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House Passes, Considers Evangelical Resolutions
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 14 January 2008

A Republican congressman, who has spent the better part of the past two years on a mission to ensure Jesus Christ has a place in all aspects of federal government, has introduced a resolution to designate a week every year to honor the nation's "rich spiritual, and religious history."

House Resolution 888, sponsored by Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Virginia), is currently before a House committee and has 31 co-sponsors. It purports to be free from singling out a specific religion, yet contains dozens of proclamations with clear fundamentalist Christian overtones. Five pages of footnotes cite specific Bible passages, the Gospels, churches, and include Biblical references taken from historical monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial.

One such proclamation states, "Whereas in 1777, Congress, facing a National shortage of 'Bibles for our schools, and families, and for the public worship of God in our churches,' announced that they 'desired to have a Bible printed under their care & by their encouragement' and therefore ordered 20,000 copies of the Bible to be imported 'into the different ports of the States of the Union'."

Forbes, who in 2005 founded the Congressional Prayer Caucus in an effort to ensure Christianity's place in politics, told the Virginian Pilot he introduced his resolution to combat a "well-orchestrated movement" by "radicals" to keep Christianity and religion in general separate from government.

The resolution, which was first reported on the blog Talk2Action by Chris Rodda, author of the book "Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History," and the senior research director at the government watchdog organization The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), was introduced by Forbes on December 18, the last day Congress was in session before lawmakers left for their winter break. Rodda first discovered the resolution after researching Congress's legislative web site for work she has been doing on behalf of MRFF.

"House Resolution 888 is perhaps the most disgraceful, shocking and tragic example yet of the pernicious and pervasive pattern and practice of the unconstitutional rape of our bedrock American citizens' religious freedoms by the fundamentalist Christian right," said Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of MRFF, a nonprofit watchdog group that aims to keep a close eye on the military to ensure it abides by the law mandating the separation between church and state. "Its myriad tortured and deliberate historical fictions, fused by it's Congressional-member drafters into a sorry screed of fascistic Christian exceptionalism and triumphalism, clearly illuminate its private sector and legislative sponsors' unbridled lust to spare absolutely no effort to complete the transformation of our country into "The United Christian States of America."

Weinstein was a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration, former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General.

The introduction of House Resolution 888 took place one week after Congress passed H. Res 847, supporting the "role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States ..." and "expresses continued support for Christians in the United States."

That resolution, sponsored by Iowa Republican Steve King, passed the House with the help of 195 Democrats.

Rodda says Forbes has grossly misrepresented and distorted the historical record he references in the 75 proclamation of H. Res 888.

"This resolution, which purports to promote 'education on America's history of religious faith,' is packed with the same American history lies found on the Christian nationalist websites, and in the books of pseudo-historians like David Barton," Rodda wrote on the Talk2Action web site. "It lists a total of seventy-five 'Whereas,' leading up to four resolves, the third of which is particularly disturbing - that the U.S. House of Representatives 'rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation's public buildings and educational resources,' a travesty of the highest magnitude, considering that most of the 'history' this resolve aims to promote in our public buildings and schools IS NOT REAL!"

One example, Rodda says, is the proclamation by Forbes that "Congress pursued a plan to print a Bible that would be 'a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools' and therefore approved the production of the first English language Bible printed in America that contained the congressional endorsement that the United States in Congress assembled ... recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States."

"Congress did not 'pursue a plan to print' this Bible, as Mr. Forbes claims, nor did they 'approve the production,' Rodda said. "Robert Aitken was already printing his Bibles as of January 21, 1781 when he petitioned Congress. All they did was grant one of several requests made by Aitken by having their chaplains examine his work, and allowing him to publish their resolution stating that, based on the chaplains' report, they were satisfied that his edition was accurate. The words 'a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools' are taken from a letter written by Aitken, not the resolution of Congress."

Forbes did not respond to a request for comment.

Congressman Forbes appears to be using the resolutions he's introduced to circumvent the constitutional provision mandating the separation of church and state. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion.

Separately, Forbes has also introduced two bills, one that would protect the rights of lawmakers to express "their religious beliefs through public prayer by removing all establishment clause cases involving prayer by public officials from federal court jurisdiction to the jurisdiction of state courts." The other legislation Forbes introduced "would bar judges from awarding legal fees to groups that sue municipalities for violating the Constitution's ban on government establishment of religion."

