Commentators: Helen Desfosses

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Helen Desfosses

May 23, 2008 - MY LAST REGULAR COMMENTARY

After 20 years, today is my last regular commentary for WAMC. I will be moving to Washington, D.C. on June 2 to be closer to my family and grandsons, and to do more international consulting; however, I will remain half-time at UAlbany , teaching in the Spring and also teaching at the New York State Assembly Internship Program. Therefore, New York State issues will remain a focus of my everyday reading and thinking, as will national and international questions. So I hope that when you turn on WAMC, you will hear a special commentary from me from time to time, or hear me exploring a question on the Roundtable. There is so much to analyze and fulminate about in this complex world of ours, and some things to actually applaud! How can I stay away?

Besides, after 20 years of doing regular commentaries on WAMC, there are several things that I continue to believe in about the importance of this role. First of all, I believe in the importance of commentators, or as I consider myself, a public educator. In today's world of 24/7 journalism, texting, and YouTube footage, we have no absence of information. We what we do lack, however, is context and thought-provoking analysis. Consider the startling fact that while many are decrying Obama's showing among white voters, the fact is that no Democratic candidate for President has won the majority of white voters in this country since 1972. Now, doesn't that provide a different perspective?

After 20 years of doing regular commentaries, I continue to believe in the importance of WAMC, and the increasingly rare and unique venue that it provides for civility, analysis, and the search for answers, not just the infotainment-like focus on "gotcha" journalism and personality-driven "he-said, she-said" summaries that pass for political analysis on so many other stations. WAMC and its entire team deserve our full support. One day years ago, a man stopped me on the steps of City Hall as I was running to a meeting to tell me that he never missed one of my commentaries. As I turned to beam at him in gratitude, he added, "Of course, I never agree with a single one of them." Now that really made my day! It made Alan's also!

After 20 years, I am more and more convinced that the urgent drives out the important in our politics as in our lives, and that a commentator can bring enduring issues back into focus. When I look back over my list of commentaries, I notice that a goodly percentage of them were on urgent issues of the day, which is why I never wrote them until Friday morning, getting up at 6 AM to review clippings that I'd been saving on important topics all week, but carefully reading that morning's New York Times and the Times Union to make sure that an urgent issue didn't demand discussion. Meanwhile, though, some of the enduring issues that I've explored maybe once a year have included rising income inequality in America, the growing lack of health care, the importance of organ donations, immigration issues, and the pounding, inexorable impact of the war in Iraq; then there's our continuing focus on American exceptionalism in our interactions with other countries, our belief that the American way is the best way, and that we have nothing to learn from others, and sometimes even nothing to learn by working with others.

Finally, I retain my belief in the power of politics and in the essential power of citizens. Politics, with its emphasis on negotiation, conflict and compromise among all the solutions proposed to a problem, is the only alternative we have to decision by dictatorship. If we don't like the decisions that our elected officials reach, we can hold them accountable at the ballot box by voting for someone else or by even deciding to run ourselves. In a democracy, as Judge Louis Brandeis put it, the most critical office is the office of citizen. Citizens, in a democracy like ours, can write letters to the editor, call the WAMC comment line, start a blog of our own, campaign for the candidate of our choice, and make a financial contribution.

But our real power as citizens, when all is said and done, is the vote, which is why dictators around the world always try to keep it from their people (picture Myanmar and Zimbabwe, for example). But we who are voters in America have to do more to exercise this important privilege. Local elections, which can critically impact our day-to-day lives, are often decided by 10% of the eligible voters; state and even national elections can be determined by a few thousand. In a representative democracy, we are so very fortunate to have the vote; in a representative democracy like ours, struggling as we are to find our way forward, it is critical that we exercise the vote, which is not just a right, but a sacred responsibility.

So, I'll see you at the polls, and you'll hear me from time to time on WAMC. You can always get in touch with me at Hdesfosses@aol.com, but the real treat will be for me to come back and interact on the air with the very special people who are the listeners of WAMC.

Helen Desfosses Dr. Helen R. Desfosses is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at UAlbany. She is also Professor-in-Residence at the New York State Assembly Internship Program. You can reach Helen at hdesfosses@aol.com.

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May 16, 2008 - INCOME INEQUALITY IN AMERICA

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to increase the tax on the wealthiest of Americans to help pay for college benefits for veterans of the Iraq war. Individuals earning a half-million dollars or more per year would pay a surtax of 0.47% on income above $500,000. This step would generate enough money to allow these veterans to attend four years at a public university. Democrats in the House were joined by many Republicans in this vote, Republicans who are scared about their election prospects in November, especially as several of their colleagues have gone down in defeat in special elections in the past few weeks. But alas! There is no guarantee that this tax initiative will survive in the Senate. In fact, when the Congress voted recently to impose some tax increases on hedge fund operators making billions of dollars annually, the Senate refused to go along.

Income inequality is the elephant in the room of American democracy. Senator Barack Obama has talked about it, noting that "when a CEO is making more in 10 minutes than an ordinary worker's making in an entire year�something is wrong, something has to change." Senator Clinton has also remarked that "it is wrong that somebody who makes $50 million a year on Wall Street pays a lower tax rate than somebody who makes $50,000 per year." But the next President will need a lot of help from us, the citizens, if the alarming levels of income inequality in America are to be adjusted.

As Gregory Mankiw, former economics adviser to President Bush, remarked in a recent column in the New York Times, "the superrich have been getting an increasing slice of the economic pie. In 1980, the top 0.01 percent of the population had 0.87% of total income. By 2006, their share had more than quadrupled to 3.89%, a level not seen since 1916." More simply put, the richest 1% of Americans make more than 20% of the nation's entire pre-tax income. Meanwhile, according to Steven Greenhouse, author of the new book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, "wages have not gone up in six or seven years, benefits have declined, health care coverage has been dropped, and employees are forced to work harder and harder for the same pay, while corporate profits soared and CEOs became billionaires."

And this huge jump in inequality occurred even before the advent of hedge funds managers, who, according to the New York Times, with their multi-billion dollar annual incomes, "have redefined notions of wealth in recent years�.Their unprecedented and growing affluence underscores the gaping inequality between the millions of Americans facing stagnating incomes and rising home foreclosures and an agile financial elite that seems to thrive in good times and bad�. Even on Wall Street, where money is the ultimate measure of success, the size of the winnings makes some uneasy. "There is nothing wrong with it-it's not illegal, said�a chief investment officer. But it's ugly." And, he continued, "like at the end of the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties�we are clearly in a period of excess, and we have to swing back to the middle or the center cannot hold."

We'll only swing back to the center if the American people demand it at the voting booth in November, and remain ever-vigilant and hold their elected officals accountable for their votes after that. As David Rothkopf, author of Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, put it, "government still offers the average citizen the best means of counterbalancing the superclass or redressing growing income inequality. And governments will have to play a key role in shaping the new regulatory frameworks and governance mechanisms�.['C]hange isn't just a slogan in this year's campaign. It's a reality that will redefine the landscape of power worldwide for U.S. presidents of the future."

David Cay Johnston, a reporter for the New York Times, said in his book, Perfectly Legal, "In a democracy, we should not be surprised by these moves [to levy on everyone else] to subsidize the rich. But neither should we accept them�.It is citizen apathy that has allowed certain individuals to contort, or even to remake, rules that work for their benefit at the expense of the average American taxpayer." And, I would add, whatever happened to the concept of 'paying your fair share,' a moral and political issue that used to be central to American political culture? We need to recapture our moral and our political center. And we need to remember all these tax and income inequality issues as we choose a president in 2008.

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May 9, 2008 - OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY

In public policy, as in our own personal lives, the urgent often drives out the important. So it is that last month, while we were all absorbed with presidential primaries, the soaring price of gas, and the 4000th American soldier killed in Iraq, the United States Supreme Court voted to sustain death by lethal injection, ending a moratorium that had been in place since it took up the case of its constitutionality last Fall. Now several of the 36 states that allow the death penalty are scheduling many of the executions that had been on hold. In fact, there could be up to 60 executions between now and the end of the year.

I hope that the news over the next several months of state after state executing this prisoner and that prisoner will shift our minds away from the ancillary issue of how we should execute people and back to the true issue, which is whether the United States should have the death penalty at all. We are the only Western country with the death penalty. It is well past time to end this terrible distinction.

First of all, there is no evidence that the death penalty acts to deter crime. In fact, Texas has executed twice as many people as the next leading state, but its major cities still rank among the most homicide-ridden in America. A few years ago, Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan District Attorney, cited F.B.I. statistics showing that states with the death penalty have homicide rates that are 44 percent higher then those without it. And, Mr. Morgenthau continued, "The death penalty exacts a terrible price in dollars, lives and human decency. Rather than tamping down the flames of violence, it fuels them."

A second reason to oppose the death penalty is that it falls most heavily on defendants who are poor and those who are non-white. We know that in New York State, as in many other states, those who murder whites are much more likely to face the death penalty than those who murder blacks. Meanwhile, on the national level, a 2000 study by the Department of Justice found that 80% of the federal defendants sentenced to death were non-white.

These poor and non-white defendants are unable to afford the best legal counsel; recent cuts in funding for public defenders and post-conviction appeals have made this problem even worse. Not only are these defendants not getting sound legal representation, but the Supreme Court has also given states great latitude in excluding from juries people who express even the mildest of doubts about capital punishment. What kind of trial by a jury of one's peers is that? As the director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment project noted recently, "poor people [are] getting lousy lawyers." I would add that they're getting lousy juries as well.

Mounting DNA use across America has shown how often the death sentence has been wrongly imposed, and has raised questions about how many of the 3200 people waiting on death row across the United States may be innocent. These concerns have helped to reduce public support in America for the death penalty, and even reduce its imposition, which has fallen from a peak of 326 in 1995 to 110 last year.

The final objection to the death penalty is that we have an alternative for people who have committed the most heinous of crimes: life sentence without parole. Last week, for a story on the recent Supreme Court decision, the New York Times interviewed Jack Harry Smith, who, at age 70 is the oldest of the 369 inmates on Texas' death row, and has been there since 1983. "When asked if the prospect of an end to his confinement came as any relief, he said, 'in a way it does. Death is death. If they stick a needle in your arm or shoot you in the head, it's cruel and inhuman punishment, taking a human life.' But, Mr. Smith added, "a life sentence is a whole lot worse-it's torture."

So, if we're looking for a punishment for the worst of crimes that is severe, gives adequate protection to the public, and, as the ACLU points out, "is free of the worst defect to which the death penalty is liable: execution of the innocent," we have one: life imprisonment. It is time that we join the other Western nations of the world and abolish the death penalty.

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May 2, 2008 - WHAT TO DO ABOUT GASOLINE PRICES?

Winston Churchill once said that "a people gets the government it deserves." Now we know that a people gets the energy policy it deserves as well. For years, we have elected and reelected politicians like those in the Bush administration and, it must be said, many Democrats also, who had no long-term energy policy. For years, our elected officials have continued the tired old energy policy of allowing oil companies record profits, low taxes and minimal investment in the nation's energy future, while dragging their feet on voting for incentives for clean energy research and more immediate higher miles-per-gallon standards for our cars. The reward to the American people for all this tolerance of the bad old ways, this tolerance of burying our heads in the desert sands, was that no one made great demands of us either: we could continue our gas-guzzling behavior, buy those big-old SUVs and monster pickup trucks, and go about our so-called American way of life. Well, now the laws of economics have caught up with us, the consumers, while many of our lawmakers scramble to avoid any long-term reckonings. We are now paying, literally and figuratively, for a policy which, as one energy expert put it, led us to "maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most."

The state and national proposals we've heard in the past few days to suspend much of the gasoline tax for the summer would have been more of the old ways, and fortunately, the ideas seem to have been resisted. As Thomas Friedman put it in his New York Times column this week, "this is not an energy policy. This is money laundering... When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit."

But it turns out that we the consumers are taking matters into our own hands, while we the voters are still waking up. Last month, 20% of all vehicles sold in America were compacts or sub-compacts, vs. a decade ago, when the figure was only 12%. Furthermore, four-cylinder engines surpassed six-cylinder ones for the first time as well. In the past, consumers have exhibited this type of good behavior for short periods of time, and then gone back to their evil ways once gas prices came down. But this time, they're not coming down-a fact that may induce more responsible behavior in us, and more demands on our elected officials as well.

We need to elect politicians who'll truly lead us in an energy-policy direction that's good for us. We know where we need to go, and now, pushed by market forces and hopefully, pulled by visionary leaders, we can get to a long term energy policy that makes sense for America. The policy has to be based on higher fuel-economy regulations, more investment in mass transit and clean energy, limiting speculative trading in oil futures, a major factor in the run-up in gasoline prices, and taxes on carbon emissions and oil companies' windfall profits, which last quarter for Exxon reached almost $11 billion.

It's not enough to haul the CEO's of the major oil companies before Congress every few months to hear them say the same thing again and again, "don't blame us." We need a long-term energy policy that will halt the current situation where, in the words of one New York Times reporter, "Americans are pumping their paychecks into their gas tanks." Sure, we can do a lot about this ourselves at the auto showroom and at the pump and we are. But we can do the most about it as citizens when go to the polls in November to make sure that we get the visionary leaders on energy policy that we deserve.

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April 18, 2008 - PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES

Last night I had a dream about the presidential debates-I dreamt that the League of Women Voters had resumed its sponsorship of years ago, and that the focus was once again on the candidates, not on the media stars, I mean, hosts. I dreamt that the League of Women Voters was once again the sponsor, and that the questions were substantive and the tone was respectful, light-years removed from the "gotcha-journalism" tone of Wednesday night's presidential debate on ABC. I dreamt that the League of Women Voters was once again in charge, and that the candidates actually had time, atmosphere, tone and encouragement to engage in a real dialogue with each other about substantive issues that matter to all of us in a country where over 81% of respondents say that they think our country is on the wrong track. Surely those survey results prove that there is a lot to talk about, to really DISCUSS, and that our choice of the next president will truly be determinative. Surely we can do better than the ABC so-called debate of Wednesday night. If we can't, let's put all of us out of our misery, particularly Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, and have no more debates in this primary season. Almost two dozen debates and a format that reached a new low this week are enough, already!

