Howard Dean will be Tim Russert's guest on Meet the Press for the full
hour tomorrow morning. The reactionary pundits are beside themselves,
making predictions about his tendency to speak bluntly.
No doubt there will be an effort to get Dean to retract his suggestion
that Tom Delay should go to jail for his crooked dealings--for buying
the votes of fellow legislators with contributions from his Political
Action Committees.
That Al Sharpton has once again come out of the woodwork with
accusations about an insufficient number of blacks having been hired by
the DNC is also par for the course and just as ill-informed as in the
past.
Meanwhile, Democracy for New Hampshire has documented that a good
percentage of state legislators have been subverted by Grover Norquist's
AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM, persuaded in exchange for some minimal
campaign contributions to pledge allegiance to Norquist, rather than the
New Hampshire communities they represent.
New Hampshire legislators are probably not the only targets of these
subversive groups, whose ultimate goal is to shrink all government so it
can be "drowned in a bathtub." An outfit which calls itself the
Heartland Institute, for example, has legislators in all fifty states on
its roster. And then, of course, there's DeLay's Republican Majority
PAC whose contributions to other law-makers are nicely catalogued at
http://www.indelayspocket.com/...
In case you haven't noticed, "reform" is the latest euphemism for
"destroy." So, "reform" of Social Security, the judicial system, the
private pension system and, of course, income taxes are all designed to
do away with rules and regulations that predatory capitalists don't
like. They peddle "free markets" but what they are really after is the
opportunity to do exactly as they like without any social restraints.
Something to keep in mind as we start gearing up for the 2006
congressional elections.
Meanwhile, there's Memorial Day to have a picnic and later in the month,
on June 23, we'll want to schedule house parties to keep DFA energized.
In some parts of the country, DFAers are going to be paying particular
attention and working with the Service Employees International Union
(SEIU) to make Wal-Mart more responsive to the income requirements and
health care coverage of its employees. It's my personal position that
if corporations don't want to be involved in providing health care, they
should mobilize themselves and help us set up a national program. I
agree that in an age of specialization it doesn't make much sense for a
producer of widgets to be worrying about health care coverage. But
somebody has to do it.
Finally, after trips to Oregon, Maryland and a number of red states,
Howard Dean is scheduled to visit Boston for a fund-raiser on Monday,
June 20.
https://www.democrats.org/support/boston.htm