In late 2006, Forbes and two of his colleagues held up passage of the defense budget for several weeks over the removal of a military chaplain prayer provision that sought to authorize chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus Christ at military invocations.
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In Voiding Suit, Appellate Court Says Torture Is To Be Expected
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

Friday 11 January 2008

Washington - A federal appeals court Friday threw out a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a ruling that exonerated 11 present and former senior Pentagon officials.

It appeared to be the first time that a federal appellate court has ruled on the legality of the harsh interrogation tactics that U.S. intelligence officers and military personnel have used on suspected terrorists held outside the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The detainees allege that they were held in stress positions, interrogated for sessions lasting 24 hours, intimidated with dogs and isolated in darkness and that their beards were shaved.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from "substantially burdening a person's religion."

The court rejected other claims on the grounds that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had certified that the military officials were acting within the scope of their jobs when they authorized the tactics, and that such tactics were "foreseeable."

"It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably `seriously criminal' would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants," Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in the court's main opinion.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented with parts of the opinion, saying that "it leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantanamo are not `person(s).'

'`This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human," Brown wrote.

After being held for more than two years, the four men were repatriated to Britain in 2004, where they were freed within 24 hours without facing criminal charges, said Washington lawyer Eric Lewis, who represented them along with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

Three of the men - Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed - say they traveled to Afghanistan from Pakistan in October 2001 to provide humanitarian relief but were seized by an Uzbek warlord in northern Afghanistan the next month and sold to U.S. troops for bounty money. The three said they were unarmed and never engaged in combat against the United States.

The fourth, Jamal al Harith, said he'd planned to attend a religious retreat in Pakistan in October 2001 but was ordered to leave the country because of animosity toward Britons. When he tried to drive a truck home via Iran and Turkey, he says, his truck was hijacked at gunpoint and he was handed over to the Taliban, who jailed him and accused him of being a spy. When the Taliban fell after the U.S.-led invasion, he was detained and transported to Guantanamo.

The detainees filed suit in October 2004 against former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and nine other senior military officers. They allege that the Pentagon officials violated the Alien Tort Statute, the Geneva Conventions, the religious freedom law and the Constitution with their harsh treatment.

In upholding a lower court's rejection of all the claims but those under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the circuit court said that the interrogation tactics, which Rumsfeld first authorized in 2002, were "incidental" to the duties of those who'd been sued.

"It is an awful day for the rule of law and common decency," said Lewis, the detainees' attorney, "when a court finds that torture is all in a day's work for the secretary of defense and senior generals. . . . I think the executive is trying to create a black hole so there is no accountability for torture and religious abuse."

Lewis said his clients intended to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
Thanks to McClatchy Newspapers and Truthout

By Steven Rosenfeld
AlterNet

Tuesday 08 January 2008

Unlike other candidates who say what they will do for you, Obama says "Yes, we can" and pledges to work together.
There is a simple - but profound - reason why Barack Obama appears headed for the Democratic nomination, and it comes down to three simple words: I, we and you.

Have you seen Obama lately? Or heard him speak? Or listened carefully? I was one of the nine million Americans who saw Saturday's debates on ABC-TV. I was with a friend who is a skilled facilitator, and we immediately saw and heard why Obama is different from the rest of the Democratic (and Republican) pack.

Basically, the other candidates are all saying, "I will do this," "I will do that," "I will be there in this way for you," as they recite the fine print of issues to show what they would do as president. Indeed, most of the horserace coverage from this and other debates is on the points scored by the candidates as they joust on this wavelength.

Obama, on the other hand, is not emphasizing the "I" pronoun. He is all about we and you. "We can do this." "We can do that." "If we come together, we can achieve ..." The former grass-roots organizer is making his candidacy inclusive. Obama is asking people to join him, implying that he will listen, hear them and include them in solutions that rely on the best in them and in society, not the worst.

The "I will" versus "We can" stance is not a minor distinction.

On Saturday, Hillary Clinton and Obama even debated this point on ABC.

"Words are not actions," Clinton said, "and as beautifully presented and passionately felt as they are, they are not action. You know, what we've got to do is translate talk into action and feeling into reality."

A few minutes later, Obama responded.

