Jewish Abolitionist Who Fought Alongside John Brown

Becky Tanner had a nice short write-up in Monday's Wichita Eagle on August Bondi, a Jewish abolitionist who fought alongside John Brown.

A more detailed biographical sketch was presented by Jewish Currents.

David Reynolds in his outstanding biography John Brown: Abolitionist notes that the ultra-Calvinist John Brown was tolerant about everything except slavery. Another of his comrades was Aaron Dwight Stevens, a Connecticut native who had fought in the Mexican war and against Indians before deserting after coming into conflict with a harsh officer. Stevens, is described by Reynolds as a agnostic and deist, who liked to read from Paine's The Age of Reason.

Like many others of his era who rejected Christianity, he became a devot spiritualist, discovering in seances and table-rappings evidence of an afterlife. Although John Brown hated both deism and spiritualism, he prized Stevens because of his antislavery militancy. ...hatred of slavery became a higher religions that bonded Brown to a person of utterly different beliefs. (p. 194)

Bondi was not the only Jewish pioneer in frontier Kansas. There is a on-line book by Lloyd David Harris, Sod Jerusalems that recounts that forgotten history.

Tasers vs. high school students

Tiny Revolution shares this "There's a brewing controversy on this now in Wichita, Kansas, which I learned about from Jake Lowen of the excellent organization Hope Street Youth Development. Here's the timeline he sent:

February: Wichita Police introduce tasers into schools.

Early March: Students at Wichita West High School discover this and are understandably concerned. Organized by Hope Street, they gather 250 signatures on a letter to the school district asking about health effects and the district's use policy.

March 16th: A 15 year-old student is tasered during a confrontation at another high school, Wichita North. However, no one except those involved know at the time because the school district covers it up.

The next week: The tasering becomes public thanks to an anonymous tip from a teacher. The Wichita Eagle criticizes the school district for trying to hide it.

Today, March 30th: The Wichita Eagle reveals two other attempts to taser students, including a 14 year-old girl.

TCJ Picks up on Ryun sweetheart deal

Chris Moon in Thursday's Topeka Capital-Journal

"Ryun says home buy wasn't sweet deal"

Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun on Wednesday was trying to clear himself of political allegations he was involved in a dubious real estate deal five years ago.

The matter is part of the fallout from recent ethical scandals that have shaken Washington, D.C.

Ryun, R-Kan., purchased a Washington townhouse in 2000 from a nonprofit organization that had close ties to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who are at the center of a federal ethics shake-up.

The question is whether Ryun got a sweetheart deal on his townhouse, where he lives while in Washington.

Real estate records show he bought the home for $19,000 less than its sale price from two years earlier, despite escalating property values in the nation's capital. Since then, its appraised value has ballooned to $764,000.

Democrats pounced, implying the sale was a favor from corrupt characters in Washington.

"It's been said that you can judge a person by the company they keep, and this shows what kind of company Jim Ryun keeps in Washington," said Mike Gaughan, director of the Kansas Democratic Party, who sent a statement Wednesday blasting the Republican congressman from Lawrence.

Paul Kiel who broke the story at TPM Muckraker says

There are some gaping holes in his story.

Ryun's spokeswoman told the AP that "Ryun 'was not specifically lobbied by USFN' and that the group has not made any contributions to his campaign."

They weren't lobbied by the USFN? The USFN wasn't even a lobbying organization. Buckham's Alexander Strategy Group was, though. USFN's Chris Geeslin told us that "ASG was in charge of marketing the townhouse." Buckham used the USFN as his slush fund. So more to the point is whether ASG ever lobbied Ryun.

To bolster his argument, Ryun's office released documents showing that another home on the same block was sold for $409,000 on the same day he bought his home. Property records show the other home is on a land area about half the size of Ryun's and is now assessed at $236,000 less than Ryun's home.

If there's a good explanation for his deal, Ryun hasn't provided it yet.

Kansans like Kathleen more than George, or Sam or Pat

The latest Survey USA poll shows that Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius is more popular in Kansas than President George Bush or GOP Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts.


Sebelius Approve 60% Disapprove 34% Net Approval 26%
Brownback Approve 52% Disapprove 37% Net Approval 15%
Roberts Approve 50% Disapprove 38% Net Approval 12%
Bush Apppove 44% Disapprove 52% Net Approval -8%

Ryun's Sweetheart Deal from DeLay Front Group

Paul Kiel of TPM Muckraker reports that Topeka Congressman Jim Ryun bought a Washington DC townhouse in 2000 at substantially under market value from a lobby closely connected with indicted Congressman Tom DeLay and corrupt GOP lobbyist Jack Abramaoff

D.C. property records show that the townhouse was sold to Ryun for $410,000 on December 15, 2000. According to the Post, the USFN (US Family Network) purchased the townhouse for $429,000; the deed was signed January 12, 1999.

“Property sold to a member of Congress at substantially under market value can, in some instances, be construed as a de facto gift. In this case, that would be from the Buckham-controlled and Abramoff-client-funded front group USFN to Rep. Ryun,” writes Kiel

Naomi Seligman of CREW told TPMmuckraker.com that Ryun's house deal should prompt a House Ethics Committee investigation. "Who else in America has lost money on a real estate transaction except [Cunningham contractor felon] Mitchell Wade?"

U.S. Family Network (USFN)has been described as a "slush fund" for funds from special interests to DeLay projects.

Founded as a non profit in 1996 by Edwin Buckham, the USFN claimed to be a conservative grassroots lobbying organization created to promote "economic growth and prosperity, social improvement, moral fitness, and the general well-being of the United States." But its donor list suggests otherwise. Nearly the entire organization was funded by a few corporate and special interests that had no incentive to promote the USFN's purported goals. Most were also clients of Jack Abramoff.

Update #1 from TPM Muckraker

Don Boucher, an appraiser who focuses on residential properties in the D.C. area, said that the property should have appreciated “about 15% or more during that time period, meaning that it would have sold around $500,000.

Another appraiser, who preferred to remain anonymous because he often works with members of Congress, said that the townhouse should have appreciated "by $100,000 at least." He said the low sale price "wouldn't make sense at all unless there was a fire and the place was gutted." He added, "It looks like they gave it away."

There's also a question of whether the house was ever actually formally put on the market as opposed to being sold to the Ryun's in a private sale.

Update # 2 from Thoughts from Kansas

Using data from the US Government, we find that, given what was happening in the DC housing market, a house bought for $429,000 in Q1 of 1999 would have appreciated to about $530,000 by Q4 of 2000. That matches the intuition of DC area assessors.

By that standard, the house could have been worth as much as $1.2 million by the end of 2005. The DC assessor's office tallied it as worth about $920,000 for 2007 tax purposes.

What the Next Left Won't Look Like

An interesting web essay on the temptations facing the American left by Daraka Larimore-Hall

This is a tough time for the American left. We have seen a series of crushing electoral defeats and gains made by an increasingly bold far right. ... there is no real sign that the country can be turned around any time soon. Add to this the overwhelming feeling that huge swaths of American public opinion favor the repeal of the 20th Century, and it is easy to sink into defeatism, cynicism and frustration.

Nonetheless, opinion polls continue to point to solid majorities behind progressive reforms, in health care and education, and opinion tracking on gay rights and other social issues are, in general, trending our way. More people vote Democratic than Republican for the House and Senate, and the Republican edge in Presidential elections is miniscule, even if our electoral system makes it decisive. These are things to build on, to utilize as building blocks for a new progressive movement that is broad, multi-faceted, strategic and visionary. How, exactly, do we do this? To paraphrase Michael Harrington, if I knew this I would be President of the United States. I don’t know, and chances are any answers will emerge from trial and error as well as scholarly and popular debate- even blogging.

Below, however, is my attempt to outline a few of the tendencies which exist on the left which are decidedly not helpful: Minimalism, Denial, Sectarianism and Conspiracy Theory.

Progressive pocketbook issues not seen as "liberal"

David Sirota has an especially intriguing and important paragraph in a recent interesting column on the Working Families Party.

