SOCIAL SECURITY: THE DILEMMA OF THE WORKING MASSES

By: Dallas Foster


The President wants to change Social Security now while he is in the Oval Office so that he will not be considered a "lame duck" President like many others before him in history. President Bush wants this as his legacy as it was for Roosevelt's Presidency during the Great Depression. He feels that if he were to "fix" Social Security, he will go down in history as a great President and not the man who touched of a deadly war because of bad intelligence.

But what he is telling us is a lie or at least a half truth. He claims that "One way for a younger worker to come closer to what the government has promised is to be able to take a portion of the money and get a better rate of return on your own money than that which the Social Security system gets." But that's only true if you make more than a 3% return on your investment that you make with the 4 points that the President wants to give you. If you make lower than the 3% that Social Security makes, than you are worse off than if they just lowered your benefits in the first place. Also, he never explicitly says that there is a risk; he tells everyone to be conservative with their stocks and bonds and not to take their money to the track. But the fact is that all stocks experience a loss over a period of time, while Social Security does not experience a loss in value.

He also claims that "It's your money, and the interest off that money goes to supplement the Social Security check that you're going to get from the federal government. Personal accounts are an add-on to that which the government is going to pay you. It doesn't replace the Social Security system. It is a part of getting a better rate of return to come closer to the promises made." But this implies that the check you will receive under the new plan will be the same as it is with the current system and that the investment is an extra add-on to this money. But its not, it's a replacement for the money the government will need to keep the program up and running. So again, you could receive less than you would if we stay under the current plan and fixed it to work as needed.

Another false claim is that "You can pass that money [from a private account] to whomever you want." But again that is an untruth. What is really going to happen is this, under Bush's proposal a portion will be set aside by the government as an annuity and can only be paid to the tax payer it belongs to and can not be inherited by others. But the other portion is able to be given away as the taxpayer sees fit. So if this is our money why can't we give all of it away to our children or other loved ones when we pass? It is so that the government can use that unused part of your annuity to help Social Security to keep going. So again, not all the truth is coming out of our leader's mouth.

The next false statement about the new Social Security plan is that there is an $11 trillion dollar deficit. The President said: "If we don't act, we're looking at about an $11 trillion hole for the American taxpayer coming up. This is a big liability not for me or baby boomers ... but if you're a young worker, you've got a problem." The President incorrectly suggests that younger workers will have to deal with this shortfall if the program continues on its wayward course. This $11 trillion number according to the Board of Trustees report is over an "infinite" about a time not over the next 75 years that number is more like 3.75 trillion. So why all the lies about how much trouble Social Security is really in? Because the President is looking out for his own legacy and not what is good for the people that elected him.

So beware of all the false statements on Social Security and let's tell the President what we think of his cockamamie plan.

SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR DAY IN COURT - PART 2

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Note: You can read part 1 of Say Good-Bye to Your Day In Court By Clicking here.

Now that the Republicans have eviscerated your right to pursue a legal claim against a corporation for wrongdoing by use of class action lawsuits in state courts, the President is aiming his sights at curbing "frivolous" medical malpractice lawsuits.

I think the best overall comment on the President and the policies he announced in the State of the Union speech was made by Marshall Wittmann of the Democratic Leadership Council at his Bullmoose Blog
"Unfortunately, the President will offer a domestic program in his State of the Union address that will serve the narrow and partisan agenda of the Republican Party to comfort the comfortable and crush the domestic opposition. This President is completely incapable of a politics of national unity or greatness even amidst a long twilight struggle against our terrorist foes. The donor class must come first."

While many might think that the war in Iraq or the struggle over Social Security are the over-riding issues progressives need to take on, one that will have a far wider, far more thorough effect in changing life in America is what the President disingenuously calls "tort reform."

Bush is depending on the American people's general ignorance of what goes on in the public life of this country in order to bring this about - in the same way he depended on the general ignorance of foreign affairs by most Americans to turn the War On Terrorism into the War in Iraq. With all the anti-lawyer jokes that abound, and thirty years of right wing propaganda against "ambulance chasers," it just might work.

For the past fifty years, as the definition of actionable torts was reformed and expanded, the American civil justice system became the last and best line of defense for the average citizen against the abuse of corporate power and government policies that fail to protect the citizens they claim to be doing. When the courts began to allow class action lawsuits under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, more progress for society came into real day-to-day effect than had happened in the previous century.

Class action litigation forced the Veteran's Administration and the Congress to address the issue of the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam for veterans and their offspring suffering from the effects of dioxin exposure when the government claimed there was no such problem.

Class action litigation formed the basis of the civil rights movement that finally ended segregation and promoted the equal protection and treatment of women and minorities from their previous status as victims of allowable discrimination.

Class action litigation forced the American automobile industry to start producing safer cars.

Class action litigation brought the tobacco industry to its knees.

When one looks at that list, it's no wonder the Republican Party wanted to change the rules regarding class action lawsuits. Their "reform" - designed, they said, to prevent "frivolous lawsuits" from being instituted in jurisdictions that are "too friendly to plaintiffs" - was to federalize almost all class actions so that the already-overburdened federal courts would be the only forum.

It's no surprise that the interests supporting these "reforms" include the insurance industry.

I don't know about you, but my definition of "reform" doesn't include proposals that make things worse. I once endured five years of attempting to obtain redress from an insurance company that tried everything they could to destroy my credibility as to whether I had any injury to be compensated for, probably spending four times as much doing this as they would have paid out with just compensation for demonstrated losses, and finally made it clear they would never accept a final judgement within my lifetime, with the result they were able to settle for about ten cents on the dollar after they exhausted me.

The President is set to make his case to rein in "frivolous" medical malpractice lawsuits that result in millions of dollars of losses to doctors. As with his assertions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, this lie doesn't stand up under the light of day either.

There is no "malpractice crisis." The "crisis" the President is riding in to rescue is the crisis created by the pinstriped pimps of the insurance industry, whose brilliance and "business acumen" resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in investment losses on the stock market (that wonderful place he wants to have you play in to create your retirement "nest egg."

