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corporations are not people Election

Day is right around the corner, but many voters in Massachusetts are unaware that their ballot will include a question about amending the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Supreme Courts discredited decision in Citizens United v. F.E.C. The question asks voters whether they support a constitutional amendment that would affirm that 1) corporations do not have the same constitutional rights as human beings and 2) that Congress and the states may limit political contributions and expenditures. Because this is a non-binding public policy question, it does not appear in the excellent Voter Guide published by Secretary Galvin and can be numbered 4, 5, 6 or 7 depending on the community. The Citizens United decision overturned decades-old laws restricting corporate political expenditures, including one passed in Massachusetts in the 1920s, ruling that they violated the First Amendments protection of free speech. The decision dramatically expanded the corporate rights doctrine and has unleashed a flood of money into federal, state, and local elections. In the wake of the decision, campaign spending by outside groups, such as SuperPACs, has skyrocketed. In the 2008 election, two years prior to the decision, outside groups spent nearly $300 million. In 2012 they have already spent $800 million and are expected to spend over $1 billion. All this money is corrupting our political system, as lawmakers seek support from well-financed special interests who expect something in return. To make matters worse, even when laws somehow make it through the morass of money, Citizens United and other recent decisions have systematically struck them down as violations of corporate constitutional rights. Laws such as those restricting cigarette advertising near schools, requiring the disclosure of Bovine Growth Hormone in milk products, or allowing random inspections of meat packing facilities have all fallen to this new corporate rights doctrine. The Courts claim that the Bill of Rights applies to we the transnational corporations as well as we the people is contrary to its original intent and just plain wrong. The framers of the Constitution were well aware of the dangers of wealthy interests taking over our government. They chartered only a few corporations and severely restricted their operation to a term of years and strictly circumscribed their activities. The idea of corporations having constitutional rights would have been shocking to them. And it should be shocking to us too. Some may worry that reversing the doctrine of corporate constitutional rights could endanger free speech for organizations like the NAACP or the Tea Party. Such concerns are unfounded. After all, corporate constitutional rights are a new legal concept. Prior to the 1970s, corporations and organizations like NAACP were held NOT to have Constitutional rights. Yet no newspapers were shut down and organizations were not subject to discriminatory governmental whims. Thats because, as the Supreme Court ruled during that period, members of organizations, not the organizations themselves, have constitutional rights that can be enforced. To its great credit, the Massachusetts State Legislature has recognized the need for a constitutional amendment to address these issues and nearly unanimously passed a resolution calling on Congress to enact one during the last legislative session. State legislatures in California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont have also voiced their states support. Cities and towns across the nation have also joined the call. In Massachusetts, the governing bodies of 73 municipalities have voted in favor of a constitutional amendment including Boston, Springfield and Worcester. In Colorado and Montana, voters statewide will be considering the question in November. All this activity, especially a strong vote of the people in November, and more is necessary if we are to muster the political momentum needed to amend the U.S. Constitution, This is no easy task, but the Supreme Court has left us no choice. Only with a constitutional amendment can we address the problem of big money in politics and corporate personhood that the Court has created. The very foundation of our democracy is at stake as is the health and safety of all Americans. -Pam Wilmot

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obama is not king On

January 20, 2009 Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. The inauguration, which set a record for attendance for any event on the Mall, drew an estimated crowd of 1.8 million people. According to Nielsen, approximately 37.8 million Americans view the inauguration from home. Millions also tuned in from around the world to witness this historic event, the election of the first African-American to the nations highest office. Boston.com captured this historic event with 40 breathtaking photos. However, it was one picture that really caught my attention. Pakistani Christian children holding posters with a portrait of President Obama and signs that read Pray for Peace and Peace for Ghaza and Palestine. For many around the world the election of President Obama was the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther Kings dream. Many had great expectations that he would walk in the footsteps of King and promote peace around the world. In 2009 he joined the company of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela by winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Thorbjorn Jagland, Chairman of The Nobel Peace Prize Committee, stated Barack Obamas leadership had been a call to action for all of us...Dr. Kings dream has come true.

But it has been more like a nightmare for the young Pakistani children that live in constant fear and suffer from the psychological trauma caused by drones that hover above their neighborhoods. President Obama has been very aggressive with his use of drones. A new report, Living Under Drones, conducted by NYU Law and Stanford Law states, Drones hover twentyfour hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. According to the New America Foundation, President Barack Obama has authorized more than four times the number of attacks than President George W. Bush authorized during his two terms in office. Living Under Drones further states that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,5623,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474881 were civilians, including 176 children. But no one knows the real numbers of deaths. According to The New York Times the administration counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants ... unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. So kill first and prove their guilt or innocence after death? President Obamas war machine did not stop in Pakistan; he also bombed the African country of Libya. Former Congressman Rev. Walter Fauntroy upon returning from Libya spoke with Baltimores Afro Newspaper and said Contrary to what is being reported in the press, from what I heard and observed more

than 90 percent of the Libyan people love Gaddafi...We believe the true mission of the attacks on Gaddafi is to prevent all efforts by African leaders to stop the recolonization of Africa. President Obama has signed the very controversial $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which would allow the military greater authority to detain and interrogate U.S. citizens. Other darconian forigen policy measures include: opening military bases in Columbia, extending the Patriot Act and expanding AFRICOMthe U.S. militarization of the African continent. I could go on, but I think you get it. President Obama is no Martin Luther King, Jr. In the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Hes a politician. It was Rev. Wright who told then Senator Obama, If you get elected, November the 5th, Im coming after you, because youll be representing a government whose policies grind under people. Rev. Jeremiah Wright loved Senator Obama, but understood his role as a minister of the gospel. A role that too many of todays ministers dont seem to understand. Those who have access to the President have spent more time leading Get out the Vote Campaigns then addressing Obamas foreign policy record and the pain that many are suffering from in their congregations. -Jamye Wooten Reprinted with permission of Kineticslive.com

Spare Change News was founded in 1992 by a group of homeless people and a member of Boston Jobs with Peace. Spare Change is published by the nonprofit organization The Homeless Empowerment Project (HEP). opportunity, and encouragement are capable of creating change for ourselves in society. To empower the economically disadvantaged in Greater Boston through self-employment, skill development and self-expression. To create forums, including those of independent media in order to reshape public perception of poverty and homelessness.

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SPARE CHANGES GOAL:

To present, by our own example, that homeless and economically disadvantaged people, with the proper resources, empowerment,

HEPS OBJECTIVES:

(4) the meaning of barack obama Regardless of the outcome next Tuesday, the election of Barack Obama remains a defining moment in American history. (6) who will feed the children? As families slip into poverty, more children need government assistance to eat. (7) race against homelessness The Somerville 5k benefits the homeless. (7) when homelessness became a crime Cities across the country are enacting laws that criminalize being homeless. (8) marian wright edelman A leading anti-poverty advocate tells SCN what gives her hope. (10) influence tracker: The Presidential candidates are receiving record amounts from corporations and high donors.

in this issue

In

mitt romney is irrelevant

the second Presidential debate Mitt Romney answered a question about how he would make sure in his administration that women would receive equal pay. He touched upon the memory of the beginning of his term as governor of Massachusetts, where he found that all of the folks looking to be in his cabinet were men, apparently that bothered him, I went to a number of womens groups, and said Can you help us find folks? And they brought us whole binders full of women. Not only was his answer condescending and stupid, it did not answer the question at hand which makes him irrelvant. Why? I dont know its just the way I feel about him. When Mitt was elected Governor ten years ago (cant even remember who ran against him), he was irrelevant even then. Not many people knew anything about him other than the fact he was the son of a Michigan governor, and the fact that he ran a failed campaign against Ted Kennedy some years ago. Oh, and that he was a Mormon. In fact, no one had heard much of anything about him. Oh yes ,there was those Winter Olympics.

Even his sudden ascent to the top of the governorship in Massachusetts was a set-up. You see, the GOP in Mass was in fear of losing the top spot they had hung onto over a decade mainly because then Governor Jane Swift, was pretty much making a mess of everything. The GOP was slowly going down the tubes. Enter Romney, fresh off the supposed triumph of the Winter Olympics. The Mass Republicans saw Mitt as their chance to keep the governorship in their hands. There was just one problem actually a couple. On one hand Mitt though he was a Massachusetts resident hadnt lived here in years. He had pretty much taken up residence in Utah, returning to Mass only when he was headed up to his vacation home in New Hampshire. Its no wonder he had no idea of women who would fit into his cabinet. He didnt live here and had no idea about Massachusetts politics. But there was a bigger problem. The current Republican Governor Jane Swift had every intention of running for a second term. The state GOP would have to convince her that it would be in the better interests of the people of the state if Mitt ran in her stead. Swift never

had a chance. So Mitt played the moderate role and got elected. Then he began to show his true colors. For Romney it was always about the presidency, we were just a stepping stone. As far as his moderate views, those were just a smoke screen. Even though he was Governor the rest of the State House was purely Democratic. So when he explains how he and Mass Democrats worked together its because he didnt have much of a choice. It turned out he hated that. Remember how he bad-mouthed our state during the 2008 presidential primary season? Now four years later he says that he got along well with Mass Democrats. Clearly he will say and do whatever it takes to get him elected. However, he slips up and his true feelings do come outthe 47% and binders full of women. And does anyone remember the tar baby remark when he was still here? The fact is folks, Mitt Romney doesnt care about any of us, only himself. Hes as hollow as a tree. He is just irrelevant. -James Shearer

| tales from the curb |

protecting our right to the right medicine President

Obamas healthcare reform is about to severely restrict drug treatment options for millions of Americas most vulnerable patients. This certainly wasnt the presidents intention. But a new, preliminary regulatory ruling from the Department of Health and Human Services required by the 2010 healthcare reform law applies a one-sizefits-all approach to prescription medicines. And the result could be substantially fewer treatment options for Americans all across the country. Instead of requiring insurance companies to cover whatever medicine a physician deems appropriate, the HHS would only require them to cover a single drug in each class of pharmaceuticals. So for example, if an HIV patient reacted badly to a particular anticonvulsant, he could be out of luck trying to get another one paid for by his insurance plan. If HHSs preliminary guidance becomes law, its likely to harm patients and drive up healthcare costs. The proposed HHS approach is particularly problematic for patients living with chronic conditions, including HIV/AIDS, severe mental illness, diabetes, and cancer; covering just one drug is wholly inadequate to meet their complex needs. Theres a way to do it better, making sure patients have access to the right medicines while keeping costs under control. In fact, we already have a model for how to make it work in Medicare Part D. Implemented in 2006, Part D is a prescription drug benefit offered under Medicare, our system of government-subsidized health care for seniors. It requires competing insurance plans to cover nearly all drugs in six critical classes: immunosuppressants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, antiretrovirals, and antineoplastics. Ensuring access to a wide range of drugs is particularly important for the HIV community. Every patient suffering from the disease exhibits unique symptoms, and its not uncommon for doctors to try a variety of drug regimens before determining the one that will work best. Its also likely that patients suffering from chronic conditions, including HIV/AIDS, will require a combination of several drugs. Furthermore, patients can easily develop hypersensitivities or adverse side effects from their first-line drug treatment. This is the case for many HIV antiretrovirals, which are known for their harsh side effects. In fact, its not uncommon for patients to take ten or more additional pills just to manage their side effects. Patients can easily require multiple medications in more than one class of pharmaceuticals throughout their course of treatment. Covering just one drug per class will make it financially impossible for many patients to receive the cocktail of medicines they need, and may force patients to discontinue the most effective treatments. Research into drug access for Medicaid beneficiaries also starkly illustrates just how dangerous restricted access to medications can be. Medicaid enrollees with problems accessing the drugs they need are far more likely to exhibit suicidal behavior, or experience homelessness and incarceration. In addition to harming patients health, restricting the number of available drugs drags down our health care system. Patients whose conditions are not addressed by the single covered drug in each class are more likely to experience relapses in their illnesses, exacerbating symptoms and requiring more hospitalizations, rehospitalizations and expensive acute care. In fact, Medicaid beneficiaries with drug access problems are 74 percent more likely to visit an emergency room for treatment and when they do, tend to require 72 percent more acute inpatient days in the hospital. Annually, these hospital stays end up costing more than twice the annual spending on the prescription drugs that the patients should have been taking in the first place. It makes little sense to implement regulations that will cost more and increase the number of patients in hospital beds. Part D, on the other hand, has been saving taxpayers and patients alike. The programs costs have consistently come in below Congressional Budget Office projections. In fact, beneficiaries average monthly premiums for 2012 are lower than they were last year. HHS will soon make its final ruling on what drugs insurers must cover. To protect patients health and control costs, its critical that officials revise their current, restrictive proposal. Instead, they should take a page from Medicares successful Part D. -Frank Oldham

about our contributors:

Sarah Black is a journalism student at Emerson College. SCNs Editor-in-Chief emeritus, Marc D. Goldfinger is the author of Poison Pen and The Resurrection of Syliva Plath. Emily Kahoud is a recent graduate of Cornell Universitys Division of Nutritional Sciences Program in Health Studies. Frank Oldham is President and CEO of the National Association of People with AIDS. James Shearer is a founder and former board chairperson the Homeless Empowerment Project. Pam Wilmont is the Executive Director of Common Cause-Massachusetts. Jamye Wooten is the President of Kinetics Live, an online community which focuses on African American religion and social justice.