First, the background. The WFP is a "third party" in New York where the electoral laws permit "fusion" voting. Under this arrangement, more than one party can nominate the same candidate and votes under the various labels will count. Historically, the "American Labor" party was a fusion ticket pon which many socialist garment workers were able to vote for FDR in 1936 without voting for the dreaded Tammany Hall Democrats. Today, there are a number of fusion tickets in NY, including Conservative, Right to Life, and Liberal. The WFP is the newest.

Now, for the interesting paragraph

Voters in two of the most closely-decided Bush states were read a description of the WFP as a party that fights on "pocketbook" issues "like the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, the cost of prescription drugs and increasing the minimum wage." Voters then rated the party on a scale where 1 was extremely liberal and 9 extremely conservative. Fifty-seven percent of voters labeled the WFP at 5 or above.

Hmmm, maybe if the Dems pursued a strategy of "pocketbook" progressivism/populism, they might just have the potentional to garner a fair share of votes from "non-liberal" working class voters.

Iran's Brutal Assault on International Women's Day

From Doug Ireland's blog.

The following news report put together by Iranian feminists in Tehran and asked me to publish it.. It describes the Ahmadinejad regime's brutal assault yesterday on women celebrating International Women's Day in the Islamic Republic of Iran. So far, this asssault has been blacked out in the mainstream press:

Tehran, March 8— (Note: the photos below of the march and demonstration, all taken before the police charged, were supplied by Tehran feminists; the originals may be seen by clicking here.)

The peaceful gathering of women's rights activists, women's groups and human rights defenders who had gathered in Park Daneshjoo (Student Park) yesterday, in commemoration of March 8th, International Women's Day, ended in violence, when they were attacked and assaulted by plain clothes militia, special anti riot forces of the Revolutionary guards, soldiers and police.

Approximately 1,000 women had gathered in Park Daneshjoo on the occasion of the International Women's Day to emphasize their stance in support of women's human rights and peace. The ceremony which started at 4:00 pm, and was scheduled to last one hour, was charged by security forces shortly after it began, who relentlessly beat the protesters, in an effort to disperse the group.

The sit-in, which was organized by independent women's groups and activists, was supposed to be carried out silently, with protesters holding signs reading some of the following statements and slogans: discrimination against women, is an abuse of their human rights; women demand their human rights; women oppose any form of forced aggression or war; Iranian women demand peace; injustice means discrimination against women, etc.

Ten minutes into the protest, after security forces had managed to fully film and photograph the protesters for follow-up and interrogations at a later time, the women were asked to disperse, on the grounds that their assembly was illegal and did not have a permit. At this point, the protesters started singing the anthem of the women's movement, which again calls for changes in their human rights status. At 4:20 the final statement of the sit in was read, during which the security forces dumped cans of garbage on the heads of women who were seated in an effort to prevent easy dispersal. The security forces then charged the group and began beating the protesters. Even after the protesters had dispersed many were followed by the security forces and beaten. Some of the female protesters were beaten repeatedly with batons, and some male protesters were beaten severely by security forces who administered the beatings in teams.

Click this link for more of the report.

Mo and Kansas Dems are upbeat

St. Louis Today ( Post-Dispatch) on Missouri

Smelling the prospect of victory in this year's elections, Missouri Democrats used their annual Democrat Days as a platform to launch bare-knuckled jabs at the Republicans now in charge of the state and the country.

State Auditor Claire McCaskill announced Saturday that she firmly opposes a contract, backed by President George W. Bush's administration, that would allow state-owned Dubai Ports World to take over operations at six U.S. ports.

She said the Middle Eastern country of Dubai had too many troubling ties to terrorism. She then contrasted her stance - "I'm not questioning it, I'm opposed to it" - to that of the Republican she seeks to replace, U.S. Sen. Jim Talent.

McCaskill accused Talent of waffling on the subject because he has raised concerns but not taken a firm position.

McCaskill's campaign workers distributed posters that portray Talent as a "half-baked waffle," while various Democrats poked at Talent's decision to drop his support of a bill to outlaw embryonic stem-cell research.

State House Minority Leader Jeff Harris, D-Columbia, said the Republicans have two candidates running for the U.S. Senate: the Jim Talent who supports stem cell research and the Jim Talent who opposes it.

The Kansas scence from Steve Kraske, political correspondent for the Kansas City Star in the Wichita Eagle

The crowds. The enthusiasm. The hordes of young people. And to top it off, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the rock star of the Democratic Party.

For Kansas Democrats gathered Friday in Topeka at their annual convention, the scene was like a blast out of the very distant past.

More than 1,100 party faithful squeezed into the Ramada Inn's biggest convention room, as 200 more watched on a TV nearby.

The last time Democrats gathered in numbers anywhere close was back in the early '80s, when Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., spoke in the state capital.

To be sure, the GOP remains the dominant party in Kansas. But internal strife has taken a toll. For the first time in years, the Democrats have the mojo.

"Maybe we're the cool party," mused longtime Democratic activist Glenn Staab of Hays.

For so many years, these Democratic Washington Days "celebrations" were desultory affairs. Democrats were like the losers you knew in high school. Republicans had the juice, the deep pockets and seemingly all the winners.

Now, it's different.

A New History of Haymarket

Hisotrian James Green has written a new history of the Haymarket tragedy. It won't replace Paul Avrich's definitive 1984 history, but it probably deserves a place along side it.

Caleb Crain reviews it in The New Yorker.

Green explains why he wrote another book on Haymarket on the History News Network

I was less concerned with retrying the case by revisiting the crime scene and courtroom than I was with creating new contexts for the Haymarket story.

The first context was the Great Upheaval in working class America that centered on Chicago during the 1886 struggle for the eight-hour day. I wanted to tie Haymarket to the birth of the nation’s first labor movement with all the dreams and hopes, passions and tensions it aroused. My editor and I believed that the reading public--historically-minded people who purchase and try to read huge historical biographies of presidents, generals and tycoons--had simply never encountered this story, or this kind of story, in reading popular non-fiction. I had long believed that labor history, though a somewhat marginalized field within the profession, was the repository of some of the most dramatic, even epic, stories in U.S. history.

Green's website is also worth a visit.

Chairman of the Senate Coverup Committee

Think Progress Nails Kansas Senator Pat Roberts

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Pat Roberts’s (R-KS) duty is “to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States” and “to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” But on the most important intelligence issues facing Americans – such as the manipulation of Iraq intelligence, warrantless domestic spying, and torture - Roberts has transformed his committee into a “Senate Coverup Committee” for the Bush administration.

Lot's of details. Someone should reprint it and distribute it widely.

Neo-cons and Shachtmanites--Not

Norm Geras recommends a new blog by Dave Osler. Dave's Part looks like a very fine blog and Dave seems to be a fellow with good politics, left, but anti-democratic centralist.

Norm steers us to Dave's post on Neo-conservatives which offers a critique of Adam Curtis’s television documentary series, 'The Power of Nightmares'and makes some valid points. Including this

No serious account of of the doctrine can fail to address the inputs of Max Shachtman and Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson. But astonishingly, Curtis rates neither as worthy even of a name check.

Unfortunately, Osler mangles the details when he writes

A number of prominent neocons were associated with Shachtman in their youth, including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.

This is completely wrong. I don't think Kirkpatrick, Perle, or Wolfowitz ever met Shachtman who died in 1972. Some of his followers. most prominently Tom Kahn supported Henry Jackson in the Democratic primaries that year and probably came into contact with Perle at about that time.

So the influence of Shachtman on neo-conservativsm is much more indriect and convoluted than Osler paints it.

Ralph Seliger has an accurate account of Shachtman, his followers, and neo-conservatism in the first issue of Engage's journal. Seliger knew many of the younger generation of Shachtmanites before they become neo-cons. And Ben Ross discusses the Shachtmanites and Straussians in Dissent.

Another reliable account is Bill King's "Neoconservatives and Trotskyism." King is a conservative, or at least his essay appears on a conservative webstie. But he has a solid knowledge of the left's intellectual history.

despite its current popularity, the "Trotskyist neocon" assertion contributes nothing to our understanding of the origins, or nature, of neoconservatism. In fact quite the opposite. While it is based on elements of truth, the assertion for the most part consists of exaggerations, misrepresentations, and even outright falsifications whose end result is a thoroughly distorted view of the history of neoconservatism.

