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(Addtional editorial topics are on the Letters page)(as printed in the Santa Fe Reporter, May 31, 2000)
WHAT I'D ASK THE CANDIDATES
By Jim TerrThere is only so much I can absorb about crime, education, Social Security, guns, abortion and school vouchers, especially when the candidates' positions often seem to reflect polling and focus group data more than personal passion and original thinking. And how much of what's said on the campaign trail will really be translated into policy, anyway? I've often toyed with what questions I would ask candidates for national office if I could sit down with them and really get them to answer. (And in fact I do have a rather risky and expensive scheme to actually address some jarring questions to the candidates.)
Some of the following questions are intended to help me probe the candidates' values, priorities, introspectiveness and candor, some to bring attention to issues not being addressed, and some just to see if they know what I'm talking about:
Are you concerned that the average American CEO now makes 475 times what the average worker makes (10 times the 1980 figure), while doing all he can to minimize wages and benefits and send jobs overseas if possible? Is there any behavior or level of personal wealth that you would define as greed? Do you believe most Americans are better off economically than they were 20 years ago?
What do you think about the strictures on social behavior and public policy necessitated by our litigious society? What are your thoughts on the bureaucratic and corporate mindset that seems to negate employees' creative, spontaneous, intuitive and generous instincts? How do you feel about "instant" Internet voting?
How many people starve to death in the world each day? When was the last time you addressed this in a speech or interview? How much death, illness, oppression and other misery is caused worldwide by US government and corporate policy, in your estimation?
Do you feel that Americans care about and depend upon the welfare of others in the world? Do you think the American people would appreciate your leaving a legacy of environmental, economic and social justice, world peace, democracy, and a worldwide living wage? Do you think that such a focus would provide maximum security for Americans as well?
Do you think that the interests of "Wall Street" are inherently different from those of "Main Street", and that the current system of campaign finance and "soft money" tilts the balance of influence to corporate interests at the expense of citizens?
Are you concerned about the fear-and-misinformation industry, phony corporate and advocacy front groups, and the politicization of health, nutrition and consumer information? Do you think of federal lands as being owned by the government or by the public?
How do you feel about radar detectors? Taxing Internet sales? Universal health care? Have you ever been attracted to someone of the same sex, even momentarily or mistakenly? Do you think marijuana causes more havoc than alcohol? Do you think global warming is a fiction? Do you feel that most gun control advocates are really bent on elimination of private gun ownership?
When did you last listen to "Prairie Home Companion?" How about "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers"? Are you concerned about the growing proportion of business and financial news on PBS-TV and National Public Radio, relative to the truly alternative political, economic and environmental content that characterized their founding?
Are you aware of the rapid reduction and pollution of water supplies and water tables, including in the US? When was the last time you expressed concern about this in a speech or interview? Does your family have a private source of water that does not depend on the same water supplies as the rest of us?
How do you feel about Tacitus' statement that "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state"? Do you have any ideas on reducing the body of law to a level such that the average citizen can get through life on her best civic and social instincts, without retaining an attorney? How do you feel about Mark Twain's statement that "It's getting harder and harder to assemble a jury, because it's getting so hard to find 12 people who don't know anything and can't read"? How about Thomas Jefferson's warning that corporations should be strictly limited in their size, power and duration, and should never be accorded the rights of citizens?
Do you feel that TV and movie violence encourages violent behavior? Do you think that excessive TV and video games are reducing children's ability to think, read and socialize? If so, when was the last time you addressed this in a speech or interview?
In matters such as honesty, trust, civility, Constitutional and historical knowledge, littering, voting, debate, handicapped parking and running stop signs, do you think the average person is getting more--or less--civic-minded?
Would you desire a different punishment for someone who robbed your mother of her life savings, depending on whether they stole it physically or "with a fountain pen?"
What do you think of the idea of having the prosecution and defense decide and declare before a verdict is delivered, whether the trial was fair and proper, rather than automatically requesting an appeal or mistrial if the verdict doesn't go their way?
Well, now that that's over, let's go to Starbucks to discuss the decline of local businesses at the expense of national and multi-national chains. I'll buy!
Defense Bidding War
by Rep. Peter DeFazio
(reprinted by permission)Think the days of thousand-dollar hammers and screwdrivers and bolts are gone? Wrong. The Pentagon loses ships: they do not know where they are.... The Pentagon cannot even have their books audited to figure out how they are spending their money, yet we are giving them more money. (Republican Budget Committee chairman, John Kasich, on the House floor, March 23, 2000)
We recently saw Congress's response to the growing crisis in waste and inefficiency at the Pentagon. The House overwhelmingly authorized a record $309.9 billion for the Defense Department, $4.5 billion over the President's request and an increase of $21.1 billion from last year. Pathetically, an amendment to put some pressure on the Pentagon brass to reign in waste with a 1percent reduction in procurement and research and development was rejected 331 to 88.
President Clinton bears much of the responsibility for the run up in Pentagon spending. He has recommended increases in Pentagon spending in 6of his 8 budget proposals. However, in an effort not to be outdone by thePresident they call a "draft dodger," the Republican majority, since taking over Congress in 1994, has trumped his requests with another $41.8 billion in unrequested increases.
