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The Glenview Watch
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SIERRA CLUB ENDORSES COULSON
The Sierra Club has endorsed Beth Coulson for re-election to the Illinois House. “There are not enough legislators like Coulson who are willing to stand up to polluters and other special interests who oppose clean air and water legislation,” said Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club’s Illinois chapter. “We need more courageous, independent legislators like her who protect the public’s interest in a healthy environment.”
ONE WEEK AND COUNTING
The Watch pays scant attention to astrology, but we were tickled by this month’s horoscope: “When you Leos have something on your mind,” said United Airlines magazine, “you have little compunction about letting your thoughts be heard. And now is no exception, though you’re apt to be even more vociferous than usual. Pick up your mighty pen and start writing.”
So on the advice of United’s astrologer, our pen is now poised to write what amounts to one long editor’s note -- a message directed to those readers who support John Kerry for president. If you’re a Bush backer, take a break. The Watch will be back after November 2 with our usual focus on local news.
In the mean time, friends of Kerry are invited to join a phone bank in Buffalo Grove. Volunteers are working to turn out the vote. Here’s when you’re needed:
Monday through Thursday: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday: 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
1275 Barclay Blvd.
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089
For more information, call 312-832-0220. No need to call ahead. Just show up!
And remember that your Congressman, Mark Kirk, has stood with the Bush administration on almost every major issue. If you disagree with Bush, you’ll want to cast a ballot for Congressional candidate Lee Goodman. His campaign is asking supporters to help bring out the anti-Kirk vote by joining a phone bank from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday, October 28 at New Trier Democratic Organization Headquarters, 800 Oak Street, Winnetka. Bring a cell phone in case there’s a shortage of land lines, and bring your phone book to supplement numbers that the campaign will provide. Pizza and soft drinks will be served.
TALKING TO YOUR UNDECIDED FRIENDS AND FAMILY
If you have relatives or friends who have not yet made up their minds or are leaning toward Bush, you may wish to have a gentle, heart-to-heart chat or send an e-mail explaining why you support Kerry. We've borrowed heavily from a new book by progressive humorist Jim Hightower called, "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush" to summarize key issues that might concern your kin. Feel free to borrow from us as you prepare your own remarks:
National security: Many Bush supporters believe he will do a better job of keeping the nation safe, but it’s important to remind these folks that the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history occurred on Bush’s watch after the president dismissed a warning within his own administration that Osama Bin Laden planned to attack us. Now, Bush has diverted the nation’s resources into a disastrous war in Iraq – taking attention and money away from the need to improve homeland security and creating new hostilities toward the U.S. in the Middle East.
Education: Bush hangs his hat on a program called No Child Left Behind – a catchy name that belies its true impact. NCLB was supposed to set achievement standards for kids from the third grade up. If students failed to meet those arbitrary goals, whole school districts would lose federal funding. And to make matters worse, the administration has failed to give schools the money they need to pay for the program, underfunding No Child Left Behind by nearly $27 billion. No wonder perfectly good school districts like 34 here in Glenview are struggling to comply with NCLB. Some critics also attack the administration’s motives, believing Bush wants to discredit public schools and build support for sharing tax dollars with private and religious schools through vouchers.
Health care: Health care premiums rose 11.2 percent this year, the fourth consecutive year of double-digit increases. Forty-five million Americans have no health coverage. The prestigious Institute of Medicine says this country has a growing health care crisis, and policy makers should respond with a universal program to provide affordable, high-quality health care to all. Canada has managed to do that. So have Great Britain and all of the countries of Western Europe, but Bush’s secretary of health says, “I don’t think that it’s feasible.” Maybe it’s not feasible because the Bush campaign has been heavily financed by large drug companies, insurance firms and HMO’s, who benefit from the current system.
The Environment: Got a family member with asthma? Think about this. The Bush administration has relaxed the rules governing electric companies, chemical plants, oil refineries and other big polluters of our air – allowing them to increase profits while pumping an additional 42 tons of industrial poisons into our air each year. The National Academy of Sciences figures that will cause an extra 30,000 deaths annually. Nearly 25 percent of the big donors to Bush’s last campaign came from these industries – giving at least $100,000 apiece. The Southern Company, an Atlanta-based utility, contributed more than $500,000 to the president and other Republican candidates. Executives with that firm were allowed to meet seven times in 2001 with Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret task force that wrote the administration’s new energy policies.
The National Mining Association was also a big contributor, so it came as no surprise that the administration dismantled or weakened many rules designed to control pollution from mining. One year after the election, the head of the West Virginia Coal Association told a gathering of 150 industry leaders, “You did everything you could to elect a Republican president. You are already seeing in his actions the payback.”