November 2 -November 15, 2012

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20th Anniversary prediction made by American political royalty. In a dark three piece suit, with hands folded in professorial tone, McKenize recounts and queries. Robert Kennedy, when he was Attorney General, said that he could image the possibility of a Negro President in United States within perhaps 40 years. Do you think this is at all realistic? Without a missing a beat, King, a jet lagged American Jeremiah, rejoined and upped the ante, Let me say first that I think it is necessary to make it clear that there are Negroes who are presently, qualified to be President of the United States. There are many who are qualified in terms of integrity, in terms of vision, in terms of leadership ability. But what we do know that there are certain problems and prejudices and mores in our society that make it difficult now. However, I am very optimistic about the future. Frankly, I have seen certain changes in the United States over the last two years that have surprised me. I have seen levels of compliance with the civil rights bill and changes that have been most surprising. So on the basis of this, I think we may be able to get a Negro president in less than 40 years. I would think that this could come in 25 years or less. + During the 2008 campaign, Obama and his advisors walked a racial tightropesuspended between two poles: black sympathy and white anxiety. In a word, candidate Obama could never come across as an angry black man while solidifying his African American base. And for the most part he accomplished that with deft skill, until sermons of his firebrand pastor, Jeremiah Wright surfaced. After name-checking the great fallen empires: Russia, Japan, Great Britain, he laid into the United States for her social sins against blacks and Native Americans, Wright blasted Goddamn America which was looped over and over again on cable news. His black nationalist sermon caused such a stir that Obama was forced to confront the very issue that he sought to overcomerace. On March 18, 2008, then Senator Obama mounted one of the most sacred pulpits in American civic religion Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His race speech titled, A More Perfect Union walked the racial tightrope with dexterity. He launched his talk from the predictable place that he was delivering his remarks. Noting that tragicomic history of American democracy, Obama condemned Wrights sermon and pointed out his maternal grandmothers racist epithets. After regulating Wrights anger to bygone era and exploring the white anxiety, Obama points out toward a larger considerationeconomic insecurity Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; In this section of the speech, Obama attempted to address the mounting anger of whites in the face of economic decline. The anger was fueled by talk show hosts, like Glenn Beck and would eventually produce the Tea Party, whose gatherings were often populated with racist depiction of Obama. Having delivered what many commentators held as one of the greatest speeches given by a politician on race, Obama would go on to win Iowa and New Hampshire, and clinch the nomination. Some forty years after assassins bullets silenced two American prophets and after two hundred or more cities burned in riotous grief, Kings prophecy would come to pass. Deploying Kings dream and drawl, Barack Obamapossessing Malcolm Xs coloration, handsome stature, and cutting wit--became the first African American president of the United States. His election was met with jubilation through the world. At 11pm on November 4, 2008, African American boys and girls poured onto Malcolm X Street in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, dancing and singing, We won! We won! Images of people celebrating in cities and villages throughout the world were broadcasted on every television channel. BET correspondent Jeff Johnson commented, We have not seen this kind of global outpouring since the release of Nelson Mandela. That night an estimated

the meaning of barack obama

These lyrics are from the classic, A Song for You. Though
I know your image of me Is what I hope to be Ive treated you unkindly But darlin cant you see
originally written and recorded in 1970 by Leon Russell, a white rocker-singer-songwriter, these lyrics were ushered into the American songbook by soul music icon, Donny Hathaway. His immaculate phrasing, perfect pitch, and full-throated vocals transform a lovesick elegy into an ode to Americas contradictions and promise. The United States has always said of itself that it was a city on the hilla light among nations. Lady Liberty extended her eternal lamp and called out to the worlds tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free; for they would surely find succor to their righteous thirst in the United States. In the Gilded Age, the quest for greater freedom and fortune would be mythologized in Horatio Algers novels. Dreams of rags-to-riches abounded among recent immigrants and American popular imagination. Yet, its racial history begs to differ. Slavery, Jim Crow, and other disparities illuminated a nightmarish reality for too many inhabitants of the worlds first multi-racial democracy. Racial minorities held the United States accountable to its creeds. After a civil war and civil rights movementboth of which are blood soakedthe nation got a little closer to its image of itself. Burdened with race and discrimination African Americans would become the moral conscience of the nation. Their protest

would condemn and conjure the democratic project into being. As the nation collectively remembers its past, it does so with pride and thanksgiving. One can almost hear Donny Hathaway crooning at the piano. You taught me precious secrets Of the truth with holding nothing You came out in front and I was hiding But now Im so much better + In 1964, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stopped over in London, en route to Oslo, Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and gave a series of lectures and interviews. King arrived in London on Dec. 5ththe day before his public nemesis, the fire and brimstone prophet, Malcolm X was set to return to the United States. Mr. X had been on a six-day speaking tour throughout Great Britain, which was punctuated with a nationally televised debate at Oxford University. Malcolm Xknown for characterizing King and the nonviolent civil rights movement as weak and cowardlywas asked to comment on Kings arrival in London. In an uncharacteristically gracious manner, Mr. X told a London Muslim student group, Ill say nothing against him. BBC broadcaster Robert McKenize sat down with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to discuss the plight of the American Negro. A professor of politics and sociology, McKenize was an accomplished psephologistone who does statistical analysis of elections. In the course of the interview, the Canadian born journalist summons a

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20th Anniversary

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November 2 -November 15, 2012

crowd of 240,000 gathered in Grant Park in then exceptionalism, If there is anyone out there who still from aboard to turn the United States of America into President-elects hometown of Chicago, IL. Once the doubts that America is a place where all things are a socialist dictatorship. On the left Obama was liberal election was called for Obama, even Fox News paused possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders messiah who had once and for all atoned for the racial to acknowledge the historic occasion. A somber Brian is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our sins and ushered in the post-racial era of American Williams turned to Juan Williams to get his thoughts on democracy, tonight is your answer. democracy. He, of course, governed as neither, but rather the election outcome. The next morning on a crowded A train to as a neo-liberal politician who encountered a recalcitrant As producer of the definitive civil rights documentary Manhattan, a seemingly disturbed thirty-something opposition party whose stated goal was to insure that series, Eyes on the Prize, Juan Williams located the black woman rocked back and forth and shook her head. Obama was a one-term President. ground breaking election in its historical context, It is She blurted out to commuter crowd, I am not crazy. I + stunningWhen I think of it from a historical point of am just ecstatic. I can tell my baby he can be anything According to New York Times columnist, view and you go back and you think of people, you Maureen Dowd, the President has surrounded President Obama on poverty know, going back to the fact, you know, that black himself with smart ass white boys from Harvard people did not have the right to vote in this country. who have limited political wheelhouse when it And it was only black men until 1870And of Even before the recession hit, middle class incomes had been comes to race. They are simply out of their depth. course it did not mean much going forward until The president missed an opportunity to have a stagnant and the number of people living in poverty in 1965 and the Voting Rights Act. And that point, national dialogue on race, following the egregious Lyndon Johnson said that the Democratic party had America was unacceptably high, and todays numbers make arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates lost the South, forever. There was no possibility, really, on his own front porch. Rather than initiating it clear that our work is just beginning. of full enfranchisement that would say that black a national discussion about race, racial profiling people could somehow be the leader of the United and policing in communities of color with policy President Obama said these words in September States of America. With burgeoning emotion, Juan recommendations, the president and his advisors 2010. Two years later, during the 2012 campaign, Williams continued his thick description on the convened a beer summit in which the arresting we have hardly heard the term poverty twice. epic occasion, This is truly an incredible moment office and Professor Gates had a beer together and of American history. Nonetheless, if we look back, we observe that talked. A choked up Williams cemented his reflection This mishandling of race became a recurring Obamas government invested large amounts with this characterization, I cannot think of another theme in the Presidents first term. After a video of money in food banks, job-training programs, country in the world where you have a significant smear campaign and deliberate misrepresentation job creation and increased the income of the minority that was once so maligned and so oppressed of her words, Shirley Sherrod, civil rights veteran Homelessness Prevention Funds (American finally have one of its sons rise to this levelI do and farming advocate was met with a reflexive not care about how you feel about him, politically, Recovery Act). Still, as the president says, the work request to resign from her post at the United Stated at some level you have to say this is America at its Department of Agriculture. Both President Obama is just beginning. - Mar Romero grandestthe potential, the possibility. And what and Fox News celebrity Bill OReilly apologize to it says for our children, black and white, the image Mrs. Sherrod for their mishandling of her case. of Barack Obama and those little girls in the Rose Throughout the presidents first term, he has fallen Garden in the years to come, I think is just stunning. off the racial tightrope and landed with feet firm on the During his victory speech President-elect Obama he wants to be! The multi-racial crowd erupted in white anxiety side. walked the nation through its tragic history of racial strife applause. Obamas election was a watershed moment in Moreover, the politics of race have cut both ways with tender elegance. Referencing Kings Mountaintop American democracy. The white supremacist gaze in the inside and outside the White House. On the one hand, speech, Obama declared, tonight, because of what we United States demonized black bodies, subjected their liberal commentators have demanded allegiance and not did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, intelligence and interrogated their national allegiance. interrogation. And on the other, conservative operatives change has come to AmericaThe road ahead will be Barack Obamas winning campaign called into question have recycled tired and true troupes. Writing in The long, our climb will be steep. We may not get there in these deep-seated notions that shaped U.S. public policy Nation Magazine, MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry one year, or even in one term but America, I have and perceptions. suggested that the electoral racism was at work in the Moreover, black folks, if not all Americans, take great presidents loss of white support in this second campaign. never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will pride in the presence of three generations of African The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be get there. Americans in the White House. The real image of a held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. beautiful black family beaming into the homes of all If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the Americans has a deep impact on the psyche of the triumph of a more subtle form of racism, Harris Perry nation, and a denigrated people. The likes of which has postulates. In the primaries and the general election the not been seen since the venerable Cosby Show of the major conservative politicians want to Take America 1980s. Back from the Food Stamp president. Such verbiage Hence, the Obama presidency is an electoral and drips with racial resentment. And Donald Trump existential victory. The way in which all American pledged to donate $5 million to the Presidents favorite people make meaning for themselves as a nation. charity if the president released his college records and There are two widely accepted, if not competing, passport informationmore birther maddness. narratives about Obamas ascension. First, there is the Nevertheless, Obama delivered the landmark election itself. While it is true that his presence in the Affordable Health Care Act, Lilly Ledbetter Act, and White House is because of his intelligence, effective increased program funding for the nations poor children. fundraising apparatus and sophisticated campaign Yet, Obama and his party suffered a devastating blow in machinery, the red carpets at the inaugural balls were the 2010 mid term elections. Riding the wave of white soaked in the blood of martyrs. economic insecurity, Tea Party freshmen became the The presidency of Barack Obama is a by-product of rudder of the House of Representatives. One year before African Americans 400 years of struggle for access to the Tea Partys electoral coup detat, President Obama the democratic project called America. The President was summoned to Oslo, Norway to receive the Nobel Having survived a divisive and bloody campaignan has often located himself in that tradition and trajectory. Peace Prize. To many observers, the prizeawarded to electoral civil warObama called upon his presidential He has strategically trafficked in the prophetic rhetoric of Martin Luther King and other global peace activists hero to heal the wounds of fractious electorate, As the Civil Rights Movement and employed the homiletic seemed to be a bit pre-mature or maybe prophetic. Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we rhythms of the black preacher. As with his victory Latter category was not fulfilled. are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have speech, he has used these cultural signifiers in a way that After his stopover in London, Martin Luther King strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. is titillating to the national consciousnesslinguistically shared with the Nobel committee that he refused to A 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper cast her vote and literally embodying all Americans quest for a more accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must in that election. Obama took time to bear witness to democratic society. spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of the historic nature of her voting. She was born just a + thermonuclear destruction. King accepted the peace generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars As with the campaign trail, the sitting presidents prize with an abiding faith in America and an audacious on the road or planes in the sky, when someone like tenure has been littered with racial acrimony. The faith in humanitys future. King toldthe assembled kings her couldnt vote for two reasons because she was a election night national unity gave way to politics of and suzerains that unarmed truth and unconditional woman and because of the color of her skin. derision, fear, and conjecture. Obamas citizenship, faith, love will have the final word in reality. Rev. Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey, both and national allegiances were questioned on end. On the In his Nobel Prize speech, Obama paid tribute to weeping, stood in the frigid weather as the nations first right he was a Manchurian candidatean anti-colonial OBAMA continued on page reversed 9 black president dashed any doubts about American foreign-born Muslim (read Malcolm X) operative sent
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

November 2 -November 15, 2012

(national )

20th Anniversary

who will feed the children? As families slip into poverty, more children need government assistance to eat.