And let's try to get a better format for whatever debates emerge in the Fall between Senator McCain and whoever is the Democratic nominee, a format that's respectful of candidates and the American people alike. The League of Women Voters is not a real sponsorship option, since the reason they discontinued their sponsorship years ago was that the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee were putting up so many requirements, doing so much posturing on behalf of their candidates, and being so obstructionist that the League felt that an open and honest debate could no longer be held. There were just too many partisans at the table and not enough people with the citizens' interests in mind for the League to continue.

Today we have so many publicity agents for the networks and their stars, I mean, their journalists, at the table, that the citizens and even the interests of the candidates have been pushed off the edge of the bench. Wednesday night showed that the line between politics and entertainment had been fatally blurred, and that the public and the two Democratic nominees, people who I still believe are in the race because of their commitment to public service, were the real losers.

Moveon.org is sponsoring a petition drive to alert ABC and all the networks to the public's need for the "media to stop hurting the national dialogue in this important election year." As the petition says, "debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and 'gotchas' that only political insiders care about. Enough with the distractions-ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people's daily lives." I would add that a debate like Wednesday's ABC infotainment extravaganza, one where no substantive policy questions had even been asked until halfway through the debate, should be held up as a model of what not to do to help the candidates get their message out and to help the American people explore the issues.

The war in Iraq has claimed over 4000 American lives, and the costs of the war are soaring towards 3 trillion dollars. The gap between rich and poor is at its greatest level in America since the Great Depression. I think we have enough serious topics to discuss to put the Charlie Gibsons and the George Stephanopoulos's back on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, and put the American people and the interests of our country, a great country but a troubled one, back in the spotlight of any future debates. Otherwise, as one person commented on the ABC News Web site, where opinion on Wednesday's show was overwhelmingly negative, "why not [just] have Paris Hilton moderate next time?"

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April 11, 2008 - AIRLINE SAFETY

Have you been watching the TV footage of all those airline passengers stranded across the US? I have, and one of my main reactions is 'there but for the grace of God, go I'-or in this case, don't go I. It's clear that the airline crisis that has stranded several hundred thousand travelers could spread to other airlines, and that because they're all booked to near-capacity anyway, it's going to be very hard for people to find alternative ways home. Greyhound buses, Amtrak, and rental cars will have a field day, but it's the people that will be suffering.

How did we get into this mess anyway? We got into this mess because two major institutions of our society have not been doing their jobs-corporations or government. I knew that government, particularly under the Bush administration, had walked away from many of its regulatory responsibilities. In fact, some FAA inspectors have even been punished for trying to do their jobs.

What I didn't know until the last few weeks-and I feel totally na�ve in even mentioning this-was that all those big corporations can't be trusted either-even on a life-and-death issue like airline safety. I fly a lot, and I frequently fly Southwest Airlines, which bills itself as that scrappy, relative newcomer that really cares about you. My faith in them has been totally rocked by the revelation two weeks ago that they were flying planes that had not been properly inspected, some of which actually had the cracks that the inspection order was designed to detect. In the words of the FAA Associate Administrator, under fierce questioning in Congress this week, those Southwest Airlines lapses had been putting thousands of passengers at risk.

Now American Airlines, one of our largest carriers, has proven that it doesn't deserve my trust either, as it grounds hundreds of planes for missed inspections that were missed-and grounds them because Congress has finally woken up from a tiny bit of its deep sleep on regulation and is demanding even delayed compliance with what the airlines should have been doing all along. Trust us, American corporations have been saying, you can depend on us to monitor and police ourselves, and you don't have to turn to that Democratic party favorite, government regulation. The Bush administration, of course, not only bought into that line, but helped to promote it, as it worked mightily over the last 8 years to starve government and impugn its positive role in our society. But now that anti-regulation perspective is being questioned, at least on this one issue of airline regulation and safety.

One piece of good news is that in politics, crisis can provide a window of opportunity that allows legislation to pass that has been languishing for years. The cancellation of thousands of airline flights could give new life to the Air Travelers' Bill of Rights that has been going nowhere since it was introduced in Congress in 2006. That bill talked about our rights to food, water and working toilets if our flights became stranded; will our elected officials amend it now to spell out our right to safety as well, our right to knowing that our airlines have inspected for-and corrected-- potentially life-threatening safety issues? Years ago, we could take such a right for granted; now, in 2008 greedy America, when airlines are outsourcing inspections overseas to save a few dollars, even if the so-called inspectors are barely trained, or skipping them altogether, trust flies out the window. If you have to fly these days, check out the article in today's New York Times entitled "If You Must Fly, Some Suggestions." You might also check out the attitude of your favorite presidential candidate towards the role of government and the importance of government regulation. American Airlines has brought turmoil into the lives of half a million travelers-and precipitated billions of dollars of losses rippling through the economy-- because it skipped inspections that had been mandated since September 2006, and now, scared by what happened to Southwest, is yanking planes to try to catch up all at once. Imagine if government-and our formerly trustworthy corporations-had been doing their jobs all along!

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April 4, 2008 - DEALING WITH SOARING FOOD PRICES

Food prices are soaring here at home and abroad as well. Here in the United States, food prices are rising more sharply than they have since the 1970s. Part of the reasons for this problem relate to population growth around the world and increasing demand simply from more mouths to feed. But part of it relates, as a Boston Globe article noted last month, to the high price of oil. "Oil is not only driving up production and transportation costs, but also adding to demand for corn and soybeans, used to make alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. As a result, corn prices have more than doubled in commodity markets over two years, and soybeans nearly tripled."

But as hard as it is for Americans to absorb these increases, they're even harder for people in developing countries. For they, too-including almost a billion people who are starving or malnourished--are experiencing soaring food prices and diminished access to food supplies.

So again, nature and public policy remind us of the crucial phenomena of interdependence and unintended consequences. As the US attempts to deal with the problem of global warming through alternative fuels that are agriculturally based, we are driving up the price of food. There are other solutions that we could adopt to the global warming crisis. For example, we, and the other largest producer of carbon dioxide, China, could lower our fuel consumption. But China seems hell-bent-for-leather on building as many coal-fired plants as fast as possible, and rewarding its citizens for their overall political silence with owning their own cars. Meanwhile, here in the US, high gasoline prices and the Green Movement have produced some minor improvements in our use of gas-guzzling vehicles. But basically we're counting a lot on the production of alternative fuels like ethanol to help us reduce our carbon footprint.

So, American shoppers contend with higher food prices, and people in developing countries contend with shortages and famine. The United States Agency for International Development, which provides humanitarian relief around the globe, has seen a 41% increase in prices for wheat, corn, and rice. USAID now declares that it will have to reduce the number of countries receiving emergency food aid, somehow choosing between the starving in disaster areas and the refugees in Darfur. As one emergency food director commented, "this is really the first [food] emergency we've faced [not caused by]�a drought, war, natural disaster. We will have to cut the amount of people being served or the amount of food being served if we do not get more funds."

The Bush administration has requested more food aid money from Congress. The Administration is also pressing again for important-and praiseworthy-changes in the way that we obtain and ship this emergency food. For the past three years, President Bush has proposed allowing 25% of emergency food aid to be purchased in the region where a food crisis occurs, instead of insisting that the food be purchased in the US and then shipped on US carriers to the crisis areas, an expensive process which takes many, many months. The Bush administration has also proposed a change in the law which mandates that food aid be shipped on American carriers. The Bush proposals, if adopted, would mean so much money saved-as much as 65% of food aid costs--that US food aid could feed at least 1 million extra people for six months, and in the case of emergencies, could save at least 50,000 lives, according to Administration officials. Unfortunately, all of the Bush proposals have been rejected by Congress.

An article last month in the New York Times pointed out that food scarcity and high prices may last for years to come. For the US, this will present a critical problem of economic and political management. For the poor overseas, the problem will be a crisis. Already they are being deprived of food, setting off social and political unrest and even riots. We are suffering ourselves, but by policy changes within our own country and working with others, we could continue our long-standing, but faltering, commitment to eradicate hunger at home and around the world. As Christopher Barrett, a Cornell economist and co-author of a major book on US food aid, recently remarked, Isn't this part of our "moral obligation as the richest society in human history?"

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March 28, 2008 - IRAQ WAR REALITIES

It is a sad irony that the past week in March that brought us the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war should also bring us the 4000th American death. Last Sunday, the New York Times published the photos of all the Americans who died in the war, page after page of them. I made myself look at each and every one, just as I've made myself read the little box in the daily New York Times that lists the names, ranks, hometowns and ages of the handful of soldiers who die every single day. But somehow the reality of 4000 American deaths and tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths has not been enough to change the lack of popular focus on US policy in Iraq.

The war simply has not become the gripping election issue that many of us predicted that it would be. Sure, there's a terrific gap between the plans of Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, on the one hand, to begin withdrawing troops shortly after the Presidential inauguration next January, and the plans of Senator McCain on the Republican side to keep us there as long as a hundred years. But the American people are focusing more on the economy, the housing crisis, the rising price of a gallon of gas, and the daily "he said, she said" of this Presidential campaign than they are on the Iraq war. In fact, a recent study showed that only 30% of Americans report that they're following the events in Iraq "very closely."

There are many reasons for this lack of focus by the American people. First of all, media coverage of the war is way down. As the New York Times reported recently, in a summary of a major report by the Pew Research Center, "as recently as the middle of last year, Iraq was still the most covered topic. Since then, Iraq coverage by major American news sources has plummeted, to about one-fifth of what it was last summer." The report blames this on a lack of public interest, although surely the "chicken-and-the-egg" question arises here. "Experts offer many other explanations for the declining media focus, like the danger and expense in covering Iraq, and shrinking newsroom budgets."

Of course, the fact that there is no draft, as there was during the Vietnam War, is a major factor in the decline of public interest, and even in the minimal discussion of Iraq policy by our leading political candidates. A major expert at Harvard on the press and public policy notes that "Vietnam held the media's attention a lot better because it was a war with a draft that touched a lot more people; people were sent against their will and many more Americans were killed." In the Iraqi war, by contrast, as one Army officer noted last week in a gripping op-ed piece in the Washington Post, "the privileged consider military service a job only for the less well-off."

A final reason for the lack of popular focus on Iraq is that the war is being paid for "off-line," by adding to the deficit, rather than by covering the costs through day-to-day cuts in programs we like and depend on. This deficit financing covers up the fact that instead of the Bush administration's pre-war estimate of $50-60 billion as the total cost of the war, the war is costing us that much EVERY FIVE MONTHS! In fact, the total cost of the war will probably reach at least $3 trillion dollars.

Iraq has been called "the moral quagmire of the past quarter-century for American presidents and politicians;" I would add that it's the military, political and economic quagmire as well. We can all be sure that reality will intrude on the next President about two minutes after he or she is elected; we will only reason through--and survive-- the tough choices that await us if the American people are fully engaged in the search for answers. As Ryan C. Crocker, the US Ambassador to Iraq, observed a short while ago, the US could still be confronting what he called a "traumatically failed state" in Iraq. And, he continued, "with issues of this magnitude, it's probably more a question of what you're unable to imagine than what you are."

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March 14, 2008 - THE POLITICAL IS PERSONAL

For decades, I had heard that feminist saying from the Sixties, "the personal is political," meaning that issues of the family, women, children and marriage deserve policy attention. But what I hadn't realized-or had plain old forgotten until this week's Eliot Spitzer tragedy-is that the political is also personal. "The political is personal" because we all have a need to believe in our political leaders, to believe in the vision and promises that they set out for us about what our political system can accomplish, and that relationship can involve us at a very personal level, not just a dutiful one, involve us in a very personal relationship of trust and commitment. And given the recent history of the United States of America, "the political is personal" meant, in the context of support for Eliot Spitzer's gubernatorial campaign in 2006, that we could put aside the cynicism, the failed hopes, the falling support for political institutions that registers just as intensely as the falling support for every other institution in American society, and believe that his dedication to reform and to ethical changes was real, and that by working with him, we as individual citizens could make a difference also. He made us feel that his personal responsibility and initiative-not just that of our political institutions-should be matched by our own.

We felt a bit smug here in New York with the election of Eliot Spitzer-a gubernatorial election that he won with the largest plurality of votes in the history of New York state-because we were ahead of the curve that's so talked about in this year's presidential campaign discussion of hope and change. We had a governor who was already committed to reform, and was prepared to work with each of us to bring that about.

It's true that he had a disastrous first year, with approval ratings that registered new lows. But that seemed to be a matter that his massive intelligence, more attention to political relationships, and his reorganization of his top staff at the end of 2007 to make Silda Wall Spitzer one of his chief advisers, could address. Many of us went into 2008 with our approval of him reduced, but not our belief in his belief-and eventual ability to deliver-on the agenda of reform, and on the moral and personal values of leadership.

I have seen many polls this week about how the process of dealing with Eliot Spitzer's horrendous behavior should be handled, you know, the "Do you think Eliot Spitzer should resign?" type of questions. But I have not seen any polls about the personal betrayal that many people in New York felt, the inability to sleep, the sadness-all reflective of a fracturing of the personal relationship we felt with this particular political leader, and the promise of change and reform that he embodied.

It is a tribute to the enduring nature of our political institutions and the commitment of our leaders that Spitzer's resignation has already been secured, the date for the new governor's swearing-in has been arranged, and that Governor-designate David Paterson has already had his first-successful and highly reassuring-press conference. The "people's business" will go on, and it will, God willing, be well attended to. The front page headline in today's Albany Times Union, "New Leader, New Promise," says it all.

But so does today's New York Times' use of the phrase, "the mendacity of hope", in describing the Spitzer downfall, summarize our need to reflect on what we've lost. The "people's hopes," the "political is personal" nature of their involvement with the leadership of Eliot Spitzer, will take a long time to restore. His election represented, after all, a peak of trust, belief in reform, and personal commitment that had not been reached in many years in New York state. Eliot Spitzer betrayed many of his own formidable advantages and talents, but it's the betrayal of his gift for connecting people with politics-and with reform politics-- that is one of the most mournful aspects of this tragedy.

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March 7, 2008 - THE ALLURE OF THE DREAM TEAM

We've been hearing more and more this week about the possibility of the so-called "Dream Team" ticket with both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama running together. Part of the appeal of this idea is plain old mathematical. Many experts are saying that it will be just about impossible for either Clinton or Obama to win the required number of delegates-2025-to actually sew up the Democratic nomination. Therefore, the argument goes, if they continue in the hand-to-hand combat they've been engaging in from primary to primary, neither of them will get the required number of delegates to win.

