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What to read on summer vacation

It’s summertime and the reading should be easy. Or, at least, fun and educational for progressives. Here are the books I’m enjoying this summer: A double dose of Texas populism at its best in the new books by Jim Hightower, If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates, and Molly Ivins’ and Lou Dubose’s Shrub, The Short But Happy Political Life Of George W. Bush.

Ivins, a syndicated columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (who thankfully appears in the Free Press) and Dubose, the editor of the Texas Observer, a Freep role model, are long-time observers of the notorious Bush dynasty. A clan I personally believe to be the most evil political family in the United States history. Shrub does an excellent job of cataloging the rise of “Dubya’s” bizarre career and fabricated imagery. If you thought George W. was a drunken frat boy ne’er do well who shamelessly leveraged his father’s political power to gain preferential treatment, and a governorship, now you’ve got the facts.

Hideoue McNukes: FirstEnergy, AmerGen, Entergy and the Mistakes by the Lake

“Anytime you have nine power plants fail in whole or in part in a 24-hour period,” says Gary Groesch, “that’s not bad luck. That’s not even bad maintenance. That’s a maintenance meltdown.”

A veteran New Orleans-based consumer activist, Groesch is talking about Entergy, the huge regional utility based there and in Mississippi. The July 23, 1999 multiple fossil burner failure Groesch describes left half a million people without power, and was sandwiched between unexpected shutdowns at two Entergy-owned commercial reactors, River Bend and Waterford 3. Grand Gulf, another radioactive Entergy property, earned the nickname “Grand Goof” from its massive cost overruns.

Nonetheless, Entergy and AmerGen, a Philadelphia-based multi-national partnership, want to buy as many as they can of the 103 U.S. reactors currently to licensed to operate. They want to string them together in “McNuke” reactor chains and operate them in cut-rate style, with national pools of technical trouble-shooters.

Rethinking the futile War on Drugs

Bobbie is the 29 year old brother of Paula Dunn, a lovely and talented singer of contemporary Christian music. I recently heard her tell a woeful story of how Bobbie was incarcerated recently with rapists, murderers, and other violent criminals. Had he committed a crime against anyone’s life, liberty or property? Had he killed, raped, or stolen money? No. His crime? He was caught with the possession of cocaine. Had he done any harm to anyone other than, possibly, himself?

The proponents of the war on drugs have seen all of their strategies fail. Many intelligent and thoughtful people from Charles Schultz, former Secretary of State to Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico to Kurt Schmoke, the Democratic mayor of Baltimore have all said the current “drug war” is not working. We are spending billions of dollars, arresting and jailing millions of people, as military style police units trample on the Bill of Rights of

Nader voters crucial to a democratic Congress

Ralph Nader’s candidacy for President will bring a turnout of progressive voters who could furnish the margin of victory in enough close Congressional races for the Democrats to regain control of Congress. Nader will energize many Progressives who would otherwise sit out the election because Gore appears too much in-the-pockets of big corporate power and hesitates and hedges on critical issues of economic and social justice like world trade, campaign finance reform, and the death penalty. Nader voters are largely to the left of the political spectrum and will overwhelmingly choose the more liberal Democratic candidates for Congress.

Gore strategists see Nader as a dark cloud hanging over crucial states like California that could wash away Gore’s chances by swinging some closely contested states to Bush, but Democrats wanting to control Congress as much as the White House are beginning to see a silver lining in Nader’s candidacy. Clinton is raising big bucks for Democratic Congressional candidates, but many progressive Democrats blame the loss of Congress on the Administration’s botching

The whole world's watching again

Political observers are predicting massive protests and civil disobedience at the Republican convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic convention in L.A. this summer. Many political analysts believe this new wave of militant progressive political dissent started with the outburst in Columbus in 1998 at CNN’s Town Hall Meeting on Iraq. The mood of protest escalated last fall during the battle of Seattle. The demonstrations turned into a full-scale movement this spring at the IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington D.C. Not since the New Left’s last stand against Reagan in Detroit in 1980 or the 1972 Republican convention in Miami have the major party conventions inspired such dedicated counter-demonstrators. News reports are even beginning to make reference to the legendary 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, and it looks like the whole world will be watching again.

My summer vacation wish--real vacations for all

As this first summer of the new millennium approaches, I can’t help but wax nostalgic about my two years as a professor in the Netherlands. There, as a civil servant on a twelve month schedule, I was entitled to about nine weeks of paid vacation. It seemed that few professors took all that time, but three to four weeks was virtually obligatory. Late spring was the time of year the lunchroom conversation turned to holiday destinations, perhaps because this was when the vacation allocation arrived in the paycheck-a fat 8% bonus added to one’s salary. It was the government’s way of making sure every Dutch worker had money to take a proper holiday. Of course, it wasn’t really a bonus, but an intelligent “forced savings” program in which a bit of one’s pay was held aside each month.

Who deserves credit for Texas?

AUSTIN, Texas -- Aside from the fact that they look like Howdy-Doody and Mr. Bluster, Dick Cheney appears to be an excellent choice for George W. Bush. Sounds moderate, governs right. Very W. Bush.

Cheney's voting record is slightly to the right of wiggy. Against a resolution to free Nelson Mandela after he had spent 23 years in prison? Against abortion to save the life of the mother? Against a ban on cop-killer bullets? Against Head Start and the Department of Education?

This was not in some prehistoric era when dinosaurs ruled Congress -- these votes were considered extreme at the time. Yet one hears commentators who dismiss Cheney's record as "irrelevant."

Speaking of the record, there's one that needs to be set straight. On a busy news day, an important education report by Rand, the California think tank, got relatively little coverage. That's a shame, because the study confirms hopeful news about how to improve the public schools. Rand says that smaller class sizes, enrolling more children in preschool, giving teachers more classroom materials and targeting additional money for poor children pay off.

The truth about Clintonomics

The political conventions will soon be upon us. In Philadelphia, the Republicans will fill the air with thunder about the moral pollution of Clintonism. In Los Angeles, the Democrats will tell Americans they've never had it better. So far, no contest. As a sales pitch, "you've never had it so good" beats "we'll end moral pollution" every time.

But who exactly has had it better in America over the past eight years? The crowd cheering Bush and Cheney in Philadelphia will mostly be feeling flush. And the big contributors to the Democratic National Committee, feted in Los Angeles, will be feeling flush, too. Through eight years, Clinton-Gore never let them down. But Gore still needs the votes of people who aren't feeling flush, who won't be renting sky suites in the Staples Center in Los Angeles. How have these people really been doing these last eight years?

Robert Pollin, a good economist at the University of Massachusetts, has an "Anatomy of Clintonomics" in the bimonthly periodical New Left Review for May/June of this year. It doesn't offer much comfort to those trying to run the "Gore is the friend of working people" flag up the pole.

Convention hospitality and police brutality

Once again, it's the season of the Republican and Democratic national conventions, this time choreographed in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Both events have been underwritten by business patrons; both cities are notorious for police misconduct. Hospitality and brutality -- the contrasts could hardly be more extreme.

In the City of Brotherly Love, the welcome mat was embossed with great riches. The Republican convention is brought to you by movers and shakers of Wall Street.

The Grand Old Party's jamboree ended up with a pricetag in excess of $50 million, mostly supplied via corporate donations. The same sort of financing is in the pipeline for the Democratic convention (estimated cost: $35 million) in the middle of August. The symmetry of the largess is breathtaking.

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