Could Clinton Carry Kansas?

Hillary's not my first or second choice for President, but a just released Survey USA poll shows her surprisingly close to the leading GOP candidates. (via Pollster blog)

Among 502 registered voters in Kansas:
Clinton 40%, Giuliani 54%
Clinton 44%, Thompson 49%
Clinton 45%, Romney 46%

2004 results were Bush 60% Kerry 39%.

My guess is that Giuliani perceived as a moderate Republican, while Thompson and Romney are seen as right-wingers. Of course, it could be just name recognition.

But if Hillary Clinton runs this close in the polls, Kansas Dems ought to be serious about challenging Senator Pat Roberts. A campaign would need to target him as a stealth extremist/obstructionist. That could begin even before a candidate is fully recruited.

Sacco and Vanzetti

August 22 is the 80th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian immigrant workers who were convicted of murder during a 1920 Boston payroll robbery. The trial was marked by prejudice and irregularities. Sacco was a shoe-maker and Vanzetti was a fish peddler and both were active in the Italian American anarchist movement. Their arrest came in the midst of the first Red Scare, that saw thousands of socialists, anarchists, and union members arrested and even deported.

The judge in the case, Webster Thayer, stated to the jury "This man, (Vanzetti) although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions."

Sacco and Vanzetti were supported by a broad cross section of liberal and progrssive opinion in the U.S. and worldwide. The 1922 American Federation of Labor convention adopted a resolution describing Sacco and Vanzetti as "victims of race and national prejudice and class hatred."

Fifty years after their execution, Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation stating that Sacco and Vanzetti were tried in an atmosphere permeated by prejudice against foreigners and hostility toward unorthodox political views and that therefore any stigma of disgrace should forever be removed from their names.

A recent documentary on Sacco and Vanzetti is now available on DVD

Website on Sacco and Vanzetti and the Italian American experience

Wikipedia on Sacco and Vanzetti

The myth of Amazing Grace

A mini-essay on Amazing Grace which I posted on Everyday Citizen.

There's a good chance you'll learn something new about the famous song. I don't discuss the recent movie about William Wilberforce, which I found to be quite good, but which is less than historically accurate. Unfortunately, the critical review by Adam Hochschild from the New York Review of Books is not available free on-line. It appeared in the June 14 issue.

Wal'mart's volunteer labor in Mexico

I posted this on the group blog Everyday Citizen.

Max Roach

Max Roach, one of the giants of jazz, died today at age 83. His drumming innovations were critical to the development of the be-bop revolution, though not often credited as being on the same level as the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

He was also a socially conscious musician. In 1960, he recorded the landmark Freedom Now Suite.
He was also active in the civil rights movement.

I had the pleasure of hearing him live, including a very memorable benefit concert for Eldridge Cleaver, when Cleaver returned to the United States. Cleaver had abandoned the third world revolution temptation and not yet embraced nutty right-wing views. For a brief moment, his politics were sane, democratic left. Bayard Rustin organized a defense/support group and brought in many leaders in the African-American community.

Roach's performance that night was marvelous. Normally, I detest drum solos, but Roach could play the drums musically. In fact, he went from using the entire drum set, eliminating one component at a time until he was just down to the hi-hat. The way I remember it, he actually had the various drums and cymbals removed, but maybe that is memomry playing tricks.

You tube has some wonderful clips of Roach performing.

Here's a good idea: international labor rights groups blog together

The International Labor Rights Forum blog is now a joint project with two similar-mined groups: STITCH and US LEAP. It's called "Labor is not a Commodity" Looks like it will be a go to place to get news about the brutal exploitation that corporate globalization visits on workers in poor countries.

Here's descriptions of the three groups.

International Labor Rights Fund
ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. ILRF serves a unique role among human rights organizations as advocates for and with working poor around the world. We believe that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests. We are committed to overcoming the problems of child labor, forced labor, and other abusive labor practices. We promote enforcement of labor rights internationally through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation, and collaboration with labor, government and business groups.

STITCH
Women in Central America and the U.S. face similar challenges in the workplace, especially when it comes to low wages, discrimination, insufficient childcare services and dangerous working conditions. To change these shared conditions, STITCH, founded in 1998, unites Central American and U.S. women workers to exchange strategies on how to fight for economic justice in the workplace. STITCH equips women with the essential skills through trainings and educational tools, and in the process, builds lasting relationships with women across the two regions, further empowering women in the labor movement. STITCH also ensures women's voices are heard in global debates and discussions on issues that impact them: globalization, trade agreements, immigration policy, and global labor standards.