Every force has an equal, yet opposite reactive force

states Newtons Third Law of Motion. Recent politics prove that Newtons law is applicable elsewhere. Once again a lack of cohesion among bipartisan entities and an ensuing sense of hyper-partisanship grows apparent with measures that undermine progress. Yet as the squabbling continues, so does the pain stemming from layoffs and unemployment with impending financial insecurity inevitably leading to hunger threat. On June 12th the House Agriculture Committee passed its 2012 farm bill, H.R. 6083, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2012 (FARRM). This bill includes $16.5 billion in cuts over the next decade to the federal food assistance program. As predicted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill would ultimately place several million Americans including children, elderly, and disabled, in a position of significant financial hardship and vulnerability to hunger. In addition, a predicted 280,000 children from low-income families will lose access to free school lunch. Paired with the predicted effects of this years drought, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture believes will lead to an approximately 5% increase in cost of items like meat, dairy, and eggs. The synergistic effects will create a perfect storm in terms of increased need and decreased ability to handle it, says Episcopal Community Services President John Hornbeck to 41 Action News of Kansas City, Missouri. SNAP serves as a temporary source of aid for families at critical times of need in an attempt to enable people to get back on their feet. According to the USDAs Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), half of all new SNAP participants leave the program within 10 months, yet more than half of those who leave return within two years, demonstrating the cyclical nature of poverty and that people rely more heavily on SNAP at these temporary low points. Significantly, as poverty deepens, there is a greater reliance on SNAP, and when the economy improves, this is also reflected in SNAP participation. Referred to as a national safety net, typical SNAP participants are those who have taken an economic fall and need transient protection by their government, a buffer to keep them from the devastating position of being unable to keep food on the table for themselves or their children. Longterm SNAP participants consist largely of elderly, disabled adults, and single parents and their children. Critical to note, children have the highest SNAP participation rate, which at 92% was 20 percentage points higher than the overall participation rate in the 2009 fiscal year. Since 2007 and in light of the withering economy, SNAP participation has increased 70%, yet over a third of eligible participants are not receiving SNAP benefits, many of whom remain leery of the reliability of government aid. A SNAP participant with a family of four who, along with her husband, recently lost her job near the end of 2007 commented to the Huffington Post, We would love to not have to rely on the government for something as important as food, but we simply can not. She commented on how the food stamps system causes a lot of extra stress [to have to watch] your only food source constantly on the line because of political battles. By providing temporary food security, a family can better devote its energy and resources towards adapting to an unstable economy and securing new sources of income and a stronger financial foothold. The FNS calculates that counting SNAP benefits as income, 13% of households would be lifted out of poverty. Thus, in low-income households, SNAP plays a significant role in lessening the burden of child poverty and improving child welfare. SNAPs mission, according to the FNS, is to increase the food purchasing power of low-income households, enabling them to obtain a more nutritious diet by preparing food at home. It plays a vital role in helping families to maintain adequate, healthy nutrient standards, and by enabling families to invest in nutritious

food, redirects dollars back into local food economies. The deep SNAP cuts proposed by House Republicans make a stark contrast with the Senate-passed bipartisan version of the farm bill that would save a total of $23 billion but would not risk cutting aid to millions of Americans at their greatest time of need. Like a tug of war game with the health and comfort of millions of fellow Americans at stake, progress is made, yet just as quickly these meager gains are again stripped away. Although President Obama has been disparagingly referred to as the food stamp president, the birth of SNAP marks a critical step toward reducing nationwide hunger. According to the USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, Kevin Concannon, SNAP is essential as it is the nations first line of defense against hunger. He says, SNAP helps put food on the table for millions of low income families and individuals every month and, as the largest of the USDAs 15 nutrition assistance programs, it has never been more critical to the fight against hunger. SNAP came about as a refurbished visage for the federal food stamp program. Overriding former president Bushs veto, SNAP was conceived on October 1st, 2008 with the passing of the farm bill (the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008). The hope was to shed food stamp stigma and to rally greater enthusiasm (among both supporters and beneficiaries) with a snappy new name and an image of modernity in which the integrity of the program became a top priority. In 2008 when Obama was elected, 28 million Americans were receiving food stamps. Due to the Obama administrations foresight regarding the impact of the impending recession, reforming the federal food stamp program became a front stage issue in an attempt to provide a hunger buffer for the most vulnerable Americans. The FNS reports that the challenge of SNAP is that it serves a vulnerable population with critical and immediate needs. Accordingly, in response to the recessions insipid unemployment onslaught, SNAPs progress towards modernization in recent years has insisted upon national standards of access, efficiency, and accuracy. By fiscal year 2011 the number of food stamps recipients had increased to nearly 45 million atrisk individuals reflecting improved access to millions of food insecure Americans. Food stamps fraud has also become a huge target for remodeling SNAP, as waste and abuse directly take dollars away from children needing those benefits. As a result of President Obama and Vice President Joe Bidens campaign to eliminate waste, the FNS reports that in fiscal year 2010 the program reached its highest degree of integrity in history as the national overpayment error rate (the percentage of SNAP benefit dollars issued in excess of the amounts for which households are eligible) fell to 3.05%, and the underpayment error rate was calculated at less than 1.00%. Thus, more than 96% of the benefit amount is exactly correct, not more than or less than a household should receive, says Concannon. Concannon explains that state agencies have been armed and equipped with new tools for combating fraud and trafficking in response to the observation that previous slap on the wrist penalties did little to deter future violations. Retailers committing fraud can be permanently disqualified from the program, and state agencies can now assess a monetary penalty on that retailer, proportionate to the amount of business the perpetrator is doing. State agencies have also had to satisfy new requirements for finding, searching, and punishing food stamps violators, who are invariably

small stores who slip through the cracks rather than the supermarkets and larger stores that handle more than 80% of SNAP benefits and are more strictly monitored. Furthermore, the reemergence of food stamps as SNAP gave the States greater flexibility in administering the program, which would also foster more straightforward navigation of the programs tortuous rules of approval. In addition, revisions to the federal food stamp program have resulted in minimized overhead and administrative costs by providing opportunities for categorical eligibility in which individuals approved for other financial assistance programs may automatically be approved for SNAP. Although some politicians have pointed the finger at program measures that have expedited the SNAP approval process, attributing them to increased spending on the program, such measures are essential to ensuring that individuals who are in crisis can be approved without significant strife and painful application approval wait times. Stringent seven-day statutory deadlines for destitute households are already a challenge to meet with rising caseloads and declining resources in recent years. In addition, recent attacks on categorical eligibility will result in many working families losing access to SNAP because they own a modest car, which is often helping them commute to their jobs and therefore promoting employment stability. Thus, targeting modest financial assets or income undermines SNAPs supportive function, and promotion of self-sufficiency via pre-requisite work requirements. Many politicians support SNAP cuts under the impression that the Obama administrations increased aid via food stamps is enabling unemployment. Proponents of the cuts also make erroneous claims that categorical eligibility has resulted in misuse of the programs benefits. However, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in 2010 only 1.5% of all SNAP households had monthly disposable income (i.e., income after SNAPs deductions) above the poverty line. Thus, even with the categorical eligibility option in tact, nearly 99% of all SNAP households are left in poverty despite having disposable income. SNAPs functioning has formed the cornerstone to lifting millions of struggling individuals out of poverty. Thus, in the wake of such devastating cuts occurring when unemployment is still above 8%, an estimated 2 to 3 million people will be taken off of SNAP benefits and neglected in their greatest time of desperation. Again, to reemphasize the issue of need, 71% of all spending on SNAP benefits go towards households with children, and nearly 55% of SNAP participants are children or elderly individuals and 20% of households receiving SNAP benefits include a disabled member. Perhaps if we were omniscient beings, we could preempt impending crises and be better equipped to sidestep financial disaster. Politicians may proselytize about programs such as SNAP damaging the economy and discouraging rather than encouraging people to reach self-sufficiency; yet one may wonder whether these same individuals, along their assent to positions of prestige, ever found themselves needing help; whether at some point in their career development they ever took a misstep that necessitated immediate assistance; whether in taking the risks that command strength in entrepreneurialism, that leap of faith always led to a soft landing. According to Politico, in the heat of the debates in the House that led to the decision to secure the $16.5 billion in savings, one republican spoke out to her fellow colleagues, urging them to open up their minds to the reality around them: There is a great deal of need
PHOTO: PUBLIC DOMAIN

20th Anniversary that is in America today, and it is growing every single day. I ask each and every one of my colleagues to look in their heart and look in their soul and if you havent volunteered at a food bank, I suggest this weekend that you go to your local food bank and volunteer. As said by Heather Higginbottom, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, budgeting ought to be about balance. Instead of focusing cuts on those who are working hard to make ends meet, we should be asking all

( local & national ) Americans to do their part. As Higginbottom concisely puts it, we are protecting the top, hurting the hungry. Now is the time to question the humanity within. This is the time to reject political dogma and turn ones faith toward the unbelievable feats humans are capable of achieving when given the proper resources at times of crucial need. Subsistence survival renders a person on the defensive

November 2 -November 15, 2012

rather than the offensive; one can become entrapped in a vicious cycle where failed outcomes become almost inevitable without some kind of intervention. Yet often, the most incredible accomplishments occur after one has come in intimate contact with defeat. SNAP may provide that critical intervention that fosters an emergence from the cycle of subsistence living; a chance to redirect ones energies towards securing stability and renewed vitality. -Emily Kahoud

race against homelessness The Somerville 5k benefits the homeless.

most people pretend doesnt exist on the weekends. He donned a pair of running shorts and a bright yellow tank top, a stunning choice considering the chilly weather outside. He made his way to Davis Square and signed his name on a piece of paper and began to walk around, anticipating his first race since a year and a half, when he injured himself for overtraining for marathons. A couple hours later, Taylor finishes first in the 17th Annual Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K Road race, with a time of 15:14. Im really happy about [my time], he said. Taylor runs in many faux marathons, ran the Boston Marathon five times, and even travels around the world to run in races. But he continues to run this particular race ever since he first saw a flyer years ago. I think its the cause, Taylor said. Its a great cause to help the homeless. Mark Alston-Follansbee, the Executive Director of the Somerville Homeless Coalition, said this race is one of

Alex Taylor, 32, awoke at a time on Saturday morning

the three largest events the coalition puts on every year. Seventy-five volunteers work to help with registration and the popular brunch offered at the end of the race, and almost half of the 35-staffed SHC working on the event, preparing as early as May to get sponsors involved. Seventeen years ago a bar in Somerville called The Bullpit, began the event to help out the coalition. The bar was eventually shut down but the race was continually supported by other businesses in the area. The 5K now averages about 1,000 runners a year. This year about 900 runners were registered, and with most of the revenue coming from sponsors, the SHC raised about $14,000 to put toward the $600,000 they need to raise each year. Though Alston-Follansbee wasnt able to work on the day of this race, hes worked in the past 12. Whats fun about runners is that they have their own mentality, he said. Some are very goal-oriented, while others come and want to be supportive. John Byrd, 39, is a bartender for two bars in Boston

and has a hand in speed-racing and also made this 5K his comeback from an injury to his leg during endurance training. Its a nice thing to do for the homeless, he said, but also was influenced by the professional timing mat the race uses to give runners their exact time. Nelly Do, 24, a med student at Harvard Medical School, heard about the race on racewire.com. Shes been in Boston for just one year, but has run several races, including one to fundraise a womens softball team and another to promote suicide awareness. With runners paying registration fees for multiple races a year, the costs can get pretty steep for a recreational runner. It does get pretty pricey, Do said, and then laughed. Sometimes it forces you to get up that morning. As for the winner of the 5K, Taylor, he plans to come to the race again next year, and if the SHC has their way, there will be a thousand more runners following him. -Sarah Black

when homelessness became a crime Cities across the country are enacting laws that criminalize being homeless.