A friend of mine - a "good conservative" (lifetime NRA member) Republican lawyer with 20 years' experience in tort litigation - recently pointed out some home truths about the "malpractice crisis." As he said, "The claims from the insurance companies that the payments are killing them are FALSE. But many are willing to believe them without proof. The insurance companies complain they have to raise premiums due to the litigious nature of our society. I don't believe that is true. The last time we went through this, in the 80's, the insurance companies had taken a bath in the real estate market. We're going through it now because they took a bath recently in their stock investments. All you have to do is look at their payouts relative to their income. For 2003 - the last year numbers are available - claim payments of medical malpractice suits were 1.5 percent of their gross budgets. They publicize rare and unusual cases as the norm, and folks believe it's true. "

He went on to say, "I have not seen one shred of empirical evidence that supports the insurance companies' position that their recent punitive premium increases are due to monetary judgments. In fact, there is substantial evidence that the insurance companies scream this mantra when their investments go sour. The last time we heard the insurance companies claiming they had to raise premiums due to legal judgments was in the 1980's. After Congress researched the issue, they concluded that the insurance companies' real problem was they had lost a bundle of money in the real estate market. The insurance companies go berserk when their investments tank. And their favorite scapegoat is the courts. If you know anything about insurance companies then you know their accounting practices are nothing short of bizarre when compared to other businesses. It is the only industry I know of that can enjoy substantial growth and claim a loss."

President Bush has been called the most partisan President in recent history. I personally think he can win the title hands down for all 43 presidencies in the country?s history. As Thomas B. Edsall and John F. Harris pointed out in the Washington Post on January 30, "... a recurring theme of many items on Bush's second-term domestic agenda is that if enacted, they would weaken political and financial pillars that have propped up Democrats for years, political strategists from both parties say... legislation putting caps on civil damage awards, for instance, would choke income to trial lawyers, among the most generous contributors to the Democratic Party." They go on to say, "What is notable about the Bush White House, some analysts believe, is the extent to which its agenda is crafted with an eye toward the long-term partisan implications."

John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to President Clinton and is now President of the Center for American Progress, has said, "I think that most of their domestic agenda is driven and run by a political strategy as much as core fundamentals and belief. Why would you make this (a curb on lawsuits) the cause celebre? The notion that this is a key element of their economic program is laughable. It's important to them in both directions both in organizing core elements of their business and doctor communities, and at least undermining a financial base of the Democratic Party."

If you really want to know why George W. Bush is promoting the "legal crisis" the way he promoted the "Iraq WMD crisis," here is the reason: during the 2004 electoral cycle, lawyers gave Democrats $107.3 million according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and $39 million to Republicans. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America gave a total of $2.4 million, and 92 percent went to Democrats. Baron and Budd, a trial lawyer firm based in Dallas, gave 98 percent its $1.1 million in contributions to Democrats.

Looking at the President's campaigns for "domestic reform" - Social Security, class action lawsuits, medical malpractice claims - it's hard not to think of what H.L. Mencken had to say about American politics 80 years ago:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Bush crying "crisis" is like the little boy crying "wolf." There were no WMDs in Iraq, there is no Social Security crisis, and there is no medical malpractice crisis. All these "crises" are entirely of the President's own making.

SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR DAY IN COURT - PART 1

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

On the day he signed legislation protecting his corporate sponsors from the threat of class action lawsuits to bring their excesses and crimes to account, President Bush went on to say that his next goal is to limit further litigation over the issue of asbestos. He claimed that 70 companies had been forced into bankruptcy with the loss of more than 10,000 jobs, all to pay $70 billion in claims by plaintiffs, "many of whom weren't even sick." In the President's view, the legal system is being misused by these "frivolous asbestos claims," which are holding back the economy.

In the same week, Senate Majority Leader and serial kitten killer Bill Frist made the claim on the Senate floor that one of those 70 companies - the W.R. Grace Company - was "a reputable company driven unfairly into bankruptcy."

As usual, both the President and his Senate Majority Leader are lying about an important issue, one that has severely affected many people who likely voted for George W. Bush.

The case of the W.R. Grace Company is of more than passing interest, since it represents the worst aspects of both the problem of asbestos contamination, and the contamination caused by Republican political intervention in the cases. It is no coincidence that the President and the Majority Leader would mention the company by name, since this case personally involves the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney. In 1995, while Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he made an executive decision to acquire the W.R. Grace Company, without doing the due diligence necessary to easily discover the asbestos liability claims the company faced (sort of reminds you of the way he led the charge into Iraq without accurate information, doesn't it?).

While the President and the Senate Majority Leader were claiming W.R. Grace company had been unfairly driven into bankruptcy, the Grand Jury in Missoula, Montana, had two weeks earlier brought felony indictments against seven former and current top W.R. Grace executives for having knowingly put their workers and the public across the entire United States in danger with their mining activities in Libby, Montana, over the past 50 years.

Here's a little background:

W.R. Grace Co. mined asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in Libby, Montana since the late 1940s. For those who don't know what this is, vermiculite is a substance that is widely used in home heating insulation and floor tiles used in kitchens across the country. The result of the contamination was that hundreds of the company's employees have died over the years of asbestos disease, along with many residents of the town of Libby who never worked in the mine but were exposed to asbestos fibers in windswept dust coming from the mine.

The executives of W.R. Grace not only knew from the beginning the hazards of asbestos and did nothing about it, but they also committed outrageous and reckless misconduct in the course of the asbestos litigation over the past twenty years, which resulted in the company receiving punitive damages by the jury hearing the cases. It was this punishment for deliberate, demonstrated, proven illegal, outrageous and reckless behavior that drove the company into bankruptcy and may yet put Halliburton - and Dick Cheney's personal fortune, which stems from his time at the Halliburton helm - at risk of being held corporately responsible for the crimes committed by Grace.

As it happens, the economic ripples of this case extend far beyond Dick Cheney's billfold. Over the years, 700 mills nationwide have processed millions of tons of the asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mined by W.R. Grace, and government experts believe it highly likely that most of these mills have released hazardous levels of asbestos dust into the environment. It is estimated that 35 million American homes have Zonolite insulation in them, a W.R. Grace product manufactured from the asbestos-contaminated vermiculite.