U.S./LEAP
The U.S./Labor Education in the Americas Project (U.S./LEAP) works to support the basic rights of workers in Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, especially those who are employed directly or indirectly by U.S. companies. Founded in 1987 as the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project (U.S./GLEP) by trade unionists and human rights advocates concerned about the basic rights of Guatemalan workers, US/LEAP has since expanded its work to other countries in the region.

UPDATE 8/14: Thanks to A.L. for catching that the link to the collaborative blog didn't work, it's been corrected.

Behind Enemy Lines in Garden City

The LA Times ran an interesting article earlier this week on a Republican campaign worker in Berkeley, California and a Democratic organizer in Garden City, Kansas.

For my coastal and foreign readers, that's far western and deep Republican Kansas . The famous In Cold Blood murders happened in Holcomb, just a little west of Garden City.

Jacqueline Bujanda is the Democratic organizer in Garden City. Here are some interesting 'graphs from the story.

Rural Kansas businesses are boycotted for Democratic sympathies. At one county clerk's office, workers stared dumbfounded when Bujanda introduced herself as the new Democratic regional field coordinator. "There was total silence," she recalled, "as if what I was doing was just an unheard-of thing."

Garden City (pop. 27,000) was now more than 40% Latino, a demographic shift driven by the arrival of Mexican and Central American immigrants to work in the county's meatpacking plants.

When she first began her field-

coordinating, she pursued mostly Republicans, challenging a Midwestern tradition of conservative voting handed down over generations.

One day, Bennie Creeden scowled at Bujanda's pitch. "I'm not voting for any Democrat," he said, shutting his door. Nearby, retiree George Purnell had the same response: "Democrat is a dirty word in this community."

Bujanda now thinks her best chances lie not in the area's old guard, but with the Latino newcomers. Here, she reasoned, was an untapped voter base.

Bujanda wants to enlist 1,500 new Latino voters. She knocks on doors, patiently explaining to some immigrants what a Democrat is.

Got a Bad Boss?

Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, is doing some neat one line things.

In its second annual My Bad Boss Contest, Working America is looking for the worst of the worst workplace horror stories about managers who mismanage and maltreat employees and otherwise act like they are the proprietors of their own personal medieval serf estate. The winning entry—voted on by visitors to the Bad Boss site—will get a weeklong getaway—miles away from the boss.

Over 500 entries have been submitted. The first week's four winners are here.

I especially liked this submission

worst boss in America: G.W. Bush
bludnguts, Minnesota

1. He is not qualified by either training or successful experience in management. He and his friends engaged in illegal activities to get him the job.
2. He is destroying the bottom line and the general economy of the company
3. He has the company borrowing heavily-at a rate that will destroy the company's credit and lead it into bankruptcy.
4. He is mis-appropriating company assets by giving them to his friends on the board and friends who kick-back to him for company favors and contracts
5. He is spending heavily on foreign activities that have no logical connection to the well-being of the company and are causing loss of life and limb of company employees
6. He is trying to nullify the healthcare, retirement and other benefit obligations to company employees
7. There is little hope that he is able to change his policies, because he is does not read, seek the advice of experts and is not curious
8. He is a poor speaker and communicator, is not respected or trusted by heads of other companies that might do business with us; he is a poor public representative of company values and integrity
9. It is clear that he is actively working to take the company apart and sell it off to other profit-making interests.

There's also a nifty interactive quiz that asks "How Bad is Your Boss?"

Boyda's profile in courage

Before he became President, John Kennedy wrote a famous book Profiles in Courage. It was probably the first political book I ever read. I remember being impressed that a Kansan was among those profiled. Edmund G. Ross cast the decisive vote that prevented President Andrew Johnson from being impeached. Later, when I connected JFK's go slow stance on civil rights with his selection of Ross, I wasn't so proud. Kansas deserved a better hero.

Regardless of how one feels about PiC or Ross, Kansas had a real political hero last week: Congresswoman Nancy Boyda.

Boyda voted against the FISA bill. 41 House Democrats voted for it. Boyda is among the freshmen Democrats who narrowly won election in 2006. Her seat is one of the top GOP targets for 2008 and it is a district with a military base.

The Bill, S. 1927, the Protect America Act, which authorizes the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to acquire foreign intelligence of individuals "reasonably believed" to be outside the United States without a court order.