Many cities have targeted homeless people by creating

ordinances that prohibit activities of daily living for the homeless. One set of restrictions focuses on service providers feeding programs. Historically, cities have attempted to restrict feedings on public property through zoning laws. In Orlando, Florida, members of Food Not Bombs have been arrested repeatedly for feeding homeless people in parks. Food Not Bombs has been feeding homeless people in parks all over the country since they began in the 1980s. Food Not Bombs has been fighting a court battle in Orlando for the past five years. They lost the fight in April of this year. The courts said that Food Not Bombs must apply regularly for a permit to feed no more than 25 homeless people at a time. On May 25th, according to Susan Jacobson of the Orlando Sentinel, Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan Keith McHenry, 54, one of the Co-Founders of Food Not Bombs, were arrested for feeding 40 people in the park in violation of the ordinance. The penalties for the arrest were 60 days in jail or a $500 fine or both. Just recently, police surveillance has identified what they call the Top 20, the most-wanted of all homeless individuals. They have been branded as the most aggressive and violent of the homeless population. In Sarasota, Florida, the police have made 108 arrests of the homeless since the beginning of August. They focus on younger homeless individuals and are quite ambitious. Officer Lt. Randy Boyd stated that one of the men targeted has been arrested 200 times in the state for various crimes. Another of the homeless Top 20 was arrested 41 times on various charges in Pennsylvania and Florida, including charges for disorderly conduct and possession of cocaine. There are different sides to this story. More and more cities have passed Anti-Panhandling Ordinances, which target the homeless by prohibiting panhandling, solicitation, or begging. Many of these laws infringe on the right to free speech under the First Amendment; when challenged, courts have found begging to be protected speech. Some courts declare laws prohibiting begging or panhandling as constitutionally vague. A law is constitutionally vague if the language it is written in

is not definite enough to give people notice of what is prohibited or if the police could enforce the law in an arbitrary manner. In Costa Mesa, California, Don Matyja, an Army veteran, was just getting by living on the street, (if you can call it that), when he was issued a ticket for smoking in the park. Matyja, according to the Boston Globe, has been homeless for two years. The ticket was $25 and

because he hasnt had the money to pay it, the fine has now grown to $600. The anti-homelessness laws in Matyjas area are multiplying. In Orange County, California, ordinances were passed banning smoking in parks, sleeping in cars, and leaning bicycles against trees- all in a region filled with beaches and over 30,000 homeless people. These new ordinances are not restricted to California. They are happening across the country, as various towns and cities try to remove their growing homeless populations that reflect the growth of government policies favoring the rich and penalizing the poor. Homeless people say that these policies are obvious attempts to drive them from one city to another by criminalizing the activities that people perform as part of their daily life. Some towns have ordinances against

sitting, lying down, or sleeping on public property. Other laws prohibit standing on a public street, loitering on the sidewalk, jaywalking, and panhandling, said Neil Donovan, the executive director of the National Coalition for The Homeless. It definitely is more pervasive and it is more adversarial. I think in the past we found examples of it but its not simply just growing, but its growing in severity and in its targeted approach to Americas unhoused, said Donovan. He compared it to a civil rights issue. Theres the whole notion of Driving While Black. Well, this is Sitting While Homeless. The people in Denver, Colorado, voted to make urban camping illegal. They totally ignored homeless activists. Atlanta, Georgia also prohibited Urban Camping. Some courts have challenged these laws because they violate homeless persons rights. They say that arresting homeless people for sleeping outside when no shelter exists violates their Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. In June, Philadelphia prohibited feedings in public parks. The ordinance was put on hold when homeless groups sued the city. Theres also a new curfew for pets owned by homeless people on the Las Vegas Strip. Some cities engage in sweeps of areas frequented by homeless people or areas where people live outside. In one of these areas, off Greenough Boulevard in Cambridge, I saw a beautiful homeless residence, built in the trees and hidden from the road, being torn apart by authorities. The people who lived there, not bothering anyone, were driven off. There are cities that have passed laws that impose curfews on minors. These curfews can pose extreme problems for unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. In many cities, it is common for parks to have curfews, which can be selectively enforced on the homeless. It seems as if, as homelessness increases, the penalties for being unhoused or homeless become more severe. Public lands, such as the Boston Common, no longer exist for homeless commoners. -Marc D. Goldfinger
PHOTO: MARC D. GOLDFINGER

November 2 -November 15, 2012

www.sparechangenews.net

20th Anniversary

marian wright edelman A leading child poverty advocate tells SCN what gives her hope.
SCN: Thank you so very much; were deeply honored that you would take this time to talk with us. Its my understanding that my predecessors had a brief interview with you concerning your summer program. MWE: Rightwhich we are very proud of. And its just growing and growing. Its where our movements going to come from. SCN: And how are things going down at the farm? MWE: There are people down there today from around the country looking at the new people to try and figure out how they can start freedom schools. The farm is jumping! And we have a new wonderful nonviolent organizing director Rev. Janet Wolf who is on the cutting edge of his administry, and were working with Jim Lawson and other elders from the sixties Vince Harding and others then do some serious organizing training. We really have to focus on organizing, organizing, organizing our young people, our faith folk, our women, because its movement time. No one wants to spend the next ten, twenty years defending against more and more budget cuts and being on the defensive. Its really time for us to realize our power and to do it non-violently. And so, focusing on organizing and movement building to take the children and the Peoples movement to the next stage is the focus here, and Haleys Farm is at the center of that so come down and see us; you have to experience Haley. SCN: Ive actually been I broke bread there with Alex a few months before he died. MWE: Well, its real different now since he left us this very important place that really is about our roots. You need to come and see how it has been transformed; I think that he would be pleased. You havent seen our new chapel? SCN: No maam. MWE: Well, we finished the last unfinished building that he left. SCN: Yes MWE: Thats the Langston Hughes library which Maya Lin redesigned which is exquisite and then she built a chapel based on Noahs Ark. Our logo is a boat that a little child drew, and that was the first new thing we gave Haley. We finished that fund that Mr. Haley had left. But then I said the first new was going to be at chapel. And its a splendid, multipurpose place. I would invite you to Freedom School Training which is always in the first week in June just so you could SEE how it is a new home to this movement and its really percolating up. We have 1,500-1,600 young people out there for training; weve housed them at the University of Tennessee. But I was so pleased because they worked well through 14 hours of the day. We have an outwardbound team-building course one of the meadows across the river and they didnt leave one piece of paper on the ground. They really own it. And they really come there and they are serious about reclaiming our children through freedom schools and their own local organizing. So come and see what he left us in his legacy and what were trying to do with it. SCN: Thank you, I definitely will. I would like to check in: did you watch the debates last night? MWE: I did watch the debates last night. SCN: And am I wrong to think that the word poverty or poor children was not mentioned by either candidate? MWE: Well, I think Romney may have mentioned it in passing, but it was just a throwaway. You know, its election year and there are no friends in politics, okay? Lets just say that. And people first job they think is to get elected. And the middle class has been the mantra. So there has been far too little about the needs of the growing poor in our country, which has come about as the result of not only the economic downturn, but a fundamental structural changes in our economy with so many low wage jobs and the majority of people who are poor working trying to play by the rules everyday cannot earn enough to lift themselves and their children out of poverty. And Ive given President Obama a lot of slack because while he has mentioned the middle class, his stimulus package really expanded significantly in support for the poor. I look at the substance, I look at what they do not what they say. And you saw huge new investments in early childhood education and head start and early head start in expanding their income tax credit, and the child tax credit which alleviate poverty in the massive expansion of food stamps, and let me tell you that the 47 million people who are on food stamps today, which is our only and primary safety net for what I think, those people did it for resurrection because they put hunger and the inadequacy of our food program on the national agenda and it took years because people dont understand how hard it is to bring about change to expand the food programs but they all come back to that push in the poor peoples campaign which are jobs and to end hunger in America. President Obama has expanded food stamps, but more importantly, has expanded the affordable care act and has expanded Medicaid in the largest way since its inception. And so what he did - versus what he said ought to be acknowledged. But it is clearly time for us to talk about a concerted campaign to create jobs, jobsjobs, to continue expand and invest in education, and career preparation and to really talk about the needs of clothes, this wealth and income gap to end poverty in this country starting with our children. And were going to make a big campaign around that because what is

PHOTO: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

November 2 -November 15, 2012 happening is morally obscene. It is our biggest national security problem, when we have a majority of all our children of all racial income groups are unable to read and compute at grade level not ready for school. Not engaged after school and during the summer like what were trying to do for freedom schools and when 80% of black children and almost of 80% of Latino children, who are going to be the majority of our future workforce very shortly when they cant read and compute and if you cant read and compute in this globalized economy, you are being sentenced to social economic debt, to that prison pipeline and I tell you, we are on every cylinder to see how we can wake up the country and wake up the black community to this cradle-to-prison pipeline. SCN: I wanted to ask we only have a few more minutes youve laid something out when you raised the question of the Poor Peoples Campaign to the expansion of food stamps, Poor Peoples Campaign to the prison, cradle-toprison pipeline could you just talk to me a little about your pushing Dr. King to take up the Poor Peoples Campaign, how that has informed your work and how you arrived at the latest and most ambitious campaign with the creator of the prison pipeline. MWE: Well, I didnt really have to push Dr. King to do very much about it. He was struggling to figure out his next steps in light of the growing attention of the nation to the Vietnam War and the invisibility of the poor back then. And you know, he understood that the war on poverty was a scrimmage compared to what we were investing in Vietnam and the justice was indivisible and that we were sending poor young black folk and other young poor folk over to fight a war against other people of color while we were neglecting their rights to be able to do what they needed to do here at home. And so I was still in Mississippi, with Robert Kennedy coming down, and have seen the hungry bellies of children and he had really called for immediate response by the federal response to get that food down and look back at even with Robert Kennedy and then Dr. King documenting with doctors and others how serious hunger and malnutrition was, it was excruciatingly hard to move the country to do what was right and to do what was sensible. So in frustration, when I was up visiting in Washington, I went out to see Robert Kennedy on the way back to Mississippi and reported to him how slow the federal government was in moving things and tell him I always try to drop through Atlanta to see Dr. King on my way back to Jackson. And he told me to tell him, Dr. King, to bring the poor to Washington, because the war was overshadowing them and we needed to put some pressure on president Johnson, and I did that. And Dr. Kings eyes just lit up; he was very depressed in those last years in trying to figure out if this movement should move north, because the country went to Vietnam and got tired of poor folk - and what to do next. And he also understood that political and civil rights without economic and social rights was not going to take us where we had to go. And so I told him about that, his eyes lit up! He um, I loved it, he said, you are an angel just appeared, and he immediately seized unto the idea, and his staff was not very pleased. But we brought together people from Mississippi to show him what was going on down there. He went and saw a lot of the hunger in Marks, Mississippi and brought people from Mississippi over there to talk to his staff. His staff was split between whether we should be focused on ending the war in Vietnam or whether we should take on this big new thing, but he was so clear. And it really was a warmer, shared, dreamt vision. But no civil rights, critical civil rights, trying to get that from blacks and one group, which is you know affecting everybody including other people of color and spawned more movements, but he understood that you had to have cross-racial movement. It would have to focus on economic rights, on jobs, on income, on food, on housing, on hopefulness and by bringing together white, black, Latino, Native Americans it was a very big piece. They did it! Even though we didnt get immediate, massive responses on a lot of the plans it put hunger on the national agenda; it set its place in a lot of motions. It created a whole new set of public interest voices, including: the Childrens Defense Fund and our parent organization the Washington Research Project, but over the last four decades has resulted in enormous numbers of new laws focused on the substance, and we decided