King concludes with this ironic paragraph

What makes all this so ironic is that it is the paleoconservatives and anti-neocon liberals themselves who not so long ago marched together with Trotskyists -- the real ones that is -- in opposition to the toppling of Saddam's dictatorship in Iraq. Even more, they have featured articles attacking US foreign policy by prominent long-time Trotskyists on the very same web sites in which they have accused neoconservatives and the Defense department of… Trotskyism! Amidst the shrillness of their accusations one thing is certain: the "Trotskyist neocon" assertion is without a doubt one of the major oddities of recent American intellectual life

Strangely enough, Osler despite the slip above, ends his blog entry on a similar note

in the final analysis, whether America’s post 9/11 foreign policy can be labelled distinctively neoconservative or not is a point of crucial importance to perhaps two groups. The first is the hardened factionalists jockeying for position on the US right. The second is that section of liberal opinion that - to invert a Straussian idea - needs the neoconservative threat as a ‘necessary myth’ to rally its forces.

It looks Dave's Part will be blog worth following.

Washington Day interviews

Joshua Rosenau of Thoughts from Kansas interviews Barak Obamma before his speech at the Kansas Democrat's Washington Day event and 3rd District Congressman Dennis Moore.


Obama sold out the banquet fundraiser, so the Dems set up a rally with a lower ticket ($20 vs. $100+) and that sold out too.

Challenger for BOE Radical

Hutchinson News editorial

Ken Willard, one of the Radical Six on the Kansas Board of Education, will face a primary challenger this election cycle.

Donna Viola filed last week as a Republican candidate.

That will pit Viola, president of the McPherson USD 418 Board of Education, against Willard, former president of the Nickerson-South Hutchinson USD 309 Board of Education, in the District 7 race.

Ken Willard, R-Hutchinson, has played an integral role in advancing the state board ís increasingly radical agenda for education in Kansas since being elected in 2002.

He lobbied the Legislature to undermine local authority and establish statewide standards for a suitable education. He supported efforts to relax rules for charter schools in Kansas. He expressed interest in school vouchers. He voted for science standards adopted after contrived hearings before a three-member subcommittee of the board. He voted to overrule local boards with a statewide policy allowing parents to determine whether their children would enroll in sex education classes. He voted to hire someone without any experience in education or public administration as Kansas education commissioner.

Moreover, in meetings with local boards and in conversations with constituents, Willard defends those controversial actions with evasive answers and disingenuous claims.

Four of the five BOE incumbents up for re-election in 2006 are part of the radical majority. In the 2002 general election, one was elected with no opponent and two faced only write-in opponents.

This year there are already declared Demoratic candidates in two of those districts with moderate GOP alternatives in one of those and one other. Here's what I understand to the the BOE election situation as of now.

District 1 Janet Waugh D incumbent moderate unopposed

District 3 John Bacon R incumbent radical opposed by
Harry McDonald moderate Republican
Don Weiss moderate Democrat

District 5 Connie Morris R incumbent radical opposed by
Sally Cauble moderate Republican
Tim Cruz moderate Democrat

District 7 Ken Willard R incumbent radical opposed by
Donna Viola Republican moderate

District 9 Iris Van Meter R incumbent radical opposed by
Dr. Kent Runyan moderate Democrat

Hope for Kansas Dems

An interesting article by the Eagle's Alan Bjerga gives an upbeat picture for Kansas Dems. This is probably close to the conventional wisdom. Most informed observers of Kansas politics wouldn't disagree much.

Traditionally outnumbered in a majority-Republican state, Kansas Democrats tend not to have much firepower when trying to gain more votes at the ballot box.

This year they have a governor, and they're running with it.

Kansas Democrats gather in Topeka today for the party's annual Washington Days convention to build up a party they're boosting through Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who so far is favored to win re-election this November.

Sebelius dwarfs her Republican opponents in funding and name recognition. None of those candidates has emerged as the clear leader in the race to face her this fall.

Republicans are putting less energy into defeating incumbent Rep. Dennis Moore, the only Democrat in the state's congressional delegation. Instead, they're focusing more on defending Attorney General Phill Kline. He faces a strong challenge from Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison, a Republican who switched parties to face Kline.

Sebelius said she's involved in recruiting candidates for the Legislature.

What did stand out was this extreme statement from Republican State Chairman Tim Shallenberger.

"Democrats don't want people to know where they stand," he said. "They won't talk on social issues, they won't talk about (labor) unions, they'll hide from their national leadership. The Democrats have no morals."

National Journal Ranks Senate and House

The National Journal has just released their 2005 rankings of Senators and Represenatives. The NJ rates votes as liberal or conservative and provides a further breakdown into three components.

It's a pretty neat tool, with on-line sorting available.

Here's what it says about my home state of Kansas

Sam Brownback scores 79 percent conservative and 21 percent liberal. That makes him only the 21st most conservative Senator. That's the mirror image of Hilary Clinton who scored 79 percent liberal and 21 percent conservative.

Brownback's component scores were Economic 80 Social 64 and Foreign 74.

Since Brownback is considered the darling of the social conservatives, I'm not sure what to make of this.

Pat Roberts scored 31.5 percent conservative and 68.5 percent liberal. That makes him the 38th most conservative Senator.

Roberts' components were Economic 72 Social 62 and Foreign 65.

Todd Tiahrt (R-4th District -Wichita) tied for 15th most conservative Congressman with a Conservative score of 92.

Jim Ryun (R-2nd District-Topeka) was only a little behind Tiahrt scoring 90.5 on the Journal's conservative scale.

While Tiahrt and Ryun scores reveal them to be extreme Conservatives out of touch with their constituents (both districts have elected moderates Democrats in the past), the state's other two Congressmen Jerry Moran and Dennis Moore are shown to be a moderate Republican and a moderate Democrat respectively. In fact, their scores are almost mirror images.

Jerry Moran (R-1st District Western Kansas) scored 66.7 on the conservative scale.
On the economic component his conservative score was 68. The social component was 78 percent and the foreign component was 53 percent

Dennis Moore (D-3rd--Kansas City and Johnson County) scored ranked 38 percent on the conservative scale (which is 62 percent on the liberal scale). Interstingly, that's the same score as Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha. Moore's component scores were 37 conservative on economics, 35 percent conservative on social issues, and 42 percent conservative on foreign.

The NJ explains its methodology here. The Senate votes are found here and the House votes here.

Paul Avrich: Historian of Anarchism

Paul Avrich was an outstanding historian who specialized in anarchism. I read several of his books on Russian anarchism years ago and recommend them highly. Just this last year, I was lucky enough to find his history of Haymarket at a used bookstore. It is essential--and enjoyable--reading for anyone interested in American labor and radical history.

Infoshop News has an obituary. Paul Avrich, radical historian, 1931-2006

Radical historian, Paul Avrich, died last week. He was 74. Paul Avrich was born in New York City on August 4, 1931. He was a noted historian and professor who authored many books on anarchist history, including books on the Haymarket Riot, the Modern School Movement, the Russian Revolution and a collection of oral interviews with American anarchists titled Anarchist Voices. Avrich was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize several times and in 1984 he won the Philip Taft Labor History Award.

Avrich received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1952 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1961. Avrich taught at Queens College of the City University of New York and at Columbia University. He was a Guggenheim fellow at Columbia University in 1967-68 and a National Endowment for the Humanities senior fellow in 1972-73.

Avrich published his dissertation on "The Russian Revolution and the Factory Committees" at Columbia University in 1961. In 1967 Avrich published his first book on the history of anarchism, "The Russian Anarchists." He went on to publish many more books on anarchist history, including "The Haymarket Tragedy" in 1984 and "Sacco and Vanzetti" in 1991. Writing about Avrich's book "Kronstadt 1921" for the New York Review of Books, Alasdair MacIntyre observed that "[Avrich] gives us the closest examination of all the available evidence that we are likely to have for some time and he uses his evidence to construct a narrative that, in its most brilliant passages, matches the power of Deutscher's The Prophet Armed and Moshe Lewin's Lenin's Last Struggle."

The Library of Congress houses the Paul Avrich Collection, a collection of over twenty thousand manuscripts and publications on American and European anarchism that Avrich donated to the library.