Boyda's statement

Tonight I voted to uphold something near and dear to America - the U.S Constitution. When the President signs this bill, anyone out of the country, including Americans, can have their communications monitored with virtually no oversight. Sadly, the slippery slope of our civil liberties has given way to a mudslide.

"It's never been easy to balance our security and our liberties. Our nation has struggled with this for over 230 years. As Benjamin Franklin said, 'They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.' Tonight our freedoms took a serious blow.

"For the past several weeks, Congress and the Administration worked closely to achieve a bipartisan agreement on foreign surveillance. An agreement was reached that would have provided our nation's intelligence community with the powers it needed while safeguarding the Constitution. But Friday night, at the 11^th hour, the Administration effectively eliminated oversight. "

"Over the next six months, we may hear reports of information gathered under this bill. Let me be clear - that same information could have been collected without giving up Constitutional oversight. "

Michael Yates on Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas

Michael Yates, touring the country to promote his Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate, was here in Wichita recently and has written up his trip through Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas here.

Emergence of Paul Simon

Wichita's NPR station, KMUW, ran a two-part special on Paul Simon this week. I've never been a great Paul Simon fan so it is easy to forget just how much great music he has made.

Those who grew up with Simon and young listeners should give a listen to the wide range of his work. There's a new 2-CD, 36 song Essential Paul Simon collection that I'm adding to my wish list.

Two stories on John Edwards

I read two interesting stories on the John Edwards campaign this week.

Jonathon Tasini discusses an interesting Wall Street Journal article on how Edwards is seeting the agenda for the Democratic field. The WSJ article is for subscribers only, but here's two key paragraphs.

John Edwards may be stuck in third place in the polls and fund raising in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But the populist seems to be playing an outsized role in driving the terms of the party's debate -- generally to the left -- on everything from Iraq to health care.

This week, the former North Carolina senator has made his most prominent bid yet to place the oft-ignored issue of poverty prominently on the 2008 agenda, with a four-day tour of some of the most run-down parts of the South and Midwest, beginning with his sixth trip this campaign to this city, devastated by Hurricane Katrina. He has talked about the issue more than any of his rivals, and was the first to craft a "poverty" plank in his platform.

David Moberg has a fascinating In These Times article "The Union's Man?"

Edwards walks the talk as well, often on picket lines. The week after his swing through Iowa, he joined a rally at the giant Smithfield hog processing plant in his home state to demand that the company, a notorious labor law violator, recognize workers when a majority signs union cards. During the past two years, the Edwards campaign claims, the former senator and vice-presidential candidate has taken part in more than 200 different union events with more than 20 unions, including a national contract campaign tour for hotel workers, a fast with janitors organizing at the University of Miami and an airport rally in Texas for Continental Airlines ramp employees who were organizing.

“He’s redefined the way public officials engage the ongoing work of the labor movement,” says Chris Chafe, the former chief of staff of UNITE HERE and one of several labor officials with high-level positions in the Edwards campaign—not counting campaign manager David Bonior, the former staunchly pro-union congressman who previously headed American Rights at Work, a labor-rights advocacy group. “I don’t think anyone has come so close in recent memory to putting himself so squarely behind issues central to the labor movement. We’d welcome institutional endorsements, but our goal is to have workers and union leaders focus on what he does as well as what he says.”

Two landmarks

Important landmarks on blogs I enjoy.

Josh Rosenau of Thoughts from Kansas is leaving the state to take a position with the National Center for Science Education. Josh has been a leading critic of intelligent design. the banner on his site now say "Travelling from Kansas." Josh is also a supporter of unions and an all around good guy.

Norm Geras recently posted the 200th item of his popular weekly bloggers profile and picked a very suitable subject Norm Geras.

For the list of previous subjects, click here. My profile was no 148.

Mainstreaming anti-Semiitsm

I've recently come across two disturbing examples of mainstream media outlets whitewashing two of the most notorious anti-Semites in American history.

US New & World Report publishes occasional "collectors editions" on special topics for news stand sales. I picked up "Mysteries of History" Secret Societies."

In an article on "America's Cult Culture," Philip Jenkins describes William Dudley Pelley as "a religious activist of the 1930s." Pelley was, in reality, the leader of the Silver Shirts, one of the largest and most active Nazi group in the United States with more than 15,000 members at its peak.

The Economist, in a review of Amity Shlaes book on the Great Depression, seems to vindicate Henry Ford's antisemitism.