Aha! say another whole group of party leaders, as well as the Governors of both Florida and Michigan, let's figure out a way to seat the delegates from our two states, delegates that were selected in violation of the Democratic National Committee's own rules, which stripped states of their delegates if they held their primaries too early. These states have a combined total of 367 delegates, and could help settle the whole contest! Senator Clinton won the most votes in their primaries, but neither candidate campaigned actively in either state, and Senator Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. The Clinton campaign is supporting a revote in each state, the Obama campaign is arguing that the delegates should just be split 50-50, and Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic National Committee, is arguing that the two states could wait for the Democratic convention and fight it out in the Credentials Committee.

Well, that's a prospect that fills many people-including me-with dread. The idea that Senator McCain will have been out campaigning as the Republican nominee for months while the Democrats are still spending scarce time and cash slugging it out with each other is terrifying. Furthermore, the more the Clinton campaign impugns the experience of Obama, and the more the Obama campaign is being enjoined to strike back with negative commercials of its own, the more they hand campaign themes-and possibly a victory in November-to the Republicans.

The other possibility is to let the Superdelegates decide at the convention, which also fills me with dread. In many states, we've seen a doubling of primary turnout, and a doubling of the youth vote. How would we explain to them that we've allowed party elders to settle the choice of Democratic presidential nominee through a superdelegate system that most of us had never even heard of until recently, and that many of us do not support? Right now, Senator Obama is over 100 delegates ahead, but Senator Clinton has the lead in superdelegates, 241 to 202, with another 350 still undecided.

So, this brings us back to the dream team ticket, where Senator Clinton, with her strengths among white women, older and working-class voters, and Hispanics, is on the same ticket with Senator Obama, with his appeal to younger voters, African-Americans, and people with a college degree. Pre-primary polls taken by the Washington Post in Texas and Ohio revealed that 7 in 10 likely voters said they would be satisfied with either Obama or Clinton as the party's nominee. If they were running together, they could make the whole much greater than the sum of its parts. Rush Limbaugh, in his inimitably ugly way, has suggested that such a ticket doesn't have a prayer, but he had to put in some sexual innuendo about who would be on top just to make his remarks degrading enough. Other analysts have also worried that a joint ticket, which would be all-liberal, and basically rooted in the eastern half of the country, would be a bad idea.

The Pennsylvania primary, with its 158 delegate votes, doesn't take place until April 22, 7 weeks or a whole political lifetime away. I think that both the Clinton and Obama campaigns will put the dream-team idea away until after Pennsylvania, but if that's indecisive as well, I predict that the dream team idea will be resurrected. Then we'll just have to decide the minor issue of who gets to run for President and who gets on the ticket as VP-a conundrum worthy of the negotiating talents of George Mitchell in Northern Ireland and Kofi Annan in the recently disputed election in Kenya! But, let's remember, peace now reigns in both those territories. It could soon reign in American Democratic politics as well.

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February 29, 2008 - HUGE PRISON POPULATION IN US

More than 1 in 100 US adults are now in prison, the largest proportion in our history, and a proportion greater than any other country in the world, including the more totalitarian-minded China and Russia. This proportion of US adults in prison, amounting to over 2.3 million people, according to the new study by the Pew Center on the States, is unsustainable socially and economically. It is increasingly unsustainable politically as well, as it becomes more politically possible to point out that alternatives to bricks-and-mortar punishment and incarceration are worth discussing and even implementing. The study by the Pew Center on the States strives to avoid "the paralyzing debate between punishment and rehabilitation," but rather, to help states analyze the implications of their current criminal justice practices for public safety and for their budgets, and to "encourage states to use the best research available to�reduce crime and recidivism and deliver a solid return on taxpayers' investments."

Of course, it is very important that our people be safe from crime. Violent criminals, who make up about half of the US prison population, should be incarcerated for long periods of time because it "lowers the crime rate and provides punishment that is well deserved", according to the study's director. However, it is also true that "there are large numbers of people behind bars who could be supervised in the community safely and effectively at a much lower cost." The proportion of US adults in prison is unsustainable socially, because of the increasing distortion of our society toward a prison-based one, and because there are other ways to be safe. Furthermore, the fact that the proportion of minority populations in prison has soared to one in 15 adult black men and one in 36 adult Hispanic men (compared to one in 106 white men) indicates that we have major alienation, anger and inequality issues that are barely tolerable in the short-term, and all-out intolerable in the long term. The research showing that participation by severely disadvantaged children in pre-k programs dramatically reduced their participation in juvenile and adult crime, on the one hand, and significantly increased their high-school graduation and employment rates, on the other, with a total benefit-cost ratio of 16 to 1, is well worth putting into practice.

We need to put these and other research findings into practice because our current levels of incarceration in the United States are unsustainable economically as well. On average, states are spending one in 14 of their hard-gathered revenue dollars on corrections, a rate of spending that we cannot afford and that cuts into dollars for other priorities. The study points out, for example, that over the past 20 years, inflation-adjusted state spending on corrections increased by 127% on average, while going up only 21% for higher ed.

It is encouraging that it's becoming politically possible in some states to talk about different ways of getting a better return in public safety from all the incarceration dollars. As Susan Urahn, the Pew Center's managing director, put it, "we tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to crime. Being tough on crime is an easy position to take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in the '80s and '90s." Now we need to do what famously get-tough states like Texas are starting to do, and that is to get smart about non-violent offenders. We can expand drug courts, drug treatment programs, electronic surveillance, and using punishments short of reincarceration for minor or technical violations of parole. As the chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee in Texas put it, we all need to develop alternatives to "recycling nonviolent offenders." If states learn from each other, the US can keep its people safe, while adopting cost-effective-and sustainable-strategies for reducing the number of people going into the prison system, and lowering recidivism. In the words of the Governor of Ohio, "there isn't a person in public office that's not sensitive to the accusation of being soft on crime. But you don't have to be soft on crime to be smart in dealing with criminals."

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February 8, 2008 - SUPERDELEGATES AND THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION

In politics, as in life, "the devil is in the details." And it turns out that the Democratic nominee for President may be chosen not by the delegates elected by the people and bound by the results of their state's primary, but by a special category of people called "Superdelegates, " a sort of Democratic Party House of Lords. Superdelegates are delegates to a presidential nominating convention who are not bound by the decisions of party primaries or caucuses in their states. The Republican convention has some, but they won't play a role this year since John McCain has it all sewn up. However, in the Democratic Party, there are almost 800 Superdelegates, about one-fifth of all the votes at the convention. Given that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are practically tied for delegates, these Superdelegates could determine it all.

The 800 Democratic Party Superdelegates include all Democratic members of Congress, governors, other elected officials, and members of the Democratic National Committee. They are appointed, not directly elected as delegates, they are not bound by the votes of us, the citizens, and proportionally, they have much more power over the process than an elected delegate. And given how close the race is this year for the Democratic presidential nomination, these 800 people could choose the nominee.

The system of Superdelegates was set up back in the 1970s, after George McGovern won the nomination, and then failed miserably in the national election. As political scientist Larry Sabato puts it, "the idea of Superdelegates was a great idea when it was developed, but it's become an undemocratic aspect of the Democratic Party. Instead of voters picking, the politicians get to pick. That's a public relations disaster."

So what can we do? We can donate our money and our volunteer time to Clinton or Obama, to help the candidate of our choice win the surprisingly large remaining number of primaries, primaries in states like Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington this Saturday, Virginia and Maryland next week, and Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas after that, and perhaps eliminate the Superdelegate problem altogether. However, polls say that's unrealistic, and that the two Senators will battle it down to the wire. Therefore, we need to focus on the Superdelegates themselves. We can get on http://demconwatch.blogspot.com , find out who are Superdelegates are and get in touch with them. We can ask that they follow the lead of the chair of the Maine Democratic Party, a Superdelegate, who has vowed nevertheless to support the candidate who wins the popular vote in his state this Sunday.

It's important that the choice of Democratic Presidential nominee not be made by the Superdelegates. In a year when primary turnout has been at an all-time high, where people feel more engaged in the small "d" democratic process than they have for a long, long time, and when our choice of nominees is truly historic, it's critical that the supporters of both Senators feel that the nomination process was fair. If the Superdelegates pick the nominee, as David Brooks speculated in his column today, the choice will be made by "the party honchos, the deal-makers, the donors, the machine�.That's Tammany Hall. That's the court at Versailles under Louis XIV."

Finally, we all want to avoid an outcome whereby the Democratic Party fragments into two angry camps, and the race turns into a repeat of 1968, when the supporters of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy simply refused to get behind party nominee Hubert Humphrey. The country ended up with Richard Nixon, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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January 25, 2008 - CIVILITY IN CLINTON-OBAMA INTERACTIONS

This morning's Washington Post contained the welcome news that yesterday, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama withdrew harsh radio ads against each other in South Carolina leading up to Saturday's Presidential primary. The heat and negativity from their debate Monday night was just too intense, leading some voters to say "a pox on both their houses," or others to increase their support for John Edwards, who looked like the calm grownup. In fact, while Senator Obama retains his lead in South Carolina, John Edwards is up 6 points since the debate, and conceivably could edge Clinton out for second place.

Democratic Party leaders were apparently relieved about the withdrawal of the ads because they feared that "the Clinton campaign's aggressive actions would make it difficult to unify the party behind the eventual nominee." After all, the Democratic Party could still lose the White House in November-and we surely don't want to lose it because it's our own damn fault. It's true that the New York Times endorsed Clinton this morning, but they also endorsed John McCain. And one of their stated reasons was that "with a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field." Meanwhile, in its endorsement of Senator Clinton, the paper extolled her many virtues, but then urged her "to take the lead in changing the tone of the campaign. It is not good for the country, the Democratic Party or for Mrs. Clinton."

After all, civility is critical to the long-term functioning of a democracy. Consider what we have lost in our growing tolerance for politics as angry standoff and gridlock, and our diminished insistence on compromise and civility as essential ingredients of politics.

Law Professor Lani Guinier said it well several years ago: "we need to take back the democratic space from which American citizens have been driven by the increasingly angry, bitter and polarizing terms of talk radio, negative political ads, winner-take-all electoral politics and gridlock governance. We need to start looking at democracy as a well-conducted conversation...This means talking to our public leaders and talking with fellow citizens in order to find ways to collaborate, to act together."

Of course, there are a lot of instigators in the negative interactions between Senators Clinton and Obama. The Washington Post article this morning noted that "even former President Bill Clinton-the catalyst for much of the heated rhetoric between the two campaigns this week-toned down his comments in a series of town hall meetings here that saw the return of his political alter ego, the policy wonk." But other reports indicate that he's just on hiatus. Polls show that Democrats still love him, and his itch to go negative may reemerge in several states before and after Super Tuesday on February 5.

That's too bad, because Senator Clinton and Senator Obama eventually will have to work together, either on the same ticket, in the same cabinet, or with one in the White House and the other a powerful Senate leader. We need them to keep showing that when necessary, they can drop the competition and engage in the demanding search for common ground after the campaigning is over. Not only is this idealistically helpful, but it's pragmatic as well. A lot of my friends and acquaintances say they could vote for either Obama or Clinton, and some would like to see them on the same ticket! Continued polarizing rhetoric and hateful exchanges would sabotage a Democratic victory in November, and the compromise that's necessary to good governance in the months and years ahead.

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January 18, 2008 - BORDERS OR BARRIERS?

I read with envy the recent story about the expansion of the number of countries in Europe that non-EU citizens can now travel in without a passport. There are now 24 countries that allow passport-free travel if you have a certain visa.

I read this story with envy because of the mounting border restrictions being imposed here in the United States, with their huge implications for trade and tourism. I also reacted with envy because of the mounting unpleasantness of my own trips to visit friends in Canada. Lines have already been getting longer and longer at the border, as agents on both sides-with some retaliatory instincts in mind, I'm sure, began to act as if the new Chertoff-announced restrictions were already in place. A few weeks ago, the Canadian border agent was downright hostile because my companion had brought a passport (how he remembered to do that, I don't know), while I only had a valid New York driver's license.

Well, be advised-and I'm saying this in the verbal equivalent of capital letters-that beginning January 31, less than two weeks away, you will not be able to cross over into Canada without a passport, or a combination of driver's license AND certified birth certificate. Michael Chertoff, in a very testy interview yesterday, quoted in this morning's Albany Times Union, declared that people should "grow up" if they object to new border-crossing rules that will mean longer lines and stiffer demands for IDs. Angry members of Congress responded to his declaration by noting all the difficulties that Homeland Security has already had in implementing the 2004 law on border security. Remember the stranded travelers last summer? As Buffalo Congressman Tom Reynolds said yesterday, "frankly, Chertoff has as much credibility on telling people to 'grow up' as Geoffrey the Giraffe."

Chertoff's announcement, as a Buffalo News columnist noted, represents "a direct Bush administration challenge to the expressed will of Congress�to [put] off the passports rule until June 1, 2009. That delay was rolled into the big all purpose appropriations bill passed in December and signed by President Bush." But now Chertoff is going ahead anyway, noting that after all, you don't absolutely have to have a passport--you can offer a combination birth certificate and driver's license instead.dge in B is the nation's second busiest border crossing. $160 million in trade and 20,000 vehicles cross the Peace Bridge each day.

Less than one-third of Americans already have passports, which can cost as much as $100. So, apply soon, or dig out that CERTIFIED birth certificate that you stuck away somewhere. Chertoff mentioned that "in extraordinary circumstances," border agents would cut you some slack. But if my own experience with their civility is any guide, I wouldn't count on it.

These new restrictions will not only affect us as individuals, they will also impact the New York economy. One day after Governor Spitzer's first "State of the Upstate" address, the US Department of Homeland Security is moving ahead with crippling restrictions on movement between the US and Canada. All this is happening at a time when we have enormous potential for more Canadian tourism and investment in upstate New York, fueled by the strongest exchange rate for the Canadian dollar in 30 years. Canada is New York's-and America's-largest trading partner, and our homeland security will be imperiled if our economic security is jeopardized.

We can all understand that in our post-9/11 world, security concerns are more important. But an upgraded, more secure form of driver's license could handle this-an arrangement that is still months or years away. Chertoff has jumped the gun, going against Congress and the view of the 9/11 Commission that "our border screening system should check people efficiently and welcome friends."

