The Latest from the Radical's Political Inbox; or, Can I Still Be A Radical Feminist If All My Favorite Progressives This Week Are White Men?

I have been on John Edwards' mailing list for a long time, and I recently received a request to help fund this ad in South Carolina:

So I thought I would, but I also wanted to post it here, because I have readers from many states who will be voting on February 5, only a little over a week from now. And while you are thinking politics, take a look at this story in today's New York Times in which Edwards turns free market logic, usually used to support privatization, on its head. Let private insurers compete with a government-sponsored health plan, he suggests: Americans will have the right to decide which kind of plan they think is better, and if the private insurers go out of business, then the question of the viability of a single-payer system in the United States will have been fairly decided by the people, not political and financial elites. This is a progressive version of what Harvard historian Liz Cohen, among others, has called "consumer citizenship." If the private insurers don't go out of business, it will show that they are doing a good job for the people who can afford them. And people who can't afford them will still have health insurance.

How much sense does that make?

I have also recently received mail from John opposing a bill currently on the floor of the Senate that is up for a cloture vote: the bill revises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and "would give 'retroactive immunity' to the giant telecom companies for their role in aiding George W. Bush's illegal eavesdropping on American citizens." The filibuster is being led by Connecticut's Senator Chris Dodd. If you live in Connecticut you can call Senator Dodd at (202) 224-2823 and tell him you approve; you could also call Connecticut's other Senator, my Shoreline neighbor Joseph I. Lieberman at (202) 224-4041 and tell him to act like a Democrat.

But better yet, click this link and call your senators. Ask them to support Chris Dodd and the Constitution of the United States. It will only take a second. And if your senators are Republicans, so much the better: many conservatives feel very strongly about the right to privacy and there is a good chance to defeat this bill despite the jingoistic "war on terror" it claims to support.

In other political news of interest to academics and the students they serve, Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking minority member of the Senate Finance committee, is issuing subpoenas to the 136 wealthiest colleges in an effort to push them to "use more of their wealth for financial aid and threatening to require them to spend a minimum of 5 percent of their endowments each year, as foundations must. The committee pointed out that donations to universities and their endowment earnings were both tax-exempt." The subpoena also asks them to reveal what they are paying their money managers, which is a great idea: according to a prominent Harvard alum I know, last year Crimson financial advisors earned tens of millions for their advice. Hence, the most wealthy universities are directly lining the pockets of a financial elite rather than siphoning the money to the communities they are in, supporting local public education or further subsidizing tuition and fees.

I think the Senate hearings that will ensue are a good idea, but one potential problem is that we risk limiting the discussion about the rising cost of college to a conversation with only those very few colleges who can do something about it. What is left out of the equation is how hard institutions, private and public, community college to state university, have been hit by the retraction of federal and state-level spending on education. Most students don't go to those 136 schools. How are we going to help them?

And finally, just when you thought you knew everything about Al Gore, he comes out for gay marriage. Regular readers of the Radical know how she feels about marriage, not to mention the icky little bit where Gore suggests that marriage helps control promiscuity, but that does not put me above just loving him for this.

Between Al and John, I have to ask this question: is it possible that anti-racist white progressives in the South who are not affiliated with research universities are making a comeback, after all these years? Whoever becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, this could be something to watch. And, if you happen to be inclined that way, pray for.

Things I Think About As We Approach The Tsunami Primary on February 5

Here are the things that do not worry me at all.

That Barack Obama smoked pot. The only thing I can say about this is: Oh. Please. Stop. This -- and the severe penalties that people can be exposed to for taking naked pictures of their toddlers at the beach and having them developed at Walmart -- are perhaps the worst residue of the Reagan era's conservative cultural backlash. Being honest about getting high is, in my opinion, one of the things that makes this man genuine in his approach to others -- it's no wonder that young people like him! And I can name at least one prominent conservative intellectual/pundit, a man who helped get us into the Iraq war, who I got high with repeatedly in college. So shut up already. Clearly getting high is not a barrier to power.

That Hillary Clinton is a racist. This is truly absurd. Hillary and Bill have been profoundly progressive on race, Bill as a white governor in a state that -- under former governor Orville Faubus -- was for a short time the poster child for massive white resistance to desegregation. And Barack Obama has offered us proof of what he said in last night's debate was his great weakness -- a lack of executive experience -- by not putting the hammer down on this right away. I am quite sure that he does not believe in the kind of attack that was launched by people in his campaign in response to Senator Clinton's remarks about Dr. King. Now the Clintons are not so progressive on welfare, education, unionization or fair trade. But those are different -- if related -- issues, and not what Senator Clinton was attacked about. Which, to my mind, means something about the political intent of those who attacked her.

That John Edwards has a large, expensive house. Has anyone evaluated the Clinton bungalow lately, in lovely Westchester County? How about the Obama homestead in pricey metropolitan Illinois? And perhaps the founder of modern liberalism -- not to mention the welfare state itself -- Franklin Roosevelt: what was his net worth, and how many houses did he own when he became President? President Reagan? That newish Bush ranch? And let me just say -- you could easily spend $400 on a haircut. Someone needs to ask Hillary what she spent on her most recent color job.

That Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Honestly, as an exiled Westerner, I kind of like him for this. Do you know that Mormonism is the only true American religion? As a queer, I've never seen polygamy as entirely bad -- only abused as an institution. And why would Mitt Romney be a worse president than Mike Huckabee, who believes that the world will be devoured in fire and chaos, with the Devil walking the earth, and that only those who have taken Jesus Christ as their Saviour will survive and be taken to heaven to live with their loved ones?



Here are the things that do worry me.

That every Democratic candidate is solid on civil unions that convey equal rights for gay and lesbian people, as well as gay and lesbian adoption and child custody, but all candidates have tacitly accepted that marriage for queers is a political poison pill. Ok -- I don't believe in marriage as a way to convey equality. I don't believe in marriage at all as an institution that is inherently good for anyone. But really -- if civil unions and marriage would be the same in every way in a Democratic administration, why would we keep the two legal statuses separate (but equal)? This is the kind of thing that causes me to sympathize with gay men and lesbians with whom I otherwise have nothing in common: letting them get married undermines our society and economy -- how?

That Barack Obama doesn't think his lack of administrative experience/ability is an issue. Honey, that's why they call it "Commander in Chief," and the President's quarters "the Executive Wing." And no, you can't just say you will hire the good people who will run the government for you, you will supply great ideas for change and it will be ok. Who are these people? Will we be electing them?

That Hillary Clinton says things like the Martin Luther King statement and doesn't think it will come back to smack her in the fanny. The Clintons are too damn smart and too ready to demonstrate it: that caused people to hurt them before, and it will cause people to hurt them again. And of course Hillary was historically correct: what activist actually does move legislation? Did John Brown, Frederick Douglass, or Harriet Tubman end slavery? Did SDS bring the troops home from Vietnam? All you have to do is read Robert Caro's terrific third volume on Lyndon Johnson (which only goes up to 1960) and you know what the woman was talking about. The Senate sat there for twenty years watching mass black protest in the South and violent white resistance to that protest and did almost nothing. It took a President who knew how to control the Senate to get voting rights and civil rights legislation passed. Hillary is talking about the moral authority of the presidency, but she is also talking about raw, statist power. And in politics nowadays we are supposed to talk about political power in user-friendly ways that mask and mystify its real nature.

That media outlets get to decide for the rest of us citizens who is a legitimate candidate and who is not. Lucky for democracy, the kickin' Dennis Kucinich is taking this on by suing NBC over his exclusion from the televised Nevada debate. My question: what happened to the League of Women Voters, who used to sponsor these debates?

That Mike Huckabee reminds me a lot of Huey Long. Or Henry George. Watch him talk, why don't you?

But can I say that I do just love politics? I really do.

The Radical Dives Into the Fray

I know this is unfashionable, but have I told you that John Edwards is my favorite candidate?

No, no. I am not just getting pissy about the identity politics thing. And yes, I will work for, vote for, the Democratic nominee whatever happens. But I give money to John Edwards. Tonight my friend Linda and I went to a Shoreline event intended to get us all going for the February 5 primary, when Connecticut's puny 23 votes will be added to someone's column. It was a star-studded event as Shoreline political shindigs go, but what really got to me is that after primaries in two *very white* states, with even fewer votes than Connecticut, this town has bought the Hillary-Barack showdown hook, line and sinker and marginalized Edwards.

So your Radical cruised the room, talking to the organizers for each campaign, asking the question: "If your candidate wants our votes in Shoreline, where 75% of us live below the poverty line, why don't they come to Shoreline and speak to us, like John Edwards did?" And this is what I learned:

1. The Clinton organizer said, "Listen, I've been trying to get Hillary to Shoreline. She has lots of great connections here. But it's a hard fact that if I can't guarantee her $250K, she's not coming." Which means it's not about the votes, its about the votes money can buy.

2. The Obama rep: "Connecticut's a small state." Which means he doesn't actually give a crap about our votes, and the Obama campaign knows that we will vote Demo whomever the candidate is, so why bother to talk to us?

On the other hand, a quick stop at Teenie airport as you are zipping between a key Southern state and New Hampshire would have taken what -- two hours?

The truth is, they come here -- to Fairfield County and to West Hartford, to be exact -- to pick up checks and leave. Connecticut has historically been the wealthiest state in the Union, and also has had the greatest disparity between rich and poor. And who are those people? Hedge fund managers, and executives for the arms industry -- Colt, UTI, Electric Boat. You name it, we'll build the machine that will kill it. All those people who are giving you a bloated military budget that is eating the money we could be putting into schools and health care. That is who Barack Obama and HIllary Clinton will owe -- them and Big Pharma, agribusiness, and every other stinking capitalist lobbying group. And frankly, when they agreed today to stop talking about race, I was not reassured. Baby, we need to talk about race in this country -- just not their race(s).

OK, the other thing I learned -- and this is unverified -- is that both the Hillary and the Barack phone bankers are raising the question of John Edwards' depression after his son's accidental death, and asking how he will cope if Elizabeth dies.

So if you want to phone bank for John Edwards from your own home, go to this link and try. Because he is not taking money from the big corporations. Because of all the candidates, he has actually come to Shoreline and talked to us about what it means to live in a town where people are really, really poor. And because he is not taking money from the people who have taken our money.

Thank you. This has been a public service announcement from Planet Radical, and I have endorsed this message.