Ronald Creagh remembered Avrich this weekend: ".I know that Paul's friendliness will remain in the minds of all who have known him, just as his scholarship will be remembered by all who have read his remarkable books. He offers his readers very extraordinary information. Perhaps
his most thought-provoking testimony is contained in his work Anarchist Voices, which is based on his careful, time-consuming interviews with hundreds of people."

AK Press (www.akpress.org) recently re-published Anarchist Voices.

Avrich Collection at the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awrbc4/pamphlet.html

Selected Bibliography

* The Russian Anarchists, Princeton University Press, 1967.

* Kronstadt 1921, Princeton University Press, 1970.

* Russian Rebels, 1600-1800, Schocken, 1972.

* (Editor and author of introduction) Peter Kropotkin The Conquest
of Bread, Allen Lane, 1972.

* (Editor and author of introduction) Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, a Factor of Evolution, Allen Lane, 1972.

* (Editor) The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, Cornell University Press, 1973.

* An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre, Princeton University Press, 1978.

* The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States, Princeton University Press, 1980.

* (Author of introduction) Voltairine De Cleyre, The First Mayday: The Haymarket Speeches, 1895-1910, Libertarian Book Club, 1980.

* The Haymarket Tragedy, Princeton University, 1984.

* Bakunin & Nechaev, Freedom Press, 1987.

* Anarchist Portraits, Princeton University, 1988.

* Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University, 1991.

* Anarchist Voices: An Oral History Of Anarchism in Amreica, Princeton University, 1996.

Sources: Includes information from Contemporary Authors Online and research assistance from Radical Reference.

Ignorance from FAIR

If you believe the Federation for American Immigration Reform and American Family Radio, then you would think that the Mexican PRI, the long-time ruling party until Vincente Fox, is a "Communist" party.

Some days I listen to one or two radio news broadcasts of American Family Radio. They're the folks that got all apogoleptic about "The Book of Daniel." A far right, Christian fundamentalist operation. Lately, they been flirting with Reconstructionism, an even more dangerous and openly theocratic right-wing strain. And, they've jumped on the anti-immigrant bandwagon. Luckily Agape Press, a far-right, Christian conservative news service, has transcription of the broadcasts. Otherwise, I might have had a hard time believing I heard things correctly.

This is pretty much the substance of news reports carried on the American Family Radio on Feb. 14.

Susan Tully, national field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), says she is not optimistic that Mexico's national elections this summer will do anything to change the corrupt and arrogant attitude of Mexico with regard to illegal immigration. In July 2006, Mexicans will decide whether to stick with President Vicente Fox or turn the presidency over once again to the left-wing PRI. That group, Tully notes, is actually a communist party that "has been in control of the major politics of Mexico for 80 years." Fox, on the other hand, came out of the party PAN, which Tully describes as "a more conservative, non-communist party." Unfortunately for Fox, the immigration reform activist says, the PRI still controls Mexico's Chamber of Deputies and that party has thwarted the current president's efforts to accomplish many of his aims. Tully believes when Fox leaves office after completing his six-year term -- re-election is not possible under the Mexican constitution -- little will change as far as the U.S. is concerned. "It will not matter in terms of illegal immigration which party is in charge," she asserts. Mexico's leaders "are corrupt," Tully says. "They're elitist in their thinking. They are promoting and will continue to promote illegal aliens from Mexico [coming] into the United States." [Chad Groening]

It's one thing when you denounce (or praise) Hugo Chavez as a new Lenin, but when you label the corporatist and corrupt PRI as Communist, you've gone off the deep end.

There is actually a third major party in Mexico, the Party of the Democratic Revolution. Virtually every informed observer rank the PDR's Presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a front runner in the 2006 election. The PDR is a leftist, social democratic, or populist party. And, several left-wing parties, including the old Communist Party, were involved in its formation. It is not a Leninist or democratic centralist party, but if one were to smear a Mexican party as "Communist," the PRD would a far better candidate.

The American right has a long record of looniness about Mexico. As far back as 1918, there was a panic that Lenin had placed a revolutionary Russian army on the Mexican border. (see Theodore Draper's The Roots of American Communism). And, in the 1960s, Billy James Hargis and the ilk.

FAIR likes to protray itself as a responsible, mainstream organization and the media, unfortunately, too often buys it. But the informed observers like Center for New Community have dug out its extreme right-wing and racist ties. See this report for example. (PDF)

Valetine's Day

Johan Hari Romantic Love invented by 18th Century British Aristocrats

romantic love – our religion, our purpose, our first thought when our lives are threatened – was invented in the eighteenth century by a generation of aristocratic Englishwomen, just as surely as the Manhattan Project invented the A-bomb. Now their children were starting to have a better survival rate, these women were no longer under constant pressure to breed – so, as the sociologist and expert on the history of love Anthony Giddens says, “They began both to idealize the object of their love, and then tell stories to themselves about how their lives can be fulfilled by a lasting relationship with that person. It had never happened before.” All the love-story staples we live out in our lives – the electric first meeting, the wooing, the settling-down-together-in-bliss – were created there and then. They were popularised – and spread further down the social chain – in the next century by novelists like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. (One of the reasons they still seem so vivid to us now is that they really were feeling those emotions – not just love, but love-leading-to-marriage – for the first time in history.)

Malaysian Muslims Warned Not to Celebate Valentine's Day

KUALA TERENGGANU, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- Muslims in the country, especially lovers, have been advised not to celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow.

State Islam Hadhari Development Committee Deputy Chairman, Muhammad Ramli Nuh said celebrating the Day could be regarded as recognising the enemies of Islam because Valentine or Valentinus took part in planning and attacking Cordoba, once a well-known centre of Islam in Spain, causing its downfall....

Muhammad Ramli said although not many couples celebrate Valentine's Day in the state, the state government wished to remind that the celebration should not be held including in hotels.

Scott McLemee recommends some revolutionary Valentine's Day slogans

Hereabouts, we celebrate Valentine's Day by recalling the epochal struggle, almost thirty years ago, between that segment of the the Revolutionary Communist Party that boldly upheld Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Chairman Bob Thought and the clique of renegade Menshevik revisionists who failed boldly to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Chairman Bob Thought.

For it was the latter group -- now known as the Freedom Road Socialist Organization -- that puts out the awesome Valentine's Day Slogans each year.

Expose, defy and combat sinister bourgeois schemes to transform Comrade Valentine's Day into a festival of commodities, a reinforcer of mandatory heterosexuality and a celebration of oppressive patriarchal gender norms!

Well, hell yeah. Let's just ignore for the moment the vicious conditions for anyone outside said norms of sexuality and gender in Mao's China -- so utterly unlike the situation under the Bolsheviks, by the way. But it's good to see the new slogan in any case. Better to live and learn than never to learn at all.

Unite with all who draw strength from personal relationships in carrying on the struggle to crush oppression and exploitation and to build a better world!

Rhino Records Love Sucks

It stinks, it hurts, it tears us apart. Not really the stuff of candy and flowers, huh? If you or someone you know has gotten nothing but heartache this Valentine's Day (or any other occasion involving that malevolent blood-pumping organ), this 12-song collection offers the perfect antidote. Includes the J. Geils Band's immortal "Love Stinks," Gram Parsons' defining version of "Love Hurts," Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," and more.

Foreign Policy: Who Do You Love

In a special Valentine’s Day Web exclusive, FP takes a look at who loves whom in the world community, with the help of a 33-country poll conducted for the BBC World Service by GlobeScan and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

Bush a Saint?

A great joke via Eric Alterman via Todd Gittlin via who knows

President Bush was scheduled to worship at a small Methodist Church outside Washington, D.C. as part of Karl Rove's campaign to reverse Bush's rapidly deteriorating approval ratings. A week before the visit, Rove called on the Methodist Bishop who was scheduled to preach on the chosen Sunday. "As you know, Bishop," began Rove, "we've been getting a lot of bad publicity among Methodists because of the president's position on stem cell research and the like. We'd gladly arrange for Jack Abramoff's friends to make a contribution of $100,000 to the church if during your sermon you would say that President Bush is a saint."

The Bishop thought about it for a few minutes, and finally said, "This parish is in rather desperate need of funds ... I'll agree to do it."

