DEEP GREEN PERSPECTIVE

We’ve got a metro election coming up on August 2 , and so I want to take a selective, subjective survey of who’s running. If you think there’s somebody I missed or should have spent more time on, let me know—I will likely return to this topic next month.

In the mayoral race, David Briley, the self-proclaimed “Green candidate,” is polling well for a Green, which is about the best face I can put on his consistent single-digit polling numbers. Hey, at least they’re HIGH single-digit numbers! Let’s face it, he’s not likely to win this time—but Briley seems to have an urge towards politics for all the right reasons, and doubtless will be back at the quest for public office at the next possible opportunity. He is squaring up a little—he took the Jack Johnston song off his Myspace site—but he proved to be a trend setter with Myspace, as numerous other metro office seekers have now got their own sites, although Bob Clement still lists “Tom” as his numero uno “friend.” That’s embarassing, Bob, even if you are way ahead in the polls.

Clement’s campaign strategy seems to involve being as bland, vague and general as possible. I get no sense that he understands the urgency of the situation. I mean, bringing the Olympics to Nashville? OK, that’s not vague and general, but it’s markedly out of touch with reality. The fabric of our culture has become increasingly frayed, until now, ecologically, economically, and politically, it could shred from the slightest shock. David Briley seems to understand this. Karl Dean, whose work as public defender has involved him with the poorest of the poor, probably understands it, too. Buck Dozier, who incredibly has the Myspace “friendship” of the Davidson County Young Democrats ( I was sure he was a Republican!), almost certainly doesn’t. Shows you where the Young Dems are at, eh? As a more practical guy than Clement, who has basically been at the public trough his entire life, Dozier might be more capable of grasping the situation once it becomes a little more obvious, but I think we ain’t got time for that now….

Well, if Bob Clement really is the choice of a majority of Nashville, this town is as asleep as I was afraid it was. At least things look better in some of the other races…let’s look at the metro council at-large seats. There are twenty-six candidates running for five open seats. Many of these people are unremarkable, except that they are or have been members of metro council, which, again, shows that a lot of people in Nashville vote in their sleep. There oughtta be a law…

Three candidates in particular stand out when I survey the field: Jon Davidson, Megan Barry and Jerry Maynard. The Reverend Jerry Maynard, of the Cathedral of Praise Church. An evangelical Christian. An evangelical Christian? I’m a Green and I’m more-or-less endorsing an evangelical Christian? You are perhaps wondering what I have been smoking (or failing to smoke) lately? Not to worry. Jerry Maynard is one of those evangelicals who notices that Jesus talks a lot about caring for the poor and forgiving the sinners and never seems to mention banning abortion or the evils of homosexuality. Here’s some quotes and citations, courtesy of Sean Braisted, who has devoted a lot of time to interviewing candidates and publishing the results on his blog:

“ I’m one of those believers who thinks that Jesus Christ was the first activist that talked about Social Justice, and I never understood why in the black church, we stopped preaching social justice. And I never understood in the white church, why pastors did not stand in the pulpit and say ‘Racism is a Sin, not (a) moral dilemma, it’s a sin; exclusion is a sin.’ I never understood why Black preachers didn’t preach in their church and say, ‘Listen, we need to get healthy, have some self-love, and have some social justice.’”
Maynard understands the interconnection between social justice and personal development, and is not afraid to talk about it. I like that. And, he’s willing to stand up for what he believes: when right-wing Christians held a “Justice Sunday” event in Nashville to push for anti-abortion judges, Maynard organized an event at his church that he called “The Community of Faith and Unity” and hosted a variety of speakers, including ministers, a rabbi, and the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, to ask, “where is the love in the actions of this administration?” Over seven hundred people attended. The so-called liberal media paid much less attention to this event than they did to Justice Sunday itself, where thousands heard Tom DeLay talk about morality, and nobody thought that was in the least bit ironic. But, I digress…..

Rev. Maynard has said that one of the things that really concerns him about illegal immigration is that some people hire illegals and then stiff them instead of paying them, and the immigrants have no legal recourse. He called the attempt to pass an English only/English first ordinance in Nashville “ mean-spirited and wrong.”
His personal hero, he says, is Thurgood Marshall, because he put his life on the line to make things better for a lot of people. Sounds good to me!

