FEATURED ARTICLES
- The Gore Endorsement, by Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive
- The Anybody-But-Dean Syndrome, By Tom Hayden, AlterNet
- Why I'm for Dean, by William Greider, The Nation
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Compromise is the art of dividing a cake so that everyone believes he's gotten the biggest piece."
- - Ludwig Erhard (Economist, Former Chancellor, West Germany)
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - DECEMBER 11th
1927 -- Nearly 400 world leaders signed a letter to President Calvin Coolidge asking the U.S. to join the World Court. The U.S. declined.
1946 -- The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established. The organization received a Nobel Prize in 1965. And some these daze say the U.N. is worthless.
1980 -- President Carter signed into a law legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental "superfund" to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps. The shrub gang has gutted the fund. People are still living near poison dumps with no clean-up budget appropriated.
1997 -- In Kyoto, Japan, negotiators at the conference on global warming reached a compromise with a commitment by some 38 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% from 1990 levels over the next 10-15 years. Over 160 nations endorsed the treaty that binds industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gases. Eventually signed by 171 nations. The shrub gang pulled out of the treaty.
RHINO HERE:
Some may know that The Rhino was a founding member & 13 year resident of the spiritual/activist community in Tennessee known as "The Farm". That community was the subject of many news pieces, including a few articles in the 70's in The Nashville Tennesean written by a young reporter named Al Gore. He was more than just another reporter to us, he became a friend. When he ran for Congress, we campaigned for him. He later assisted in efforts to legalize & promote natural childbirth & midwifery.
Al was an honest left leaning Southerner with a soft spot for beatniks. Fast forward a bunch of years & the man has changed in many ways. Hey, so has The Rhino. But maintaining idealism (& sanity) while breathing for years inside The Beltway is a very difficult practice. So when I meet a man like Dennis Kucinich, hear him speak as he did in Tuesday night's New Hampshire debate, naturally I have to support him however I can. I'd love to have him as leader of "the Free World".
But alas, we seek to shove on the drift of the United States Government . Compromise will be necessary. For instance, an article in today's Blog by Tom Hayden entitled, "The Anybody-But-Dean Syndrome," presents the possibility that Kucinich supporters in Iowa, bitter towards the anti-war but not progressive enough stances of Howard Dean, could be the sway that lets Dick Gephardt win.
Rhino believes Progressives best realize that while Doctor Dean is no Dennis Kucinich, & while he doesn't stand for as many progressive principles as Dennis, that he is none the less a principled man, who continues to show a kind of toughness that it will take when the vast right wing conspiracy tries to get a hold of him.
The Rhino proposes that if Howard Dean wants the votes of we Kucinich supporters, he should promise that if he becomes President, he'll ask Dennis to come aboard as the 1st Secretary of the U.S. Department of Peace, & give him free reign to follow out his plan, which, if you haven't read it, you should. Dept. of Peace Legislation at: Department of Peace (more bill info)
Today, 3 articles on the campaign from 3 reliably progressive sources.
The Gore Endorsement
by Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, 12/9/03
Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean gives a big boost to the frontrunner and now makes him the all but prohibitive favorite to win the nomination. It should help Dean enormously in Iowa, where he is in a head-to-head fight with Dick Gephardt. If Dean succeeds in besting Gephardt there, the Missouri Congressman is toast. John Kerry is dying already in New Hampshire, and a Dean win there would vault the former Vermont governor further ahead. But it still would not clinch the deal.
After New Hampshire, the field will winnow down considerably. By that point, Gephardt and Kerry and Lieberman--three of the early heavyweights--may all throw in the towel. Either Edwards or more likely Clark may then emerge as the last challenger to the right of Dean. All the old power brokers from the DLC, many of Clinton's cronies, as well as Democratic elected officials uneasy with Dean will then throw their support behind this challenger in a Stop Dean push. And the battle will rage a little while longer.
But with Dean's grassroots appeal, and now with Gore's imprimatur, he'll be hard to stop. Aside from the horse-race implications, Gore's endorsement was noteworthy for its substance. He called the Iraq War a "catastrophic mistake" and praised Dean for having "the insight and the courage to say the right thing" on that issue. Gore also talked about the need to "remake the Democratic Party as a force for justice and progress and good in America." An odd message from Gore, who used to be head of the DLC, but a welcome one nonetheless.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1209-15.htm
The Anybody-But-Dean Syndrome
By Tom Hayden, AlterNet, December 9, 2003
CAMBRIDGE - As the January primaries quickly approach, the Anybody-But-Dean syndrome (ABD) is becoming as infectious as the flu among rival Democrat camps. To prevent a Dean victory in Iowa, millions of dollars worth of attack ads will choke Iowa television screens and mailboxes this month. The ABD fear is that if Dean defeats Richard Gephardt in Iowa, his likely win in New Hampshire will propel him to the nomination early. But if Dean's momentum is blocked in Iowa, the ABDs think they have a chance to undermine him in later primaries.
The stakes are high for peace and justice activists, including Dennis Kucinich supporters and undecideds, who can tip the balance in the close competition between Dean and Gephardt in Iowa. A de facto Iowa coalition between Dean and Kucinich supporters, even if Kucinich himself stays in the race, would be a victory for the anti-war movement and grassroots activism in the Democratic Party. On the other hand, if Dean is thwarted in Iowa, it will be a victory for "centrists" based in the party's Washington DC power centers, who supported Bush in Iraq. That would mean demoralization among Dean's 550,000 signed-up volunteers, and also open a space for an increasingly probable Ralph Nader candidacy...
MORE: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID?344
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