( interview ) after five years of following up on the Poor Peoples Campaigns demands, to help poor people of all colors gain basic social economic rights including food and jobs and housing that we would focus in on the prevention side because this country does not like to help poor black, or brown dependent adults. And so the more and more I got into itI began to understand that we had to intervene before these problems became serious, to make sure that our children begin to have a better life. And that we did not want to continue welfare dependency, that we had to prevent it, by education, by early childhood development, by expanding Head Start, by making sure every child came to school ready. And so it spawned the CDF, and it spawned many groups today that are talking about rightsthat focus on hunger. And so it really has had a cascading effect on trying over the next month to go through the PPC boxes and see if we cant put another eye and view about the PPC, because movements take a long time. Were going to be forty years old next yearthe Childrens Defense Fundbut its also the fiftieth year anniversary of the march on Washington of the Birmingham Childrens March, and Kennedys assassination. I know a lot of people are going be gathering to celebrate the Dream but its this time Im call on a promissory note and to finish this job and so we need to end poverty. When Dr. King died, as you know, we had eleven million poor children; today we have sixteen point one million poor children, and the children of the poorest group in the country. Its a disgrace, and the younger they are - the poorer they are, and Ill just tell you that this is going to be the set of issues that are going to undo America. Because we are destroying our work force, we are destroying the very fabric of Americas dream, which is our children, can have a better life than we do. And this cradle-to-prison pipeline is the latest manifestation of it. And its driven by race, its driven by poverty, and the most dangerous intersection for a child trying to grow up today is at that intersection of poverty and race. One in three black boys going to prison, we are just destroying everything SCN: Could you define for me briefly what the cradle-toprison pipeline is? MWE: It is the many children in America never ever get on the road to success. Theyre born with three or four strikes against them, without prenatal care weve made progress without healthcare, um without in poverty, you know, 40% of black children are born into poverty, and many of them are born into single-parent families without a father, without income that is able for the family to be able to support them. So these deficits that you get in the richest nation on Earth accumulate over time. And so thats why weve struggled so hard to make sure that you can begin to support families, so you can begin to talk about the achievement gap. Its present at nine months and it grows as public safety net programs reach only a small percentage, so thats why so many of our children get to school so unready to learn. They go to schools that dont expect them to learn, and help them to learn, and if you dont have an education in this society, um, you know you dont have a chance to get a job and to have an above-the-board job in this society. And so they go off to schools that fail them, and not only fail them but push them out, through these extraordinary zero-tolerance discipline problems. The schools are the main feeder systems into that juvenile justice system and into the cradle-to-prison pipeline. And weve gotta break that all up. I mean I think we adults have lost our minds by suspending and expelling five-year-olds and six-year-olds, even handcuffing them and arresting them. Weve got to make schools educate and keep children in school I have never understood why a child who is truant and tardy gets suspended rather than being found out why they are not coming to school. And then you get to the after-school, because we dont have community support, and thats why we have freedom schools after school in the summer so you dont continue to have an achievement gap increase. But here we have a situation today, where whatever is said about children and the poor, the younger and poorer they are, racism is resurging all over the land, schools are re-segregating, theres never enough funding for children in schools that are poor and of color go, and all the odds are stacked against them and the result is, youre having them come out of school, unable to function and to be prepared for a job and the workforce, or to go to college or a career.

20th Anniversary 9 Youve got millions of them dropping out of school. Youve got them being mistreated in schools through misclassification in special ed programs, and through school discipline policies that are disproportionately applied against black males and black children, and poor children. And the huge effects of all of these results is really a crisis. And so the cradle-to-prison pipeline, you know, it starts with birth in these poor families and people who have not been taught themselves to parent and to just try to stay on top and I think most parents want to do the best they can, but you cant teach what you dont know. And we have got to make sure that we also, while we fight for decent public policies and fair and equitable funding and good teachers, that we also try to reweave the fabric of family and community (as a church is no longer a church the doors are closed; and drugs deals are open 24/7) and neighborhoods and weve got to create movement that was like that movement incredibly courageous, 40-50 years ago where the parents and children themselves were front line soldiers and wanted to have a better life with there children. Well, we have to confront it again today; we are now in the post-reconstruction era of the second time and we need to wake upwe need to reclaim our children and we need to find the means to have that next transforming movement that Dr. King tried to start. SCN: What gives you hope? MWE: I just look at all the young people who are doing wellwe celebrate every year children who are beating the odds despite homelessness, despite joblessness, despite abuse and violence in the neighborhoods. With one caring adult and a support system, we give them scholarships but now 700 have gone on to college become doctors and lawyersI look at the new laws that are on the books that have helped millions of children so we have power to do this. I look at all the young children of freedom schools who are getting a new lease on life. I look at my little 92 pound director of use organizing who grew up in my home rural county and went out to Spelman, got her masters, and with the second start-up of freedom schools and the second graders started getting all our youth organizing, and look at whats happening with the young people who came to our national conference. 3000 people showed up, half of them young people, and theyre all out there now beginning to get it, beginning to organize, saying they want to have a better life. And weve got many new laws on the books, millions of children have gotten the Head Start experience, million of children have gotten health care, millions of children have been helped to escape property and the expensive burden income tax credit and child tax credit. So weve made a difference, but weve got to make a bigger difference and what is been missing is a non-violent direct action movement. We have not had Miss Rosa Parks, we have not had the sit-in movementwe have not had the freedom rides equivalent. Thats more difficult today because of the changes in the society, the difficulties of dealing with complex issues, but weve got to have that movement, were going to have that movement and were not going to stopuntil we do. So the best way to honor Dr. Kings Dream speech next year is by going to that next step and focusing and organizing, organizing, organizing, and let the focus be our children, because if this country continues to let its children, the majority of whom are going to be very shortlypoor, black and Latinogo down the drain, were not going to be able to compete with anybody in the new era so I think this is a wonderful convergence of time but its going to take black community and others of color speaking up. SCN: Thank you so very much, I look forward to seeing you down at the Haleys Farm! MWE: Come, remember the second week in June, come and see the energy and the new leaders, we have committing a new generation of leaders that Im so proud of. SCN: Thank you so much! -Interview conducted by Rev. Osagyefo Sekou transcribed by Eric Gerdner, Clay Bugh, and Mar Romero

courtesy of MapLights & Wired Magazine

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9 November 2 -November 15, 2012

arts&culture
Inaugural
Now is the time to be generous, now is the time to be brave and patient, to watch how the dove tails up, blinks, sits tight over invisible eggs. Now is the time to protect, a time to risk, now is the time to mother, to become curious, now is the time to father, the time to be a child and hear the worlds breath striped as a zebra, now is the time to caulk blood and worship water. Now is the time to build, to speckle and spackle enough love to keep the species, all the species going, now is the time to listen to a porcupine, follow a lizard, now is the time to undress, now is the time to redress, dance to the music of our youth as if were still young accepting our turtle bodies. Now is the time to hear our childrens music. Now is the time to grow garlic and give it away, to see time as a lover, acrobatic, responsive, torso familiar as a soft vowel. Now is the time to remember when you were an animal lying in a field in the warm horse snort, newly cut grass turning to hay. Now is still the time to lie down in the street to stop war and also construct new consonants out of carrots, cement, unknown particles, and compassion, shielding that word in the body as the closest companion, the time to build windows ushering edible light and to mirror the bonobo. Now is the time to knock on the door of a neighbor whose mouth and hands youve never studied as she speaks her map of days from the corners of her mouth to the opening of her palm, a time to inhale the swallows cacophony in treetops and imagine the listening of a whole world. -Kathy Engel

( arts & culture )

20th Anniversary

(poetry & music)

remembering Gil Scott-Heron

publishing the poetry collection Small Talk on 125th Street & Lenox. Subsequently, The Small Talk on 125th Street & Lenox album was inspired by the poetry book, and was recorded in collaboration with college friend Brian Jackson. This recording was made at the New York-based Flying Dutchman label. It contained a signature rap piece called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and established his name as a militant artist passionate about social justice both within and beyond black America. He stayed with the Flying Dutchman label until he signed with Arista in the mid 1970s and found success on the R & B charts. Mr. Scott-Herons second album Pieces Of A Man was arranged by Johnny Pate who had previously

powerful voice left us at the age of 62 in late May of 2011 when long-term Harlem poet and recording artist Gil Scott-Heron passed away. Expressing the difficulty of being a Black man living in America, Scott-Heron was known for his syncopated spoken word poetry performances in the 1970 s and 1980s. Gill was born in Chicago in 1949 to a teacherlibrarian-singer Bobbie Scott and a Jamaican soccer player father Scott-Heron. His parents separated in his early childhood and he then went to live with his maternal grandmother Lillie Scott in Jackson, Tennessee. He returned to live with his mother after his grandmother died in 1961. He attended Dewitt Clinton High School but later transferred to the prestigious Fieldston School in the Bronx. He was one of five black students in a class of 100 to win a writing scholarship which allowed him to matriculate at the expensive, albeit, progressive secondary institution. The aleination that he experiencd at Fieldston created a boldness which later was his hallmark for his recordings. After Fieldston, Scott-Heron attended the historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Lincoln University was the same college which one of his idols, writer Langston Hughes, attended. After two years at Lincoln, Scott-Heron took a year off to write two novels Vulture and The Nigger Factory. He met Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets at Lincoln in 1969 and was influenced by their performance work. He sought out their advice on how to do performance-rap art. He returned to New York at the end of 1969 and published Vulture which was well received. He later recieved a MFA in writing from John Hopkins University in 1972. Gill Scott-Heron began his recording career in 1970 after

worked with Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions on songs such as Choice Of Colors. This album contained a fuller version of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and also the song, Lady Day and John Coltrane, about the way that great art, and particularly music, can lift people from the toil of their everyday lives. Between 1970 and 1982 Gill Scott-Heron recorded 13 albums and was one of the first music acts music executive Clive Davis signed after starting Arista Records in 1974. Most of Scott-Herons rap poetry was political. He wrote a number of overt protest songs such as Johannesburg, and was active in a number of campaigns against South African apartheid and nuclear weapons. He recorded

the anti-nuclear song We Almost Lost Detroit and performed it at the 1979s Musicians For Safe Energy concert. In the early 1980s, ScottHeron toured with Stevie Wonder to promote Wonders campaign for a national holiday to honor Martin Luther King and the achievements of the civil rights movement In later years Scott-Heron had addiction problems causing him to spend time in jail. He did not release many albums but did go on live tours. However in 1994 he released an introspective album called Spirits. On the track Message to the Messenger he criticized rappers who glorified gangster lifestyles. Speaking on a US radio station in 2008, Scott-Heron said that the day was a time for people to reflect on how far we have come, and how far we still have to go...Hopefully, it will be a time for people to reflect on the folks that have done things to get us to where we are and where were going. Scott-Heron described himself in the interview as a black man dedicated to expression; expression of the joy and pride of blackness. He derided Americas complacency over innercity inequality. On his signature trackThe Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil ScottHeron preached with mordant wit laced with popluar culture references of the day: The revolution will not be right back after a message bout a white tornado, white lightning or white people. You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom, a tiger in your tank or the giant in your toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution will put you in the drivers seat. -Robert Sondak
PHOTO: FLYING DUTCHMAN / RCA

November 2 -November 15, 2012

( local & national )

20th Anniversary

ballot question 2: Dignity with Dying or Doctors of Death?