The following Sunday, Bush pompously showed up for the photo op, looking especially smug even while attempting to appear pious.

After making a few announcements, the Bishop began his homily: "George W. Bush is a petty, vindictive, sanctimonious hypocrite and a nitwit. He is a liar, a cheat, and a low-intelligence weasel with the world's largest chip on his shoulder. He used every dirty election trick in the book and still lost, but his toadies in the Supreme Court appointed him. He lied about his military record in which he used special privilege to avoid combat, and then had the gall to dress up and pose on an aircraft carrier before a banner stating "Mission Accomplished." He invaded a sovereign country for oil and war profiteering, turning Iraq into a training ground for terrorists who would destroy our country. He continues to confuse the American people by insisting on a nonexistent connection between the horrors of 9/11 and the reason he started his war in Iraq. He routinely appoints incompetent and unqualified cronies to high-level federal government positions and as a result, hundreds and hundreds of Americans died tragically in New Orleans. He lets corporate polluters despoil God's creation and doom our planet. He uses fear-mongering to justify warrantless spying on American citizens, in clear violation of our Constitution. He is so psychotic and megalomaniacal that he believes that he was chosen by God. He is the worst example of a Methodist I have ever personally known. But compared to Dick Cheney and Karl Rove and the rest of the evil fascist bastards in this administration, George W. Bush is a saint.

Upton Sinclair Defended

In Editor and Publisher Greg Mitchell tackles issues raised by a recent LA Times article about an previously unknown letter by Upton Sinclair. In the letter Sinclair writes to his lawyer that Fred Moore, a radical lawyer, had told him that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty. Some right-wing columnists have used the story to attack Sinclair and the left.

Last Thursday, a Reuters article by Arthur Spiegelman appeared. He took the trouble to consider Sinclair's entire letter-which, it turns out, was three pages long, typed. Pasco either didn't see the whole thing, or looked at it and chose to ignore key parts of it (or her editor deleted it). Spiegelman, also unlike Pasco and Goldberg, explored how Sinclair actually portrayed the Sacco and Vanzetti case in "Boston." Did he indeed "lie" about what Moore told him, or make proper use of it in a popular novel?

Spiegelman wrote that Goldberg "might have been better served if he had read the entire letter instead of the excerpts printed in the Times." In a copy of the full letter made available to Reuters, Sinclair explains that soon after he talked to Moore he began to have doubts about him: "I realized certain facts about Fred Moore. I had heard that he was using drugs. I knew that he had parted from the defense committee after the bitterest of quarrels. ... Moore admitted to me that the men themselves had never admitted their guilt to him; and I began to wonder whether his present attitude and conclusions might not be the result ofhis brooding on his wrongs."

Sinclair had even questioned Moore's former wife, who worked with the lawyer on the case, and she "expressed the greatest surprise" saying he had not expressed thoughts that the men were guilty before. All left out of the Pasco, and Goldberg, articles.

In the letter, he also vowed his novel "Boston" would tell all sides, focusing not on the question of innocence but the lack of a fair trial-putting him on very firm ground in that pursuit, most historians agree. The two anarchists may, indeed, have beenguilty-- but the trial was an outrage.

Further, Anthony Arthur, whose new biography ofSinclair will be published this June, provided excerpts from the book to Spiegelman. They show that in other letters, Sinclair quotes Moore as not even being sure both men were guilty. "Moore said neither man ever admitted it to him," Arthur writes.

In other words, it was only Moore's opinion: hardlythe "unvarnished truth," as {right-wing National Review columnist Jonah]Goldberg presents it. Yet Goldberg charged that Sinclair "knew" that the pair were guilty and "quite simply, lied."

And, finally, what about the charge that Sinclair ignored Moore's insights to save his lefty cred? In fact, "Boston" is a nuanced novel (rare for Sinclair) that introduces many reasons to question the defendant's innocence, and focuses on the question of the trial itself and the evils of the death penalty. In the same letter to Robert Minor, Sinclair explained that despite the troubling views expressed by Moore-and other debunkers--he could still write the novel "on the basis of certainty that they did not have a fair trial."

In the end, the heroine of his novel was patterned on himself: believing in the pair's innocence at the beginning and ending not knowing quite what to believe.

Arthur, the biographer, told Spiegelman that Sinclair's decision to end "Boston" on a note of ambiguity concerning Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt subjected him to "a torrent of abuse from the left." It came from Communists, anarchists and others on the
left-in other words, the kind of people Jonah Goldberg loves to target. Robert Minor called Sinclair "a hired liar, a coward and a traitor."

Once blasted by the left for his handling of the case, Spiegelman concludes, "Now he is being hit from theright." In each case, unjustly.

Hamas Victory : the Artificial Sweep

Hamas's stunning victory and the lopsided Parliament is in large part the result of an electoral system that gives results even more disproportionate than the US or Canadian First-Past-The-Post system.

The Palestinian system featured two tiers (1) multi-member districts and (2) a national proportional list. The multi-member districts reward parties with greater discipline and punish ticket- splitting. More than 100 Fatah members ran as independents and there were several smaller lists which appealed to Fatah voters

Hamas has won apparently 76 seats, Fatah 43, and other parties and independents 13.

Here are the national proportional results which give a far different picture of public opinion in Palestine.

Hamas 434,817 (30 seats)

Fatah Movement 403,458 (27 seats)

Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa (PFLP) 41,671 (3 seats)

The Alternative 28,779 (coalition of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Palestinian People's Party, and the Palestinian Democratic Union Party) (2 seats)

Independent Palestine (Mustafa Barghouti) 26,554 (2 seats)

The Third Way 23,513 ( 2 seats)

(Doesn't include votes for list that didn't make the threshold.)

The Meaning of the Hamas Victory

An excellent analysis from Ami Isseroff of MidEast Web

All indications are that the "militant" Hamas movement has swept the Palestinian elections, winning a majority in the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) and putting themselves in position to form the next government. The current PNA government has resigned. Mahmoud Abbas will remain President, at least for now. The upset was feared, but not expected. The conventional wisdom was that Hamas would gain influence in the government, but would not control it. Pre-Election polls and exit surveys generally showed a slight advantage for Fatah, and indicated that neither side could govern without a coalition. Until a few hours ago, everyone was breathing sighs of relief. Not any more. The current results seem to give Hamas a solid majority. They could form a government without the Fatah. I didn't see that one coming, and I bet nobody else did either.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday, Wednesday, January 25, was without a doubt a great day for Palestinian democracy. Elections were fairly orderly and relatively fair. One person was killed in a Fatah election-related feud on the day before the election. The Hamas used mosques to get out the vote, the Fatah urged PNA employees to vote for them, but the elections were reasonably fair. The results may be a disaster for peace and for the Palestinian people.

To understand the potential gravity of the event, we need only examine the Hamas record of suicide bombings, and their charter and the Hamas history.

Calling the Hamas "militant" is more than an understatement. It is like saying Stalin was an "outspoken activist." Hamas began about 1985 as a seemingly innocuous charity and religious group that even got the support of the Israeli government. However, when the first Intifada started, Hamas turned militant. They drew up their charter, which explains their views on negotiations and what might be called "the Jewish question." It is hard to imagine a more racist and terrifying document. Some quotes:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day.It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

Article 7 of the charter explains their view of the role of Islam regarding the Jews:

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhariand Moslem).

A collective paralysis of will allowed the world, including Israel, to allow participation of the Hamas in elections, even though such participation is expressly forbidden by the Oslo interim agreements that supposedly form the basis for the existence of the Palestinian National Authority. Annex 2, Article III of the Oslo Interim Agreement states:

3. The nomination of any candidates, parties or coalitions will be refused, and such nomination or registration once made will be canceled, if suchcandidates, parties or coalitions:

1. commit or advocate racism; or

2. pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or non- democratic means

An organization that cites the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its charter is racist, and an organization that sends suicide bombers to explode in public places is pursuing the implementation of their aims by nondemocraticmeans. Unfortunately, banning the Hamas would have made the elections undemocratic.

True, the Hamas was making pacific noises and ran on a mild platform. Eternal optimists like myself can look for hope in that, but these noises did notresult in any fundamental change.