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January 11, 2008 - THE ISSUE OF RACE IN THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY

My friends, family and colleagues, like yours, I'm sure, are still reeling from the roller-coaster ride of Presidential campaign politics coming out of Iowa and New Hampshire. As a Hillary supporter, with a close family member who works for Senator Obama, a sister who's a Republican, and many relatives who voted in New Hampshire, I've been debating all week about why Obama did so well in Iowa only to lose in New Hampshire. Despite every single poll predicting another win for Obama in New Hampshire, Hillary won.

There've been many reasons advanced for this upset. Some revolve around what Senator Clinton and her campaign organization did right in New Hampshire. Her choking up in the diner in Portsmouth and displaying her so-called 'human side' is mentioned by many. The wake-up call delivered by the Iowa results to women in New Hampshire and across the country is another. There is evidence to support the view that women, who may have thought that they had time to sit out some campaigns before committing to Hillary, were rocked by Senator Obama's victory in Iowa. As a result, New Hampshire women flocked to the polls in record numbers for her, and her already strong campaign organization was dramatically aided in its last minute get-out-the vote efforts by thousands of women either flooding into the state to help out directly or sending in campaign contributions.

Another whole set of reasons advanced for the upset in New Hampshire revolves around problems in the state for the Obama phenomenon. In Iowa, he did exceedingly well among college students, women, independents and first-time caucus-goers. In New Hampshire, there just weren't that many college students around this week, and independents broke in greater numbers for Hillary than for him. Women rallied to Hillary in New Hampshire also, something they did not do in Iowa, and seniors came home to her as well. There were also questions about the strength of the Obama campaign organization itself.

The final set of reasons advanced for the upset in New Hampshire concerns why the polls were so darn wrong. And here we get into some upsetting aspects of race in American politics. It is possible that the polls were so far off because there wasn't enough time for considered polling between the January 3rd Iowa caucus and the January 8th New Hampshire primary. It's also possible that they were off because women flocked to the polls in much larger numbers than anyone could have predicted, and because a dramatically high percentage of the New Hampshire voters made up their minds at the last minute, much higher than we're used to seeing. However, it's also possible, as many experts have noted, that race played a significant role in the decision of many voters to go with Hillary. Jacques Steinberg and Janet Elder, in their on-line essay for the New York Times on Thursday, rejected the theory that pollsters were misled by the "apparent reluctance of some white voters to say they intended to vote against a minority candidate." However, Andrew Kohut, President of the Pew Research Center, noted in his op-ed yesterday that "there's a long-standing pattern" in America "of pre-election polls overstating support for black candidates among white voters�.Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for their tendency. But here's the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews." When Kohut contemplated "why this problem [did not] come up in Iowa", he gave us his "guess�that Mr. Obama may have posed less of a threat to white voters in Iowa because he wasn't yet the front-runner."

The Hillary-Obama contest is truly historic. Our country has never had a Presidential contest is which the two front-runners were a woman and an African-American. Many of us are hopeful that our country will come of age in 2008, throwing away stereotypes about both race and gender, and judging these candidates on their vision and their ability to lead. Many of us are also hopeful that we can join the dozens of countries around the world who've managed to make this historic leap. I'd like to see either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama win on their merits. The alternative, where people refuse to vote for an African-American, and/or lie to pollsters about it, is simply too depressing to contemplate.

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December 28, 2007 - PAKISTAN, IOWA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE

It's long been said that you win an election based on what you do right, what the other side does wrong, and a heavy dose of fate. With yesterday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, fate has intervened heavily in the run-up to the Iowa Caucus on January 3 and the New Hampshire Primary on January 8 by re-injecting the foreign policy issue squarely into presidential campaign politics. For weeks now, the American people have been telling pollsters that their attention had shifted away from external issues and toward pressing domestic concerns like the economy and health care. But the assassination in Pakistan has meant that a candidate's wisdom and vision of international affairs, and yes, the candidate's experience, are now more important than ever.

Everyone was left scrambling yesterday to come up with a foreign policy vision that would take into account the horrible new realities. President Bush's plan suffered mightily, as he was the American leader who had staked so much on President Pervez Musharraf. President Bush took a leader who had taken over in a military coup in 1999 and was under sanctions from the US for his support of the Taliban in Afghanistan and made him into one of our closest allies in Asia because he expressed support for Bush's "war on terror" after 9/11. The Bush administration not only poured billions of dollars in military and economic aid into Pakistan, but in exchange for Musharraf's newly announced opposition to the Taliban, looked the other way on domestic Pakistan issues, as Musharraf ignored building not only true democracy but any democracy. Musharraf's refusal to build a real coalition of political parties meant that the center was eroded from Pakistani politics, the center that might have helped stabilize the country after yesterday's brutality. The White House did try to broker some power-sharing agreement recently between Musharraf and Bhutto leading up to Pakistan's January 8 election, but all along, according to one Bush official, the effort was "like putting together two pythons in the same cage." With Bhutto's assassination, the Bush administration is left with very few options in Pakistan. It also is left wide open to the charge that its preoccupation with Iraq has meant that the real war on terror has only been neglected.

Meanwhile, in Iowa yesterday, presidential candidates from both parties scrambled to put out statements touting their ability to deal best not only with Pakistan's growing chaos, but with its impact on the region and the world-and on the war on terror. Pakistan, after all, is a nuclear-armed country, described by the former US ambassador there as a "very dangerous and violent place." It has chronically difficult relations with its nuclear-armed neighbor, India; it borders through its almost ungovernable remote regions on the downwardly spiraling events in Afghanistan, and it shares a boundary with the troubled and troublesome country of Iran. Throughout all these countries moves al-Qaeda, the Taliban, other Islamic extremists, sectarian violence and plain-old political violence as well.

The assassination yesterday of Benazir Bhutto, the only female Prime Minister in the Islamic world, a woman who was a striking, ambitious, enticing combination of new world bravado and an arranged marriage, of dedication to democracy joined with declaring herself Chairman for life of Pakistan's largest political party, of promises to the masses combined with corruption charges and an elaborately elitist background and education, has added a new political complexity to the region, a martyr. Yesterday, that word was spoken by one of her aides, today it's the headline on the front page of many newspapers, including the Albany Times Union. Martyrdom is a loaded concept that will only intensify the political chaos in Pakistan and the entire region of southwest Asia; the political volatility of this term will only increase the pressure on American presidential candidates-and on voters in the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and throughout the country-to take a new look at who's running for President and what they've really been saying. Fate has intervened in Pakistani politics; it has intervened in American politics as well.

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December 21, 2007 - SOURCES OF POLITICAL COMFORT IN 2007

A friend once gave me a great book for Christmas, entitled "100 Small Comforts. Wise and Witty Words to Lift the Spirit." Every year at this time, it sends me off on a review of political sources of comfort in the previous 12 months.

One is that Americans still want to volunteer and still want to come together to get things done. What Alexis de Tocqueville noticed about us in the 1800s is still true today-we are one of the most associative peoples on the planet. In the late 1990s, a Harvard political scientist, Robert Putnam, wrote a book called Bowling Alone, in which he discussed Americans' increasing go-it-alone behavior. The book set off a firestorm. However, he later published a more upbeat book, called Better Together, which provides case studies of people coming back together in the last few years to make things work in their communities. He's heartened and encouraged, and I'm relieved. As Jesse Jackson once remarked, "Change never comes from the White House. It comes from your house and my house."

Another source of political comfort as we close the books on 2007 is that people are still willing to run for office. Even though our country is facing some of the most extraordinary challenges of our lifetime, including many to which we've been the major contributors, like global warming and the war in Iraq, almost two dozen people want to be President, and tens of thousands of us are involved in their campaigns. The pace for this election has been brutal, and it's been the longest Presidential campaign in our nation's history. But good ideas are surfacing, and a true vision for our country's future may yet emerge.

We also have the political resurgence among young people to list as a source of political comfort. The incorporation of the Internet, computer technology, social utilities like MySpace and Facebook, and campaign appearances by avatars or virtual stand-ins, is revolutionizing the process of American politics, and pulling young people in. This new technology, plus some dynamic Presidential candidates, may bring about a soaring voting rate among young people, who for years have voted at only half the rate of senior citizens.

Another source of political comfort is that citizen involvement can definitely make a difference. Consider the case of citizen campaigns against global warming and for more commitment from the United States. The passage just this week of higher mandatory mileage targets for US autos showed the triumph of citizen concern over automotive company lobbying. So don't ever think that citizen involvement in government and popular pressure are not effective. As the South African leader, Nelson Mandela, put it, "we must forever realize that the time is forever ripe to do right."

I've also been encouraged this year by the growing willingness of the states to step forward when the Federal government is stalling on critical issues. We've seen this happen with the repeal of the death penalty by New Jersey this week, by the David and Goliath-like effort of states like California and New York to impose state-wide mileage standards years before the Federal ones will go into effect, and finally, the passage by New York State of an "Airline Passengers Bill of Rights." Just yesterday, a judge ruled that indeed, New York State has the right to require airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air, important health and public safety needs, to passengers stuck on the ground for more than three hours.

Another source of comfort lies in the words of Mahatma Gandhi that "peace is possible." The human yearning is clearly towards peace, even though many are bent on conflict and control. But these tyrants fall and wars end because you and I do what we can, acting as individuals and in community with others, to keep alive a world where people who want peace work for justice, and those who want justice, work toward forgiveness.

The final source of comfort, both political and non-political, is that babies and grandchildren are born every day. These miracles lend wonderful credence, as in my own life, to Carl Sandburg's words that "a baby is God's proof that the world should go on." So, to all you wonderful WAMC listeners, remember the comforting words of Helen Keller, "It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world. Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance its allotted length." Happy Holidays!

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December 14, 2007 - MAKING A DIFFERENCE AT THE HOLIDAYS!

This has not been a happy week for news. Just trying to comprehend the Bush administration posture at this week's UN Conference on Global Warming is hard enough. Why are we being so obstructionist as the world nations strive to reach agreement on a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions? At a time when even US experts from the National Climatic Data Center are noting that "globally, the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997," the Bush administration continues to obstruct consensus-building on mandatory caps, rather than so-called 'voluntary compliance', voluntary compliance which has brought us to the dangerous point we've reached today.

However, I'm inherently an optimist, and like Al Gore, prefer to believe that our next President, who'll be in office when the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol has to be signed, will make a huge difference. Because I'm an optimist, I also need to focus at the holiday season on ways that you and I, personally, can make a difference at home and around the world.

One way, of course, is to commit even more strongly to the presidential candidate of our choice. Because the primary season is front-end loaded in 2008, with the majority of the delegates decided on by February 5, now being called the Tsunami Tuesday of all primary seasons, what happens in New Hampshire on January 8 and in Iowa on January 3 will establish momentum for all the candidates. Click on your favorite candidate's web-site to find out how you can ride their campaign buses to New Hampshire, or join the group that's going door-to-door in Iowa.

Another way to make a difference at this holiday season is to make a monetary contribution to organizations that are dedicated to on-the-ground change, in small and meaningful ways, in your community, our nation, or the world. The so-called Third World, almost by definition, is the most forgotten area of the world. But evidence is mounting that help to individual entrepreneurs or small villages can make a difference. One of my favorite organizations is Heifer International which sends gifts of livestock or training in environmentally sound agriculture to villages in developing countries, asking recipients to pass on the gift by giving one of the animal's offspring to another village in need. For $10 you can give a share of a goat; for $120 you can give the whole goat!

On the national level, how about a gift to Secondharvest.org, whose mission is to feed the hungry through a network of food banks. They give a whopping 98% to their actual work, and only 2% to administration, much needed help at a time when more and more food banks are reporting empty shelves.

Finally, if you're looking for a more local sense of connection and efficacy, log on to donorschoose.org, look over the list of proposals for class projects submitted by Albany public school teachers, for example, or other towns as well, pick one, and send in your contribution. You can jump in for as little as $10, and participate in a movement that's expanding to more and more states, a movement that matches real teachers in need of funds for classroom projects with donors willing to help out. As an editorial in the Albany Times Union pointed out, "there are instant rewards for helping to fund a class project, of course�.As for the long-term rewards-just knowing that your donation may have inspired a young mind to pursue a lifetime of learning-well, they're incalculable."

Organizations such as Heifer.org and Donorschoose.org allow us to make a difference in the world and in our own community in new, empowering ways. What an inspiring message for all of us during this holiday season. And what a great antidote to the depressing news coming out of Washington!

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December 7, 2007 - BARRIERS TO CITIZENSHIP

In most areas of our lives, we're taught that "you can't have it both ways." But politics seems to be the one area where the system allows that to happen. In our treatment of immigrants, we can beat up on them for not pursuing citizenship, while at the same time setting up mounting barriers to doing so.

In order to become a citizen of the United States, you have to have lived here 3-5 years legally, and show evidence of having lived a stable life. And you have to pass that citizenship test that we've all heard so much about.

But in recent years, the US government has added more and more barriers, all reflective of our domestic politics as much as anything else. But the bottom line is hurdle after daunting hurdle for those who have heeded the call to swear their allegiance to the United States of America.

One barrier is the background checks that we mandate. These background checks often keep tens of thousands of immigrants in legal limbo for months, even years, especially since 9/11.

Another barrier is the huge increase in fees for the citizenship application. The cost used to be $400, which was a high enough hurdle for people often at the bottom of the economic ladder. But this summer, the fee soared to $675, a whopping 66% increase, making it very difficult for poor people to get that kind of money together.

The fee increase was justified on the basis that it would allow the citizenship agency to hire thousands more workers and give applicants better service. But it turns out that that hasn't happened. When would-be applicants rushed to submit their applications before the fee increase went into effect-a predictable enough response, they created a huge backlog that the Department of Homeland Security, through its US Citizenship and Immigration Services office, has proven totally unable to deal with. 1.4 million applications for citizenship have been submitted in 2007, double the number in 2006. The wait time to even get an acknowledgement that your application has been received has soared to 5 months, leaving incredible anxiety in its wake. Meanwhile, to get action on your application now takes up to a year and a half, compared to 7 months last year.

Part of this problem relates to the increasing inability of the Department of Homeland Security to respond to administrative challenges-remember Hurricane Katrina? News this week that a private contractor newly brought in to direct the processing of citizenship applications is planning to lower the wages of many of the workers is even more puzzling and upsetting.

Part of this problem, critics fear, may also relate to efforts to impact the results of the 2008 elections. The slow pace of processing all these citizenship applications may make it impossible for these new citizens to vote in 2008. A survey released just yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington shows that many Hispanic voters are very concerned with immigration issues, and are returning to the Democratic Party, reversing a dip in support in the last election. Analysts extrapolate that many of the new citizens, if they could get their citizenship in time, would be voting Democratic in 2008 as well.

