh – here’s something from further into that article, buried on page 10: the headline of the continuation reads, “New cancer drug may cost $40,000 a year”. Per patient. As long as the medical-industrial complex continues to look for the most expensive way to attack a problem, as long as its efforts are determined by the profit-driven pharmaceutical corporations, this situation isn’t going to get any better. We’re going to continue paying more and more in health insurance premiums; and the insurance companies, pharmaceutical makers, researchers, and professional societies, supported by a government that makes it all possible, are going to make more and more profits at our expense – literally at the expense of our health, and even of our lives.