Kasich justifies the increases despite his devastating criticism of waste at the Pentagon by saying: "We do not want our people in uniform to pay the price for sloppy management inside the Pentagon."
Unfortunately, it is the men and women in the ranks who are suffering along with millions of average Americans who have seen vital programs and benefits cut to finance Pentagon waste. More than 16,000 enlisted families still qualify for food stamps. I met the father of a Marine shopping for a waterproof bag for his son's fancy digital field radio--the Pentagon could only afford a garbage bag. Officers during the Gulf War called home to ask their families to buy hand-held Global Positioning Satellite units the Pentagon couldn't provide.
It is the same old "Iron Triangle" President Eisenhower warned us about, back with a vengeance forty years later. Newt Gingrich forced the purchase of unneeded C-130s to benefit his District. Trent Lott has forced the building of an unrequested air craft carrier to benefit a shipyard in his home state. Despite $50 billion spent without a single successful honest test, Ronald Reagan's Star Wars fantasy is being pushed toward deployment, jeopardizing the ABM and START treaties.
Recently, a report leaked from a special panel of defense-contractor executives established by the Pentagon to study problems with their industry. "Industry management and government share responsibility for the problem. Fixing these problems is critical to our future national security." Unfortunately, this is not an enlightened report about the waste and inefficiency in procurement. It is a report bemoaning the low stock prices and lack of profitability for defense contractors. Among the solutions: Pay contractors to merge, downsize and lay off workers and reward executives, boards of directors and stockholders for these efforts; cut "barriers" to sophisticated arms exports; rein in whistle blowers, and raise profit levels.
George W. Bush is alarmed about our "hollow military," promising large increases in spending for the Pentagon, and Al Gore is following in Clinton's footsteps on this issue. Congress has given up any pretense of wanting any restraint at the Pentagon.
During budget deliberations earlier this year, as Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), I offered an alternative federal budget proposal that made prudent reductions in military spending totalling $30 billion in order to more adequately fund education, health care, housing, infrastructure repair and veterans' and seniors' programs, among other priorities. Many of the reductions were based on the work of Larry Korb, Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, who has calculated a strong national defense should only cost around $225 billion a year. The CPC budget won only 61 votes.
Looks like we'll be waiting a few more years for the post-cold war "peace dividend."
(Peter DeFazio represents Oregon's 4th Congressional District). We are honored to have distributed this essay to 113 "alternative weekly" newspapers for consideration for publication, June 17, 2000.
MY FAITH
by Jim Terr
(continued from Home page)
I am not gauging this by my own microscopic understanding of physics, biology, organic chemistry, etc., but rather by the comprehension exhibited by the wisest people in all such fields. To the best of my knowledge, most of them profess progressively greater wonder at the mystery and Grand Design of life, the deeper they dig and the more they understand.
The example that always comes to mind is the struggle of scientists to create in the laboratory simple proteins, the simplest building blocks of all organisms.
Forget about skin, circulatory systems, digestive systems, nervous systems thousands of times more complex and subtle than the most sophisticated computer. Forget about the ability to think, to grow, reproduce, fight disease, sleep and heal. Just creating a basic unit of protein has proven almost impossible to the most skilled and well-equipped scientists.
And I have no problem accepting the existence of a higher being, a higher intelligence, a vaster design. Why should I? Does accepting this diminish my own experience of joy, of power, of opportunity? Am I, as a person, any less wondrous than an ocean, a river, a cloudy sky or the infinite heavens? I certainly don’t feel so; in fact, I feel in awe of all of them, not to mention my own body.
Fortunately, I wasn’t raised with any exaggerated notion of human grandeur, independence or supremacy, of Man’s dominion over nature. I think that the conscious or unconscious assumption of my parents, and of the immediate culture in which I was raised, was that people are a wondrous cog in a wondrous system called Life and Nature, here to enjoy that system while we can. So the idea of God or of a higher intelligence behind that system is perfectly acceptable, and in no way demeans my own feelings of self-esteem.
Neither do I feel that my belief in God or a higher intelligence is simply a wishful adult projection of the childlike state of dependency on a father figure. It simply seems obvious and natural, or at least convenient, to posit and believe in a higher power.
As I am more powerful and comprehending than a baby, and a baby presumably more powerful and complex than a twig, so do I think it likely that there is a much more complex system and a more powerful consciousness of which I am a part, and it feels quite natural to think so. And if there is a higher consciousness, why can I not tap into it--and sometimes even get a response to a request--by prayer and mediation? In fact, I often do. Somehow I’ve never had the impression of the lines of communication being jammed or clogged at any given moment.
As a final note, I was raised a Jew in small Christian communities, in the 1950s and 1960s, before the concept of the separation of church and state was extended to mean no religious expression for anyone in the public sphere. I loved singing Christmas carols, I loved exchanging gifts at Christmas (of course), and my later appreciation of my own religious heritage was in no way stunted or diluted. I thank God that no one was watching out for my right to avoid all religions at that time.
(c) 2000 Jim Terr All Rights Reserved
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