Everyone will now look for whom to blame. Most of the parties can look in the mirror. We all understood that following the death of Yasser Arafat, it would be difficult to keep the Fateh and the PLO alive, because nobody else, including Abbas, has the charisma and prestige of Yasser Arafat. The difficult was made impossible, however, by the actions of Abbas himself, the Fateh, The Palestinians, the USA and the quartet partners, and Israel.

Abbas invited the Hamas to participate in the elections. Like US President Lyndon Johnson, he wanted his opponents inside the tent, pissing out. However, Abbas's rivals were not any old political group, but an armed militant organization. He didn't make disarmament a condition of participation, thereby losing his chance to disarm the Hamas peacefully. He didn't make abrogation of their charter a condition of participation. He failed to do anything that would strengthen his own position. Instead of presenting the Israel disengagement as a hopeful fruit of moderate policies and international support, he went along with the Hamas propaganda that the disengagement was won by the "martyrs." Abbas failed to act against corruption and anarchy in the Palestinian government. giving Palestinians the certainty that a vote for Fatah was a vote for more of the same. Fatah failed to unite behind Abbas, instead finding every way possible to undermine his position and generating a good deal of the anarchy that plagues the Palestinian community.

To counter the Fatah, the Palestinians failed to strengthen any of the moderate alternatives, instead throwing their support to the most militant and reactionary group.

The USA supported Abbas openly, a fact that came to light in the last days before the election. In Palestinian society, that was virtually the kiss of death. The US and the quartet failed to prod Abbas and the Fatah to make the necessary reforms, and failed to help them build a government network of social services that could compete with and counter the Hamas. They issued vague and contradictory threats against the Hamas rather that making it clear
that the Hamas must lay down its arms, abrogate its charter and accept the principles of the Oslo agreements. It is too late now, for the Palestinian police may now effectively be replaced by the more motivated, and perhaps better armed, Issedin el Qassam brigades.

Israel did everything wrong as well. Contradictory threats were issued on a weekly basis, declarations made, and declarations reversed. If the Palestinian people had understood that a Hamas victory means the end of international aid programs, and the beginning of a new and aggressive Israeli security campaign,perhaps it would have made a difference. On the other hand, the Palestinians might feel it doesn't matter. The occupation in the West Bank is sufficiently miserable for their taste, and they don't see much improvement in their life.

Other than the disengagement, Israel didn't offer Abbas anything he could take home to his constituents.

In Israel, the Hamas victory could generate a wellspring of support for the right and extreme right. Israel is having elections too. True, the Likud is forecast to get only 14 out of 120 Knesset mandates according to the latest polls. However that could change rapidly. The growing power of the right outside the Likud has been overlooked. As polls show fairly consistently, The
National Union Party and Yisrael Beteinu may garner 11 mandates together, the NRP 3, and ultra orthodox parties another 15, with 22% of voters still undecided. With 42 mandates for the right even before the election of the Hamas, a government of the extreme right is not impossible in Israel. The prospect of such a government facing a Hamas-controlled government is not
enticing.

Perhaps the Hamas, like Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, will have an epiphany in office. Perhaps they will see that "from here, it doesn't look the same as it did from there." Nonetheless, it is certain that we are in for "interesting times." At least, it was pleasant to be optimistic for a few days.

Giant Steps Goes Graphic

John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" is a just masterpiece. And now it is the inspiration for a digital animation video by Israeli grad student Michal Levy.

Levy writes

When I listen to music I see colors and shapes and when I watch visual art I hear sounds.I wanted to express my sensing of shapes colors and music in this short movie.

I have chosen a short Jazz piece, which I have known for many years of my playing the saxophone: "Giant Steps" by John Coltraine. Coltrane made a major break through with his album "Giant Steps" in the year 1959. It was the first time in the history of Jazz music that someone based his music on symmetrical patterns, which stemmed from a mathematical division of the musical scale.

The structural approach of John Coltraine to music is associated with architectural thinking. The musical theme defines a space and the musical improvisation is like someone drifting in that imaginary space.

Check it out.

What Levy decscribes sound like synaesthesia, a condition wherein one experiences stimulus in one sense in response to real stimulus in another sense.

Dishonoring King

Nominees for those who most dishonored Martin Luther King with stupid, reactionary, and racists comments.

Nominee Number 1

blogger David Nallee

What he never envisioned was the replacement of that obviously flawed social order with a subtler but even more oppressive system of economic, cultural and political apartheid, supported to a large extent by the same people and groups who were his allies in his fight against racism.

Nominee Number 2

The ISM website reprints an article denouncing the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism for hosting a ceremony honoring Martin Luther King Jr. at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

The article commemorates the legacy of Martin Luther King than to post an article accusing Jewish progressives of being racial supremacists. In fact, it uses the conspiracy language and paronoid style of the anti-Semitic right "Jackson is today allowing [Goodman's] anti-racist legacy to be used to legitimize institutionalized racism and violence. Thus he ingratiates himself with the Zionist movers and shakers who dispense campaign money and respectability in the Democratic Party."

Nominee Number 3

James Dobson dedicated his entire Focus on the Family show on MLK Day to a speech by balck conservative Star Parker attacking "entitlement programs" for the poor,

A little blog browsing

Jim Fallows (not the US writer) has a nice guest post on bluegrass on normblog. He writes that his "first exposure to the music was a British 'Bluegrass' compilation of Monroe, Doc Watson (hmm), Merle Travis (?) and Hank Snow(?!?!). All great music, sure, but some of it somewhat stretching even the most broadly defined limits of the genre." That compilation was surely stretching things, but some might wonder if Fallows is too restrictive in reading Allison Krause and Nickel Creek out of the bluegrass world.

Jerry Trimmell posts an old Bob Curtright column about Wichita and finds some great pictures to illustrate Curtright's points.

David Aaronovitch has a new blog. while Paul Anderson has a blog devoted to his-progress book on Orwell in the Tribune.

Chuck at Monumental Mistakes informs us of an unique calendar

Kansas Anarchists Exposed! Calender Signing Party

Jan. 21@ 8pm, Free Solidarity Center 1119 Mass Lawrence

“We'’re celebrating the release of the 2006 kansas anarchists exposed calendar is hott off the presses and in our hands! Spread the word thathis full-sized wall calendar with beautiful black and white photographs of nude and semi-nudkansas anarchiststs is available now for only $8 a piece (or $6 each for an order of 10 or more). We'’re having a party with food, party favors, and of course, those who have posed in the calender to sign yours.”

To order, http://lawrencesolidarity.net/calendar

Chris Mooney has Intersection a new blog on science and politics. It's part of Science Blogs. this seems to be the new trend. Single author blogs are out. Multiple authors blogs and blog centers are in.

Chip Berlet on the lessons of Harry Potter and Justice Sunday.

what I learned when my wife and I attended the Harry Potter film.

• Certain actions are evil, but evil is not based on heredity or nationality.

• • Real heroes sometimes set aside their personal quest to help others in danger.
  

• We should welcome people from different cultures and nations into our midst.

• • Friendship includes taking risks to support our friends and standing up for them in a crisis.
  

The alternative lessons presented by some of the Christian Right.

• The moral struggle is not between ideas that support goodness and ideas that spawn evil, but between "secular supremacists" and Godly Christians.
• God is against gay men and lesbians signifying their commitment of love through marriage.
• • God is against abortion.
  
• God wants us to put judge Samuel Alito on the Supreme court.
  

We also learn that liberals and non-Christians threaten America and that we should pray that "not secularism or unbelief or a hostile supreme court [should] prevail against" God's word.

Defending Frank and the Democrat's Real Problem

It wasn't too surprising when the right wing attacked Tom Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas. But recently some self-proclaimed liberals have been criticizing Frank, saying that the Democrats really don't have a problem with white working class voters.

Benjamin Ross has a really excellent article on Frank's critics in the latest Dissent Democrats and Middle America: What's the Real Problem?"

Here's a taste

[Frank's call for a] renewed populism has aroused a storm of objections. Some critics doubt that working-class voting habits have changed. Others accept the reality of the shift, but take issue with Frank’s diagnosis of the cause. Still others, the most numerous, do not dispute Frank’s account of the facts, choosing instead to challenge the legitimacy of any effort to change those facts.

The first critics are those who challenge Frank's facts.