All four of my grandparents were naturalized citizens, and the day that we accompanied my Lebanese-born maternal grandmother to take the oath of citizenship is one of the hallmarks of our family's history. Pride absolutely sparkled in my grandmother's eyes, and happiness radiated from her face. We must take more steps to make that beautiful and legal and legitimate experience available to more immigrant families. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it many years ago, in America, "the most important office [is] that of citizen."

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November 30, 2007 - BUSH AND MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMACY

Two very important events occurred in the world of diplomacy this week: one was the public reengagement at Annapolis of the Bush administration in the Middle East peace process, and the other was a remarkable speech by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calling for more spending on diplomacy and soft power to balance America's extraordinarily high emphasis on defense. Hopefully, the combination of these moves indicates a new awareness by the Bush administration of the value of engaging with, listening to, and cooperating with other nations. However, it may be too late to actually bring about a Middle East peace agreement.

President Bush has remained publicly aloof from the Middle East peace process for many years, ever since he announced at his first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001 that he thought President Clinton's over-involvement had actually made the situation worse. This year, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, perhaps more mindful of her place in history than she has been up to now, pushed hard for a conference at Annapolis where the United States would serve as the mediator between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the President himself would be actively involved. Many analysts described this meeting as a real gamble, especially since the Israelis and Palestinians were able to agree on only the vaguest of joint statements. But at least the one-day meeting at Annapolis took place, the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister attended (even though the Saudis have no diplomatic relations with Israel,) and he even clapped politely during the speech of the Israeli Prime Minister. The Syrians also attended the conference, another breakthrough, but they did not clap.

It's true that at Annapolis, the Israelis and Palestinians set a goal of signing a Middle East Peace Treaty by the end of 2008. However, I think that it's probably much too late for the Bush administration to bring about any dramatic breakthroughs in the Middle East, particularly because President Bush quickly reverted to a less-involved posture as soon as the meetings were over. Instead of the direct Presidential involvement, heavy American pressure, carrots and sticks that both Israelis and Palestinians indicated they wanted-and needed, in order to provide political cover back home for any significant concessions they might make, the White House press secretary noted that "what the President told the leaders today is that he's only a phone call away."

Furthermore, there were two additional barriers to peace operating at Annapolis. One was the growing influence of Iran in the Middle East. As Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman of New York put it, "Everybody at Annapolis has something in common. It's not love of Israel or the Palestinians. It's fear of Iran. Everyone needs a relative to protect them from Iran." But, of course, Iran's power is growing largely because of our involvement in the war in Iraq, a war that wasn't even mentioned in President Bush's speech, even though it has helped to bring America's image to an abysmally low level in most Muslim countries.

Unfortunately, I think it's too late to expect President Bush to change his approach to Iraq, and to sustain a new commitment to statecraft, which includes diplomacy, negotiations, working with others, and as Dennis Ross, author of Statecraft. And How to Restore America's Standing in the World, put it, "don't leave anything to chance; and, above all, follow through meticulously." President Bush has already signaled a limited willingness to invest his "presidential political capital" in direct efforts to get the two sides to compromise in the Annapolis peace process, a process so vulnerable that the final declaration couldn't even agree on a list of what negotiators call "final-status issues", and such a list had to be left out.

It's also too late to expect President Bush to listen to Robert Gates, his own Secretary of Defense, who noted this week that the US government has to commit more money and effort to "soft power" tools, including diplomacy, economic assistance and communications, because the military alone cannot defend America's interests. Gates noted the serious imbalance in a US budget which gives $36 billion annually to the State Department and half a trillion dollars per year to the military-and that's not counting the several trillion dollars per year for war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Gates stated, "we must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond just our brave soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. We must also focus our energies on the other elements of national power that will be so crucial in the years to come." And, I would add, nowhere is this more imperative than in the Middle East.

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November 16, 2007 - THE ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX

Millions of middle-class taxpayers are about to be hit with another huge tax, the so-called alternative minimum tax, unless Congress, the Senate and the White House can agree on a way to protect us. However, as of late last night, no agreement had been reached on a deal that would prevent the AMT from affecting 21 million more Americans on their 2007 taxes. Playing chicken over the economic futures of American taxpayers is happening again-and with Congress going on a two-week recess for turkey-time, the impasse looks likely to continue. The IRS is ready to go to press with all its forms, and the middle class needs to know if it's going to be paying thousands more in taxes this year-or whether the hedge funds will share more of the tax burden shouldered by the rest of us, but yet nothing has yet been done.

The alternative minimum tax is a program established back in 1969 to ensure that the rich would pay at least a minimum amount of income tax. Because it hasn't been adjusted over the years for inflation, and because of the way it interacts with the Bush tax cuts, it now could come down heavily on the middle class with incomes as low as $50,000, with increased tax bills of $2000 or more.

The House of Representatives already passed a few weeks ago a tax bill that would at least provide a 1-year reprieve from the expanded reach of the AMT, another patch until we can get someone else in the White House. But since their bill would raise the money to pay for it from the repeal of a tax break that favors private equity and hedge funds, many members of the Senate are balking, including our own New York Senator, Chuck Schumer. On the one hand, he has written a book entitled "Positively American: Winning Back the Middle Class," and often speaks in his speeches about the mythical Baileys, a fictional middle-class family from Long Island trying to survive in a high-tax world. On the other hand, though, he's a pro-business Democrat and a big fundraiser for the party, and has been busy reassuring hedge-fund managers that the tax break that currently protects their enormous profits will not be repealed.

As the New York Times headline put it this summer, "In Opposing Tax Plan, Schumer Breaks with Party." He also breaks with the three leading Democratic contenders for the Presidency, Clinton, Obama and Edwards, who have all endorsed the proposals for this tax increase. As Time Magazine noted this week, "right now these moneymen pay a capital-gains rate on their [hedge fund and private equity fund] fees and bonuses of just 15%. If they were subject to normal income tax-the one most Americans pay-the rate would more than double to 35%."

Senator Schumer says that he's working on an alternative tax plan, the White House says it always has good ideas, but meanwhile everyone's gone home for the holidays. Meanwhile, you and I could well be among the 21 million ordinary taxpayers who will be hit hard by the AMT on our next tax returns. Hopefully the Congress, Senate and the White House will reach some last-minute compromise, at least on another one-year patch for the system, but in our hyperpartisan political world in the United States, even that seems hard to reach. As Ronald Brownstein noted in his new book, The Second Civil War. How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America, many factors have contributed to this paralysis and polarization, which the majority of Americans tell pollsters that they deplore. One of the main factors is President Bush, whose "congressional strategy�demonstrate[s] that he would rather pass legislation as close as possible to his preferences on a virtually party line basis than make concessions to reduce political tensions." But Brownstein lists several other thought-provoking causes as well, which are explored in an excellent review in this week's New York Times. These causes include the rise of interest groups on both the left and the right, "the abandonment of the seniority principle in Congress, which meant, in Mr. Brownstein's words, that "everyone was judged every day on how often they voted with their party, how much money they raised for their colleagues, and how reliably they stood with their 'team" in rhetorical firefights against the other side;" the widening gap between Republicans and Democrats; and the growing partisanship of the media."

So, while analysts are analyzing, and support for Congress and President Bush are at record lows, the clock is ticking for you and me. Unless our leaders literally get it together in the next few weeks, you and I are going to be run over by the AMT train.

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November 9, 2007 - VETERANS DAY

Veterans Day seems to have snuck up on us this year. The absence of heated Congressional races like last year, which kept the war on the front page day after day, and the low attention to the veterans care scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center seem to have kept these issues on the back burner lately. However, this weekend we will all have an opportunity to honor our veterans at many venues and in many different ways, from parades to political action.

President Bush has developed many measures for assuring us that his troop surge in Iraq is working. But the fact is that 2007 will prove to be the deadliest year ever for American troops in Iraq. 853 troops were killed this year, the highest number since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. All tolled, almost 4000 troops have been killed in Iraq since the war started. The number is rising day after day, week after week, no matter how many assurances the administration gives us.

Another horrible measure is that the number of American troops wounded in Iraq has soared to almost 30,000. The human cost of this number to individuals and their families is excruciating. Soldiers are surviving wounds that they never would have survived before, thanks to medical advances, and that is wonderful. However, we have neither the quality of rehabilitative support for veterans back home that they need, nor do we have the financial support in place. The scandal of mold-infested wards at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was riveting last year, and many Congressional hearings have been held, but to tell the truth, the progress in making a real difference has been slow.

So this weekend brings us lots of ways to honor our dead and wounded veterans. There are many parades and events around the region, including a Distinguished Veterans of the Year Ceremony at the State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs Saturday noon, a parade in Stephentown on Saturday and in Albany on Monday.

We can also honor our dead and wounded veterans by supporting the efforts of House Democrats to restrict funds that Bush will have for the war, and provide those only if the goal is met of ending combat entirely by December 2008. The Democratic proposal, similar to one that the President vetoed last year, would also require that troops spend as much time at home as they do in combat.

Finally, take a look at the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Richard B. Cheney drafted and submitted by Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich, which you can find here. Article I charges that the "Vice President of the United States�has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests." Article I goes on to note that this action not only set the stage for the loss of thousands of US service members, but also "the loss of 650,000 Iraqi citizens since the U.S. invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs which has increased our federal debt; the loss of readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq." Whether you think this impeachment effort makes sense or not, Dennis Kucinich has certainly focused all of us on the multiple costs of this horrific war.

So we can honor our country's 25 million military veterans in many ways, ranging from parades to political action. We need to honor those who died, but we also need to take care of our living veterans. We must maintain pressure on the Senate, the Congress, and the President that there not be many more. As Mother Jones once said, "pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living."

We owe them our prayers and gratitude also. We now have 155,000 soldiers serving in Iraq, and countless thousands more who've returned home already. They join the more than 25 million military veterans in the United States-including more than 8 million Vietnam Veterans-whom we honor today.

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November 2, 2007 - Organ Donation

The death this week of the great singer, Robert Goulet, while awaiting a lung transplant, reminds us of the 96,000 people across the country who are on transplant waiting lists. The lists are so long that most of us now know someone personally whose life is in that suspended state between hope and despair, ranging from the guy we used to play golf with who's awaiting a heart transplant to the daughter of the secretary at work who desperately needs a kidney.

Goulet's death also reminds us of steps that can be taken in the United States to deal with this unconscionably large waiting list, a waiting list much larger than that in most advanced countries. The first step we can take is a uniquely personal one, to check off the box on our driver's license indicating that we want to be organ donors, and to make our family members aware of our preferences. For in the United States, unlike many other countries, if your family does not concur, they can overrule your decision upon your death. This is changing in some states, but not fast enough. My recent discussion with my only child went so well that he pulled out his license as well, and registered as an organ donor on the spot. You can specify certain organs that you want to donate, or indicate your full consent. Imagine the lives that each person who agrees to organ donation can affect-each brain-dead body could provide a heart, a liver, two kidneys, one pancreas and intestines, offering as many as eight people a chance to survive.

However, it seems that families are hard-pressed to make those decisions if it hasn't been agreed to beforehand. According to the New York Times, only 54% of families who are asked at the death-bed give consent. This is an enormous tragedy at a time when the incidence of diabetes is soaring, with its terrible effects on the kidneys. In fact, 75% of the patients awaiting an organ transplant need a kidney, and half of those die before they get to the top of the list.

There are many forces out there that are making it harder to get more organ donations, including, would you believe, the fact that fatal automobile accidents are down, as are homicides, and therefore there are fewer young donors available. However, there are a lot of factors working to increase the potential for organ donations and transplants. First of all, the word is getting out that none of the world's major religions opposes organ donations, something that many believers don't know. Second, special efforts are being made to increase the very low rate of minority participation in organ donation programs, with special spokesmen being identified and recruitment programs organized. Third, altruistic living donors, who are willing to part with a kidney or part of a liver, even for a stranger, are becoming more prevalent, and their stories are being widely publicized. As recently as a decade ago, dead donors outnumbered live ones two to one, but live donors have recently soared ahead. Finally, transplant teams are becoming much more skilled in making donations from middle-aged and older donors work. Therefore, most of us who are listening today could make a real difference.

The United States has been slow to adopt the policy changes that have helped other countries to increase their pool of organ donors. These policy changes include allowing the donor's wishes to prevail, even if the family doesn't concur or can't be located. They also include the doctrine of presumed consent, by which an individual is presumed to be willing to serve as a potential donor, unless different instructions have been issued. A final policy change would be to allow a potential donor's next of kin to receive money for allowing a transplant. In fact, Pennsylvania has a program whereby families of a deceased person are paid $300 following consent, money which is paid directly to the funeral home.

Meanwhile, in America, the decision remains an individual one, and one that needs to be actively taken, and discussed with loved ones. And it's possibly one of the easiest acts of altruism available to most of us. Very few of us will have the reason-or the courage-to jump into a swirling river to save someone, or pull a person from a burning house. Nor will most of us be called on to lay down our lives for a cause. However, we can agree to be an organ donor. As Maya Angelou stated, "I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back."

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October 26, 2007 - WHICH TRUTHS ARE STILL SELF-EVIDENT?

There used to be general agreement in America about what our country stood for: there were certain verities that allowed us to take pride in ourselves as Americans and in our government for upholding these truths. The first one, of course, concerned equality. As our Declaration of Independence stated, �we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, , that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. � That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.� Proud and glorious words indeed.

On the issue of equality, Americans in practice have never meant equality of outcome, but we did mean equality of opportunity. However, we are losing that inspiring lodestar. There is mounting evidence that income inequality in America is approaching crisis proportions. Of course, we can console ourselves that our democracy is old and strong, and has enough economic opportunities, as well as political channels and outlets, to defuse even the most intense anger. But we Americans need to be doing more to address the galloping inequality in our country.

How bad is income inequality in America? In a new book, Princeton economist Paul Krugman notes that the wealthiest 0.01% of Americans are seven times richer than they were three decades ago, while the inflation-adjusted income of most American households has barely budged. In the 1970s, CEOs typically earned 30 times more than their average employee; now they take home 300 times as much.