Until he died a couple of decades ago, Princeton and

Harvard-educated surgeon Dr. Frederick Phelps was an old school doc based in the central Massachusetts city, Fitchburg. Old school doc means he made house calls. He accepted firewood and handmade gifts as payment from patients without money or insurance, and, when people asked for it and had zero chance of recovery, he put them to sleep. His usual technique was to set up an I.V. packed with morphine to leave their fatal pain in peace. Dr. Phelps had so much respect for easing the undeniable and inevitable, he hitched-to-the-drip his beloved wife of four decades to let her leave the cancer that had kept her bedbound for two years and had no plan to stop its pillage. The first time he put people to sleep was while a medic in World War II. In a split second you have to choose whos likely to live and who isnt. There are the obvious medical facts its fatal when spouting blood is unstoppable, organs are spilled, and skulls are smashed, but even more, the decision is from men begging, Please, please let me die. Dr. Phelps description simplifies the essence and evolution of Ballot Question 2: Dying with Dignity. If passed, the initiative will allow people diagnosed with no more than 6 months to live to request a lethal drug. The request has to come twice verbally, and once in writing, only when physicians deem the person has enough mental competency to make a rash decision. Two doctors must determine the illness is, in fact, terminal and also present alternatives to pain and death. If the patient passes the tests, and doesnt back down, at home and with no doctor present, they are legally allowed to self-administer a potent barbiturate. Among the obvious supporters Question 2 are the AIDS Action Committee, The Civil Liberties Union, and a whole OBAMA continued from page reversed 5 both King and Gandhi, but quickly pivoted toward a robust American military policy. As a head of state he reminded the attendees, [I am] sworn to protect and defend my nation; I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. Noted civil rights veteran James Lawson, whom King called the great nonviolent theoretician in the world, was deeply troubled by Obamas Nobel speech. It was the first time in history that a president advocated pre-emptive war in the presence of the Nobel committee, Lawson posited in a phone conversation

lot of physicians, who believe individuals should have the right-to-die. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine says, Assisted dying is specifically limited to patients to whom healing is no longer possible because of an incurable illness. The focus of the debate should be on the patients needs, not a physicians selfimage. The term assisted-suicide, created in the decade of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who ended up doing eight years for the last of the 130 deaths he assisted, is being replaced with assisted dying. Because of the punitive consequences and very bad press that came to the now deceased Kevorkian whose nickname was Dr. Deathmany doctors refuse to sign-off on someones request to die. Ironically, Oregon, the state where Dr. Kevorkian conducted his first assisted suicide made it legal 15 years ago. If passed, Massachusetts will be the fouth state to have assisted dying on the books, joining Washington and Montana; and the European countries of The Netherlands, Columbia, Spain, Luxemburg, and Switzerland. The vocal opponents to Question 2, like the American Medical Association, Massachusetts Against Doctor Prescribed Suicide, and the Roman Catholic Diocese, claim that the process of determining a persons mental capacity is too vague and potentially biased, and evidence shows doctors are never truly accurate on how much time someone will live and if their illness is truly terminal and incurable. In a recent article, Archbishop Sean OMalley wrote: Even proponents to PAS (physician-assisted suicide) readily acknowledge that modern medicine can manage the pain in every case. Very few Oregon residents that request PAS indicate unbearable pain as the reason.

While Oregon is viewed as the countrys test-pilot of what is called, Compassion in Dying, the controversy persists. Only 34% of the states doctors are willing participants; only 1 out of every 6 who request death receive it, and of those, the drugs given in the laws first 5 years only succeeded in death 65% of the time, leading lots of people to believe doctors dont know what it takes to kill each individual and why certain peoples bodies refuse to give up. Successful deaths take anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours; and many people who cant ingest pills have been fed their fatal dose in ice cream or drinks by a friend or family member. To avoid Kevorkian-style prosecution, they arent helping, theyre simply feeding. One of the few surgeons still practicing medicine in the old school style is Nantuckets Dr. Timothy Lepore. He has hitched to the drip numerous people in pain and illness he sees as insurmountable. He thinks imposing formal rules and regs is a slippery slope that runs the risk of the depressed and mentally ill being cleared to kill themselves. It interferes with the Sub Rosa of the Hippocratic Oath, he says. The celebrated oath that doctors take reads, in part: There is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh a surgeons knife or the chemists drug. Assisted-dying allows doctors to make safe, patient and family-supported decisions in a manner Dr. Lepore compares to the militarys Dont ask Dont tell rule concerning homosexuality. Any experienced doctor knows when the pain and the illness are unstoppable, we should let the person living in that body decide. -Pippin Ross office in the land. Before the Grant Park crowd, Obama proclaimed that his story was the American story; Accordingly, Obamas election hinged upon a meritocratic individualistic moir a multi-racial democracy where everyone, if they work hard enough, could rise above their circumstances and achieve success. This is American exceptionalism at its core. On election night in 2008, those two narratives were held in tension as a multi-racial and intergenerational nation celebrated its fait accompli. Regardless of the outcome next Tuesday, the election of Barack Obama remains a defining moment in American history. -Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

last year. Obama contended before the Oslo crowd, A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitlers armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaedas leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. To this end, Glenn Ford, editor of the leftist Black Agenda Report has called President the more effective of the evils. Citing the National Defense Authorization Act, Guantanamo Bay, Drone usage in the Middle East and a bailout for bankers and not main street, Ford and other black intellectuals have expressed their deep disappointment in the President Obama.

+ A Song for You is Americas love song to the struggle that produced President Barack Obama. Though kin to treated unkindly people, the first African American president is the image of what American hopes to be. Born to a white mother who was once a welfare recipient and an absent African father, Obama overcame his circumstances. He would complete his undergraduate degree at Columbia University and obtain a law degree from the real Horatio Algers alma mater, Harvard University. The second narrative would have simply said that a multi-racial citizen rose from poverty, graduated from Ivy League institutions and ultimately rose to take the highest

November 2 -November 15, 2012

( interview )

20th Anniversary

decide to bring other voices and opinions, besides your own, to this book? Tavis Smiley: Were not politicians or policy-makers, but we have been blessed with the public platforms to champion and discuss issues that matter to us. Recently Ive had the pleasure to host conversations about poverty with the notables you mention as well as many others, either on my television or radio programs or during our poverty symposium. As we were writing the book and dealing with specific issues, several of their comments kept popping up in our heads. Since they expressed observations, issues, and solutions so profoundly, we thought it would be a disservice not to include their comments in the book. Q. Politicians and pundits, particularly from the right, have dismissed the debate about the divide between the rich and the poor as class envy or jealousy on the part of the poor. Whats your response to that allegation? Cornel West: Actually, along with filmmaker Michael Moore and economist Jeffrey Sachs, we address that charge in the book. Basically, what we say is that this fight is not based on class envy or jealousy; its a war. As Moore emphatically put it, Its a war perpetrated by the rich onto everybody else. It escalated when Wall Street used taxpayer bailout money to award themselves huge bonuses. Its a war of necessity because politicians insist on giving the rich and powerful special preferences and tax breaks while they gut education, health care, and other vital necessities to the ever expanding pool of poor brothers and sisters. Q. You challenged the Heritage Foundations report What is Poverty in the United States Today? by breaking down the annual expenditures of the average impoverished family. What do these numbers demonstrate? Tavis Smiley: We found that report very insulting. It basically says if a family owns so-called luxury items like a microwave, air conditioning, or an Xbox game console, then they arent really poor. An average family of four, according to the US Census bureau, earning $22,400 annually, fits the poverty definition. So, we took that figure and broke it down annually in terms of rent, utilities, food costs, and other necessities of survival. Turns out, a family that spends only $150 per week on food, pays $500 a month for rent, and $1,000 for the entire year on clothing will wind up with a whopping $1,744 for other necessities such as insurance and transportation costs. Wed love to see anyone at the Heritage Foundation rely on $22,000 a year for their family and then come back and tell us what it means to be poor in America. Q. Theres a section in the book that challenges the 10 biggest lies about poverty. One of the distortions that you call out is the idea that Blacks and Latinos use the largest percentage of government programs and so-called entitlements. Why was it necessary to address this issue? Tavis Smiley: It was necessary because so many politicians crudely reinforce and play on the ingrained misperception that minorities use the majority of what they crudely refer to as government handouts. In reality, nearly half of all American households, including white households, receive some type of government benefit, and

more than 70 percent of food stamp recipients are white. People over the age of 65 receive the majority 53 percent of government entitlements, and another 20 percent goes to disabled people. We addressed this poverty lie and others in the book because they allow people to write poverty off as a character failure or someones just deserts for bad choices. These lies help people ignore the poor and deny the vast and extensive impact that poverty has on all Americans. Q. You spotlight the 2012 Republican presidential nomination candidates, who you say didnt hesitate to throw red meat to their base with racial stereotypes and coldhearted language that demean the poor. Was this partisan favoritism? Tavis Smiley: Not at all. Even former First Lady Barbara Bush dubbed the 2012 GOP race the worst campaign shed ever seen in her life. It was ugly and vitriolic, and it was a campaign where candidates willingly wallowed in outdated racial stereotyping. We simply highlighted their viciousness by repeating the words they used on the campaign stump. There was Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum saying he doesnt want to make Black peoples lives better by giving them somebody elses money, and Mitt Romney repeatedly accusing President Obama of transforming America into an entitlement society. And, of course, we heard Newt Gingrich label Obama the food stamp president and suggest that poor Black kids, specifically, become school janitors. All this garbage just happens to be a brand of Reagan-era racial politicking thats been synonymous with the Republican Party since the 1980s. Q. Your book offers 12 poverty changing ideas. Most people would probably list jobs and shelter as top concerns, but women and children first top your list. Why? Cornel West: If we challenge the overused clich children are our futurethen were forced to grapple with the fact that there are 1.6 million impoverished children in America. We know that poverty is cyclical. Odds are, a poor child today will grow up to be a poor adult. There are more than 15 million households in America with no father in the home, headed by women. Therefore, in order to secure a more promising future for our children, we must make changes that allow single parents, particularly mothers, to move out of poverty. This means we have to invest in workplace day care and Head Start programs, so moms dont have to choose between earning a living and caring for their children. Single mothers must be able to work or secure job training while their children are cared for and educated. The evidence is indisputable that Head Start programs are critical to getting pre-school-age children on track for academic success. So, if were really committed to ending poverty, women and children must be at the top of our priority list. Q. You suggest that a fundamental fairness lobby is necessary in Washington, D.C. What would be the role of such an organization? Tavis Smiley: As you know, Washington is swarming with lobbyists bankrolled by the haves who summarily determine the fate of the have-nots. These emissaries of the elite drive our nations socioeconomic policy and champion the concerns of the wealthy. We maintain that poor folk need comparable representation that will advocate for fundamental fairness and challenge democracy-destroying schemes like Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that allows the wealthy to

secretly fund and buy elections. Q. The book paints an ominous picture of Americas economic future. Why do you doubt the possibility of our economy roaring back to full capacity? Cornel West: The painful truth is that manufacturing jobs in the United States have been declining for the past two decades and had accelerated in the years prior to the recession. Weve lost a staggering average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs every month since 2001. We used to be the number-one manufacturer and exporter in the world, but now we rank last among the top 15 manufacturing nations in terms of exported industrial production. Experts have noted that blue-collar job loss has been on the proportion of what we experienced in the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Almost seven out of every ten jobs lost through the end of 2011 were construction, truck driving, warehouse, and other blue-collar jobs. The magnitude of declines is so unprecedented; its hard to imagine America bouncing back to full capacity, especially in an ever increasing, globalized marketplace. Q. You not only stress the connection between poverty and the prisons; your book calls for a complete overhaul of the prison industrial complex. Why? Tavis Smiley: As poverty rates rise, we discovered increased efforts to privatize prisons based on guarantees of long-term service contracts and full occupancy. Theres also a disturbing trend in some states where poor people are being locked up for uncollected credit card debt. We know todays prisons are overpopulated with inmates of color. But, as we stress in the book, poverty isnt bound by race. What happens to the old poor now threatens the new poor. We just find something woefully immoral about a costly and corrupt system designed to send bankrupt poor people to jail for debt while morally bankrupt bankers go free after putting an entire nation in debt. Q. What is the most practical next step you want concerned citizens to take regarding the issue of poverty? Cornel West: When America gets serious about something, we can move proverbial mountains. If we were serious about eradicating poverty, we can do it in 10, 15, or 25 years. And there is no better way to set a national tone of seriousness for this course of action than a White House Conference on the Eradication of Poverty. These undertakings led by our next presidentwhomever that may bewill summon the best and brightest diverse viewpoints to explore how we can end poverty. And this need not be a protracted politicized affair. There are all kinds of plans, from all kinds of respected Americans out there. Whats needed, however, is what we refer to in the book as the three Ps: priority, plan, and path. A White House conference on ending poverty establishes priority. It also provides the president with a workable plan that will enable him or her to articulate a pathway that will result in the eradication of poverty. Reprinted with permission of Smiley Books