When the Environmental Protection Agency wanted to issue a warning about Zonolite in 2001, it was rejected by the Bush Administration's Office of Management and Budget as an "onerous regulation" of the housing industry.

When the World Trade Center towers fell, they released a toxic cloud that included hundreds of tons of asbestos insulation and thousands of tons of asbestos-containing floor tiles, made from the asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mined by W.R. Grace. When the Environmental Protection Agency wanted to alert the residents of lower Manhattan to the health hazard, the agency was overruled by the Council on Environmental Quality, which wished to avoid any action that might slow the reopening of Wall Street. Instead, that good Republican "moderate" Christie Whitman stated publicly that the air in lower Manhattan was "safe to breathe." Her claim was later disputed by the EPA's Inspector General. In the three years since 9/11, medical authorities have found that 60 percent of those who worked at Ground Zero have developed persistent upper and lower respiratory tract symptoms associated with asbestos disease. Many of the firefighters, police, and other first responders who toiled in the ruins have been forced into early retirement for medical reasons as a result of this toxic contamination.

Asbestos disease was first tracked in the early 1960s, when Dr. Irving J. Selikoff's pioneering studies demonstrated the threat of asbestos insulation and the spread of the disease in workers employed in installing such insulation. He then demonstrated that asbestos disease was striking less-exposed workers who worked with the insulators in shipyards and building construction sites. Other investigators discovered the spread of the disease among wives and children of those who worked with asbestos, who were dying as a result of exposure to the asbestos fibers and dust carried home by their husbands and fathers on their clothes.

Beginning in the 1970s and through the 1980s, product liability class action lawsuits were brought against the manufacturers of asbestos insulation. Most of these plaintiffs were able to prove that the asbestos manufacturers had not only known that asbestos could cause fatal lung disease since at least the late 1940s, but had withheld this information from their employees. With that knowledge, thousands of other suits have been brought by construction workers, factory workers, refinery workers, brake mechanics and other workers who have either developed asbestos disease or whose chest X-rays show evidence of lung damage caused by their exposure.

Asbestos diseases include asbestosis, a scarring of the lung tissue, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, which is an always-fatal tumor.

Millions of homes, office buildings and factories throughout the country still contain significant amounts of asbestos insulation. This means that whenever these structures are renovated or demolished, there is a definite possibility of continuing asbestos contamination of the local environment with the release of asbestos fibers. Asbestos disease will be responsible for the disability and death of people for most of the rest of the 21st century. The Environmental Working Group estimates that 10,000 people will die of asbestos disease in the next 20 years.

This isn't some "crisis" brought about by ambulance-chasing tort lawyers who successfully shopped around for jurisdictions where they could win big. Just like his attempt to point to a "crisis" in Social Security, the President's claims that a public health crisis should be seen as a crisis of "frivolous lawsuits" is as big a lie as his claim that he went to war in Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction.

The Republicans and their corporate supporters want to create a $140 billion asbestos compensation fund to satisfy all asbestos claims present and future, in return for those so compensated waiving their right to a jury trial on their claim. The figure of $140 billion was not arrived at through any attempt to quantify how many people might develop asbestos disease and submit claims, or how much compensation they deserved. The figure came from the Republicans in Congress asking the asbestos industry and its insurers how much they would be willing to pay to eliminate their liability. Anyone who has had the slightest experience suing an insurance company for a car accident knows they always settle short. The figure of $140 billion is - at best - perhaps half of what would be fair and just compensation. Since no one knows how many people will bring claims, there is no assurance the trust fund has any hope of remaining solvent.

As usual, Bush wants to cosset the comfortable, extending assistance to companies that behaved with proven criminal negligence in failing to notify their employees and customers of the known dangers of the product they were selling, while selling out the millions of workers and their families - many of whom likely voted him into office.

No wonder the Republicans are worried about "frivolous asbestos claims." In the newspeak of the GOP, "frivolous claims means anything that threatens their bank accounts.

Note: This is Part I in a two piece series, you can find Part II in next weeks edition of "This Week's Mess"

A CALL TO ACTION

By: Jake Gates

During his recent trip to Auschwitz, Vice President Dick Cheney said "...evil is real and must be called by its name and must be confronted."

He couldn't be more right.

And if liberty, democracy and peace are the measure of what is good, then the greatest evil our country faces right now waits not in the sun-fried desert of the Middle East, but behind a desk in the Oval Office. There is no need to waste ink on listing the president's abuses. They are plain enough.

We are in the midst not of a secret conspiracy, but an open one, in which we are all complicit if we do not act.

In light of the brazen nature of these unending assaults on our civil liberties, the rights of sovereign nations, the health of our world, and the moral fabric of our great country, we would be wise to examine not only what we have suffered, but how we have allowed the administration to perpetrate these evils.

First, we relinquished the free press. Our forefathers, in their extraordinary wisdom, built our government on a system of checks and balances. Likewise, they gave us the freedom of press, so that the media might act as a check on the power of the government and the rich and powerful. With the unprecedented consolidation of media outlets in the hands of a few huge corporations, that "check" has disappeared.

The media, being owned by huge companies, have the interests of those companies in mind. The big companies, needing the favor of the government, have the interest of their favorite politicians in mind. The media will defend themselves by saying "we are still fair and unbiased. There's no proof that we have suppressed any conspiracies." Which is true, to a point.

They may not have suppressed anything. But they have certainly manipulated Americans into accepting the conspiracy as prudent policy - FOX news, anyone? And in this "instant gratification" media age, they also slice, dice and omit information until even the hardest news story goes down as easy as a fruit smoothie. If we are to take back America, we must break up the huge media conglomerates.