Voters have been telling pollsters in recent months that they fear for their economic security. A plurality has indicated that they believe that �life for the next generation of Americans will be worse than it is today.� This lack of optimism about their future, and about the fairness of the American system, is a wake-up call. As the former head of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said, �it�s not the actual getting ahead in America that�s so important�it�s been Americans� deep belief that they have the opportunity to get ahead. And if you lose that, there�s damage to our society.�

A second truth that we used to hold self-evident was that our government would safeguard for us our liberty. But in recent years, since 9/11 in particular, our government, at every crossroads, has chosen to go with national security rather than with our civil liberties. Our Bill of Rights, the precious first ten amendments to the Constitution, are more and more undermined by political leaders who choose power and security over our civil liberties, and by Americans, young and old, who choose not even to learn what these precious liberties are, much less to remain vigilant to see that they are maintained. A 2006 survey by the McCormick Tribune Foundation found that, while 52% of Americans can name at least two characters of the Simpsons TV cartoon family, only 28% can name more than one of these five fundamental freedoms guaranteed to them by the First Amendment, which covers freedom of religion, speech, the press, the right to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances. Another poll indicated that if asked today, Americans would not vote to approve the Bill of Rights!

Finally, our Constitution prohibits the use of torture in the Eighth Amendment, part of our Bill of Rights, an amendment which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. I remember growing up feeling proud that while Communist China, or Soviet Russia or Pol Pot�s Cambodia might torture its prisoners, we in the United States did not. However, this week�s excruciatingly tortuous parsing of the question, �what is torture,� by Michael Mukasey, President Bush�s nominee for Attorney General, was frightening and undermined the very Constitution he would be sworn to uphold. On the one hand, he noted that torture, even of terrorism suspects, is illegal under both US and international law. However, he would not even say whether he considered such harsh interrogation techniques as waterboarding, which creates the feeling of drowning, to constitute torture or to be illegal when used against terrorism suspects. If he can�t define as torture waterboarding , described by one Senator as �the practice of putting somebody in a reclining position, strapping them down, putting cloth over their faces and pouring water over the cloth to stimulate the feeling of drowning, � what will he define as torture? He also denied knowing what current Justice Dept policy is on torture, but airily promised to read the relevant memos after he�s confirmed.

I consider myself a patriot and a proud American. On basic American values such as equality, respect for civil liberties, and prohibition of torture, I want to see our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence strictly observed. I�m glad that I have a chance in 2008, as the Declaration of Independence strongly stated, to vote against continuing the values of an administration which has become so destructive of the securing of our inalienable rights. We did it against King George III in 1775; we need to do it against the imperial presidency of George Bush in 2008.

We also need to do more to ensure that our schools are teaching our children about the glories of our Constitution, and that we are teaching our children and grandchildren at home. We would all do well to remember the words of John Quincy Adams, who wrote in 1837, on the 50th anniversary of the Constitution, paraphrasing from the instruction to the Israelites in Deuteronomy, �Teach the [Constitution�s] principles, teach them to your children, speak of them when sitting in your home, speak of them when walking by the way, when lying down and when rising up, write them upon the doorplate of your home and upon your gates.� We Americans need to get back to these basic responsibilities�as well as the rights-- of living in the United States.

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October 12, 2007 - AL GORE'S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

This morning, when I sat down to write my commentary, my AOL screen lit up with the information that Al Gore had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I was so happy for the legitimization and redemption that this put on his work of the past decade, and so pleased for the attention that he's brought to the difficult topic of global warming, that I jettisoned my original topic and decided to focus on Gore's accomplishment.

Al Gore has had a remarkable decade. When you think that 10 years ago, he was totally intent on becoming the President of the United States, then lost the Electoral College vote in the 2000 election, and had to make what must have been that terrible decision not to pursue anything further when the outcome was decided by the Supreme Court, you have to view him as Everyman, as a person who must have gone home to Tennessee struggling with rage, depression, fatalism, and the knowledge that he was young enough-only 52 at the time--that he could-and must-find a new direction for his life.

Many of his supporters, of course, wanted him to continue to run for President, a clamoring that has been picking up of late and that will be fueled by his Nobel Prize. However, he has chosen to become a Prophet-cum-Analyst instead. He has used his environmental policy expertise, his analytical abilities, his contacts, and his surprising adeptness on the big screen to put together an Academy-Award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, and to catapult the issue of global warming onto the world consciousness. Yes, he shares the Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a panel that finally, in 2007, acknowledged that human activity has been "very likely" the driving force in climate change. But without Al Gore, the issue of global warming would have taken much, much longer to claim the world's attention. As the Nobel citation read, Al Gore "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."

In an amazing example of the skepticism and cynicism that seem to accompany every announcement of someone's great accomplishment these days, AOL had as its poll question this morning whether Al Gore deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. As of 10am, 51% of the 100,000 people who had responded said 'No.' Maybe their mean-spiritedness was explained by a related AOL poll question this morning, in which 28% of the AOL respondents said that they weren't at all concerned about global warming, and only 42% were very concerned. The rest were sitting on the fence.

This continuing negativity about global warming reflects a number of factors: the effectiveness of the Bush Administration in airing doubts about the issue, even if they had to manipulate science and scientists in order to do so; the conservatism of AOL users; the contemporary urge to tear down a hero; and perhaps the feeling that Gore's work hasn't really been about peace. But global warming is truly a threat to world peace. It will impact the poorest and most vulnerable countries the hardest, the countries least responsible for all that carbon dioxide production in the first place. As the Nobel committee stated, in explaining their decision to award Gore the Peace Prize, global warming "may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources�.There may be increased danger of violent conflict and wars, within and between states."

The Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee referred to Al Gore as a champion of peace. A champion is not only a winner, but someone who defends, protects, and fights for a cause. A champion is also inspirational. Al Gore is an inspiring example of how a person can recover from bitter disappointment, build on his strengths, and go on to have a world-wide impact. Who knows if people want him as a presidential candidate again? The fact remains that in his new role, if citizens and policymakers allow him to do so, he will help us save our planet.

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October 8, 2007 - COURAGE AND BETRAYAL IN MYANMAR

There's enough courage and betrayal in the recent history of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, to last the people there a lifetime, and in fact, it has. Dating back to 1962, when the military took over, the history of Myanmar has been one of repression, authoritarian rule, and the bleak political and economic landscape that comes from an atmosphere of unrelenting suppression. And the military has been joined in this betrayal of the rights of their own people by neighboring countries such as China. China, one of the military's largest trading partners, has confined itself to bland appeals to both sides to restore stability. As a result, countries around the world, such as the United States and several European countries, have been able to announce their own stepped-up national sanctions against Myanmar, but were thwarted from serious international sanctions by the opposition of China at the UN.

Of course, Myanmar has also known extraordinary heroism of breathtaking clarity. The country's recent history has been characterized by two dramatic examples of heroism: the quiet, continuing, day-to-day nobility of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has endured house arrest for 10 of the last 18 years rather than give in to the Myanmar military; her pro-democracy party won national elections in 1990, but the military refused to give up power. Then there's the recent heroism of tens of thousands of Buddhist monks, representing the national religion of the country, who took to the streets, first in the capital and then in cities across the country, to protest the government's actions and their country's lack of democratic freedoms. Soon the streets were lined with ordinary citizens, gathering to show their support for the monks. Many of the monks were killed, and some of the most dramatically distressing photos of recent weeks show monks being shot. It is surely testament to the rage, fear and omnipotence of the military government that it would shoot and arrest hundreds of red-robed Buddhist monks. It is also testimony to their rage, fear and omnipotence that the government has been carrying out night-time arrests and interrogations of hundreds and thousands of people. According to one report in the New York Times, those being interrogated have been grimly divided by the military into "four categories of connection to the demonstrations: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in."

Two days ago, Myanmar's ruling junta shut off all access to the Internet for the country's 50 million people, indicating its understanding of how influential the Internet has been in spreading information and pictures, those influential, gripping pictures and videos of the upheaval and turmoil of the past few weeks. Experts worry that Myanmar, which has lived in great isolation for decades, can ride out an Internet shutdown for a long, long time. According to the Times, the country had just two Internet service providers, and it was easy to shut them down. However, I'm casting my vote with the ingenuity of the Myanmar people. Sure, they'll be stripped for a while of the possibilities of sending the text messages, e-mails, blogs, notices on Facebook, cellphone photos, and even Wikipedia updates that have been transmitted over the past few weeks. These pictures have not only been alerting the world to Myanmar's drama, but have been getting transmitted back into the country to inform the Burmese people of what their own repressive government has been doing.

Meanwhile, some people in Myanmar still have their cell phones. Spurred by memories of China's Tiananmen Square, the Myanmar government has been confiscating all the high-tech equipment it can find, including cell phones. But when you combine the needle-in-a-haystack nature of the effort to root out this technology, with the heroism of the Myanmar monks and people, you know that the force of history is with the pro-democracy energy of the citizens. As one expert noted, "Today every citizen is a war correspondent." The word will continue to get out about Myanmar, and the potential for real, lasting political change will continue to grow.

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September 28, 2007 - CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE

There's an old saying in politics: "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." This is the saying that comes to mind when I contemplate all the arm-twisting, all the rhetoric and all the remaining good will that President Bush is using up trying to stop the passage of S-CHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. President Bush has vowed to veto this bill expanding the program to cover another 4 million uninsured children, in addition to the 6.6 million already enrolled. The House of Representatives approved the bill on Tuesday, but not by a veto-proof majority. Yesterday, however, the Senate approved it by a veto-proof margin of 67-29, with 18 Republicans supporting it.

Many of the Republicans supporting S-CHIP are some of the most vulnerable in the 2008 election. They are begging President Bush to support the program. After all, the tenor of the entire health care debate in this country is changing. Now that we have gone from 38 million uninsured Americans in 2000 to 47 million in 2007, a political tipping point of sorts may be in the offing. It is no accident that all the front-running Democratic presidential candidates have released health care plans that insure every single American. Furthermore, even among those opposed to anything resembling national health care, children have always been a politically acceptable category. Americans are generally supportive of government-supported health care for poor children, even those who remain resistant to programs for adults.

Furthermore, many of the staunchest ideologically-driven Republican officials are supportive of expanding S-CHIP. Did you ever think you'd see Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of the President's strongest supporters, leaving his side to vote for S-CHIP? How about conservative Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who also voted with the Democrats yesterday? And then there's long-time conservative Republican, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who, along with Senator Ted Kennedy, was the founding architect of CHIP back in 1997. Senator Hatch noted yesterday that it "pained" him that President Bush had not worked with Congress to renew the program. In a wonderful example of understatement, Hatch observed that some people in the administration "have been slow to recognize the realities of the new Congress," where Democrats have a majority.

So, what is President Bush thinking? Why is he so willing to go to the mat over this issue? First of all, he's probably mesmerized by the fact that he can "win", in quotes, and that the House will not be able to override his veto. But if a conflict ever defined the term, "Pyrrhic victory," this is it. Bush may win the battle, but at what cost to his party's prospects in 2008?

Second, Bush is concerned that this program is yet another step toward what you and I would call a national health care program, and what he would call 'socialized medicine.' He's right that the venerable American "foot-in-the-door" technique is at work here, with a program established ten years ago for a few million very poor children now being expanded to include several million more. However, as Senator Bob Corker, Republican from Tennessee, noted yesterday, "what will move our country toward socialized medicine is not this bill, which focuses on poor children, but the lack of action to allow people in need to have access to private affordable health care."

The President, if he can put aside his urge for so-called victory to allow his political intelligence to work, will see that it's definitely time to stop digging. There's not only the evidence that vulnerable Republicans deserted him in this week's votes, and that ideologically staunch members of his party have pleaded with him to compromise with the Democrats. There's also the fact that the Democrats have selected a twelve-year old from Baltimore, Graeme Frost, to give their response tomorrow to the President's weekly radio address. Graeme and his sister were severely injured in an automobile accident three years ago, and are alive to tell their story because of the care they received under the Child Health Insurance Program. According to the New York Times, Graeme will use his air time tomorrow to appeal to the President to sign the S-CHIP bill. What a political nightmare for the Republicans, what a political joy for the Dems!

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September 14, 2007 - WHAT TO DO IN IRAQ?

Many of us watched or listened to dozens of hours of testimony to Congress this week by General David Petraeus about what we should do in Iraq. I came away from the experience with several conclusions.

First of all, General Petraeus's performance was magnificent. Neither the country nor the military could have asked for a leader more in command of himself, his facts and his personal presence. Resplendent with medals, imbued with gravitas, he was as fine a spokesman for the Bush administration's assessment of where we are and where we should go in Iraq as they could have wished for, and more than they had any right to expect.

Second, you can be sure that the Petraeus report was worked on, and parsed for exact meaning within an inch of its little margins. The report was designed to spotlight every possible reason for hope, minimize all the frightening data, and highlight some possible action steps that would sound like something was happening yet not commit the Bush administration to too much. Petraeus paved the way for President Bush's Thursday night announcement about carefully staged and limited troop withdrawals that made him look responsive to the hearings (especially to the surprisingly tough questioning from a few Republican senators) but that had obviously been parsed and worked on for days and weeks as well. President Bush's concern seemed to have been to figure out how little can you say about withdrawals to pacify your critics, look responsive to the more than 50% of Americans who say that they want us out of this war, and yet do very little that will really change your basic policy. In fact, that was the combined Petraeus/Bush objective and that's what we got.

Third, the many Presidential candidates who spoke at the hearings or who watched on TV ought to be thinking pretty grim, but realistic, thoughts along the line of "Be careful what you wish for." Real action to change the course of this war and the level of America's involvement will be left to the next President. General Petraeus has asked for more time before any decisions are made about major cuts in our forces in Iraq-he will undoubtedly get it. President Bush will continue to set expectations so low, and criteria for defining success so low, that he will limp to the end of his term with no real changes in policy. Meanwhile, we will all live with the reports of the Government Accountability Office and the independent commission on Iraq headed by recognized military experts that the important benchmarks that were supposed to have been met by now have largely been missed. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said yesterday, everything she had heard during the Petraeus hearings, "sounds�like a 10-year, at least, commitment to an open-ended presence and war."

It is startlingly, depressingly clear from the Petraeus hearings that the Bush administration is not going to get us out of Iraq. It is also clear from all the discussions about failed benchmarks, continuing violence and political chaos that the Bush strategy is not going to meet with success. So we'd better start listening more closely than ever to the ideas that Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates have for ending this war; otherwise, we're going to be there for a long, long time.