November 2 -November 15, 2012

www.sparechangenews.net

20th Anniversary 6

a new war on poverty: In their book, The Rich and the Rest of Us, noted public intellectual Cornel West & broadcaster Tavis Smiley challenge the presidential candidates to at least talk about poverty.
Q. What was the motivation behind this book? Cornel West: There were a number of contributing factors that led to the writing of this book. First and foremost, my dear brother Tavis and I are avid disciples of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The elimination of poverty, fair wages, and safe working conditions for sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, was the issue King championed when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. It all began in November 1967, when King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a Poor Peoples Campaign to address issues of economic justice and housing for the poor in the United States, aiming itself at rebuilding Americas cities. The Poor Peoples Campaign did not focus on just poor black people but advocated on behalf of all poor people. King labeled the Poor Peoples Campaign the second phase of the civil rights struggle. Poverty mattered to King, so it matters to us. Tavis Smiley: We werent planning on writing a book about poverty until the idea was brought to us. It resonated with us because during our 18-city, 11-state Poverty Tour in August 2011, we were disturbed and disappointed by the narrow focus of the media coverage about poverty, which focused primarily on the middle class who had lost jobs, massive unemployment, foreclosures that resulted from the Great Recession, or political candidates who were depicting poor people as pariahs of society. These myopic conversations gave the impression that our woes will end and the middle class will be saved as soon as the economy bounces back. We felt it was necessary to paint a more realistic picture. So-called entitlements for poor people are not the cause of the recession. A stock market uptick or decreased employment rates that dont reflect the needs of those who have given up looking for jobs, or who have settled for part-time work when their families require a full-time salary, will not solve what we witnessed while traveling across this country. And even if the country did bounce back, which is doubtful considering we no longer lead in the manufacture of what the world needs it wont reconfigure the nations current economic equations that keep the rich richer and the poor poorer. Q. If eliminating poverty is the goal, why title the book The Rich and the Rest of Us? Cornel West: Anytime you seriously dissect the issue of poverty, you have to talk about wealth, income inequality, and fundamental fairness. While the incomes of the richest 1 percent of Americans have grown by 33 percent over the past 20 years, the income growth for the other 99 percent, including the middle class, has been at a virtual standstill. It is impossible to talk about poverty without discussing the greed, corporate avarice, dwindling opportunities in a politically paralyzed nation, and institutionalized guarantees that the rich will continue getting richer. Q. A Poverty Manifesto is the subtitle of your book. What do you say to critics who contend that you are pushing a radical liberal agenda? Tavis Smiley: First of all, wed invite them to pick up a dictionary. A manifesto by definition is simply a public declaration of intent. It is our belief that we can move toward eradicating poverty in our lifetime. With 150 million Americans poor, near poor, or new poor, it is our intent to publicly encourage citizens of all political persuasions to address the issue of widespread poverty and the growing, obscene, democracy-threatening divide between Americas rich and poor. Q. Why was it necessary to give readers a historical perspective on poverty? Cornel West: We thought it would be fascinating to reveal how poverty has been addressed since this country was founded in the 18th century. Not only were we reminded of the historical divide between the privileged and the impoverished, but we noted several stops, starts, and stalls in the nations efforts to reduce poverty in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt Roosevelts New Deal interventions in the 1930s and Lyndon B. Johnsons Great Society initiatives of the 1960s are but two examples. We were also able to chart periods of resistancesuch as the abolitionist, womens suffrage, and labor movementswhen everyday Americans were pushed to a point where they stood up to the status quo and risked death and severe punishment to fight for freedom, equality, and economic justice. Against the backdrop of history we are reminded that we Americans have always sacrificed and fought for the common good once we understood what we were sacrificing and fighting for. Q. The legacies of former Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, and to some extent Harry S. Truman, receive favorable coverage in your book. What impressed you about those administrations approach to poverty? Tavis Smiley: The initiatives Roosevelt and Johnson implemented after the Great Depression and during the turbulent 1960s, respectively, were some of the most audacious anti-poverty measures in history. We mentioned Truman because of the Marshall Plan, aimed at helping an economically devastated and broken Europe recover after World War II. These moments in history were made more profound because our leaders inspired the nation to step up and address poverty in meaningful ways. Not since Johnsons War on Poverty, which included Great Society programs, has a president boldly articulated a plan to end systemic and institutionalized poverty in America. Q. When you announced the Poverty Tour in 2011, your critics accused you of using poverty to attack President Obamas policies. Will readers be surprised that Obama is rarely mentioned or criticized in your book? Cornel West: Not if they were paying attention to what we said about the tour and what others were saying. From the outset, we said that our decision to address poverty in America wasnt about our dear brother President Obama. It had more to do with the economic divide between common folk and oligarchies and corporate elites. Although we would have liked to have heard the president, as well as other political leaders on the left or right, speak to poverty, this issue transcends politics. Eradicating poverty demands leadership, but we arent nave enough to believe politicians who depend on the rich to get elected will ever lead this revolution. This book calls for a people-powered movement. Q. The book highlights profound insights from the Remaking America: From Poverty to Prosperity panelists, such as Jeffrey Sachs, Michael Moore, Suze Orman, Barbara Ehrenreich, and others. Why did you

PHOTO: COURTESY SMILEY BOOKS

November 2 -November 15, 2012

( feature ) was how much they stood to lose. Romney the father fled a revolution and had no choice but to work. Romney the son returned from church work in France with the world at his feet. How would he leverage his considerable talent, considerable privilege, and yet more considerable spirit of Latter-day Sainthood? He genuinely loved Ann Davies and they were wedded in Mormon fashionwhich is to say, at a young age. Mitt enrolled at Brigham Young, redoubled his studies, graduated with highest honors, and matriculated at Harvard to study law (at his fathers insistence) and business (his passion). Mitt began to show signs of true individual quality in

20th Anniversary In the end Kennedys record in the Senate trumped his awful personal image, and Romneys personal character could not overcome the albatross of his two decades in the financial sector that typified eighties excess and hypocrisy. He was downtrodden at the loss. Mitts move to the Salt Lake City Olympics in 1999 was a return of many kinds. It was a return to Utah, the seat of Mormon life; a return to a meaningful project that needed decisive leadership; and a return to a project that excited him. He relished the chance to rescue the games and, in light of the problems his private capital career presented against Kennedy, clearly saw its success as his springboard into politics. He poured himself into the project, and, as is typical of his work, used a combination of personal verve, technical prowess, and hard work to guide the Games to success. The Salt Lake Tribune praised him endlessly. Upon his return to Boston in 2002 Mitt immediately began campaigning for the governorship. He took advantage of incumbent Jane Swifts vulnerability and forced her off the Republican ticket. He won a fairly close race against Shannon OBrien, partly from his record personal contribution of $6 million to his own campaign. He ran and governed as a moderate, attempting dtente with the Democratic supermajority at every turn.

campaign to be the Mormon he always had been. Mitt is the son of many Saints. Two of his great-greatgrandfathers joined the LDS movement within ten years of its founding; one of them, Miles Romney, emigrated from England to Illinois to live with the Mormons, and the other, Parley Pratt, was part of the original Quorum of the Twelve, a central component of LDS leadership. Pratts son Helaman helped found the Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico. In Mexico such a society could legally feature polygamy (a practice which was never legal in the US), though apparently, of Mitts ancestors, only Miles was a polygamist. George Romney was born from a faithful marriage. His parents retained his American citizenship and, at five years of age, George and his family fled the growing unrest of the Mexican Revolution in 1912. He grew up humble, often dependent on government welfare, and always within the veil of the LDS church and its deeply integrated culture. Inside that churchly circle, George would live and move and give his being to four children, the youngest of whom is Mitt. Mormons stick together in lean times. George depended on church and government aid to succeed, and succeed he did. He became a powerful lobbyist partly through the connections of his politically appointed, deeply Mormon father-in-law. He lobbied first for the aluminum and then the auto industry, leading to his inheritance of the American Motors Corporation when its president died suddenly. A hard worker and innovative leader, George led AMC into unforeseen success and transitioned ably into politics. He was moderate in most every way, charismatic, deeply involved in the church, willing to cooperate, and sensible. As Republican governor of Michigan he partnered with unions and marched with the NAACP. He embodied everything that is good in Mormon lifetemperance, hard work, sensitivity, service to neighbor, piety and rejected elements of the churchs politics as misunderstandings of LDS theology. In 1964 a high church leader in Salt Lake City criticized Georges policy of integration writing that, the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro. George only increased his support for civil rights after that. He ran for President in 1967-68 on a strongly moralistic platform, which included civil rights advocacy and ethical opposition to war in Vietnam. When he idly commented that hed experienced brainwashing while on tour in Vietnam, his armor was breached and the Nixon campaign stamped him out. George was given the new Cabinet post of Housing and Urban Development as a concession to the liberals of the party. Mitt was in France on mission during the campaign. Disappointed by his fathers defeat, Mitt steeled himself against a world of doors that could, after all, close as readily as they could open.

Mitt Romney on poverty

In the race against poverty, Mitt Romney pleads for strengthening United States economy in order to provide more job opportunities and more funds to those organizations that work for the most vulnerable parts of our society. Cutting down on the budget is his main goal to achieve Americas economic recovery. - Mar Romero
Cambridge, fathering his first two sons and graduating cum laude in 1975. The bourgeoning financial and consulting firms that were beginning to exert the first bits of significant power over the American economic landscape aggressively recruited him. He took a job across the Charles with Boston Consulting Group and began learning the tricks of the trade. The trade had tricks enough to learn. The financial sector of the seventies was busy laying the groundwork for Reaganomics: deregulation, ceasing discussion of quality products in favor of upward cash flow dynamics, erecting a financial-industrial-governmental complex to fast-track transactions at the pace new technologies were making possible. Mitt Romney applied his considerable talent to this brave new sector of the economy. Like his father, who began his public life as a lobbyist for Alcoa, Mitt perceived the intimate relationships between law, government policy, financial firms, valuecreating businesses, and the bottom line. He was as morally scrupulous as George in his personal life and business relationshipsindeed, possessed of greater tact than his dad, if anything. But the nature of his work was radically different. Mitts move to BCG spin-off Bain Capital in 1977 brought to fullness the nature of his work. He would painstakingly analyze data, shrewdly (yet earnestly) forge bonds of trust with others, stick to his guns, make the pitch on the merits of his homework and personal gravitas, and maximize the profits. He made a fortune. Like his father, Mitt aspired to public service both as a realization of his ambition and his ever-present Mormon duty to the betterment of the chosen country, America, the land of revelation. He ran a respectable campaign against Ted Kennedy for Senate in 1994, in which his personal character was pitted against the progressive acumen of the otherwise damnably indiscreet incumbent.

I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I will fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich. They're doing just fine.