Like our forefathers before us, fate has called upon us to overcome the abuses of a tyrant.
We won't have much help, either. The big-business media conglomerates aren't very interested in "calling a spade a spade" when it comes to the Bush administration. The simple explanation is that Bush is for big business. And for anyone who's thinking of doing it in the future, there's always Dan Rather's the majority of Americans don't have time to seek out the truth

DEMOCRACY'S PARTY AND AMERICAN VALUES

By: Xaivier Martin


As a writer, I often read the words and opinions of my contemporaries in magazines like The New Republic, National Review, GQ and Rolling Stone to name a few, but a publication I rarely miss is Esquire. In February's issue, Esquire had a section that focused on the next four years for President Bush. After skipping over any talk of Bush the first couple of go 'rounds with the issue, I decided for amusement's sake, I'd check it out. Minutes into Tom Junod's piece, "52 True Things About the Future of American Culture", I was reminded what I love about writing. Simply, it is the belief that the words you write will be read and - with each reader - has a chance to move someone.

In his short piece, Junod cuts to the core of the relationship between politics and American Culture. Junod makes his sharpest points with nos. 50 and 51 on the list,

"The future is being formed, right now, by the conversation between the culture and its conservative antagonists. The question is not whether conservatives can win. They can't. The question is whether liberals can inject their values into that conversation."

Democrats lost the "cultural war" as soon as they began apologizing for being called "academics". Since Clinton's departure in 2000, Democrats have slowly backed away from the table of "academic" debate and strategy, not wanting to alienate those who haven't been fortunate enough to enjoy a good education. Instead, we ask good men to march out and do their best imitation of a G.I. Joe, so all of the "other" people can see that we care about protecting our country (sorry Mr. Kerry). As outgoing DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe departed, he declared loudly that the Democratic Party was back to being the party of "the plain people", just as it was when it began under Andrew Jackson.

The Democrats work so hard to walk below their higher education that it's no wonder Republicans walk all over them. Yet, after the smoke clears and the people have decided they didn't want to buy what the Democrats were selling, many of them pointed their fingers at those "others" that allowed themselves to be duped. Many sons and daughters of the donkey are still shaking their heads and asking how the people of America could turn their back on four years of economic decline, pin the tail on the terrorist foreign policy and an almost non-existent domestic policy. The answer may elude even the best political pundits, but for Democrats, it may start with that narrow, bushy face w/ long ears starting back at them in the mirror.

The American people may be many things: simple, hard to please, flighty, emotional and proud, but one thing they are not is stupid. Anyone that believes the American people chose to forget the much-maligned first term of President Bush is not looking at the big picture. The American people didn't turn their backs on the Democrats - they turned their faces towards the most sincere voices in the election. There's a reason that most Democrats cringed as they cheered at John Kerry's opening line of the Democratic National Convention, "John Kerry, reporting for duty." As happy as most of them were at seeing one of their own with the kind of military background and integrity that the Republicans have trademarked, they still weren't completely comfortable with the image. Many of us were sitting there watching Kerry at the national convention and wondering what this feeling was deep in our collective guts.

Many Democrats felt at that moment that the party had just sold their soul to the devil of compromise. After spending many decades creating our identity as the party that looks out and speaks for those who go unseen and unheard, we'd decided to fall in line with values that weren't our own. In all honesty, the American people didn't turn their backs on the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party turned its back on the American people and in turn itself. The American people need balance, and when the Democrats chose to turn in their blue jacket for a purple one, understandably, the people were attracted to the folks who stood proudly by the colors they came in with. The Democratic leadership had the Republican message for the 2004 election in a file drawer labeled "2001- 2002", and still could not craft a strong message of opposition that would have given the public an honest choice. They chose instead to try and blur the lines between "us", "them" and "the people".

Somewhere along the line, Democrats decided that "Anybody But Bush" could stand alone as a party message. People don't want to rally around a quip or witty phrase, they want to rally around a message that speaks to more of what affects them then what doesn't. Despite popular opinion, the Republicans are not the masters of manipulation - they have mastered the art of the single-minded message. It's effectiveness could probably be seen as dumb luck, with all of the advancements in information gathering one would think that political consumers would become more discriminating. Not so - the information age has served to numb the general public, resulting in an over-stimulation backlash. All of this makes the poly-prioritized party message as useful as a iPod to a five-year old.

The Democratic Party is seen as a group of know-it-all, academic social workers that care more about protecting a person's right to do what's "wrong" than making sure people do what's "right". I for one have no problem with that and neither should anyone who associates with the Democratic Party. This country was founded by people who resented not being able to choose for themselves which religion was best suited for them, yet the party of "traditional values" is doing everything in its power to undo what was done in 1620. It is now that the country needs a party with plans for this country's future beyond the next nation it plans to colonize.

It is time that Democrats take a long hard look at ourselves and remember that we are the party of hopes and dreams. We are the party of peace, Camelot and Civil Rights. We are the party of Jackson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton - and far more the Party of Lincoln than is his own party, which is now the personal property of unreconstructed Confederates masquerading as Republicans. Former President Jimmy Carter made more of a positive difference in the world during the last four years than President Bush can ever hope to make in his eight years. Under Democratic Administrations, the economic rights of the common people were protected, we defeated international fascism, set the stage for the defeat of international communism, reached the moon, established both the right to vote for African Americans and the right of women to full participation in society, integrated schools and - under Bill Clinton - enjoyed the most prosperous decade in the nation's history.

The message that should go forward in the Democratic Party's message is right under its nose and in its name, simply put, the Democratic Party is "Democracy's Party". Whereas Republicans want to treat everything from education to social security like a business and therefore are primarily capitalists, our party fights for the rights of the people, protected by law, which is driven by democracy - which therefore makes us democrats. If the Democratic Party returns to the roots laid down by Andrew Jackson, that being a party of the people for the people, it won't have to follow Mr. Junod's advice of interjecting its values into the conversation of American culture. The values of democracy, inalienable rights and full opportunity, have been a part of the conversation all along.