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September 7, 2007 - REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE OF AMERICAN WORKERS

Labor Day weekend came and went with very little attention paid to the critical challenges faced by American workers. A holiday established in 1882 as a way to honor the achievements of American workers, it's now celebrated more as an end-of-summer get-together. However, the opportunity to reflect on the state of American workers, a category that includes most of us, should not pass by unattended. In fact, given that Americans tell pollsters that they have two major concerns as they contemplate the 2008 Presidential elections, Iraq and the economy, the crises and challenges affecting American workers are very important indeed.

Labor Day did bring a United Nations report that US labor is the most productive in the world. American workers put in longer hours, take fewer vacations, and get more done per hour than anyone except the Norwegians. In fact, the average US worker produces over $60,000 worth of wealth per year, exceeding even the highest-ranked European countries by several thousand dollars. Yet growth in family income has stagnated.

This stagnation comes at a time of growing income inequality in America. As Denis Hughes, the President of the New York State AFL-CIO, put it recently, "CEOs earn, on average, more on the first day of the year than the people working for them earn all year." We need to pay attention to the fact that inequality in the United States is on the rise, whether measured in terms of wages, family incomes, or wealth, and is much higher than that of other advanced countries.

The implication of this inequality and attendant worker anxiety for our economy is significant, because consumer spending is such an important factor. But the implication of this inequality for our society and our political system is even more telling. The belief that the majority of Americans now have that "life for the next generation of Americans will be worse than it is today" indicates the fear that they have for their economic security. This lack of optimism about the future, and about the fairness of the American system, can be corrosive socially and politically. As the former head of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said, "it's not the actual getting ahead in American that's so important-it's been Americans' deep belief that they have the opportunity to get ahead. And if you lose that, there's damage to our society."

The news last week that the number of Americans without health insurance has now risen to 47 million is another telling indicator of the state of American workers. We already live in a country where less than 1/3 of the lowest paid workers have health insurance. Now we find that the big auto manufacturers want to be the next catalyst in the end of employer-based health insurance at a time when our country has no other system in place. Employer-based pension plans are falling apart as well.

Globalization is another issue confronting American workers.As the Nobel laureate economist, Amatya Sen noted, "globalization needs a reasoned defense, but it also needs reform." And this fight for reform affects all of us, not just farmers in the Third World, but IBM workers in New York, whose industry has become one of the latest to ship high-paying jobs out of the United States.

The final trauma for workers on Labor Day 2007-and it's an increasing trauma-is the Wal-Mart effect. Wal-Mart is the nation's largest company, employing 1.5 million workers. However, unlike the huge manufacturing companies of old, like Ford and GM, who paid high wages, setting a pattern for the rest of the nation, Wal-Mart is pushing wages in the opposite direction. Because Wal-Mart wages average 30% lower than other large retailers, they are setting a model for lower wages. So far, Wal-Mart has moved harshly against any store or division that has tried to organize. However, a recent order by the President of China led to the creation of Wal-Mart's first China labor union; it remains to be seen whether this will have any spillover effect in the US!

I like the views of Andrew Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the fastest-growing union in the country, that a comprehensive new approach is needed to the challenges facing American workers. As he told New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, our nation is a team, a team that needs to pull together to develop a creative vision for the US economy, society and health care system in the 21st century. A cornerstone of that vision, he said, should be adherence to the "primary value" of rewarding work. He feels strongly that the fears of American workers are well founded: "There's something wrong with the system right now, and we can't just say, 'Well, it's all going to work out.' It's not," not without leadership and not without a plan. And I would add that we need to translate for the 21st century the 18th century wisdom of Adam Smith from his masterpiece, "The Wealth of Nations": "It is but equity...that those who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."

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August 24, 2007 - THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-BACK IN THE NEWS

The Electoral College is back in the news! After the 2000 election, with its shocking reminder that a person could get elected President of the United States without having won the popular vote, many people urged the abolition of the Electoral College. And many Americans must think that, with such a serious reminder of the flawed system as the Gore-Bush election provided, serious efforts to reform or abolish the Electoral College must indeed be under way. Well, the truth is that very little has happened on the national level since 2000. Meanwhile, Republicans in California are trying to reform the way that Electoral College votes are allocated in that state in 2008, with huge potential for political disadvantage for the Democratic Presidential candidate.

The shocking uproar around the 2000 election still reverberates in our minds, particularly when we consider that if Al Gore had actually become President after winning the popular vote, we most likely would not be at war in Iraq. The entire course of our own history, as well as that of the Middle East, and the world, would be different. Calls were manifold in the months after that disputed election to abolish the Electoral College. However, to abolish it would require amending the constitution, a very slow and difficult process that has been done only 27 times in our nation's history. Even though legislation has been introduced to start the process, by Senator Dianne Feinstein, among others, the process has gone nowhere-partly because it's designed to be tough and tedious, and partly because the advantages that the Founding Fathers were trying to give to small states through establishing the Electoral College in the first place, have motivated them to rise up to prevent its abolition. After all, smaller states have a disproportionate advantage over larger ones in the Electoral College because of the two senatorial electors assigned to each state no matter what their population size.

While the national effort has stalled, many states have taken steps to push the electoral college abolition along. According to the New York Times, in the last legislative session, eight states, including Maryland most recently, "considered bills that would give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote rather than the presidential candidate chosen by state voters." However, "the measures would take effect only if states representing a majority of the 538 electoral votes made the same change."

Meanwhile, the snake in the grass is a Republican-sponsored California initiative, which could go on that state's ballot in 2008, to allocate the state's electoral votes by Congressional district, not by statewide vote. Such a measure would end the winner-takes-all method, used by almost all the states, which gives all the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the statewide electoral vote. Instead, the Republican proposal would give the 2008 presidential candidates one electoral vote for every Congressional district that they win in California, plus a 2-vote bonus to whoever wins the most votes across the state. The effective result of this initiative, sponsored by a group cleverly calling itself "Californians for Equal Representation," would actually not promote equal representation at all. Instead, it would mean that even if the Democratic Presidential candidate won statewide, which is likely, the Republican candidate could still get 20 or more of the state's electoral votes. This would make it very difficult for a Democrat to win the Presidency, regardless of how the popular vote came out.

We are faced with constant examples of the damage that was done to the democratic process back in 2000, including the reminder just this week that Roger Stone, the Republican consultant fired by Senator Bruno for allegedly making a threatening phone call to Governor Spitzer's father, was a dirty tricks expert. Stone organized one of the largest stop- the -recount efforts in Florida in 2000; this effort involved dozens of scary people storming the board of elections office, intimidating workers into halting one of the main recounts then and there.

As we look ahead to the 2008 Presidential election, it is clear that we need candidates, officials and processes that will protect democracy, not allow anything to get elected. Furthermore, it's a good thing that analysts and representatives of each candidate are carefully watching the electoral law in every state, since, as the 2000 election absolutely showed us, the devil is always in the details.

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August 17, 2007 - CHINESE TOY RECALL-ENOUGH BLAME TO GO AROUND

As a grandmother of two little boys, I now buy a lot of toys. So I was dismayed to hear about the Mattel corporation's recall of millions of toys made in China, found to contain lead in their paint. At first, I was angry at the Chinese for having such lax safety regulations. However, upon further reflection, I have decided that there's more than enough blame to go around-blame to be shared by American corporations, by us the consumers, and by our government officials, who still haven't gotten around to protecting us.

China shares a lot of the blame, of course. Since 80% of the toys sold in the US are manufactured in China, their regulation of their own manufacturing sector is critical. We now know, however, that China is notoriously lax in protecting its own citizens and its own workers. China has also been loose about regulating its export companies. The head of one of the largest Chinese toy manufacturers committed suicide last week when American toy giant, Mattel, announced the recall of 19 million toys, all made in China. However, we don't need such drastic actions after the fact; we need a commitment by the Chinese government to protect its own workers and children from lead-painted toys, to clean up its air and water for its own people, and to make sure that the export of such dangers to foreign stores or foreign shores in the form of airborne pollution is eliminated.

Big American toy companies such as Mattel also share a lot of the responsibility. Who would have thought that a company with what used to be such a trusted name wasn't really watching out for us on such a deadly issue as lead paint? As a New York Times article stated, "manufacturing experts say that companies have cut costs so much in China that more toy testing is not affordable for many manufacturers." In the words of one expert, "if Mattel, with all of its emphasis on quality and testing, found such a widespread problem what do you think is happening in the rest of the toy industry?" The consolation is that the toy industry in America is a $22 billion industry-big enough for corporations to try to protect their reputations and their sales figures.

A lot of consumers are now vowing to read the label on the toy box and not buy toys marked "Made in China." But with the overwhelming majority of the toys sold in America coming from China, this is a pretty hopeless task. We need a combination of using the Internet to buy more American-made toys, and raising expectations of our toy manufacturers such as Mattel, as well as of our giant retailers, such as Wal-Mart. Who knew that when they advertised such low prices, they were glossing over many product safety concerns? Did you know that was part of the tacit bargain, reduced safety for lower prices? I'm sure that we'd all be willing to pay more for the security of keeping our children safe.

A recent New York Times editorial mentioned that "right now it is the clear responsibility of companies that import Chinese products to guarantee their safety, and American regulators have to ensure they do it adequately. Neither is doing their job." The Bush administration needs to restore the hundreds of positions and tens of millions of dollars that they have cut from regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has only a mind-boggling 100 field investigators and compliance officers to police the entire consumer sector!

Senator Barack Obama just reintroduced his Lead Free Toys Act, which went nowhere last year, and which would finally, would you believe, require the CPSC to ban children's products with more than trace amounts of lead. Considering that lead ingestion can be fatal, it's outrageous that we still lack such a requirement. Write your representatives to support this legislation, change your own toy-buying habits, and make sure that we the consumers are not joining American manufacturers, in the search for low, low prices, as enablers of China's lax regulatory system.

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August 10, 2007 - THE TRUTH ABOUT INFRASTRUCTURE

There's nothing sexy about repairing infrastructure, those bridges, roads, tunnels, train tracks and wires that we rely on every day. American officials and voters have not been enamored of long-range planning either, often preferring the sound-bite hostility of slash-and-burn politics to analysis and reasoned discussion. But Americans do react to symbols, to visuals, and now anyone who's been concerned about the ticking time bomb of infrastructure neglect can point to the indelible pictures of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis to drive home their point. The photos of a crucial artery collapsed in the river, with tons of steel and concrete scattered like dominoes, of cars crushed and a school bus careening, and of family members crying, waiting, and then grieving over their loved ones who did not come home, have been gripping the nation's consciousness for days.

The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge is both a tragedy and a public policy call to action, a window of opportunity to force the attention of policymakers on the need to take action as soon as possible, especially since infrastructure repair is a very lengthy process. The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge could also be a catalyst for creative thinking on the part of our President and for bi-partisan proposals for major initiatives.

Instead, this morning's New York Times brings a disheartening juxtaposition of articles: one detailing the mounting deaths in the bridge collapse, and the other headlining Bush's opposition to a plan to deal with infrastructure costs. The body count article notes that seven bodies have now been recovered from the wreckage, with at least 6 people still missing. The article about the President, entitled "Bush Speaks Against Rise in Gas Tax to Help Bridges," found Bush sounding off yesterday in his last press conference before his summer vacation. In his volley of attacks against both the priorities and motives of Democrats on a variety of economic issues, he lashed out against the proposal for a temporary increase in the gas tax of a nickel a gallon to pay for needed repairs. It's his right, of course, to disagree with a specific idea. But wouldn't it have been inspiring, wouldn't it have been downright "Presidential", for him to have suggested an alternative plan, or maybe even one of those rare, increasingly rare, breakfasts with Congressional leaders to come up with some mutually acceptable ideas? After all, the gas tax plan has some bipartisan support. More importantly, how he could block out the message of the haunting pictures of bridge collapse while the rest of us remain mesmerized by it, is hard to decipher. I guess the appeal of a good televised scolding of Congress was just stronger than the appeal of true leadership. Also, as analyst Paul Waldman wrote recently in the American Prospect magazine, maybe it's just too painful for him to acknowledge a necessary role for government, "you know, the entity in charge of things like making sure bridges are safe." Waldman goes on to point out the "tone-deafness of Bush's response to the bridge collapse;" he urges Progressives, "scarred as they are by years of GOP abuse and the tepid, apologetic stance of their own allies to defend, without reservation, the idea of a vigorous, engaged government. They can finally say, without fear of disastrous political consequences, that sometimes government is not the problem, it's the solution."

Government is particularly the solution to a problem as massive and widespread as infrastructure repair. The New York Times notes that a May 2007 study released by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst and Young found that 83% of the nation's transportation infrastructure was not capable of meeting the nation's needs over the next decade; they also calculated a $1.6 trillion infrastructure deficit. The somber and careful American Society of Civil Engineers, in its latest national report card, gave transportation infrastructure a D.

Perhaps Newsday columnist James Pinkerton put it best this week: "we have plenty of wealth in this country. We can afford to be safe and sound. We just need our leaders to focus close to home, on topics as boring as infrastructure and public safety."

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August 3, 2007 - LIVING WITHOUT BOTTLED WATER

I have just returned from a trip to Morocco to consult for a parliamentary strengthening project run by the United States Agency for International Development.

In Morocco, as in our country, the disposable plastic water bottle is ubiquitous, sold in even the remotest areas. Sometimes that bottled water was a lifesaver, particularly where water purity was an issue. But seeing those drink-and-toss bottles everywhere reminded me of the revolution in our attitudes toward bottled water that hopefully has been touched off by the recent decision of Gavin Newsome, Mayor of San Francisco, that city funds could not be used to purchase disposable water bottles for any government meetings, reminding the people not only of the purity of their city's water supply, but also of the unnecessary expense and environmental impact of buying all those little bottles. Newsome's action touched off not only a slew of similar decrees by cities such as Minneapolis and Salt Lake City, but also a reevaluation of what we as a society are doing purchasing all this water when our municipal supplies are so good.

First of all, Newsome's action changed our perspective on buying bottled water from a simple individual decision to one with a huge collective impact. Bottled water purchases in the United States, the largest consumer on the planet, have come out of nowhere from a paltry 1.6 gallons per person in 1976, to a whopping 27.6 gallons in 2006. This is now an $11 billion dollar industry in the US, and a $100 billion industry worldwide.