Although he believes that “marriage is created by God for the purpose of procreation, so therefore marriage should be an institution between a man and a woman,” he also recognizes the importance of some kind of legal recognition of long-term relationships between same-sex couples. Really! Where God is involved, the government has no business. Marriage is a religious institution, involving a church ceremony and vows. Churches should be free to marry couples (or not) according to their own lights, and the government should not be in the position of enforcing any church’s view of marriage. The government should just provide a registry for people who want to legally become a single entity, the same way as it registers incorporated commercial enterprises. Churches are not called upon to bless the unions of corporate persons, are they? What religious ceremony couples mark this with, or whether they mark it with any ceremony at all, is simply not the government’s business.

But hey, I’m trying to tell you about Jerry Maynard, not ramble on myself.

On a more practical note, Maynard wants to see more emphasis on vocational education in Metro schools. I harp about this regularly and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. As long as we’ve got public schools, we should use them to teach kids practical, hands-on stuff. Good luck, Jerry. I hope you make the cut.

Megan Barry is, in many ways, the opposite of Jerry Maynard. Some of those ways are superficial—she’s a white woman, and he’s a black man. But she is also much more secular, much more of a “textbook liberal”–in some ways. I don’t think it’s “textbook liberal” for her main concern to be governmental ethics, but I do think that’s a good place to start. Mostly, her context, I guess I’d call it, is “textbook.” Her husband, Bruce Barry, is on the board of the ACLU and features a link to Zippy the Pinhead on his website, which is even more of a freak flag than a Jack Johnson song. I hope he doesn’t get self-conscious and remove it!

Of course, we shouldn’t judge a woman by her husband—everybody knows Bill would be a lot more fun to party with than Hillary—but Megan seems to have the right attitude to bring to the job, and the bona fides to back it up. She has an MBA, she’s a specialist in business ethics, and she’s one of the people who spark plugged the effort to save the Belcourt Theatre. Does it get better than that? I would sum up her position as understanding that, as an at-large council member, she is expected to exercise oversight for the good of the whole metro area, and that the decisions she makes now will have long-term consequences that she will be around to reap.

I would be remiss not to mention the Green Party’s Jon Davidson’s bid for an at-large council seat. Jon has not sought party endorsement, but he did run as a Green for Rob Briley’s house seat last year. Jon is not a flashy, big-time, high-rolling, high-achieving, political kind of guy, just an average citizen with ideals and a good way of expressing them. I think he would make a well-grounded addition to Metro council, but in a city that’s threatening to elect a guy who’s either delusional or insincere enough to propose bringing the Olympics to town, he’s probably less likely to be elected than Megan Barry or Jerry Maynard.

When I worked in the civil rights movement, we used to encourage people to “plunk” for a favored candidate in a multi seat race. “Plunking” is voting for fewer candidates than the number of seats open. If enough people do it for the same candidate or candidates, it increases those candidate’ chances of winning the election. For example, in a race for five open seats, you only vote for three candidates. Gee, that’s the number of open seats in the metro at-large council race—and I just profiled three candidates! There is no connection, folks, no connection….

And lastly, Chris Lugo, the Green Party’s Senate candidate last year, is now running for Metro council in District 17, competing with four other candidates for the seat. Chris plans to go door-to-door and meet everyone in the district, which, since he is fundamentally a very reasonable and open guy, will vastly increase his chances of winning. Thinking globally, acting locally—the basis of Green political philosophy. We are going to do our best to talk some sense into this town.

And, PS—if you have ever thought about running for office, or helping someone else campaign for elected office, but have thought you’d like to learn more about it before just plunging in, or if you’ve already gotten involved politically but would like to learn more, there will be a Green Party Campaign School at Ecovillage in Summertown, Tennessee, on the last weekend in August. Details are available at the Tennessee Green Party website.

music: Yohimbe Brothers–”More From Life”

It’s survey time up here in Tennessee House District 50, and the first thing that I have to tell you is that the numbers are up. Last year, about 700 people participated in Representative Gary Moore’s survey—this year, more than double that many—1,635—responded, from a voter base of 22,000. I have no idea how representative this sample is—the results could be skewed several different ways –but it’s the only sample I’ve got, so let’s take a look around….