"The truth is actually words do inspire," he said. "Words do help people get involved. Words do help members of Congress get into power so that they can be part of a coalition to deliver healthcare reform, to deliver a bold energy policy. Don't discount that power, because when the American people are determined that something is going to happen, then it happens. And if they are disaffected and cynical and fearful and told that it can't be done, then it doesn't. I'm running for president because I want to tell them, 'Yes, we can.' And that's why I think they're responding in such large numbers."

Obama's campaign can be summed up in the power of three words, "Yes, we can."

The candidates who engage in first-person boasts or the pundits who nit-pick the issues and attenuate the horserace do not appreciate this distinction. Have you noticed how often in recent days pundits have written that Obama is different, special and unique in American politics? But they cannot say why.

"This is new. America has never seen anything like the Barack Obama phenomenon," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert on Jan. 5. "Shake hands with tomorrow. It's here."

Obama's campaign may be a phenomenon, but it is not a mystique. Nor it is not unique.

George Lakoff, who has written many books on political communication, psychology and how both parties frame and win elections, said Obama's use of "we" and "you" - and his gift for making people feel good and that they are being heard - makes all the difference.

"He's saying 'we' and 'you.' It's a huge difference," Lakoff said. "It fits in with various other things."

"Obama has talked about an empathy deficit," he said, first speaking to the inclusive aspect of his campaign. "He understands what it means to connect to people, to listen to them, to understand what their needs and concerns are and that government should be responsive ... Hillary is all about policy. It is top-down. It is a rationalist model. It is 'we who understand and know policy know best.' It is telling people what is best for them."

John Edwards, Lakoff said, has this same approach.

"Edwards says, 'I will fight for you.' He is talking like a lawyer. He is being a lawyer," he said. "But he is falling into the same trap as Hillary."

Lakoff said he personally knows Clinton well enough to say that candidate Clinton is not the real Hillary. She is so afraid of falling into female stereotypes - witness Monday's coverage of a near-teary moment in a New Hampshire diner - Lakoff said, that "she has no idea how to be herself on the stump."

In contrast, Lakoff said Obama is one of the most honest people he has ever met - a comment I have heard from others working on his campaign - and that is a part of his appeal. "It is not a mystique," he said. "It is real. Charisma is real. It is tangible."

Ironically, while the Republican candidates have been falling over themselves to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan, the one candidate who seems to be making Americans feel good about themselves with an assured, easy manner and clear values - as Reagan did - is a Democrat in the race, Obama.

"Remember what Reagan was about," Lakoff said, agreeing with the comparison. "It's why people vote for candidates. Obama gets it."

"In the brain, there are two pathways for emotions," Lakoff said, offering an explanation for Obama's charisma. "There is a negative one for fear and anger. And there is a positive one. What Obama does and Reagan did was activate the positive pathways. George Bush activates the negative ones. Obama is activating the positive ones. He makes people feel physically good just by looking at him. The guy looks upbeat. He looks relaxed. You look at him and you feel upbeat, you feel relaxed. He feels empowered. You feel empowered. That's charisma."

Of course, unlike the Republican's great communicator, Obama's instincts and values are liberal, because to be liberal is to be inclusive and to believe that government had a role in fostering greater goods. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Bill Richardson also are politically liberal, but their manner of speaking is "I will." It is not "Yes, we can."

--------

Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 20

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on January 3, 2008, Printed on January 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72344/

According to the National Journal, the Democratic candidates' "disputes over issues have almost completely evaporated in the campaign's final days." The leading Dems, according to the Journal, are beating each other up over who has the most effective "leadership style" or similar abstractions. The notion that the top candidates are virtually identical on the issues and vary only in "tone" -- with Clinton the voice of experience and pragmatism, Obama the feel-good "uniter" who can heal a divided country and John Edwards the aggressive economic populist -- has become, to some degree, the conventional wisdom of campaign 2008.

But, as is often the case, it's also simply wrong.

While it's true that the big three have similar stances on a number of issues, on Iraq -- the one that Democrats and swing voters say is either their top concern, or No. 2 after the economy -- the top candidates' differences couldn't be more significant. In fact, only John Edwards among the top three Dems would effectively end the occupation of Iraq within a year of taking office.

All three top candidates certainly sound like they'd end it. In a Sept. 26 debate, Barack Obama said that if elected, "the first thing" he would do is "initiate a phased redeployment." "Military personnel," he continued, "indicate we can get one brigade to two brigades out per month. I would immediately begin that process. We would get combat troops out of Iraq."