The environmental impact of this bottled water industry is hard to absorb. At the very outset, according to Wikipedia, it takes a lot of water to make a bottle of water, up to 5 liters per liter of water sold, if power plant cooling water is included. Also, these drink-and-toss containers use huge amounts of energy in their manufacture, shipment and disposal. We Americans dispose of 60 million plastic bottles per day. The Earth Policy Institute has found that "it takes 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, enough to fuel 100,000 cars, to just make all those disposable bottles. Then it takes a thousand years for the empties to biodegrade in landfills, where most of them end up." Only 2 out of 10 single-use water bottles are recycled.

The social impact of this bottled water industry is also great. Many analysts worry that American taxpayers will be less likely to pay for the upkeep of what is without a doubt one of the best public water systems in the world because they have a refrigerator full of bottled water at home. I'll never forget the sight in San Francisco years ago of a well-dressed business man standing in front of a bank of broken pay phones chatting on his cell-phone. A similar indifference to the public good, and to the good of the less fortunate, could develop around raising taxes to pay for the upkeep of our public water systems.

There are many ironies about this huge American consumption of bottled water. First of all, while we were feeling good about drinking water rather than a sugared drink, now we find out that it's been very detrimental to the environment. Second, we now discover that a lot of the major vendors of bottled water in this country, such as Aquafina and Dasani, get that water from public sources; recent lawsuits have meant that many of them will now be stating that fact on their labels. Coming from Maine, I was shocked to read in a recent Times Union article that a class-action lawsuit forced the revelation that Poland Spring Water, now owned by Nestle, comes not from the famous spring in central Maine, but is actually groundwater piped from man-made wells located near some parking lots. Finally, it turns out that the bottled water industry is less regulated and less inspected by the government than our public water systems. According to the National Resources Defense Council, many impurities have crept into some bottled water.

Fortunately, just as entrepreneurs developed bottled water into a major industry, their counterparts are now marketing reusable water bottles in many sports and convenience stores, bottles that are taste-free and safe for long-term use. We are so lucky in America that we can fill up those bottles at home, and trust that the purity of that water will be outstanding! As a New York Times editorial stated just this week, "real change�will come when millions of ordinary consumers realize that they can save money, and save the planet, by turning in their water bottles and turning on the tap."

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July 13, 2007 - 484 DAYS TIL THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The old saying has it that �a picture is worth a thousand words.� Well, so is a number. In fact, when you contemplate the number �484,� the number of days until the 2008 Presidential election, you can begin to comprehend the danger that our Republic is in. We�re hearing so much about the election and the huge number of candidates that it�s easy to forget that it�s more than a year and a third away. In that time, the Bush administration could do incalculable harm to our democratic values, to world peace, to the lives of young men and women dying in Iraq in intensifying numbers, and to values issues which so many of us believe in.

President Bush is proving extraordinarily intransigent about Iraq, continuing to resist pleas to expedite an American troop withdrawal. Even in the face of the recommendations last year of a Bipartisan Commission made up of many members of his father�s administration, and in the face of mounting Republican defections, he continues to mouth the same misleading information about Iraq, and in fact, has reemphasized it. Just yesterday, he warned Congress that �the same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones that attacked us in America on September 11th.�The House of Representatives resisted his arguments, and voted to require that the US withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by April 1. However, the Senate has yet to act. Even though 56% of Americans tell pollsters that they want to pull American troops out of Iraq, we need to put more pressure on Republican and Democratic Senators to move on this.

Meanwhile, I think I�ve figured out President Bush�s clever strategy�by constantly pointing out, as he did yesterday, that there will be a bloodbath in Iraq if American troops are withdrawn in April, he is setting the Democratically-controlled Congress up as scapegoats for a disaster that will occur no matter when we withdraw from this ill-advised war�a month from now, 484 days from now, or years from now. He is also hoping to improve his place in history, something that visitors to the White House say he is obsessed with, by taking it from �he was tragically wrong about getting us into Iraq,� to trying to posit that his critics were tragically wrong as well by urging us to get out. The fact is that the war has so destabilized Iraq and the entire Middle East that the conflagration which we are barely holding back like fingers in a dike will explode whenever we leave. As the data show, no matter how great the surge, it cannot hold back escalating and spreading violence. As a result of Iraq and our go-it-alone attitude on so many foreigh policy issues, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows that the image of the United States has �plummeted� in many parts of the world.

On the domestic front, the Bush-Cheney impact on our civil liberties, income inequality, and on freedom of choice issues has been formidable. Cheney actually tried to present the Vice Presidency as a separate branch of government. President Bush, for his part, acknowledged at a press conference yesterday that someone in his administration had �probably leaked the name of a C.I.A. operative� and that controversy had been intense over his decision to commute Scooter Libby�s sentence for lying and for obstruction of justice. But, he added, in those classic and chilling political words that barely disguise a gigantic shrug at critics and at public opinion, �now we�re going to move on.�

So, what can we do? We can keep up the pressure on our elected representatives in Washington to help us get out of the war, and support protests against it. We can help the members of Congress who are already mounting their �08 election campaigns, knowing that the number �484� is a mounting reality for them. And we can get involved as donors and volunteers in the 2008 presidential campaigns. After all, as Moveon.org pointed out in a dramatic e-mail this week, entitled �Bush�s Third Term?�, there are many candidates out there who�d like to continue his policies on the war, on civil liberties, and on threatening to bomb Iran. 484 days is a serious number indeed!

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July 6, 2007 - FAMILY REUNIONS

Last weekend, my family had a gigantic party to celebrate my Mom's 90th birthday. We began this celebration when she turned 87, and had triumphed over so many health issues that year that we wanted to celebrate. Since then, it's become an annual event, a tradition that combines the best of a birthday party and the best of a family reunion. It allows all of us to come together for the happy events in life, rather than waiting for those sad occasions that inevitably crop up. Furthermore, it provides the occasion for a great party with Maine's best seafood, lots of presents for my Mom, and a band that plays the best of the Golden Oldies with a few country-music tunes tossed in. This year, my Mom, a feisty courageous woman who stands about 4'9", danced every dance. She not only swayed to the slow dances, but jitterbugged as well. She stopped only to change partners between dances, and to allow those less vigorous than she felt, to sit down and rest. She will have those memories for a long time and so will we. Yesterday when I left Maine, my Mom was still talking about the event, and we are eagerly awaiting the pictures. The day was a family reunion mingled with a miracle, in that my Mother, who has wrestled with Parkinson's disease for years, was buoyed enough by the excitement of the day, the love of so many family members, and her own strength and enjoyment of music and dancing to be the life of the party, the soul of our family reunion, at 90!

Everyone was there from my Mom's Lebanese family, and my late father's French-Canadian family as well. We cooed over the new grandchildren, we caught up with relatives that we hadn't seen since last year, and we met cousins not seen for years-and some, inexplicably, never. In sum, we forged and re-forged ties and connections to provide some Norman Rockwell bonds and memories in an increasingly tough America.

Americans tell pollsters that they feel less and less hopeful about their country's future; they report declining confidence in almost every institution, ranging from politicians to doctors to teachers to the clergy.

Perhaps steps to build, re-build and celebrate our sense of family will help us reclaim that sense of community on a small scale that can then be expanded to include the society around us, our nation, and the world. As the web site of the Family Reunion Institute of Temple University points out, the family reunion helps to carry out "critical extended family functions such as providing a sense of belonging and concern, transmitting a sense of identity and direction, and strengthening values."

An estimated 200,000 family reunions are held in the United States each year. If you type in "family reunion" on google.com, you'll come up with many sites that provide tips and steps for how to hold a successful family reunion. Some even include committees, and software packages to help organize the event. Ours have been less involved than that, and began with a decision by a few of us to plunge in and a phone-tree to pull it all off. The important thing is to get started, and to take advantage of the vacation season.

When I think of the smile on my Mother's face as she was dancing, the kaleidoscope of shifting groupings of family members, talking, chatting and catching up, the food table that provided a perfect gathering place throughout the day, and the games going on outside on the lawn, I'll treasure the memories forever. I'll also treasure the reminder of the importance of family. Tom Ninkovich, author of Family Reunion Handbook, sees such gatherings "as a way of recapturing some of the warmth and nurturing of older times" when both nuclear and extended families were much closer. Reunions, he says, also provide us an opportunity to learn more about ourselves. "We can always find out new things about our past. And with every new thing we find, we become a slightly different person-hopefully for the better."

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June 29, 2007 - THOUGHTS ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

As we head into the Fourth of July holiday, my thoughts turn to what's right about America. Now I know that's not necessarily a very popular perspective, since we have a huge list of problems in this country, and since 24/7 talk radio and news shows have made negative analysis both the norm and the so-called sophisticated thing to do. Cynicism is much more "in" than optimism, that's for sure, and sometimes cynicism is even valued over objective analysis. But let's focus for a few minutes on what's right about America, on aspects of our system to be hopeful about.

The first sign of optimism on the Fourth of July, 2007 is that the bald eagle is being taken off the Endangered Species list. The bald eagle, our national symbol, was so endangered four decades ago from development and DDT that it looked like it might not survive. Today, thanks to determined environmental action-and activism-there are 10,000 mating pairs of bald eagles across the United States. Now we can apply that activism to global warming.

The second sign of optimism is that we live in a country where subpoenas can be issued by the Congress to officials in the White House. Now that's a balance of power system of government! Do I wish we didn't live in a country where the administration is stonewalling Congress on matters as critical as wiretapping without warrants? Certainly. But that's American politics in 2007. Meanwhile, an equally important reality is that our Congress can subpoena these officials to testify. Subpoenas have been issued to the White House, the Vice President's office, and the Justice Department. According to the New York Times, if the White House refuses to produce the material requested, the House and Senate could "begin a process leading to contempt resolutions to force compliance."

We also live in a country where as many as two dozen people are running for President, and where a woman and an African-American are the front-runners by many accounts. Senator Barack Obama will release his latest fund-raising totals this week, but early reports show that he has raised his already impressive donor list to nearly 250,000 people in the first six months of the year. Senator Clinton's poll numbers show healthy growth in support among voters, particularly among young women, and show that she is maintaining her lead for the Democratic presidential nomination over all other candidates.

And what about the latest survey of young Americans commissioned by the New York Times, showing that they're "leaning left"? Now there's reason for hope! The survey shows that 17-29 year olds are more likely than adults overall to favor a government-run universal health care system, liberal immigration policies, and the legalization of gay marriage. They are not cynical, by and large, and continue to believe that their votes can make a difference. They are also more likely to identify with the Democratic than the Republican party.

Of course, there's a major question mark here, and that is, whether the younger generation will take all these left-leaning views and actually go to the polls. Unfortunately, that's a question for all Americans. Our system has shown time and time again that citizen power can make a difference, and yet we're often too preoccupied, lazy or indifferent to our own power to activate our own energies and try to inspire and organize those of others. In fact, analysts postulate that the upcoming special election to fill the seat of Assemblyman Paul Tonko of Amsterdam could be decided by as few as 10% of the eligible voters!

The final reason to be proud of American on the Fourth of July 2007 is our freedom of the press. The press lost its way for a while after 9/11 and spewed out much more of the government line on terrorism, civil liberties and the Iraqi war than was good for our democracy. But they're coming back. Meanwhile, new media and old are offering more and more people a chance to voice their views. Al Gore's criticism of the current administration is the #1 book on the New York Times bestseller list, and Michael Moore's movie, "Sicko", is drawing surprisingly large crowds who agree that our present health care system is failing too many of our citizens.

The Fourth of July is a celebration of America. Like all celebrations among our families or at our workplaces, it doesn't maintain that all is well. But it does symbolize that, in the classic dictionary definition of a celebration, there are reasons to mark our founding with respect, ceremony, appreciation and festivity.

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June 22, 2007 - THE PEOPLE VS. THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

The Senate voted last night to require the first big increase in mpg requirements for cars in more than 20 years. By all reports, the automobile industry was stunned. The political climate on energy conservation and global warming has actually begun to change in this country; as a result, allies that the auto industry had long relied on to buy into their argument that they'd have to lay off workers and compromise safety if mileage standards were raised fell by the wayside. It also became clear last night that if the auto industry didn't accept a modest increase in mileage standards, even tougher ones might be in the offing.

The American people deserve a great deal of the credit for the vote last night. Who else, after all, is responsible for the "political climate"? Lobbyists, pundits, editorial writers weigh in heavily, of course. But it is the American people-through their e-mails, their letters, and their changing buying habits-who indicated that their views on the seriousness of the global warming challenge have changed. Maybe they're still not ready for the huge alterations in behavior that climate experts are demanding. However, they heard the UN experts, who within a few years, changed their report on global warming from the mild-sounding statement that it was "likely" that it was aggravated by human behavior to this year's much more definitive warning that it was "very likely" that human behavior is the dominant factor. Furthermore, in February of this year, the United Nations climate change panel warned that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal."

The automotive industry still has many opportunities to fight back when the House of Representatives takes up this bill. But environmentalists estimate that the tougher mileage standards approved by the Senate last night, standards that would increase the average mileage of new cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, compared to 25 miles per gallon today, would save more than a million gallons of gasoline per day. Equally important, they would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by an amount equal to removing 30 million cars from the road.

This story of the first new mileage restrictions in over two decades is a gripping one for several reasons. First of all, just a few weeks ago, experts thought that this legislation was dead. They thought that entrenched interests were simply too strong, and that powerful Senators from the auto states would carry the day. Well, those experts were wrong. The American people weighed in with their letters, but also with their reduced buying of SUVs, to let their representatives know that the political climate had changed. We the people need to remember this when we assume that in today's America, elite, top-down interests always prevail, and that the citizens have little power. Sometimes the citizens can triumph.

A second reason why this mileage victory is gripping is that hopefully, it augurs well for votes on other important measures to slow the pace of global warming. The New York Times reports that Republicans were able to block the adoption last night of higher taxes on oil companies to finance more work on renewable energy. But in politics, it's never over 'til it's over. And there will be other votes for the citizens to support, including those in the House later this summer.

A final reason why this mileage victory is gripping is that the American people are showing their willingness to begin changing their use of automobiles as well. Sales of the big SUVs are down-a good thing, since studies show that even driving a smaller one has a big impact on carbon dioxide emissions. Sales of hybrids are way up. And, spurred on by high gasoline prices, even carpooling is up-an extraordinary move in a country where we prize our own separate cars. If we consumers continue to show that we're willing to rely less on auto power and more on people power, the entrenched interests-in Congress as well as in industry-will respond.

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