The challenge to Frank’s facts comes in a widely circulated paper by Princeton political scientist Richard Bartels, who cites polls showing that Democrats have lost more votes in the last fifty years in the upper third of the income distribution than in the lower third. (Bartels’s figures are for white voters outside the South.)

Bartels’s argument is based on a flawed definition of the working class. Whether one seeks the working class of Marxist theory or the ordinary people of American populism, they are to be found in the middle of the income distribution and not just at the bottom. Indeed, polling experts David Gopoian and Ralph Whitehead found that only 19 percent of the bottom third voters in Bartels’s sample were over thirty years of age and actively working. Thirty-five percent were retired, and substantial numbers were disabled or unemployed.

Gopoian and Whitehead point out that only 40 percent of whites with less than a college education voted for Kerry in 2004.

Frank was written a long, and to my reading throroughly convincing, refutation of Bartels study.
It can be found on Frank's site.

The second school of critics say that the Democrats real problem is foreign policy not economics.

A second group of critics claims that Frank ignores the issue of national security. Ever since the Vietnam War, voter preference polls have shown a strong Republican advantage on foreign policy. This suggests that at least part of what turns working-class voters against the Democrats is a worry that the party is unwilling to use force when needed to keep America secure. If this is the case, Democrats can win back support by imitating the hawkish Republican positions that voters like—thus the recent spectacle of Hillary Clinton positioning herself as an opponent of withdrawal from Iraq.

An argument so straightforward and grounded in such clearly established facts must be taken seriously. In this case, though, it cannot be accepted. The Republican advantage on foreign affairs represents a cultural preference much more than a policy preference.

The Republican advantage on national security arose during the Vietnam War, and it persists to this day in the conceptual shadow of that war. Why did voters turn against antiwar Democrats? Surely it was not because they liked the Vietnam War. It was because they didn’t like the antiwar movement. In other words, it was culture.

The third set of critics

the largest group of Frank’s critics, those who accept Frank’s facts but deny the legitimacy of his argument. They see it as condescension to say working-class cultural conservatives are being swindled by leaders who talk about religious values but deliver tax cuts for the rich. By what right, they ask, does Frank instruct others to think in the voting booth about economics rather than, say, sex roles? Both right-wing and left-wing advocates of cultural politics pursue this line of argument, with the main difference between the two versions being that leftists dress up their argument by accusing Frank of having an elitist theory of “false consciousness.”

What unites the critics Ross says is that "Frank’s populism makes so many Democrats uncomfortable because it challenges the party’s identification with middle-class cultural themes."

BTW, visit the Dissent website and subscribe. Dissent is one the must-read journals on the democratic left.

On Friday the 13th

From an email from CSICOP, the publishers of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

How did thirteen get such a bad reputation? To understand, one needs to know the history of twelve, says CSICOP Senior Research Fellow Joe Nickell. "The number twelve has traditionally represented completeness in mythologies and religions around the world," says Nickell. "There are twelve months of the year, twelve chief gods of Olympus, twelve signs of the zodiac, and twelve apostles of Jesus. Thirteen exists just one digit beyond twelve, and is symbolic of the first departure from divine completeness or the initial step towards evil."

Friday has an equally bad history, Nickell points out. According to some traditions, Eve gave the apple to Adam on Friday, the great flood began on a Friday, the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday, execution day was Friday in ancient Rome, and Good Friday exists because it is the reported day of Jesus' crucifixion. An English schoolboy allegedly proved mathematically that thirteen, when examined over a 400-year period, falls on Friday more than any day of the year. (He was thirteen years old at the time, of course.)

Yet the number 13 has a lesser-known role as a lucky number: At the birth of our nation, thirteen colonies formed the original United States of America, a baker's dozen is considered a fortunate bargain, and if you are Jewish, age thirteen is your lucky time for a bar or bat mitzvah.

Friends with Low Wages

American Rights at Work has new--and very funny--Flash video to expose Wal-Mart’s anti-union and anti-worker violations. The cartoon, “Friends with Low Wages,” features (a parody of) Garth Brooks and a new take on one of his classic hits. Garth recently signed an exclusive distribution deal with Wal-Mart and you may have caught him in one of the TV ads he did for Wal-Mart over the holidays.

Click the graphic to the right.

Or this url http://www.walmartworkersrights.org/

Clint Jencks Dies

Clint Jencks died on December 15, 2005. Clint was 87 and was a Professor Emeritus of Economics at San Diego State University, having retired from SDSU in 1986. Younger left activists may not know that Clint Jencks was a legendary figure from the American labor
movement and the struggles against McCarthyism.

In 1950, Clint was a leader of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers
in southwest New Mexico. He led a strike of mostly Latino zinc miners in Silver City, NM. Shortly after this strike, in the midst of the Hollywood red scare, a group of blacklisted film industry artists formed their own production company and were looking for a
story about American working people. They chose a story based on the IUMMSW strike, and used the actual participants in the strike as actors. Clint essentially played himself. Every step in the production of the film, processing, editing, etc. encountered determined opposition from the industry. It was almost impossible to find theaters that would show the film, but in 1954 "Salt of the Earth", starring Clint Jencks opened to very, very limited distribution.

Times changed. Salt of the Earth was ultimately recognized as a national treasure, and was selected by the Library of Congress as one of 100 films to be preserved for posterity. Clint went on to get his Ph.D. in economics at U.C. Berkeley. He joined the SDSU Economics Department in 1964 and played an important role in the SDSU community and in the SDSU faculty union movement for 22 years. After retirement, Clint remained a familiar figure and participant in Democartic Socialists of America and and the San Diego progressive movement.

There will be a memorial service on Jan. 8, 2006.

A DVD of "Salt of the Earth" can be ordered from the Labor Heritage Foundation.

International Migrants Day

ICFTU OnLine (Brussels 16 December 2005): On the eve of International Migrants' Day on December 18, the ICFTU [International ConfederationofFreeTrade Unions] is drawing attention to the vulnerability of the world's 115 million migrant workers and their families and the exploitation to which they are often subjected.

Following up on the Special Action Plan on migrant workers adopted last year at its 18th Congress, the ICFTU is calling on the international community to take on the challenge of establishing an international policy framework capable of ensuring respect for migrant workers' fundamental rights and offering them decent work opportunities.

"The hostile social and political environment confronting many migrant workers, and the need for appropriate regulation of migration make it imperative for trade unions to play a more active and visible role in promoting solidarity, and in protecting the rights of migrant workers regardless of their legal status in the host country. Particular attention needs to be given to the vulnerable situation of women migrants," said ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder.

This same message was at the centre of an international workshop on "Defending and Promoting the Rights of Migrant Workers in the Gulf States" held in Manama (Bahrain) from 26 to 29 November 2005. The Workshop, the first of its kind in this region where over 60% of the workers are migrants,

A 2002 statement from the ICFTU adds some additional detail

The trade unions, which view migrant workers as fully-fledged workers with the same rights as others, are fighting at both national and international levels to promote and ensure the proper application of the legal instruments recognising these rights. The ICFTU, which has been campaigning for several years with human and migrants’ rights associations to obtain the ratification of the international conventions providing for equal treatment for migrant workers in terms of jobs, wages, social security and union rights (ILO Conventions 97 and 143), welcomed the signature by East Timor last week of the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, that had originally been adopted by the United Nations in 1990. Thanks to that 20th signature this legal instrument will finally come into force, thereby providing better prospects for migrant workers around the world.

Information, training, legal advice and recruitment are the main focus of the campaign by the ICFTU and its affiliates to combat the worldwide discrimination against migrant workers.

The Global Policy Forum has links to a nice collection of articles on labour rights and the international labour movement.