Hillary Clinton also says she favors ending the war in Iraq, "not next year, not next month -- but today." The right strategy in Iraq, she said, is to "start bringing home America's troops now." Just like Barack Obama, "one of Hillary's first official actions" in office, according to her campaign website, would be "to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her secretary of defense, and her National Security Council" and "direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting" within the first 60 days after her inauguration.

Sadly, both candidates are trying to get away with a bit of sleight-of-hand: Both are attempting to confuse a troop draw-down (or, in Clinton's case, appointing a commission to plan one) with an end to the occupation of Iraq. In reality, the two are as different as night and day.

Both Clinton and Obama have bought into the dangerous idea that the U.S. must maintain forces in Iraq to protect U.S. bases -- yes, they're actually saying that we need to leave soldiers to guard the bases that the U.S. built to house the troops occupying Iraq -- to fight "al Qaeda in Iraq," and to help train Iraqi forces. Obama has said that he envisions a less expansive mission than Clinton does, and would contemplate basing some of his "residual forces" outside the country. Both of the candidates are reluctant to say exactly how many troops would be needed to accomplish the job, but independent estimates range from at least 20,000 to as many as 75,000 soldiers. John Edwards stated the obvious when he told the New York Times: "To me, that is a continuation of the occupation of Iraq."

Only two candidates have proposed a complete pullout of U.S. troops: Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. But John Edwards has come very close to their position, saying that he'd only train Iraqi troops outside of Iraq and leave no troops to "guard U.S. bases." And, while he'd keep a rapid-response force in the region, it too would remain outside the country's borders. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he's put a hard number on what he thinks is necessary to keep in-country -- only a single "brigade of 3,500 to 5,000 troops to protect the embassy and possibly a few hundred troops to guard humanitarian workers." He'd pull the rest out within ten months.

Both Clinton and Obama have refused to commit to ending the "mission" before 2013. It's not about training Iraqi troops; it's about the two trying to win an election while continuing to support a deeply unpopular occupation. "Training" security forces doesn't require more than ten years to complete, and it's only the presence of U.S. troops on Iraq's soil that allows "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to operate in the first place. It's a simple matter of two candidates who want to have their cake and eat it too, and for the most part the commercial media's helped obscure that crucial fact.

Clinton and Obama's camps would deny that they favor continuing the "war" in Iraq, but that debate is irrelevant. Nothing could matter less than whether American politicians believe leaving a "residual force" of several tens of thousands of U.S. troops is a continuation of the military occupation or not.

Only Iraqis' opinions matter, because it's Iraqis who make up the insurgency and because all insurgencies require some support from the communities in which they operate. Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, has polled Iraqis repeatedly since 2004. He told me recently that "more than three-quarters of those Iraqis we polled believe the U.S. plans to establish permanent bases in Iraq," and "it appears that view is closely related to support for attacks on U.S. troops." In fact, he said, "among those who believe the U.S. will withdraw, just 34 percent favor attacks against U.S. troops, but among those who believe the U.S. will not withdraw, 68 percent favor attacking coalition forces."

In other words, talk of a long-term presence in Iraq "emboldens extremists" and gets people killed. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say they'd withdraw all "combat troops" from Iraq, but the truth is that they've aligned themselves with the Bush administration's plan for an enduring, relatively large-scale military presence in the country for the foreseeable future.

One hopes Iowans grasp that there's a lot more separating the leading Dems than just "tone."

Note: A correction was made to this article after publication.

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/72344/

brings into even more relief the reasons why we can't support an anti-government wild card like Ron Paul...The corporations would love to stay in charge of disaster cleanup in the void of responsible government. She talks about the PLAN that has been in place and carried out for decades to use disaster and catastrophe to subvert democracy and encourage privatization--J

View the 2-part video HERE on truthout.org.

The Freedom to Starve

By SHERRY WOLF

12/26/07 "Counterpunch' -- -- "POLITICS, LIKE nature, abhors a vacuum," goes the revamped aphorism. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's surprising stature among a small but vocal layer of antiwar activists and leftist bloggers appears to bear this out.

At the October 27, 2007, antiwar protests in dozens of cities noticeable contingents of supporters carried his campaign placards and circulated sign-up sheets. The Web site antiwar.com features a weekly Ron Paul column. Some even dream of a Left-Right gadfly alliance for the 2008 ticket. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, liberal maverick and Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich told supporters in late November he was thinking of making Ron Paul his running mate if he were to get the nomination.