IT'S ALL ABOUT VALUES
by Ryan Oddey


If you were asked to go to the Wal-Mart closest to your home, could you? Myself, as well as many others could certainly do that with no problem. Wal-Mart is such a part of the American landscape on many different levels, and that is the problem. One of the social levels that Wal-Mart participates in is the political arena. For some time now, Wal-Mart has been one of the largest corporate donors to the Republican Party and recently, was able to reap the rewards of that close relationship at the expense of the American people. After examining the deal between the Department of Labor and Wal-Mart, it appears the only thing lower then the prices at these mega stores, is the morals of the executives and officials who reached this agreement. The Democrats needs to seize this opportunity and win back some of the ground for middle America.

The Department of Labor had been investigating Wal-Mart after allegations of violations of Child Labor Law arose in Connecticut, Arkansas, and New Hampshire. These accusations involved people under the age of 18 operating certain machinery such as chain saws. The total fine for these violations was $135,540. Obviously the government was not looking to send a message to Wal-Mart, because this low fine would be the equivalent of the common American being fined a couple of pennies. To put this fine in further perspective, Maine fined Wal-Mart $205,650 for similar labor law violations.

The situation becomes worse from here as the Department of Labor agreed to give Wal-Mart fifteen days notice prior to any investigations involving wage and hour grievances, such as overtime or minimum wage. In contrast, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) does not allow their investigators to notify companies of upcoming investigations.

If Wal-Mart did not have a record of mistreating its workforce, then the agreement with the Department of Labor would not seem as bad. However, history shows us that Wal-Mart has consistently taken action that is detrimental to employees.

In January 2004, the New York Times printed a story about Wal-Mart's policy of locking overnight employees in the store, often times with no access to a key so that they could be let out in the case of emergency. One such emergency did happen in Texas, when a man shattered his ankle on the job, but had to wait over an hour for medical attention because no one at the store had a key. Other cases of negligence exist involving employees having heart attacks, as well as an inability to leave when a family emergency occurs. Wal-Mart claims that the lock-in policy is only done in areas of high crime and violence. Augustine Herrera, a former Wal-Mart employee in Colorado Springs, claims his store was in lock down in spite of being in a very safe neighborhood.

The lock-ins are one example of how Wal-Mart treats its employees, there are others.

A Wal-Mart in Quebec opted to close down instead of reaching a labor agreement with its recently unionized employees. Although Wal-Mart claims that there was no way the store could have been profitable had they met the demands of the union, the union claims that Wal-Mart closed the store to discourage others from forming a union. It's not the first time Wal-Mart took drastic actions to teach a lesson.

In 2000, eleven meat cutters at a Wal-Mart in Texas unionized only to see Wal-Mart eliminate the meat cutter position in its stores across the nation. Although Wal-Mart claims the move was for cost reasons, the coincidence can not be ignored.

All of this information is in the public domain, and the government knew about it when they reached an agreement with Wal-Mart. The Republican Party, the alleged party of values, gave Wal-Mart a soft deal so they can continue their unjust labor policies. Fortunately for America, in the wake of a Republican agenda that is hopeless, the Democrats have offered some promise.

Representative George Miller (D-Ca) called for an immediate inspection by the Department of Labor's Inspector General into the agreement reached with Wal-Mart. Miller called for the investigation because the current agreement with Wal-Mart sets up a system where employees of Wal-Mart have no confidentiality when reporting grievances to the Department of Labor. This lack of confidentiality would discourage people from coming forward, and thus allow Wal-Mart to continue mistreating employees.

Although Representative Miller's call for an investigation is a positive step, it is not a means towards resolving the ongoing problem of the special treatment some companies get when it comes to labor violations. The best way to ensure the fair treatment of employees by there employers is the passing of a Safe Workplace Act. When Americans suffered due to the intentional financial mismanagement of companies like Enron, the government responded with imposing prison terms on executives who knowingly mislead the public about financial information. A Safe Workplace Act would punish the executives of companies that continually break labor laws with prison terms. Perhaps with prison time looking over their heads, the executives at Wal-Mart would be a little friendlier to their employees.

A Safe Workplace Act proposed by the Democrats would force the Republicans to show their true colors. If the Republicans backed this bill, the Democrats can claim they reached across the aisle for the sake of progress. If the Republicans rejected this bill, then the public will see that all those GOP claims about being the party of values were hog wash. Situations like these are a virtual win-win for the Democrats and must be taken advantage of for two reasons. One, programs like this will help the Democrats gain seats in 2006. Two, America needs a party that is looking out for its values.

2006 is not so far away, and when you step up to the polls, ask yourself. Are you going to vote for a party that allows businesses to exploit its workers or are you going to vote for the Democrats, who have a track record of supporting worker rights and will continue to do so in the future?

It is all about values, what are yours?

REPUBLICAN VALUES: THE NEXT GENERATION
by Ryan Oddey

Many people have accused my generation of many things. We have been called lazy, unoriginal, and worse. Some people think that the future of civilization may be in jeopardy once my generation comes into power. Myself and many other young Americans are working hard to dispel the negative stereotypes that have plagued us, but when I read about the actions of Nathan Taylor, the Chair of the upcoming Young Republican National Convention (YRNC) set to be held in Las Vegas, I felt a variety of emotions. At first, I was outraged, as I am sure you will be when I get into the allegations facing Mr. Taylor. However, this outrage soon turned into something else, as I began to realize that Nathan Taylor was just following in the footsteps of other Republican leaders.

Nathan Taylor managed to raise almost $25,000 for the Young Republican National Convention, however, he used almost all of this money for personal expenses. Apparently someone else on the planning committee became suspicions of Taylor when he asked that a check be made out to him to cover his birthday expenses at a bar. Shortly after his, a complaint was filed against Nathan Taylor with the Reno Police Department. Included in this complaint was a Bank Statement that indicates Taylor used funds to pay bills at Bully's Bar in Carson City Nevada, PF Chang's (Chinese Restaurant), Shell Oil, Mandalay Bay, and two cash withdrawals each in the amount of $200 within a 30 day period of each other.

Rather then show some accountability to these accusations, Taylor decided to follow the traditional Republican route. Taylor claims that these charges have been brought against him in response to his failure to endorse a specific candidate for Chairman of the Upcoming Young Republican National Convention. It would appear that Taylor is taking a page from the play book of Republican Congressman Tom Delay. Representative Delay is being investigated for the mismanagement of funds and he too has claimed that he is the victim of a political witch hunt.