Ms Shlaes tends to look at the Depression in terms of the conflict between business (good) and politics (bad). At the time, though, Roosevelt's view that the “lack of honour of men in high financial places” was at the root of the trouble seemed like a statement of the obvious, rather than a political pose. Even Henry Ford had been uttering warnings that “the Jews of Wall Street”, as he so nicely called them, had stored up trouble in the 1920s. The Depression appeared to prove him right.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (August 15) I've had an exchange of emails with Philip Jenkins. He writes:

USNWR took my description of Pelley from a book in which I wrote at length about his Nazi and anti-semitic activity. The article that appeared under my byline was abstracted from that book, but I do not believe I was consulted about the final text, which left the Pelley phrase out of context. (Nor did I have any idea it was to appear as a separate article). I am trying to find exactly what happened from my publisher.

Your comments about Pelley's Nazi politics are entirely correct, and I share them fully.

In short, this is a bizarre matter, and I look forward to clearing it up.

Prof. Jenkins was kind enough to send me an extract of his writings and I am informed that he has an outstanding reputation as a scholar, so I credit his explanation.

Nontheless, it is troubling that the editorial staff of one of our leading news weeklies would not realize that describing Pelley as a "religious activist" was highly inaccurate and troubling.

Minor Update August 18. In the third paragraph, I originally wrote "Dudley" instead of "Pelley" in the second paragraph.

Barry Lando Lies About Israel

Truthdig, a website associated with Robert Scheer, a much respected radical journalist, has a bad article by journalist Barry Lando, "Israel's Primal Myth: A Barrier to Peace." I've been noticing an upsurge in anti-Israel articles beyond the sewers of Counterpunch, et al. Lando's article deserves a fisking. I anticipate that someone with more time and knowledge will thoroughly deconstruct it.

For now, note of Lando's outright misrepresentation of Benny Morris.

LANDO "Morris found that not only was there no evidence that Arab leaders had
called upon their people to flee in 1948-49, but that records revealed
exactly the opposite."

MORRIS ".. it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages. So that on the one hand, the book reinforces the accusation against the Zionist side, but on the other hand it also proves that many of those who left the villages did so with the encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself."

Backlash Against Globalization

Interesting article in the Financial Times

Large majorities of people in the US and in Europe want higher taxation for the rich and even pay caps for corporate executives to counter what they believe are unjustified rewards and the negative effects of globalisation.

Viewing globalisation as an overwhelmingly negative force, citizens of rich countries are looking to governments to cushion the blows they perceive have come from the liberalisation of their economies to trade with emerging countries.

Those polled in Britain, France, the US and Spain were about three times more likely to say globalisation was having a negative rather than a positive effect on their countries. The majority was smaller in Germany, with its large export base

Corporate leaders fared little better, with 5 per cent or fewer of those polled in the US and all large European economies (except Italy) saying they had a great deal of admiration for those who run large companies. In these countries, between a third and a half said they had no admiration at all for corporate bosses.

In response to fears of globalisation and rising inequality, the public in all the rich countries surveyed – the US, Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain – want their governments to increase taxation on those with the highest incomes. In European countries, a large majority want governments to go further and to impose pay caps on the heads of companies.

What secularists go wrong about Islam

Taner Edis has an interesting article on the Council for Secular Humanism website.

secular humanists have not been entirely clear-eyed about Islam. While supporting critical inquiry, many secularists have also been partial to simplistic representations of the Muslim world. Indeed, some popular secular literature opposing Islam is hardly distinguishable from Christian and neoconservative polemics. Secularists have been too eager to seek immediate doctrinal causes for Muslim problems. In doing so, many critics have been tempted to identify an essential “true Islam” that is antagonistic to reason and liberal values.

Here's the conclusion

Those of us who do not accept revelation, however, need not go in search of an idealized, true Islam. We should give up those habits of thought that prompt us to seek a well-defined true faith, now to condemn as barbaric rather than to endorse as divine. Religion is a human activity, and what deserve our attention are the varieties of faith revealed in actual practice.

Secular humanists have been very supportive of science and critiques of Islam; they have stood up for freedom of inquiry. And as a godless infidel, a scientist, and a critic of Islam, I am grateful for this support. But we secularists also have our blind spots, our episodes of intellectual laziness. Accepting the framework of a “true Islam” is one such mistake. We can do better.

Michael Yates: Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate

Radical economist Michael Yates was in Wichita yesterday, part of the book tour for his new book Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate.