The first question is about the details of a recently passed state ballot initiative that allows local governments the option of providing tax relief to older, low-income landowners. Representative Moore asked his constituents what the definition of low-income should be, and got a widely scattered response, with $60,000 a year getting a plurality at 20%, followed by 50K at 14%, and 40K at 12.5%. This is very…generous, shall we say?–the federal definition of “low-income” is someplace around 20K for a couple, and everybody knows that’s too low. As someone whose annual income has never passed the twenty-thou mark, I have to say I find defining $60K a year as “low income” a bit breath-taking, especially in a global perspective. Most places in the world, a $60K a year income would make you one of the wealthiest people in the country; here, it might qualify you for tax relief. Of course, land taxes in this country are pretty crazy, driven as they are by development pressure. I say, make it easier for people to hold large tracts of undeveloped land. This is the GREEN Party, right?!

Question two was on raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 an hour. Last year, this idea won approval from the 50th district by a 75-20 margin; this year, the proportion was 84-12. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Legislature failed to pass a badly flawed bill last year, and a different flawed bill this year. In another flawed bill story, the federal minimum wage was raised as part of the Iraq War funding bill that the Democrats cravenly passed. We’re going to kill thousands of innocent people in Iraq and bankrupt the United States; here’s some crumbs from the table for you poor folks. Thank you Rahm Emmanuel. Thank you, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Thanks for nothin! Anyway, the Tennessee legislature’s failure to act has been superceded by the federal government, but at least it was a good idea and it got passed—and the poison-pill estate tax linkage that last year’s federal minimum-wage hike was saddled with was nowhere to be seen. In some small way, perhaps, reason is returning to America.

Gary’s third question is whether hospitals should be required to report “all cases of any kind of staph infection” to the State Health Department. Well, duh! 88 to 8 on that one! This ties in to the increasing incidence of antibiotic-resistant staph. Hey, all you people who don’t believe in evolution—this is evolution happening right here and now! In your body! Eating you alive! What we really need to do is revise our antibiotic prone medical model, but there’s more money in drug sales and research than there is in alternatives based in non-patentable procedures, so a faith-based approach is still called for: pray that you don’t get an antibiotic-resistant infection.

A whopping 82% also approve giving Tennessee residents who are combat veterans free education in state colleges, funded by the Tennessee lottery. I’d say so—the skill they learned in the military will, hopefully, not be much use over here—and how about throwing in therapy, too, for all the post-traumatic stress victims that the VA turns down?

Moore then asks if the fine for parking in a handicapped spot should be raised from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars. This received a 70% yes, 28% against, response. My response is, why are you asking such a trivial question?

Next came another repeat question from last year—should kids in school buses be required to wear seat belts? This question, only approved by a 45% plurality last year, now rates a 60% approval rating. with all the movement coming from the undecideds—a solid 30% still oppose this measure. Must be Bush supporters. Survival of the fittest, eh, guys?

Moore then returns to the public smoking question, which he referenced last year in a query about allowing municipalities to limit smoking in restaurants. That got a 72-22 pass; this year’s question, about the state banning it across the board, did not get nearly so enthusiastic a response—64-34. Nevertheless, it’s happened. Smoking is now prohibited in restaurants across the state—but not bars.

Question eight asks if the general assembly should “pass a resolution requiring the governor…to develop a long range comprehensive energy conservation plan for Tennessee,” and a good solid 77% of the respondents agree, with only a 15% “no” vote. In my commentary on Representative Moore’s poll last year, I noted that this was one of the missing questions, and I’m happy to see it not only included, but approved so solidly. Maybe there’s hope for Tennessee, after all. Of course, there are really awful energy proposals out there—ethanol, coal gasification, nuclear—so the devil will be in the details on this one. But it’s a start.

Question nine asks peoples’ opinions about allowing selected tax rates—on motels, hotels, car rentals and taxi fares—to to be raised to finance a new convention center in Nashville. This was shot down, 56-34, which again, I think, shows some sense on the part of the electorate. The days of hordes of high-rolling tourists are coming to a close, and there is no point in trying to lure more of them. Building a new convention center would be like starting a cargo cult, and people sense that and don’t want to put their faith (and hard-earned money) in a losing proposal. Here’s hoping it doesn’t happen.