It appears though, that Nathan Taylor has other political role models as well. Kriston Whiteside worked for Taylor, assisting him in planning the upcoming convention. During this time, she grew suspicious that Taylor was mismanaging the donations. Apparently Whiteside was concerned with the high bar tabs and other bills Taylor was paying with convention money. Whiteside says "I felt that Nathan was mismanaging funds and when I brought it to his attention, I was fired." Firing associates who bring attention to the mismanagement of money is a policy practiced by President Bush. You may recall that Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil was asked to resign when he told President Bush that the tax cuts he proposed were going harm the economic stability of our nation.

If these allegations against Nathan Taylor are true, then his actions were northing short of unacceptable and illegal. As unfortunate as the events are for Taylor, what is more unfortunate is that the leaders of the party he is a member have shown that they are no stranger to similar tactics. I believe we can learn a lot from older generations, but sometimes we must be careful in choosing whose footsteps we want to follow.

The members of the Young Republican National convention claim that the event is in jeopardy of not happening because of Taylor's alleged actions. Although Taylor is no longer allowed to plan or solicit funds for the upcoming convention, the website promoting the event still has a picture of him. What kind of message are the Young Republicans sending when they still use the picture of a man to promote an event that he may have single handedly brought to the brink of collapse through illegal activity? Republicans, you call yourselves the party of values, and it looks like those values have been passed on to the next generation of the GOP.

THE FY 2006 SPEND LIKE YOU STOLE IT PLAN - AKA THE PRESIDENTIAL BUDGET FOR FY 2006.

By: Dallas Foster

If you haven't heard about, seen it on TV, or perused it online at the budget's website, you are missing out on one of the greatest wastes of paper to hit the congressional floor since the proposal to declare an Act of War on Iraq due to its involvement in terrorism and their possible interest in having WMDs or a possible stock pile of WMDs, depending on whose information you went by.

To sum it up, the Department of Defense and many other government agencies received "much-needed budget increases" so they may prepare for another attack by the terrorists of the world, which makes me wonder which terrorist group is going to attack next since the only threats we get are from Al Qaeda or Iraqi militants who want us out of their country. So why all the expense on this? Because the scared little men running our country are afraid to get caught in the same investigations they dealt with after 9/11. But supposedly we took care of those insurgents, so either the government is lying on the actual progress of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, or we are receiving threats from other countries that the government is not telling the general public about. Or - better yet - they are covering their rears with their constituents who pay to get them elected.

These increases include but are not limited to biological threat research, moving troops from one part of the world to another so as to better "police the world's terrorists who wish to attack democracy and the American way." This means we are moving troops out of the Republic of Korea to a permanent home nearer Iraq and Iran. In light of the news that North Korea has admitted to having nukes and also to having the ability to create more whenever they may need them - not to mention they walked out on disarmament talks recently - I don't have a warm fuzzy feeling on that idea. But that's what the highest paid military minds think is best in the long run for our defense against terrorist nations like Iran and Korea. Of course, these are the geniuses who gave us the war in Iraq that has no foreseeable pullout strategy, which some of the greatest (now retired involuntarily) military minds tried to inform the President of, as they did his father and President Clinton.

The budget also increases funding for faith-based programs like teaching abstinence-only to young adults, instead of teaching birth control and abstinence like they did only a few years ago when I was in high school. This budget also has many cuts to programs that were under-funded as it is, like programs for the poor or the homeless. Certain types of shelters will receive less grant money, and this is money that they need desperately to keep running. As a result, they are cutting much-need programs in our public schools like music, drama, and art, but increasing the failed programs of "No Child Left Behind." They say they're trimming fat, that these programs are antiquated and not needed. But the Congress and the President will never need nor use the programs that they are "trimming the fat" from - these programs help people get off the streets and make kids smarter and more well-rounded.

This budget does not include money for the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor does it include the money that we are using to rebuild the country we just spent billions to blow up. Only in America could we spend billions to blow something up then turn around and rebuild it better than it was before and even better than said country that is paying for the destruction and rebuilding of the "ex-terrorist nation" we invaded twice in the span of 10 years, under the leadership of one family. The one thing this budget doesn't cut is Congress' paycheck - in fact it increases their pay more then they increased the men and women of the armed forces pay.

Even with the pay raise the military received this year, they are paid less than 85% of non-third world countries. What kills me is my wife - who is a cop in the Air Force - is paid less than the Iraqi National Guard even though she helps train these guardsmen and helps protect $80 million aircraft on a daily basis.

My opinion of this budget is that if you, a Congressman, can afford to raise your pay and not pay taxes on that pay (while all the while military men and women are taxed), then you can afford to keep all the programs fully funded and operational, have all necessary gear for the military, and have no deficit at the end of the year - and if we have a deficit then your pay should be docked for your irresponsibility and stupidity. Why not ask the accountants of Bill Gates or Oprah to help out? I'm pretty sure they could offer a better insight on the budget. For the sake of the country get someone who knows money to create the budget and then actually stick to it! And then just maybe - after we don't owe any money to anyone - then you can decide on a pay raise for you and your colleagues and you can buy a new helicopter for the President or a new fighter jet or a new whatever you think we need for our defense. That's what a budget should be - not an excuse to protect your friends and spend money like it was going out of style.

MEETING THEM WHERE THEY'RE AT

By: Scott Isebrand

Democrats will continue to lose political power unless we start framing our core convictions in the language of morality in general and evangelical Christianity in particular.

With the mantra of, "Meet them where they're at," Americans of faith - mainly conservative evangelicals - have for more than 20 years been perfecting the use of the language and modes of popular culture to frame conservatism in palpable and ultimately compelling terms. It has worked well. Conservative evangelical culture - its worldview, its songs, its nomenclature, its literature - inform popular culture like never before, and shape the milieu in which even "non-believers" happily live...and increasingly vote Republican.