Got a family member dealing with skin cancer? Think about this. Scientists in the environmental protection agency have concluded that global warming is happening, that it’s mostly caused by the burning of oil, coal and gasoline, and that it will have disastrous global consequences if we don’t act promptly to stop it. There is also clear evidence that the use of fossil fuels has created a substantial hole in the ozone layer of our atmosphere -- a layer that protects us from dangerous solar rays. The Bush administration continues to ignore these problems while refusing to provide substantial funding for development of alternative sources of energy.
Social Security: Know anyone who depends on Social Security? The Bush administration regularly raids the social security trust fund to pay for pet programs and tax giveaways to the rich. What’s more, the president wants to allow working people to start investing their own Social Security money on Wall Street. Not only would that deny the social security program an important source of revenue, but it could leave unlucky investors with nothing when it comes time to retire. So why privatize social security? Big Wall Street investment firms, which have also contributed generously to Bush’s campaign, would reap billions in fees from new Social Security accounts.
Food: If you have no other reason to reflect on the Bush administration’s reluctant regulatory policies, consider their impact on the food you eat. When mad cow disease was making headlines, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman tried to calm the public by asking international experts to report on the U.S. cattle industry. She insisted America had no problem and expected the appointed panel to say as much. In fact, the panel returned to report that mad cow may be common in our herds, that the USDA’s voluntary tracking system is grossly inadequate, and that the meat industry’s method of feeding animal parts to cattle is inherently unsafe. These same experts concluded the USDA had found only one case of mad cow disease so far because it wasn’t looking very hard. Of 30 million cattle slaughtered each year, only 40,000 are tested – barely one tenth of one percent. But meat processing companies and cattlemen had given nearly a million dollars to the Bush campaign. The administration dismissed the report as “negative in tone,” and recommended letting the industry continue to police itself. Meanwhile, scientists are beginning to wonder if the growing incidence of Alzeheimer’s disease, little known just a generation ago in this country, may actually be linked to mad cow. Autopsy studies at Yale and elsewhere show 20 percent of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s were misdiagnosed. They actually had another brain-wasting disease called CJD, which is sometimes caused by mad-cow infected meat.
There are, of course, many other areas we might discuss, including the economy, the loss of jobs and eroding civil liberties, but time grows short and there are plenty more places to go for such information. We should, however, address one other concern that is sometimes voiced by those who support four more years for Bush. They think a Kerry presidency would be even worse.
In response, we turn to a conservative source for what is, perhaps, a worst-case assessment. Scott McConnell of the American Conservative Magazine writes: “There is little in John Kerry’s persona or platform that appeals to conservatives. The flip-flopper charge - the centerpiece of the Republican campaign against Kerry - seems overdone, as Kerry’s contrasting votes are the sort of baggage any senator of long service is likely to pick up. (Bob Dole could tell you all about it.) But Kerry is plainly a conventional liberal and no candidate for a future edition of Profiles in Courage. In my view, he will always deserve censure for his vote in favor of the Iraq War in 2002.”
“But this election is not about John Kerry. If he were to win, his dearth of charisma would likely ensure him a single term. He would face challenges from within his own party and a thwarting of his most expensive initiatives by a Republican Congress. Much of his presidency would be absorbed by trying to clean up the mess left to him in Iraq. He would be constrained by the swollen deficits and a ripe target for the next Republican nominee.”
“It is, instead, an election about the presidency of George W. Bush. . .The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically-favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor.”
“During the campaign, few have paid attention to how much the Bush presidency has degraded the image of the United States in the world. . .He has made the United States despised by people who used to be its friends, by businessmen and the middle classes, by moderate and sensible liberals. Never before have democratic foreign governments needed to demonstrate disdain for Washington to their own electorates in order to survive in office. The poll numbers are shocking. In countries like Norway, Germany, France, and Spain, Bush is liked by about seven percent of the populace. In Egypt, recipient of huge piles of American aid in the past two decades, some 98 percent have an unfavorable view of the United States. It’s the same throughout the Middle East.”
. . .
“These sentiments mean that as long as Bush is president, we have no real allies in the world, no friends to help us dig out from the Iraq quagmire. More tragically, they mean that if terrorists succeed in striking at the United States in another 9/11-type attack, many in the world will not only think of the American victims but also of the thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed by American armed forces. The hatred Bush has generated has helped immeasurably those trying to recruit anti-American terrorists - indeed his policies are the gift to terrorism that keeps on giving, as the sons and brothers of slain Iraqis think how they may eventually take their own revenge. Only the seriously deluded could fail to see that a policy so central to America’s survival as a free country as getting hold of loose nuclear materials and controlling nuclear proliferation requires the willingness of foreign countries to provide full, 100 percent co-operation. Making yourself into the world’s most hated country is not an obvious way to secure that help.”
. . .
“George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies. . .His immigration policies - temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election - are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans ‘won’t do.’ This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.”
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