The Real Christmas Scandal

From the Center for American Progress

For some on the right, this Christmas season is about little more than empty political symbolism. The most important issue for people like Jerry Fallwell is ensuring the greeters at stores like Target and Lands End say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." Self-described "religious conservatives" in the House spent their time yesterday introducing a resolution "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected." Meanwhile, that same group of lawmakers has helped push through $50 billion in cuts for programs that provide vital assistance to the poor, including Medicare and food stamps, and passed over $90 billion in tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy. In the Bible, Christians are cautioned not to do as their leaders do, "for they do not practice what they preach." Following the teachings of Jesus, who condemned the actions of those who put public piety before care for the poor, a group of over 200 religious leaders came to Washington yesterday to protest the House budget, which they called "the real Christmas scandal." The Washington Post reports, "Outside in the frigid cold for several hours, more than 200 demonstrators sang religious and holiday songs, prayed aloud and chanted, 'Stop the cuts.'" In an act of civil disobedience, 114 religious leaders were arrested when they refused to leave the steps of the Cannon House Office Building.

THE BUDGET AS A MORAL DOCUMENT: Jim Wallis, founder of the Christian ministry group Sojourners who was arrested at the protest, noted, "The media seems to think only abortion and gay marriage are religious issues." Wallis pointed out, "Poverty is a moral issue, it's a faith issue, it's a religious issue." Wallis is not alone. Christian religious bodies that have weighed in against budget cuts to programs that serve the poor -- including the Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ -- represent more than 86 million Americans. It's a small contingent aligned with the radical right that takes a different approach. For example, "groups such as Focus on the Family say it is a matter of priorities," and its priorities are opposing abortion, opposing same-sex marriage, and seating judges who will back its position against those practices. Wallis describes this approach as "trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical."

CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS BY RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE: For hardworking Americans who earn the minimum wage, "It would take almost their entire December paycheck to afford the more than $700 that the average American spends celebrating Christmas." If Congress adjourns for the holiday without acting it would be "the eighth year in a row that Congress has failed to enact even a small increase in the minimum wage." Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) notes, "By freezing it at an inadequate $5.15 and ignoring the effects of inflation, Congress has essentially given a pay cut to these workers." Hoyer asks, "How can the leadership in Congress leave Washington this week to enjoy a plentiful Christmas and a comfortable New Year knowing that their inaction has guaranteed another tough Christmas for millions of Americans?"

IF THERE IS NO PROBLEM, INVENT IT: While progressives are working to solve real issues, the right is inventing their battles. For example, Jerry Fallwell's Liberty Counsel threatened to sue a Wisconsin elementary school because it planned on singing the lyrics "Cold in the night, No one in sight" to the tune of Silent Night. Fallwell claimed this revision was part of an effort to secularize the Christmas holiday. Actually, the school was just performing a copyrighted play that contains numerous songs about Christmas, including the grand finale, an audience-led group singing of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” The play has been performed in churches around the country. Fox News gave the Liberty Counsel a platform to issue its threats. Desperate to get out of the media spotlight, the school changed its play, even though the Liberty Counsel's charges had no merit.

US and Iraqi Opinion on the eve of the elections

On the eve of the Iraqi elections, there are new polls of US and Iraqi opinion.

Pew Poll of US Opinion on Iraq

The intensifying political debate over Iraq has not moved public opinion about the war and U.S. policy. The public remains evenly divided over withdrawing U.S. forces as well as the decision to take military action. The latest Pew survey also shows that Americans have a mixed view of conditions on the ground in Iraq:

* Fully 61% of the public believes that progress is being made in training Iraqi forces, while nearly as many (58%) see progress being achieved in establishing a democracy in Iraq. But on balance, more Americans say the U.S. is losing ground in reducing civilian casualties and preventing a civil war.

* The nearly even division in the public over whether to keep troops in Iraq obscures a more complicated set of opinions about what to do next. Most of those who say they want the troops home "as soon as possible" apparently do not mean "now." And not everyone who wants the U.S. to stay is opposed to setting a timetable for a troop withdrawal. Americans also are wary about consequences of a quick withdrawal - 58% say terrorist organizations will become stronger if the United States withdraws its forces soon.

* There is modest optimism that tomorrow's elections in Iraq will lead to a more stable situation in the country. Roughly four-in-ten
(37%) express that opinion; that is significantly greater than the percentages who said that before previous balloting in Iraq, in October and last January (29% each).

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted among 1,502 adults Dec. 7-11 shows that President Bush's approval ratings have not improved. Just
38% approve of his job performance which is little changed from November (36%). Only about three-in-ten (28%) say he has a clear plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion.

The survey also finds that the new Medicare prescription drug program is drawing a mixed response. More Americans approve than disapprove of the plan (by 48%-30%), but approval is down from two years ago (55%). And when asked to describe their first impression of the program, more offer criticism than praise; seniors in particular describe the plan as confusing and costly.

Public Unmoved by Washington's Rhetoric on Iraq Modest Election Optimism, Positive Views of Iraqi Troop Training View complete report

ABC poll of Iraqi public opinion

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/1000a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

26 percent of Iraqis say U.S. and other coalition forces should "leave now" and another 19 percent say they should go after the government chosen in this week’s election takes office; that adds to 45 percent. Roughly the other half say coalition forces should remain until security is restored (31 percent), until Iraqi security forces can operate independently (16 percent) or longer (five percent).

Average household incomes have soared by 60 percent in the last 20 months (to $263 a month), 70 percent of Iraqis rate their own economic situation positively and consumer goods are sweeping the country. In early 2004 six percent of Iraqi households had cell phones; now it’s 62 percent. Ownership of satellite dishes has nearly tripled, and many more families now own air conditioners (58 percent, up from 44 percent), cars, washing machines and kitchen appliances.

There are positive political signs as well. Three-quarters of Iraqis express confidence in the national elections being held this week, 70 percent approve of the new constitution and 70 percent – including most people in Sunni and Shiite areas alike – want Iraq to remain a unified country. Interest in politics has soared.

Preference for a democratic political structure has advanced, to 57 percent of Iraqis, while support for an Islamic state has lost ground, to 14 percent (the rest, 26 percent, chiefly in Sunni Arab areas, favor a "single strong leader.")

US Right to Invade

Shia areas 59%

Sunni 7%

The election itself looks wide open, at least from the perspective of these October-to-November interviews. Thirty-seven percent of Iraqis said they hadn’t decided which party to support (but were planning to vote). Those with a preference were scattered among a wide range of political parties.

Support for former prime minister’s Ayad Allawi’s Wifaq National Movement, or Iraqi National Accord Movement, was nine percent; the Kurdish PUK, nine percent; the Shiite-affiliated Islamic al-Dawa Party, eight percent. Parties people would "never vote for" include the now-outlawed al-Baath (nine percent) and al-Dawa (seven percent).

National leaders with the greatest trust include the current prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari (15 percent), Allawi (15 percent) and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (10 percent), with others in single digits. But al-Jaffari also comes up as No. 1 on the don’t-trust at-all list, at 12 percent. Such is politics.

Juan Cole vs. the loony left

An interesting comment by Juan Cole.

We have to win smart. That means giving the Iraqis their independence ASAP while acting responsibly to avert potential crises if necessary.

There are people* attacking me now because I say I think the US does have the responsibility to forestall massive hot civil war in Iraq if it can, of the sort that could leave 2.5 million people dead and 5 million displaced abroad. That is what happened in Afghanistan from 1979. The US helped destabilize it(the Soviets contributed more to the actual destabilzaiont)in the 1980s and then, under Bush senior, just walked away completely. [Many on t]he American far left never complained about what was going on in Afghanistan in the 1990s, because for them the only source of evil in the world is US imperialism, and since the US had largely left Afghanistan, all was well. No matter if hundreds of thousands of Afghans were maimed as the US turned its back. Somehow they don't complain so loudly about US-led NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia, which certainly saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. They don't actually care about Bosnians or Afghans or Iraqis, just about hating the US. The US has done horrible things. It has also done noble things. I am hoping that it finally does the noble thing in Iraq, and wins smart, for the Iraqis and for the Americans. Dean gets that. Bush doesn't.

Unfortunately, Cole doesn't have a lot of intellectual backbone if he's not attacking "Likudniks." A few complaints from commenters suffering from"free-floating anxiety" and Cole drops the looney description.
---

I used the phrase originally "looney left" for these quarters that wanted to paint me as some sort of war criminal for hoping to forestall genocide. The comments section has convinced me to avoid the phrase, because people who consider themselves on the left and are eager to see the US out of Iraq seem to have developed a free-floating anxiety that I might be referring to them or their position. I assure them that I was not; it is to a looney position that I was referring.