In today's America, the conservative evangelical Left Behind novels have sold 62,000,000 copies. Beginning this year, the publishing industry's annual BookExpo America will have a Religion Day. The theme song of Star Trek: Enterprise - a sci-fi show born of the buoyant humanist vision of secularist Gene Roddenbery - is "Faith of the Heart." From Mel Gibson's The Passion to pretty much any movie Keanu Reeves appears in, explicit or vaguely-Christian supernaturalism, however naturalistically or grittily rendered, comprises the very fabric of reality. It is no surprise then that a 2000 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 70 percent of Americans want their President to be a person of faith.

For Democrats to ignore this reality and not enter into an understanding of and use of the language of morals, values, religion - and even evangelical Christianity - would be as patently self-destructive as rejecting the use of Internet-based fundraising or voter registration drives. It would be to forego the use of a practical, effective messaging strategy.

When complaints come from within the Party - and they will - about using such language at all, our queasy comrades need to be patiently called on their fallacious reasoning, which is akin to bypassing television advertising on a premise that since Republicans dreamed up the brutally effective Fox News behemoth, we Democrats oughtn't have anything to do with such a form of media. Yes, by all means: since Fox is a television company, let's avoid TV and use smoke signals instead.

On the contrary: As periodically occurs in American history, religious language has become the bedrock of the current national language. Simply to cede that language to the Republicans is ludicrous. Or to put it another way: as conservative evangelicals have used popular culture's language to make their religion and values more acceptable in a secular nation, progressives and the Democratic Party need to use the language of religion and values to make progressive ideals more acceptable in an increasingly religious climate.

The DNC's new Chair, Gov. Howard Dean, M.D., seems to understand this. He recognizes the problem Democrats have communicating to huge sections of the electorate, including the religious, and in response has called on Democrats to articulate our issues as the moral issues they are. In a recent MoveOn.org question-and-answer forum, Gov. Dean proclaimed:

"A livable wage is a moral value. Affordable health care is a moral value. A decent education is a moral value. A common sense foreign policy is a moral value. A healthy environment is a moral value. The feeling of community that comes from full participation in our democracy is a moral value. It is a moral value to make sure that we do not saddle our children and grandchildren with our debt."

With convictions like this inspiring our Democratic message, I have hope that Democrats can reconnect with America, especially those who agree with us on many issues, but consistently vote Republican because Democrats literally haven't been speaking their language.

Nonetheless, successful outreach will call for more strident liberals within the Democratic Party to support the new moral framing of our issues - and not to mistake moral and religious language with moralistic or religious agendas, something they're prone to do. It will also call for Democratic centrists to support a reassertion of core progressive values - and to not equate progressive values with moral relativism, something they're prone to do. In recent years more arch liberals rightly cried against compromising centrists, "We mustn't be 'Republican-lite!'" and the centrists have been right to cry against the arch liberals, "We mustn't be religion-and-values-illiterates." The arch liberals sometimes miss the need for moral and religious framing to connect with voters; the centrists sometimes fail to see that moral and religious framing attracts voters to Republican candidates as much or more than the candidate's conservatism itself.

Howard Dean would probably never attempt to frame a key Democratic issue within a biblical allusion, because he's too smart and intellectually honest to even try. He realizes he would come across as authentically as Pat Robertson demonstrating yoga - or John Kerry pheasant hunting. After all, this is the man who said in a November 2003 Democratic debate, "[I] don't go to church very often. My religion doesn't inform my public policy." But he is giving the Party a chance to rediscover its populist roots and embrace popular values-laden language, to move forward secure in the knowledge that it is not necessarily core Democratic values that voters are rejecting, but our wonkish and sterile messaging that puts policy in place of vision.

When I attended a DNC forum in Manhattan recently, I heard a favorite story of Dean's that illustrates my point. The story, to the best of my memory, is this: At a fundraiser for Dean for America, hosted by a couple in their Virginia home, Dean and his supporters regaled each other about civil and reproductive rights, the separation of Church and State, and other core progressive values. But the room fell silent when a female supporter professed that, as an evangelical Christian, she opposed the "homosexual lifestyle" and was "pro-life." Dean asked her how she could support him - a candidate who supports civil unions for gay Americans and has strong convictions about women's reproductive rights. "Because Evangelical Christians are people of deep convictions," she explained, and Dean demonstrated the courage of his convictions, even if she disagreed with some of them. She said that as an evangelical, she would support for President only someone who, if crisis befell the nation, "will stand up and do what they think is right."

Conviction. Moral values. Such things are not popularly associated with Democrats. In part it is because rightwing vandals of radio, TV, and print misrepresent our Party and disfigure our candidates' records. But, it is also because we let them get away with it! As Gore Vidal once said, "It takes two to make an accident," and Democrats have themselves to blame as much as rightwing fat cats or conservative evangelicals for the GOP coming as close as it has to political hegemony. It didn't happen overnight, but only after years of sweat and tears on the part of conservatives, only after hundreds of millions of dollars and many years of investment in conservatism itself - think tanks, campus leadership training, communications research, and grassroots programs.

Dean is reminding us that Democrats can do the same. We can invest in progressivism itself and meet Americans at their point of need, at points of resonance, to take progressivism to their dinner tables and reintroduce them to the Democratic Party, to speak their language, to "meet them where they're at" for the sake of improving our shared destinies as Americans.

REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIONISTS?

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Republicans like to point out that the first great conservationist to put his views about the environment and our will to save it into political action was Theodore Roosevelt. They neglect to mention that T.R. was detested by Mark Hanna, the Republican strategist most admired by Karl Rove. The Republican Right fought Roosevelt tooth and nail and breathed a sigh of relief when he chose not to run for re-election in 1908. They so detested him that my grandfather, a loyal Republican operative in Johnstown, Pennsylvania - was cast out for supporting T.R.'s 1912 comeback attempt. "The more things change, the more they remain the same," - today's GOP enforces ideological party loyalty against moderate and progressive Republicans and policies.

