Still true to ObEdwards: Why I keep donating to both Edwards and Obama

It makes me feel like an indecisive mugwump, but in the wake of the Iowa caucuses, I've sent money to both Edwards and Obama. In a month, I'll have to choose, but as long as they're backing each other up more than sniping, I want them both in the race.

But why not just support Obama? He's got the charisma and momentum. He's bringing in new voters, particularly young voters and independents, who could dramatically broaden the Democrats' reach. He's worked and lived in an amazingly broad range of challenging contexts. I like how he raises hopes and expectations, and therefore what voters may demand. If we back him now, he can build on Iowa's momentum, beat Hillary Clinton and have a strong chance at defeating the Republicans.

Remembering the separation of powers

In a December 31, 2007, editorial, the New York Times faulted the current president and vice president of the United States for kidnapping innocent people, denying justice to prisoners, torturing, murdering, circumventing U.S. and international law, spying in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and basing their actions on "imperial fantasies."

Um, thanks for finally noticing. What would you suggest we do about it?

"We can only hope," concludes the New York Times, quite disempoweringly, "that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle, and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America."

But here's the problem (other than the pretended certainty that Bush won the 2004 election):

The Kudzu Effect: The Voting-Industrial Complex chokes our democracy

Computerized voting, promoted by an interlocking cabal of political operatives and vendors is strangling American democracy, like the parasitic vine of the Japanese kudzu plant. According to Election Data Services, almost 80% of all voters in 2006 voted on electronic voting machines or optically-scanned ballots nationwide. Less than 1% of voters in the U.S. used traditional hand-counted paper ballots.

What has caused this meteoric rise in computerized voting and vote counting where proprietary secrets destroy the transparency of the election process? A massive public relations campaign by a handful of strategically placed individuals has peddled computer voting as the high-tech wave of the future.

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January-February 2008

The new journal will be posted shortly! Don't forget to check out the columns and
departments sections for other articles included in the print edition!

Anti-nuclear renaissance: a powerful but partial and tentative victory over atomic energy

As the presidential primary season heats up, an “anti-nuclear renaissance” against loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants will escalate, with the future of American energy policy and global warming hanging in the balance.

In the last days of 2007, grassroots activism ran up a stunning and improbably victory. But the triumph is both partial and tentative, and will be fiercely contested throughout 2008, with the basic direction of US energy policy hanging in the balance.

This latest chapter in the half-century saga of atomic energy began last summer, with an industry attempt to grab a blank taxpayer check for underwriting new reactor construction. The charge was been led by six-term Senator Pete Domenici (D-NM), atomic power's prime Congressional pusher.

Stop using pigs for research

We urgently need your help to stop a live animal lab from taking place at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio this month. The school plans on using pigs in its elective laparoscopy surgery lab. Pigs are highly intelligent, social, and sensitive animals. According to this recent article in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Case Western has stopped using live dogs, cats, and ferrets to teach surgery and other medical courses, and it also plans to stop using pigs—but not until the next academic year. Live animal laparoscopy labs are easily replaced by inexpensive, high-quality simulators. Please urge Case Western to discontinue its live animal lab program today. Being polite is the most effective way to help these animals.

Here’s what you can do to help:

Call Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Dean Pamela B. Davis, M.D., Ph.D., at 216-368-2825 and politely ask her to end the school’s live animal lab once and for all.
Send an automatic e-mail to Dr. Davis and politely ask her to end the school’s live animal lab program now.

Bill Kristol

http://mattbors.com

A perspective on relations with Somalia

By all standards, the situation unfolding in Somalia is horrifically grim, and according to the UN, it is the worst crisis in Africa; worse than the crisis in Darfur that outraged the world’s conscience in an unprecedented way.

However, unlike Darfur, Washington has a role in the creation of this massive humanitarian crisis and therefore must have a role in rectifying it.

As Washington was claiming to care about winning the “hearts and minds of the Muslim world” in order to curb the ubiquitous Anti-Americanism around the world, it was stubbornly pursuing that same ill-tempered foreign policy that considers all

“Islamists”-- euphemistically understood as all Muslims who believe that their religion is a comprehensive way of life-- potential enemies; that same policy that has proven miserable failure everywhere it was implemented.

As a result, creepily emerging in the past few months was the nightmare scenario that many analysts warned against as John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, in his last days, aggressively pushed for resolutions that would ultimately pave the

Clinton campaign office re-occupied by peace activists on day of Iowa voting

Des Moines – Hours before voting begins in the nation’s first presidential poll, peace activists placed the Iraq war front and center again this afternoon as they occupied the Iowa headquarters of Senator Hillary Clinton for the second time since campaigning began last fall. 

Over a dozen members of a campaign called “Seasons Of Discontent: A Presidential Occupation Project” (SODaPOP) went to Clinton’s office, saying they still had not gotten a response to a letter delivered in October demanding she publicly oppose any more spending for the war or occupation, and foreswear an attack on Iran.

But as the peace activists approached Clinton’s East Second Street office, staff members locked the main door and refused admittance.  At a locked side door, a Clinton staff person was admitted but could not close the door before Jeff Leys, co-director of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, sat down in the doorway.

Pseudo-reporting

Many U.S. media outlets were quick to give us a primer on Islamic terrorism in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination last week, even though actual evidence points the finger far more at our ally in the war on terror, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, than it does at the Taliban or al-Qaida.

Indeed, McClatchy Newspapers recently reported that Bhutto, at the time of her murder, was in possession of evidence that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency was planning to rig the upcoming election (then scheduled for Jan. 8) in Musharraf’s favor, supplying, as if it were needed, an obvious motive for getting rid of her.

While there was some good, or at least restrained, reporting by U.S. media as the tragedy unfolded, the main sources of news for most Americans maintain what I can only call a cocked trigger of jingoism, which often goes off before the screams subside and the blood and debris are hosed into the gutter.

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