No doubt, the hawkish and calculating Hillary Rodham Clinton and flaccid murmurings of Barack Obama, in addition to the uninspiring state of the antiwar movement that backed a prowar candidate in 2004, help fuel the desperation many activists feel. But leftists must unequivocally reject the reactionary libertarianism of this longtime Texas congressman and 1988 Libertarian Party presidential candidate.

Ron Paul's own campaign Web site reads like the objectivist rantings of Ayn Rand, one of his theoretical mentors. As with the Atlas Shrugged author's other acolytes, neocon guru Milton Friedman and former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, Paul argues, "Liberty means free-market capitalism." He opposes "big government" and in the isolationist fashion of the nation's Pat Buchanans, he decries intervention in foreign nation's affairs and believes membership in the United Nations undermines U.S. sovereignty.

Naturally, it is not Ron Paul's paeans to the free market that some progressives find so appealing, but his unwavering opposition to the war in Iraq and consistent voting record against all funding for the war. His straightforward speaking style, refusal to accept the financial perks of office, and his repeated calls for repealing the Patriot Act distinguish him from the snakeoil salesmen who populate Congress.

Paul is no power-hungry, poll-tested shyster. Even the liberalish chat show hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar on "The View" gave a friendly reception to Paul's folksy presentation, despite his paleoconservative views on abortion, which he-a practicing obstetrician-argues is murder.

Though Paul is unlikely to triumph in the primaries, it is worth taking stock not only of his actual positions, but more importantly the libertarian underpinnings that have wooed so many self-described leftists and progressives. Because at its core, the fetishism of individualism that underlies libertarianism leads to the denial of rights to the very people most radicals aim to champion-workers, immigrants, Blacks, women, gays, and any group that lacks the economic power to impose their individual rights on others.



Ron Paul's positions

A cursory look at Paul's positions, beyond his opposition to the war and the Patriot Act, would make any leftist cringe.

Put simply, he is a racist. Not the cross-burning, hood-wearing kind to be sure, but the flat Earth society brand that imagines a colorblind world where 500 years of colonial history and slavery are dismissed out of hand and institutional racism and policies under capitalism are imagined away. As his campaign Web site reads:

"The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence-not skin color, gender, or ethnicity."

Paul was more blunt writing in his independent political newsletter distributed to thousands of supporters in 1992. Citing statistics from a study that year produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, Paul concluded: "Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." Reporting on gang crime in Los Angeles, Paul commented: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

His six-point immigration plan appears to have been cribbed from the gun-toting vigilante Minutemen at the border. "A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked," reads his site. And he advocates cutting off all social services to undocumented immigrants, including hospitals, schools, clinics, and even roads (how would that work?).

"The public correctly perceives that neither political party has the courage to do what is necessary to prevent further erosion of both our border security and our national identity," he wrote in a 2005 article. "Unfortunately, the federal government seems more intent upon guarding the borders of other nations than our own." The article argues that, "Our current welfare system also encourages illegal immigration by discouraging American citizens from taking low-wage jobs." The solution: end welfare so that everyone will be forced to work at slave wages. In order that immigrants not culturally dilute the nation, he proposes that "All federal government business should be conducted in English."

Though he rants about his commitment to the Constitution, he introduced an amendment altering the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to anyone born in the United States, saying in a 2006 article: "Birthright citizenship, originating in the 14th amendment, has become a serious cultural and economic dilemma for our nation. We must end the perverse incentives that encourage immigrants to come here illegally, including the anchor baby incentive."

Here we come up against the limits of libertarianism-Paul wants a strong state to secure the borders, but he wants all social welfare expenditures eliminated for those within them.

Paul is quite vocal these days about his rank opposition to abortion-"life begins at conception," he argues. He promotes a "states' rights" position on abortion-that decades old hobgoblin of civil rights opponents. And he has long opposed sexual harassment legislation, writing in his 1988 book Freedom Under Siege (available online), "Why don't they quit once the so-called harassment starts?" In keeping with his small government worldview, he goes on to argue against the government's right "to tell an airline it must hire unattractive women if it does not want to."

In that same book, written as the AIDS crisis was laying waste to the American gay male population prompting the rise of activist groups demanding research and drugs, Paul attacked AIDS sufferers as "victims of their own lifestyle." And in a statement that gives a glimpse of the ruling-class tyranny of individualism he asserts that AIDS victims demanding rushed drug trials were impinging on "the rights of insurance company owners."

