PAGE 7
NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E, OCTEMBER 2003
Huge military commitments, huge tax cuts to the wealth
iest individuals and corporations, and huge budget deficits leave
no money for the old New Deal programs like Social Security or
newer programs such as Medicare. No money for schools, hosp
itals, police, fire, veterans — no money for anything but the front
lines of a corporatized military and militarized corporatocracy.
A starved government — once our government —
has no ability to restrain the liberated giant or to investigate its
abuses or prosecute its crimes. And so, two years after Enron,
but one person is behind bars. It is not for lack of villains, and,
as all California cries, it is not for lack of victims. When did this
monster get untied? During the era of corporate raiding, permit
ted and smiled upon by the Reagan administration. Ronald
Reagan admired those cowboy businessmen of the 1980s —
the corporate raiders who engineered hostile corporate take
overs. But those takeovers, allowed by hamstrung regulators,
caused all large and mid-sized American corporations to go
on a rampage of streamlining, outsourcing, wage-cutting, plant
closings and job exporting. They did so to make themselves
takeover-proof. It was no longer respectable to make a respect
able profit and to serve your community with good jobs and
fairly-priced goods and services.
The new mentality of profit maximization and unlimited
mergers and no government control was the untying of the
monster and it was no accident.The ropes were further loosened
in the greedy and morally corrupt Clinton and Bush administra
tions, until we find ourselves now with a government of, by and
for the corporations. The new model CEO was the ruthless cost
cutter and dealmaker. CEO salaries went unbelievably high,
where they have stayed. For every $100 the average American
worker makes, these top CEOs make $50,000. It is a moral out
rage in the land of so many homeless and struggling and worried
people.
A century ago, the ordinary people of America joined
together to tie down the giant. The antitrust laws and environ
mental laws and the rights of workers to organize and collect
ively bargain for wages and benefits all joined to nurture the
restoration of a great middle class — always the bedrock of
democracy. The robber barons, the great giants, remained tied
down, no longer free (liberated) to do as they pleased in crush
ing us with their great wealth and political power. And so it was
for a time.
LETTER TO GEORGE BUSH
"My life is my message."
- GANDHI
Mr. President you have one year left, are you going to
go around and kiss babies and shake hands of people you don't
like? Shakespeare wrote about the world being a stage and we
merely its players. You have the microphone Mr. President and
the lights are shining on you. Have you done what you came
here to do?
I would forget about running for reelection. If you finish
your term in style, people just might write your name in the
history books as a good man. And style is what this letter is
about.
At last count, the population of the U.S. was 230 million.
If you subtract the people under 8 and those who are in prison,
and the 5 million who are too cracked-out to vote, we will still
have 175 million people who will vote in the 2004 race. So to be
safe, and considering that Electoral College reform hasn’t taken
place, the next President of the United States will need 130
million votes.
The first thing I recommend doing is getting rid of this
war-mongering theme of your father's. It did not regain him a
second term and it is likely that 130 million people will agree.
This may sound crazy, but it has got style: dedicate
your defense budget toward Peace. Instead of allocating billions
to destroying, use that same money for the environment: preser
ving wet lands, planting trees, and finding alternatives to the
internal combustion engine. This Mr. President could be your
legacy. Your dad may disown you, and your Republican cohorts
may think you have lost your mind. But Peace should be the
National Agenda. One year's defense spending dedicated to
the environment will create enough jobs to regain the working
person’s vote.
Speaking of the working person, many jobs have been
lost during your term. Factories have closed their doors and
moved overseas in order to mt.ke stuff for a company whose
name rhymes with “ballmart." Now these voters can't even
afford to shop at their favorite store. If you really want to have
style in your last year in office, call for a national boycott of this
particular store.
Encourage people to open their own businesses and
purchase their goods and services from their friends and neigh
bors. When these stores close (for the night or weekend) we
can use their buildings and their parking lots for swap meets
and craft fairs and skateboard parks where kids have the option
of wearing helmets.
There is a new consciousness brewing amongst the
religious, similar to that of the Great Awakening. People are
realizing they have an immense potential and their minds are
wells of untapped creativity. In the next few years the country
as well as the planet is going to realize a new Renaissance.
Gaining the religious vote is going to be harder in 2004 than
it ever was. However, bringing peace to the Middle East would
certainly accomplish this — but hard for people to understand
your intent of peace when you bring a gun. I think all Abraham’s
children would like to see peace, and the common language that
we all speak is food. Stop sending money to this regime or that.
Send food. Send food. Send food. If they ask for money, send
food.
Prohibition of alcohol was a beautiful thing for the gang
sters. And there are many Pot growers in this land of the free to
keep their product illegal. I suggest we lift this ban on Marijuana
just to spite the criminal element.
Free health care and education sounds like socialism,
but is it? Talk to any business owner and they will tell you that
their best employees are the ones who are healthy and smart.
Karl Marx was quoted shouting, “Ignorance has never helped
anybody yet!"