The tenth question of the survey (last year Moore asked sixteen questions) asks what should be done with the tobacco-tax increase that, in truncated form, made it through the legislature. The governor’s idea, using it to fund education, was only the choice of 39% of respondents; the majority, 61%, wanted to see it used primarily to cut food taxes, which is not going to happen, leaving Tennessee’s sales tax one of the highest and most regressive in the country. Well, that ties in to the final question, “What are the most important issues you feel need to be addressed by the Tennessee General Assembly?” “Taxes” was the most common response, followed by health care and illegal immigration.

Just citing the importance of “tax reform” is an ambivalent statement—do people want to see taxes cut across the board, or rationalized? Is there an understanding that, in order to cut the crazy sales tax, we will need a state income tax (on the wealthy)? And health care is a difficult issue for a state to tackle—we need to not just make Medicare available to everyone, we need to reign in the pharmaceutical industry and the for-profit health-care system, and these are issues that will take courage and consensus at the national level. The Democrats are no doubt just as subservient to the medical special interests as they are to the military-industrial special interests, so it will take a real political revolution to make this happen.

People want it, the question is whether we can elect politicians who won’t be bought off—and that may take real election finance reform, another great idea that’s not likely to become reality any time soon. And immigration reform at the state level? Please note that Rep. Moore didn’t ask any questions about it this year. There’s a reason for that: it’s a federal question. Sometimes the best thing you can say about state government is that it doesn’t take any action on the big issues.

And “energy conservation,” while important, didn’t make the top three. “Energy conservation” is a code word for a whole can of worms that includes the bogeymen of global warming, peak oil, and the End of the American Way of Life As We Have Always Known It. In spite of some stirrings, most people in this district, at least, are still solidly socked into our cultural treadmill. They want it to go slower, or faster, or to have a wider tread or better safety rails, or they don’t want so many brown-skinned people on it, but it doesn’t seem to occur to most Americans to question the treadmill. That’s what the Green Party is doing. We’re questioning the treadmill—questioning the need for it, questioning who benefits from it, questioning how much longer it will be until it flies apart of its own inherent instability. Questioning how long it will be until Representative Moore, or his successor, asks those kind of questions when he or she queries the fiftieth district. Let’s hope that day comes soon.

music: Will Kimbrough, “Pride” 4 min

Now, what I’m about to tell you is not particularly anything new. It’s just one of those things that comes more and more into focus as time goes on, and so it’s good to haul it out every now and then and see what new pieces of the puzzle have emerged, kind of a “connect the dots” picture in which more and more dots appear, until the picture transitions from a broad outline into a richly detailed diagram.

Let’s start with a dot called “The Real ID Act.” This piece of Federal legislation was tacked onto a tsunami relief and Iraq war appropriations bill by renowned overweight anti-drug crusader Jim Sensenbrenner and passed without hearing or debate in 2005. It orders the states to issue a standard, machine-readable driver’s license and link all their data bases, and mandates presentation of this standardized card for anyone wanting to buy an airline or railroad ticket, access a bank account, draw a social security or other government check, or enter a federal courthouse. The law originally called for its implementation to be completed by May of 2008, a date which has since been extended to December of 2009.

There is a good chance it will keep on being extended, because, like Mr. Senselessbrenner’s pet drug war, this is a law that creates more problems than it solves. For one thing, it insists that everyone must have a “home address” that is not a post office box, disqualifying not only the homeless but anyone who lives in an RV—preventing these people from receiving social security or VA checks—and then there’s the fact that the interconnections between state databases don’t exist and would cost millions if not billions to create—as would the new, souped-up drivers’ licenses that states are now required to create, without any funding from the Feds to help them out. Republicans used to fume about “unfunded mandates” when the federal government wanted schools improved—but here they are, creating a whopper on their own.