Paul wants to abolish the Department of Education and, in his words, "end the federal education monopoly" by eliminating all taxes that go toward public education and "giving educational control back to parents." Which parents would those be? Only those with the leisure time, educational training, and temperament commensurate with home schooling! Whatever real problems the U.S. education system suffers from-and there are many-eliminating 99 percent literacy rates that generations of public education has achieved and tossing the children of working parents out of the schools is not an appealing or viable option.

Paul also opposes equal pay for equal work, a minimum wage, and, naturally, trade unions. In 2007, he voted against restricting employers' rights to interfere in union drives and against raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25. In 2001, he voted for zero-funding for OSHA's Ergonomics Rules, instead of the $4.5 billion. At least he's consistent.

Libertarians like Paul are for removing any legislative barriers that may restrict business owners' profits, but are openly hostile to alleviating economic restrictions that oppress most workers. Only a boss could embrace this perverse concept of "freedom."
Read More at Information Clearing House.

Julie's note: The Ron Paul supporters on the comment part at ICH are a pretty voracious bunch. I want to stop the war and the Patriot Act, but I don't want the country to become more of a backward feudal state with a rich minority ruling class in the offing.

Note from Julie... I haven't decided who to back, because I really like Kucinich and am glad his ideas are among us. But I'm looking for a backup plan. When I was home in Iowa for Thanksgiving, it was a draw between the top 3 dems, with Hillary still hanging on to a lead, and the Obama crowd was excited about their momentum. I myself was impressed with his look-you-straight-in-the-eye handshake last summer. But sort of quietly, (cuz the corporate media doesn't like his well-founded "anger" against them and the rest of corporate-friendly government) Edwards was gaining some steam. And Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne (who told me he doesn't usually like to come out for particular candidates anymore, and was fond of Obama last February) were playing a fundraising rally for Edwards that I couldn't attend.... Hmmm.

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
A Letter from Michael Moore

Friends,

A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies three countries and a white house.

Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and do it with gusto.

Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the "slam dunk" we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now. Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares the same positions that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me as far as Kalamazoo). But let's not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their "second choice."

So, it's Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do?

Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. "The Top Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore." The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed.

Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with me? What was she afraid of?

Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11 years ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, "My Forbidden Love for Hillary." I was fed up with the treatment she was getting, most of it boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should stand up for her. I later met her and she thanked me for referring to her as "one hot s***kicking feminist babe." I supported and contributed to her run for the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who loves this country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap than anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her inauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male rule in a country where 51% of its citizens are female and 64% are either female or people of color.

And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war in Iraq. I'm not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his "authorization" to invade -- I'm talking about every single OTHER vote she then cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush's illegal war, and doing so with verve. She never met a request from the White House for war authorization that she didn't like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens who initially voted for authorization but later came to realize the folly of their decision, Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the war until last March -- four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American public had turned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say that she was wrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her culpability in America's worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can bring herself to say is that she was "misled" by "faulty intelligence."

Let's assume that's true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled? I wasn't "misled," and millions of others who took to the streets in February of 2003 weren't "misled" either. It was simply amazing that we knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq. And yet... we knew we were being lied to! Let me ask those of you reading this letter: Were YOU "misled" -- or did you figure it out sometime between October of 2002 and March of 2007 that George W. Bush was up to something rotten? Twenty-three other senators were smart enough to figure it out and vote against the war from the get-go. Why wasn't Senator Clinton?

I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and that one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a woman as president is because she would also be commander in chief. The majority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as likely to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to placate that mindset, perhaps she believed she had to be as "tough" as a man, she had to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted. If this is, in fact, what has motivated her pro-war votes, then this would truly make her a scary first-term president. If the U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat in her first years, she knows that in order to get re-elected she'd better be ready to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our direction. Do we want to risk this, hoping the world makes it in one piece to her second term?

I have not even touched on her other numerous -- and horrendous -- votes in the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer even more (she voted for Bush's first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the leading recipient of payoff money -- I mean campaign contributions -- from the health care industry). I know a lot of you want to see her elected, and there is a very good chance that will happen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in the general election if all the pollsters are correct. But in the primaries and caucuses, isn't this the time to vote for the person who most reflects the values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good conscience, vote for someone who so energetically voted over and over and over again for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious consideration.

Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me... Read more at MichaelMoore.com