Mitt Romney, 22 years old in 1969, had had opportunities to lead. Mormons are good about giving their children endless chances to speak a wise word in the congregation, lead a charitable project or edifying activity, and demonstrate their skills in scouting or debate or sports. Latter-day Saints are constitutionally proud of their families, sealed in temples for eternity to their spouses, dedicated in life to the idea that God is present when generations meet one another. They take their kids with them to the workplace and in their adult dealings; Mitt was a likeable adolescent in a TV spot for AMC and got to see his fathers administration of Michigan largely firsthand. Mormons are a family of families. Mitt, like his father, was not a star in school. He was intelligent enough and charismatic enough, but no one accounted him destined for greatness in his youth. George and Mitt are not Andrew Jacksons, having risen to power out of spite to those who said they could not. They are Romneys, which means little else than that they are Mormons; their people have always said that they can do anything as long as they keep their eyes on God. The difference between young George and young Mitt

Mitt Romneys career since his departure from Boston has been the story of national attention in his twin bids for the White House and the correlate rightward march he has performed. This dynamic, fairly plain to see, is less an evacuation of his backbone and more a pragmatic, carefully considered reaction to the larger movements in which Mitt has found himself. For after all, Mitt Romney is a man after his fatherdyed in the wool as a Mormon, called to the vocation of capitalism, and forced to compromise when the integrity and community of the former collides with the vacuity and soullessness of the latter. In Georges time, American industry could accommodate the familial ideals and moral rigor of the LDS faith. It seems less possible that American capital of our time will allow Mitt the same luxury though luxuries of other kinds are his. Mitt Romney has demonstrated his backbone. In unity with his fathers rebuke of the Mormon party line vis--vis persons of color, Mitt had the sense to transgress LDS doctrine on abortion and queer rights when he governed here in Massachusetts. The rightward march of the Republican Party may constitute a proper tragedy for George Romney and The Salt Lake Tribune; for those of us outside the circle of Saints, it must remain a machine for producing irony. There is irony in the fact that Mitt Romney refused, until he reached the point of great political risk, to release his damningly bourgeois tax returns. George Romney instigated the practice of making financial records public in a campaignand he did so voluntarily, out of pride in his charitable (largely religious) giving, out of a sense of duty to his constituents and to his God to whom he rendered an account. There is a crueler irony in the fact that the Republican Party of Mitt Romney made a mockery of public discourse when it questioned Obamas birth records in 2010 and 2011. George Romney was the subject of the first such constitutional speculation, having been born in Mexico, and his credentials were uncritically touted by the right. Finally, there is the irony that Dinesh DSouza can claim Barack Obamas governance is the epiphenomenal puppetry of a dead socialist from Africa. Obamas story must be Obamas. Mitt Romneys story must be the story of the Mormon faithful, sojourners in a world tinged by estrangement from God. The Latter-day Saints may yet reconcile the world to Heavenly Father, if they can untangle the knots of capital and business and politics that are woven into their golden tapestry. Mitt Romney will be worthy of wide praise when he finds his fathers way to do so. - Samuel Needham

November 2 -November 15, 2012

( feature )

20th Anniversary

the making of willard mitt romney

Recently
disgraced conservative tent-pole Dinesh DSouza has devoted the last three years of his public life to establishing a sort of determinism in Barack Obamas administration. Obamas father, as DSouza argues in print and film, has wielded incalculable influence on his sons career as an anticolonial activist, community organizer, academic, and politician. In a Forbes article from 2010, DSouza writes: Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist is now setting the nations agenda through the incarnation of his dreams in his son. Setting aside the hypocrisy of the mention of philandering from a man who resigned his college presidency for alleged sexual impropriety, DSouzas insight into the cause-effect relationship of ones culture to ones career is perhaps better applied to Mitt Romney. Romney and the Romneys, to a much greater extent than Obama and the Obamas, are the fruits of their culture: Mormonism, capitalism, and the confluence thereof.

We begin near the end of this campaign. Amidst the largely perfunctory world of political endorsements, perhaps the only endorsement worth speaking of this

year is the Salt Lake Tribunes. On October 19, the largest newspaper in Utah disavowed the candidate who spent his formative university and Olympic years in the state, calling him the Mitt Romney we knew, or thought we knew, as one of us. The paper endorsed Obama and spurned the popular Mormon, widely expected to win the approval of Latter-Day Saints in most every circumstance. It was a surprise to almost everyone. Neither the Salt Lake Tribune nor Willard Mitt Romney is reducible to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet the making of Mitt Romney, if it is to be understood, must be understood theologically. Reading between the lines, the Tribune did not object to Romneys Mormonism, but rather his failure in this

PHOTO: REUTERS ERIC THAYER

in this issue
(4) the making of willard mitt romney The candidancy of Mitt Romney is shaped by faith and fortune. (6) a new war on poverty: In their book, The Rich and the Rest of Us, noted public intellectual Cornel West & broadcaster Tavis Smiley challenge the presidential candidates to at least talk about poverty. (8) ballot question 2: Dignity with Dying or Doctors of Death? (9) remembering Gil Scott-Heron (10) puzzles

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney will need

to carefully consider how they approach the issue of Medicare in the coming weeks. To be sure, the political climate has grown increasingly favorable for President Obama and the Democrats in the weeks following the Democratic National Convention. But with the polls nearly certain to tighten in the weeks leading up to election day, it is clear that the senior vote will play a critical if not decisive role in determining the final outcome. Consider the following: in 2010, turnout among Americans over 65 surged and seniors cast more than one out of five votes. This core constituency voted for Republicans by a 21-point margin. When it comes to Medicare, both sides are struggling to own the debate. But Medicare Part D is a huge positive for candidates willing to embrace it and has been under discussed on the campaign trail up to this point. A new poll sponsored by Medicare Today found that 90% of seniors are satisfied with Medicare Part D - up twelve points from 78% in 2006. The poll found that both Democrats and Republicans equally favor the program with respondents saying they are happy with the value, costs, and convenience provided by their coverage. The poll also found palpable levels of concern about what

would happen if Medicare Part D were to be eliminated. 84% said that out-of-pocket drug costs would be higher, 61% believe they would be unable to fill all of their prescriptions, and 53% said they would be more likely to cut back or stop taking medicine altogether. This year, three of the top five heavily senior populated states (Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa) are up for grabs, and neither side can afford to sacrifice the critical voting bloc of Americans over 65 - who comprise 13 percent of the population. And the results to a September survey by the Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation Health Care, Medicare and the Election: A View from Three Swing States - Virginia, Florida, and Ohio indicate that swing voters are very concerned that the fiscal cliff debate, while unlikely to take center stage until after the election, by all accounts will result in changes to programs that seniors rely upon. Indeed, clear majorities of voters in Virginia (73%), Florida (74%), and Ohio (78%) indicated that they would like to see policymakers reduce the federal budget deficit without reducing Medicare spending. The Obama campaign has repeatedly defended provisions in the Affordable Care Act that cut Medicare spending by $750 billion as nothing more than closing loopholes and

keep an eye on seniors

limiting payments to providers. The Romney campaign, while still defending itself against comments that 47% of the American people are victims and rely on government programs (seniors are very much part of this number), have made a point to label the White Houses actions as raiding Medicare to pay for Obamacare. Despite being a target for Democrats in the past, taking on the program known as Medicare Part D carries a significant amount of political risk that the Obama campaign cannot afford as both sides prepare to make their closing arguments. Mitt Romneys selection of Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate immediately put Medicare on the front burner and Democrats on the offensive, especially in Florida with recent gains among seniors. And needless to say, given the concerns that have been raised about the impact the Ryan plan potentially will have, Republicans also need to take particular care not to appear to question an extraordinarily popular program that was, after all, proposed and passed by a Republican President and Republican Congress. -Douglas Schoen

about our contributors: Noam Chomsky in considered one of the worlds leading public intellectuals. Kathy Engel is a visiting professor New York University Tisch School of

the Arts in the art and Public Police Program. Douglas Schoen is a political strategist and author of Hopelessly Divided: The New Crisis in American Politics and What it Means for 2012 and Beyond, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Freelance writer Pippin Ross, a former professor of journalism. Vendor/Writer Robert Sondak is the director of the Nutrition Education Outreach Project. Samuel Needham is a first year MDIV student at Boston University School of Theology. Puzzle Editor Samuel Weems is the Vice President of the Board of Directors of Homeless Empowerment Project, which publishes Spare Change News.

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what obama and romney do not debate With

the quadrennial presidential election extravaganza reaching its peak, its useful to ask how the political campaigns are dealing with the most crucial issues we face. The simple answer is: badly, or not at all. If so, some important questions arise: why, and what can we do about it? There are two issues of overwhelming significance, because the fate of the species is at stake: environmental disaster, and nuclear war. The former is regularly on the front pages. On Sept. 19, for example, Justin Gillis reported in The New York Times that the melting of Arctic sea ice had ended for the year, but not before demolishing the previous record and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of change in the region. The melting is much faster than predicted by sophisticated computer models and the most recent U.N. report on global warming. New data indicate that summer ice might be gone by 2020, with severe consequences. Previous estimates had summer ice disappearing by 2050. But governments have not responded to the change with any greater urgency about limiting greenhouse emissions, Gillis writes. To the contrary, their main response has been to plan for exploitation of newly accessible minerals in the Arctic, including drilling for more oil that is, to accelerate the catastrophe. This reaction demonstrates an extraordinary willingness to sacrifice the lives of our children and grandchildren for short-term gain. Or, perhaps, an equally remarkable willingness to shut our eyes so as not to see the impending peril. Thats hardly all. A new study from the Climate Vulnerability Monitor has found that climate change caused by global warming is slowing down world economic output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a doubling of costs in the next two decades. The study was widely reported elsewhere but Americans have been spared the disturbing news. The official Democratic and Republican platforms on climate matters are reviewed in Science Magazines Sept. 14 issue. In a rare instance of bipartisanship, both parties demand that we make the problem worse. In 2008, both party platforms had devoted some attention to how the government should address climate change. Today, the issue has almost disappeared from the Republican platform which does, however, demand that Congress take quick action to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency, established by former Republican President Richard Nixon in saner days, from regulating greenhouse gases. And we must open Alaskas Arctic refuge to drilling to take advantage of all our American God-given resources. We cannot disobey the Lord, after all. The platform also states that We must restore scientific integrity to our public research institutions and remove political incentives from publicly funded research code words for climate science. The Republican candidate Mitt Romney, seeking to escape from the stigma of what he understood a few years ago about climate change, has declared that there is no scientific consensus, so we should support more debate and investigation but not action, except to make the problems more serious. The Democrats mention in their platform that there is a problem, and recommend that we should work toward an agreement to set emissions limits in unison with other emerging powers. But thats about it. President Barack Obama has emphasized that we must gain 100 years of energy independence by exploiting fracking and other new technologies without asking what the world would look like after a century of such practices. So there are differences between the parties: about how enthusiastically the lemmings should march toward the cliff. The second major issue, nuclear war, is also on the front pages every day, but in a way that would astound a Martian observing the strange doings on Earth. The current threat is again in the Middle East, specifically Iran at least according to the West, that is. In the Middle East, the U.S. and Israel are considered much greater threats. Unlike Iran, Israel refuses to allow inspections or to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has hundreds of nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems, and a long record of violence, aggression and lawlessness, thanks to unremitting American support. Whether Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence doesnt know. In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency says that it cannot demonstrate the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran a roundabout way of condemning Iran, as the U.S. demands, while conceding that the agency can add nothing to the conclusions of U.S. intelligence. Therefore Iran must be denied the right to enrich uranium that is guaranteed by the NPT and endorsed by most of the world, including the nonaligned countries that have just met in Tehran. The possibility that Iran might develop nuclear weapons arises in the electoral campaign. (The fact that Israel already has them does not.) Two positions are counterposed: Should the U.S. declare that it will attack if Iran reaches the capability to develop nuclear weapons, which dozens of countries enjoy? Or should Washington keep the red line more indefinite? The latter position is that of the White House; the former is demanded by Israeli hawks and accepted by the U.S. Congress. The Senate just voted 90-1 to support the Israeli position. Missing from the debate is the obvious way to mitigate or end whatever threat Iran might be believed to pose: Establish a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region. The opportunity is readily available: An international conference is to convene in a few months to pursue this objective, supported by almost the entire world, including a majority of Israelis. The government of Israel, however, has announced that it will not participate until there is a general peace agreement in the region, which is unattainable as long as Israel persists in its illegal activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. Washington keeps to the same position, and insists that Israel must be excluded from any such regional agreement. We could be moving toward a devastating war, possibly even nuclear. Straightforward ways exist to overcome this threat, but they will not be taken unless there is largescale public activism demanding that the opportunity be pursued. This in turn is highly unlikely as long as these matters remain off the agenda, not just in the electoral circus, but in the media and larger national debate. Elections are run by the public relations industry. Its primary task is commercial advertising, which is designed to undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices the exact opposite of how markets are supposed to work, but certainly familiar to anyone who has watched television. Its only natural that when enlisted to run elections, the industry would adopt the same procedures in the interests of the paymasters, who certainly dont want to see informed citizens making rational choices. The victims, however, do not have to obey, in either case. Passivity may be the easy course, but it is hardly the honorable one. -Noam Chomsky Reprinted with permission of Noam Chomsky

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