And then there are veracity and security issues. The law called for a grand total of twelve hours of training in forged-document recognition for all DMV employees. Tests of this training have repeatedly shown that it is inadequate. The law calls for networking with Canada and Mexico, meaning that if you had any kind of legal trouble in Mexico, it would uncritically be added to your data—and not only is Mexico a country where la morda is a way of life and American tourists are seen in some quarters as easy targets, Mexico is a country in which you are considered guilty until you prove yourself innocent.

Security issues? It would be almost impossible to make such a huge, widespread data base hack proof—and, to ice the cake, the Homeland Security boys are now proposing to have the data base compiled and maintained by a private contractor. I guess Michael Chertoff looked at what a rousing success private contractors have been in Iraq, VA hospitals, New Orleans and medical insurance, to name a few, and knew it was the way to go. Gotta hand it to those neocons. They don’t give up easy.

Well, Real ID is not a done deal. Fifteen states are in open revolt about it–legislative revolt, that is—and the fact that its implementation date has just been extended past the end of the Bush regime (I hope!) may indicate that it will never happen. But there are plenty of forces pushing for it from both sides of the aisle.

What are its distinguishing characteristics? It is sweeping, underfunded, and based on unrealistic assumptions about technology and security. It makes official nonpersons, if not outright criminals, out of individuals who fail to comply with it but are otherwise law abiding citizens.

Dot two is the war on drugs, which likewise makes criminals out of millions of people who are otherwise law-abiding–and frequently on the progressive end of the political spectrum. While it is simply impossible to fully enforce the drug laws, they do put a damper on “drug” users’ free speech, since if they bring too much attention to themselves by threatening the political status quo, they can be readily deprived of their liberty and property—unlike violent criminals, who can merely be deprived of their liberty. While there is a strong popular movement afoot to change these laws, the US and Canadian governments are upping the ante by denying entry to people who have merely written about drug experiences they had decades ago, even though they were not arrested for them, and to folks with decades-old drug violations.

But, you can be sure they’re not stopping everybody. Hey, pretty much all the Democratic candidates have admitted to trying it when they were young. I bet they won’t have problems getting into Canada. Again, we have a sweeping, underfunded if not unfundable, unrealistic law that makes criminals of millions of people who are not a threat to the social fabric.

Let’s connect real ID and the War on (Some) Drugs to immigration reform. Congress’s latest attempt to deal with the issue has just been shot down because a lot of angry Americans are demanding that all “illegal” immigrants should be kicked out of the country, instead of just paying an exorbitant “fine” (aka la morda del Norte) in order to stay here and work at poverty-level jobs. What really threatens these people is the destruction of our economy and their security by corporate looters, but poop flows downhill and so the Mexicans are getting the blame. Neither the bill’s supporters or most of the reactionary opposition to it seem in touch with the reality of deporting or even collecting large fines from millions of people. Meanwhile, questions persist about the string of detention camps that Halliburton has been contracted to build in the southern US—are they for illegal immigrants, Christians, or anti-war Americans? Who is going to round up all these people? And how?

Another delusional law, right? Three of a kind….

This fourth point may seem trivial compared to rounding up millions of people, but recent laws in Florida and Utah (and under discussion in other states) have made it difficult to buy and sell used merchandise, requiring a $10,000 bond from the store, fingerprints and id from the seller, and a 30-day waiting period before offering them for sale. The alleged reasoning behind the bill is the need to halt traffic in stolen property. Unlike the delusions I’ve characterized above, this law is enforceable, although apparently it is not being enforced, but it still demonstrates that legislators are completely in the pockets of large corporations, out of touch with what it is like to live in the low end of this country’s wage spectrum, and capable of passing legislation that violates common sense and criminalizes everyday activities.

Now, let’s add something that at first may seem quite different, and tie that in: it is becoming increasingly obvious, possibly even to a bunch of idiots like the Democratic-controlled Congress, that the real story behind the US attorney firings was their unwillingness to participate in the illegal vote-suppressive activities of the Republican party. Depriving people of their right to vote by manipulation and intimidation disenfranchises them without the mess, expense, and publicity of making felons out of them, doesn’t it? Can you say, “class warfare,” boys and girls?