Some union folks met him for lunch and talk.

He gave a book reading in the evening at Watermark books. There were some more union folks there, including some present and retired members of the letter carriers.

It's a fascinating book. It reminds me a little of John Gunther's Inside the USA but with two big differences. Gunther interviewed business and government leaders; Yates lived with and interviewed working folks. The second difference is that the USA is a very different country today than when Gunther wrote IUSA in 1947. Yates chronicles the growing disparity of wealth and income in today's America.

More important than Guthrie

What was more important than the Woody Guthrie festival? Why did I make it to Tulsa, but not the rest of the way to Okemah.

Quite simply, an almost 12 year old is a huge Weird Al Yankovich fan and I took him to the Brady Theater concert in Tulsa as an early birthday present. It was a long drive down and back, but it was worth it. Al put on a good show and Dominic thought it was great. Al signed autographs after the show.

The Brady Theater is only a couple of blocks from the legendary Cain's Ballroom, which was Bob Wills' showcase in Tulsa.

One of the highlights for me was Weird Al's palindromic tribute to "Bob" Dylan.





For the younger readers of this blog, its a parody of Dylan's premature music video

Happy birthday Woody (without illusions)

Today is the 95th anniversary of Woody Guthrie, the legendary American folksinger and songwriter, who did much to enrich our life, not the least being "This Land Is Your Land"

Each year during this week, his hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma throws a grand tribute with a free folk festival. (There is a fund raising concert Wednesday nights.)

I had the pleasure of attending with friends Laura Dungan and Aaron Fowler and can attest to its excellence, even though we were able to go only on Saturday. I reported on that festival visit in 2005 and 2006.

Laura, Aaron, and I each vowed to make it back to the festival. Unfortunately, we haven't. I come closer this year, making it all the way to Tulsa, within 72 miles of Okemah. That's most of the way from Wichita. But I had something far more important to do in Tulsa. (more on that in a later post.)

2007 Thoughts on Woody

As potent as the songs of Woody Guthrie are, as powerful as the arc of his life's story, and as tragic as the suffering of Woody, his family, and friends, we should not hestitate to acknowledge the deep ambiguity of his political and moral choices. For Woody the tribune of the people, the defender of the common people against oppression, the defender of democracy, had a major blind spot. It was a blind spot as significant as the American founders participation in slavery.

Guthrie, if not a member of the Communist Party, during the long years of its slavish devotion to Stalinism, was a full-fledged fellow traveller. His songs followed, for instance, the twists and turns of the CP during the invasion of Finland, and the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Woody never wrote a "Ballad of the Legless Veteran," who after WWII was fired as a government clerk because he belonged to subversive organization. The problem for the American Stalinists was that the veteran belonged to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. Woody never wrote a talking blues for the March on Washington Movement, the movement led by A. Philip Randolph to force the integration of U.S. defense plants. Here the problem was that the Communist Party subordinated the just demands of minorities and workers to the military needs of the Soviet Union. CP hacks denounced Randolph as a fascist for insisting on the abolishment of Jim Crow in American defense plants.

During the war, the CP applauded the Smith Trial act prosecution of Trotskyists and demanded that Socialist Norman Thomas be prosecuted under the same law. During the cold war, American Communists were, in turn, prosecuted under the same laws that they had supported a few short years before.


Wobblies Vs. Woody

Tom Herriman, producer of Shiftbreak, a Washington state labor radio program, has an intriguing interview with shipwright and anthropologist Archie Green whose new book, "The Big Red Song Book" analyzes the famous "Little Red Song Book" published continuously by the Industrial Workers of the world (aka the IWW, aka The Wobblies) since 1909. Green explodes some of the myths about labor music, and charts the political fights between L the Wobblies and other popular folk singers like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Listen here.

A Final Word for now


Let's not avoid dealing with the full complexity of Woody Guthrie's life. There is no more reason to reject the values and sentiments of his great songs because of his naive attitude towards Stalinism, than there is to reject the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights because Jefferson and Madison were slave-owners. After all, this country still has to overcome its treatment of Native Americans and the post-slavery exploitation of African Americans.

In the final analysis, "this land is your land, this land is my land." But it is not enough to say "This land was made for you and me." It is time that we say "This land is you and I make it together." And, we can, only do that with honesty, reconciliation, and justice.

So, let's celebrate Woody for all he contributed and where he fell short, lets do it right.