In summary, Mr. President, people are going to vote for
a Democrat But if you spend your energy on the environment,
boycott Walmart, maintain separation of church and state,
reform Marijuana laws, and allow for socialized medicine and
education — and encourage people that their vote really counts
— you might have a chance. Let me know what you think.
~BEN JEREMIAH
Ben Jeremiah is a new resident of Astoria
And now, loosed again, these giants have taken over
our television networks and most of our newspapers, turning
them against out interests and against the truth itself. These
giants send our young people off to fight their commercial wars
— great profitable ventures.
How free are we now? Check your bills and your bank
account. How much time and leisure do you have to enjoy your
life and friends? How is your place in your community as a free
and equal citizen? Or are we drones that go to work, go to bed
to rest for more work, go to the stores to spend all that we earn
and more, and watch television to receive our instructions what
to buy the next day, if we have jobs at all? Is that freedom by
some other name? It is not freedom by any name and it is
nothing to push on the rest of the world in the name of freedom.
These corporations steal our time with their computer
ized telephone switchboards and their long waiting lines and
few employees. They steal our jobs and our benefits and our
pensions.They use fear at every turn to sell us a little protection,
and a little more. And they steal our senators and congressmen
just when they might have earned their keep protecting our
democracy.
What shall we do about these corporate giants stalking
our earth freely? How shall we get our children home from their
wars and ourselves free from their captives?
We the people, acting together in the new ways made
possible by electronic communication, must become the large
counterbalance to these powers — the counterbalance that our
government no longer provides. By communicating and acting
in concert, we can reward the good companies and thereby keep
our money clear of the worst. We can make our demand for fair
trade products and provide the shift in market share that will
change the practices of those businesses that now exploit our
brothers and sisters here and around the world. We can agree
together which television news channel is the least objectionable
and agree to watch only that — for our watching and buying
habits are votes for the kind of world we will live in.
By nudging market share, our small group of dedicated
people can influence great changes. We have the tools now
to do this now. It will not be an easy task, but we have no real
alternative if we are to save the world, and that is what we must
decide to do.
Tell your favorite coffee house that, as of Earth Day
2004, you will only buy fair trade coffee. Let’s give a “fair
warning for fair trade” in this and other areas of products and
services. Let us develop the best information about who is doing
what, and let us use our new tools of electronic democracy to
come to consensus regarding which companies deserve our
support — a reverse boycott on a global scale.
I will try to put information on my website about who is
helping this new effort, and I will put some printable cards there
you can print to give a fair warning for fair trade to your favorite
shops and other companies. And let us use each subsequent
Earth Day to push for more improvement on every front, giving
our fair warnings to move progress along. Let Americans and
other people of the earth join us or not. But let them decide and
know for themselves which side they are on.
Yes, let's continue our efforts to reform our government,
most especially with campaign finance reform. But, with revolu
tionary new tools, we are capable of redefining democracy at a
critical moment. Let us not be shy about for time is short. We
stand for love and fairness in the world. That is not gentle work,
nor is it painless or bloodless, as so many people around the
world know.
This is, after all, our world and our lives. Do you
remember those few weeks after the 9/11 attacks when we,
as an automatic antidote to the inhumanity of those attacks,
sought to reassert our humanity in a million little ways? For
that moment we came out of the hypnosis we have come to
live under and we saw the Eden of human love and cooperation.
We must not fall back under that hypnosis again, as it is a waste
of our life. The forces of life and death are in struggle, for those
are the other names for love and fear. Let us choose life and
love, and happily use ourselves up in loving service to one
another.
Doris Haddock, aka Granny D' (she has 16 great grand
children), walked 3,200 miles across the United States at age 90
to draw attention to the need for campaign finance reform. She
is now 93. An article she wrote that originally appeared in Orion,
“Horatio Alger on Crack" appeared in the April/May 2003 NOTE.
Her website is GrannyD.com.
storia Real Estate
1008 Commercial in scenic, downtown Astoria
The Wombat Moon Café is now serving
French Press Coffee, Juice Bar, Rice Bowls, Soups,
and other Healthy Munchies,
generally open 9am * 6pm
bring your own container lor takeout
check your mail and access the Internet
Thinking of moving to the coast?
Come in and check out the local market!
wwvv.astoriarealestate.net
Peter & Janet Weidman
503-325-3304
342 Industry, Astona, OR 97103 (at the Moonng Basin
next to the Red Lion Inn)
GALLERY
CON flMPORARY WORKS OF ART
MICHAEL DILLON
WATERCOLORS
OCTOBER 18 - NOVEMBER 12
1160 COMMERCIAL STREET, ASTORIA
The best Italian mtaurant between San Francisco * Seattle."
-JONATHAN NICHOLS. THE OREGONIAN
The best Italian restaurant In Aitoria, evert"
-RICHARD FENCSAK. THE DAILY ASTORIAN
1149 COMMERCIAL, ASTORIA
(503) 325-9001