So, I am beginning to suspect that, when Bush said, “Heckuva job, Brownie!” when FEMA botched the evacuation of New Orleans, he really meant it—because the trashing of New Orleans accomplished the scattering and disenfranchisement of one of the largest black voting blocs in the country. Is that what happened? Did a small clique of calculating, cold-blooded, selfish, rich (mostly) white guys intentionally decline to evacuate the poorest of the poor in New Orleans because they were registered Democrats?

Now look at their stance on climate change, with Bush’s mouthpiece at NASA, Dr. Michael Griffin, saying “I’m not sure it’s fair to say that (climate change) is a problem we must wrestle with….I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we might have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.” His was the “arrogant position,” and he hasn’t apologized for it, just said he regrets letting people know what he thinks. It is arrogant for the wealthiest few percent of the world’s population to decide that it’s OK if climate change kills off a few billion poor, dark-skinned people, if that’s what it takes for them to stay rich.

Am I being paranoid? Are the Bushies after more than just a permanent Republican majority in America? Are they out to lower the world’s population to a sustainable level by killing off anyone who is too poor to insulate themselves from the military, financial, and ecological bombs they are setting off? Are they treating the rest of us like cattle because that’s how they see us? Are they, at some point, planning to try and enforce all these impossible laws they have passed, if that’s what it takes to maintain their grip on the economy? Are they delusional enough to think they can do this? Am I naïve to think they can’t—or won’t at least try?

I have long thought that the Bush junta was merely stupid. Maybe they’re not stupid. Maybe they’re intentionally evil. Or, maybe they’re both stupid and evil, which seems most likely. The two often go hand in hand. In any case, by their collapse over the Iraq question the Democrats have conclusively demonstrated that they are not an effective opposition party. As I’ve often said, they’re just playing “good cop” to the Repugs’ “bad cop,” and both cops are working for the same corporate bosses. As Cindy Sheehan has famously realized, there is no salvation in the Democratic Party. While the media have widely reported her disillusionment with the Dems, her call for a meeting in Philadelphia on July 4 to “try and figure a way out of this ‘two’ party system that is bought and paid for by the war machine which has a stranglehold on every aspect of our lives” has been passed over by the mainstreamers. Ms. Sheehan, have I got a party for you. It’s….Green.

music: David Rovics, “The Road to Nuremburg,” “New Orleans”

THE TRUTH IN STRANGE PLACES AWARD

Our Truth in Strange Places Award goes to Al Gore this month, for saying, in his new book “The Assault on Reason,” that Bush and his junta are “out of touch with reality,” that his administration is so incompetent that it “can’t manage its own way out of a horse show,” that it ignored “clear warnings” about the terrorist threat before 9/11 and that it has made Americans less safe by “stirring up a hornets’ nest in Iraq,” while using “the language and politics of fear” to try to “drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts or the public interest.” My only question, Al, is why didn’t you come out swinging like this in 2000, when it might have made a difference?

THE TRUTH GETS EVEN MORE INCONVENIENT
And there should have been big, black screaming headlines about this recent disclosure, but there weren’t: CO2 emissions have been, says the London Independent, “rising at thrice the rate (of) the 1990s. The Arctic ice cap is melting three times as fast - and the seas are rising twice as rapidly - as had been predicted.”

Meaning, global warming is happening even faster than the IPCC estimates that came out last month, which postulated that we had about ten years to avert a runaway disaster. “Three times faster” seems to indicate that we have about three years, instead. Knowing this, for the US, China, and India to continue to drag their feet on cutting carbon emissions—and for the Europeans to be as polite about it all as they are being—is genocide. Not just people, but whole countries and continents need to be kicking and screaming and boycotting and whatever else it takes to stop the profit machine from killing us all. Bush and co. claim to be “right to life” advocates? I say they are the most murderous bunch of hypocrites to ever infest this planet, and the Democrats in Congress who continue to enable them are accessories to the Bush junta’s war crimes and genocide. Here’s hoping we all live to see the day when Bush, Cheney, Rice, and co. are wearing orange jump suits and calling Guantanamo home—after we give it back to the Cubans.
How to do this? Stay tuned for information on the Green Party’s SE regional campaign school! How’s that for a David and Goliath answer? Hey, you know how that mismatch came out!

Viva la Revolucion Electorale!

music: Eliza Gilkyson, “Man of God,” Stephen Smith, “New World Worder”