I recently ran across a textbook from 30 years ago, when I was working on an MPA degree in Environmental Management. It was the infamous "The Limits to Growth," published by the Club of Rome. The book was fiercely attacked for forecasting that global climate change would have an adverse impact on civilization, an end to limitless oil reserves and perhaps the end of oil itself, long-term problems associated with the storage of nuclear waste, and over-population. The funny thing is, all those problems are still problems, each more obvious than it was then.

Global warming is now considered a demonstrated fact by most scientists armed with the facts, yet the United States refuses to take part in any multi-national initiatives to fight this.

It is mainstream news that within a few decades, we will pump more oil than we discover replacements for. India and China - which didn't figure in the consumption statistics 30 years ago - exacerbate those figures as they compete for oil and China produces nearly as many SUVs as does the United States.

When the trans-Alaska pipeline was built, it was predicted by those defending the use of tankers to transport oil that there would be one accident in 20 years. The Exxon Valdez oil spill came almost 20 years to the day after that prediction. Prince William Sound has still not recovered, and our "national energy plan" is to increase production on the Alaskan North Slope.

We still have no storage for nuclear waste that will be dangerous for a half-life longer than recorded human history.

Last November, the head of the EPA said Bush's re-election was a mandate to implement the president's environmental policies. These include:

Revision of the Clean Air Act to rely on "voluntary" cleanup by industry, relaxing pollution limits on ozone, elimination of vehicle tailpipe inspections, lowering pollution standards for cars, SUVs and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment, end all new-source review suits against coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.

Revision of the Clean Water Act to increase allowable pollution including a complete end to monitoring mercury.

Revision of the Endangered Species Act to make economic impacts on human activities a higher priority, making it more difficult to list a species and easier to de-list a species.

Revision of the National Environmental Policy Act to limit challenges to Environmental Impact Statements, and limiting the cases in which an EIS is required.

Changes to international audit law to allow corporations to keep information about environmental problems secret. Restriction of class-action lawsuits for asbestos claims, even as Halliburton is shown to know its W.R. Grace subsidiary hid facts about pollution from asbestos mining in Montana that had an adverse effect their workers and families, and the surrounding community.
A national energy policy opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increased drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America, as well as changes to wilderness protection regulations of the BLM which will result in the last clean air in America - in northeastern Wyoming - being dirtier than the air I breathe in Los Angeles as drilling is increased by 1,000 percent.

One has to ask, why?

Bill Moyers recently described what he sees as the major problem we face at present: "One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington... Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts."

Writing at Grist magazine online in October 2004, reporter Glenn Scherer states:

"Forty-five senators and 186 representatives in 2003 earned 80- to 100-percent approval ratings from the nation's three most influential Christian right advocacy groups -- the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council. Many of those same lawmakers also got flunking grades -- less than 10 percent, on average -- from the League of Conservation Voters last year."

"Many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian fundamentalists, that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming Apocalypse."

"We are not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. The 231 legislators (all but five of them Republicans) who received an average 80 percent approval rating or higher from the leading religious-right organizations make up more than 40 percent of the U.S. Congress. These politicians include some of the most powerful figures in the U.S. government, as well as key environmental decision makers: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Republican Conference Chair Rick Santorum (R-Penn.), Senate Republican Policy Chair Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, and quite possibly President Bush."

A 2002 Time/CNN poll found 59 percent of Americans believe the prophecies in the Book of Revelation are going to come true. Nearly 25 percent think the Bible predicted 9/11. Belief in the Apocalypse is a powerful driving force in American politics.

There are two groups to look at. The traditional dispensationalists are well-known, led by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. They believe in the End Times and that salvation is all that matters, but they see this taking place in "God's time." The Dominionists put responsibility for the return of Jesus Christ not in biblical prophesy but political activism. They believe Christ will only make his Second Coming when the world has prepared a place for Him, that the first step in readying His arrival is to "Christianize" America.

The Dominionists believe that - until Jesus' return - "the Lord will provide." A popular dominionist high-school history textbook - America's Providential History - states: "The secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "the Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's Earth. The resources are waiting to be tapped." In another passage, the writers explain: "While many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."

Individuals with the power to set national priorities with regard to conservation of the environment hold these views. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has called for "march[ing] forward with a Biblical worldview" in U.S. politics, to convert America into a "God centered" nation whose government promotes prayer, worship, and the teaching of Christian values. James Inhofe, the Senate's most outspoken environmental critic, is also unwavering in his wish to remake America as a Christian state. Both oppose the EPA, calling it "the Gestapo." DeLay has put forward legislation to gut the Clean Air and Endangered Species acts. In 2003, Inhofe invited a stacked-deck of fossil fuel-funded climate-change skeptics to testify at a Senate hearing that climaxed with him calling global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

Inhofe makes major decisions based on heavy corporate and theological influences, flawed science, and an apocalyptic worldview. "I trust God with my legislative goals and the issues that are important to my constituents," Inhofe has told Pentecostal Evangel magazine. He chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the single most important congressional committee dealing with environmental legislation. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Inhofe received more than $588,000 from the fossil-fuel industry, electric utilities, mining, and other natural-resource interests from 1999 to 2004. Eight of the nine Republican members of the committee received an average of $408,000 per senator from the energy and natural resource sector in the same period. In 2003, Inhofe received a perfect 100 percent rating from all three major Christian-Right groups. By contrast, the eight Democrats and one Independent on the committee received an average of $132,000 per senator from that same sector.

It might be well here to consult the Patron Saint of Right Wing Revolution - Adolf Hitler had it figured out 80 years ago:

"In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods."

This is how the Noise Machine of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy works, folks. Peer-reviewed environmental science that contradicts an End-Timer's interpretation of Holy Writ is automatically wrong, which explains the disregard for science among Christian fundamentalist lawmakers - the denial of global warming, of the damaged ozone layer, and of the poisoning caused by industrial arsenic and mercury. When God is going to take care of all things and The End Is Near, who needs to worry about such things, especially when they prove The Second Coming?

I have painted a dark picture here. When it comes to proposing an alternative, I'll let my favorite Southern Baptist, Bill Moyers, provide the necessary guidance at the conclusion of the sermon: "The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free - not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism...What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma, the science of the heart, the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does."