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Bad Manners

AUSTIN, Texas -- For those interested in high points in the history of Bad Manners, there was rather a breathtaking moment last week when columnist and television pundit Bob Novak chose to use the occasion of Jimmy Carter's winning the Nobel Peace Prize to trash the man.

"It's one of those inevocable (that's what the transcript says) signs of autumn," said Novak on "Crossfire." "Year in and year out, we get the inevitable boomlet to give Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize. The admittedly incompetent president, who is supposed to be a terrific ex-president. Well, this year they slipped up and actually gave him the Peace Prize. So we are giving the peanut man from Georgia something else: our 'Quote of the Day.'"

(They then run a clip of Carter being modest and amusing about getting the call from Norway that morning. "I thought it was some joker who was calling," he says.)

Iraq Again

Not long ago I happened to be listening to one of our local radio call-in programs discussing that interminable subject known as Iraq. While calmly absorbing the myriad of comments flowing over the airways I was suddenly taken aback by one of the most ill-considered utterances yet to have emerged. One of the callers drew a parallel between the Saddam Hussein of today and the Hitler of the 1930's and contended appeasement is no way to approach the former in light of what occurred with the latter. I could hardly believe my ears. Apparently that benighted soul needs to re-enroll in History 101 because he missed some blatantly obvious facts. Let's recount some history. Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and 3 years later in 1936 he remilitarized the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and in direct defiance of England and France. Although the latter two could have taken military action they decided to appease the Nazi appetite. Two years later in 1938 Hitler decided he would take Austria, again in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, and Britain and France sat on their hands. Later that same year Hitler demanded the Sudetenland and a

Multi-causational

AUSTIN, Texas -- Have you lost your homeowner's insurance lately? Seven hundred thousand of us here in Texas have, after Farmers Insurance decided to pull out of the Texas market -- despite the fact that we pay the highest insurance rates in the nation, an annual average of $680 more than homeowners in other states.

So here's 700,000 of us scrambling to find new insurance and fainting when we hear the rates quoted. If we don't carry insurance, under law, the mortgage companies can seize our homes. Great, a whole new class -- the affluent homeless.

How, you may ask, did we get into this mess? If you listen to the insurance companies, they'll tell you it's all because of those terrible trial lawyers bringing those ridiculous lawsuits, and the stupid juries that award millions and then the appeals courts never, ever throw those verdicts out.

Actually, that's not the problem. It is however, part of the problem. It is a small part of the problem.

'In Defense of Black Reparations' -- Part Two of Two

In recent months, momentum for black reparations has continued to build. In June 2002, members of the New York City Council held hearings to discuss whether a public commission should be established to examine the question of reparations. A coalition of largely black nationalist groups sponsored a "Millions for Reparations" at Washington's National Mall on August 17, which despite a disappointing turnout, still attracted national media coverage. At the demonstration, Congressman John Conyers criticized members of Congress for their failure to endorse reparations. Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, linked the reparations cause to the empowerment of young African Americans, declaring that our children "deserve a better future."

'The Death of White Racism' -- Part Two of Two

Since the racist three-fifths compromise in 1787, the U.S. government has been largely designed to perpetuate undemocratic, unequal power for white elites at the expense of nonwhites and the majority of the white population as well. Since the founding of this nation, only four African Americans have served in the U.S. Senate-Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, representing Mississippi during and immediately after Reconstruction, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, and Carol Mosely Braun of Illinois. Only two blacks have served on the Supreme Court-Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. The lack of black representation has been no accident.

Therefor, the demand for black reparations, while at first appearing to many to be racially divisive, is absolutely essential to the process of constructing a new democratic discourse on the historical origins and meaning of race in American society. Both white conservatives and white neoliberals, for very different reasons, want to take "race" off the political table. We can't allow them to do it.

In the 2002 Election, The Issue is Unchecked Power

Is this the most important election in US history?

With his TV talk of war, George W. Bush has blown smoke over what's really at stake today: the future of democracy. Not in Iraq; here in the United States.

Never in US history have we been closer to an unchecked one-man one-party rule than right now. And as the world's sole military super-power, we have made the crisis truly global.

The reality is simple: the right wing of the Republican Party controls three of the four branches of government, and is just a single vote away from taking the fourth.

The Executive, the Judiciary, the media and the House of Representatives are all in Republican hands. The Senate teeters on the edge. And the USA Patriot Act, passed in the wake of September 11, has obliterated most of the Constitutional guarantees that made this country a democracy in the first place. Should Congress go Republican in November, there will be no institutional check or balance left to guarantee that the democracy born here two centuries ago will survive.

Dockers and capitalists

Here are 10,500 dockworkers locked out at every port on the West Coast from Seattle to San Diego, with the shipping and terminal operators and big retail chains like Wal-Mart begging Bush to help them break the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), and Bush beginning the process of imposing an 80-day back-to-work order under the Taft-Hartley law.

He could escalate by trying to place the longshore workers under the aegis of the Railway Labor Act rather than the National Labor Relations Act. The former allows the government to close down a strike by fiat and impose a settlement.

Another line of attack would be to try to undercut the ILWU's strategic ace in the hole, its status as a bargaining unit for every port on the Pacific Coast. Before Harry Bridges won that right for the union back in the 1930s, the owners could simply whipsaw the different bargaining units by shifting shipments from a struck port to one still operating. A modern escalation of that would be the development of a port on Mexico's West Coast, where labor costs are negligible, and whence under NAFTA the containers could be funneled up by rail.

Thousands in Cincinnati protest Bush's call for war in Iraq

Thousands protested in Cincinnati yesterday [Monday, Oct. 7] as president George W. Bush spoke, calling upon the American people to support a Congressional measure which would give him the power to carry out a war against Iraq.

While Bush spoke inside, demonstrators lined the sidewalks in front of the Cincinnati Museum Center (the former Union Terminal) and for blocks around, chanting, singing, and waving signs opposing the war.

"What an amazing peace rally that was last night! When I first sent out an e-mail one week ago to mobilize people, I had hoped to get 1,000 people to protest Bush's speech for war. We estimate over 5,000 people gathered last night! It was beautiful!" said Sayrah Namaste, one of the organizers of the event. Local news media and NPR also reported "thousands" at the event.

Organized in just three days, protesters came from dozens of churches, several universities and high schools, and from people of all walks of life. Carrying signs reading, "No war on Iraq," "No blood for oil," and just plain "Peace," the demonstrators stood, marched, and danced for as long as four-hours first in the late

'In Defense of Black Reparations' -- Part One of Two

Throughout this year, the black reparations debate has become widely known, and it continued to attract increased national and international attention. In February 2002, CNN and USA Today commissioned the Gallup organization to conduct a national poll to assess public opinion on the issue. The results seemed to directly mirror the nation's parallel racial universes that are reproduced by structural racism. When asked whether "corporations that made profits from slavery should apologize to black Americans who are descendants of slaves," 68 percent of African Americans responded affirmatively, with 23 percent opposed, while 62 percent of all whites rejected the call for an apology, with only 34 percent supporting it.

'The Death of White Racism' -- Part One of Two

At the conclusion of his 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed the "hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities."

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