Danny Katch, field coordinator, Hawkins for Senate, New York City in the Socialist Worker:

Many progressives will argue that supporting a third party is unrealistic, and that Ned Lamont’s primary victory is proof that they are “taking back” the Democratic Party. It looks more like it’s the Democratic Party that is once again taking them for a ride.

Progressives had better start asking themselves when they’ll gain the stomach to drop the “unrealistic” line and support anti-war candidates, or when they can get around to admitting that “progressive” is just another word for Democrat.

Democracy Now! reports (audio) that

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one in eight Americans and almost one in four African Americans lived in poverty last year. It was the first year the poverty rate did not increase since President Bush took office. Just under sixteen percent of the population, or 46.6 million people, had no health insurance last year, up slightly from two years ago.

I’m willing to bet that those who go without health insurance also go without health care.

The RIAA’s latest attempt at convincing people to not illicitly share copies of music comes under fire. The RIAA’s educational video teaches nothing about fair use—exceptions to the restrictions in copyright law which allow people to make copies of copyrighted works for certain uses. According to CNet news, the video narrator claims

Making copies for your friends, or giving it to them to copy, or e-mailing it to anyone is just as illegal as free downloading

which contradicts language in their online FAQ, a copy of which accompanies the video. The online version of the RIAA “Campus Downloading” FAQ mentions fair use exceptions which is particularly interesting to campus users because scholarly examination of copyrighted works happens every day.

But CNet doesn’t mention the worst part of the FAQ which completely misrepresents theft and copyright infringement.

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CODEPINK’s latest essay on “bird-dogging” Sen. Hillary Clinton is worth reading; it exposes some of the little-known myths about Clinton’s record:

It turns out that Hillary has done a tremendous job””of getting New York Democrats to assume that because right-wing Republicans hate her she must oppose the war. Most New York Democratic voters also don’t realize that she co-sponsored an amendment to ban flag-burning, is against marriage equality for gays and lesbians, supports the death penalty, votes consistently for Star Wars appropriations and has served on the board of Wal-Mart for six years. Yet, she is consistently touted as the “liberal Democrat from New York.”

This essay also silently exposes another myth supported by many progressives—voting for someone based on their sex is sexism:

One woman reminded us that Hillary was a feminist who wore sandals in college and suggested that as women and feminists we should be supporting her.

Putting more women into office because they are women is a bad idea and dodges examination on the issues. It’s a good idea to put more women into office when their record or political past merits support, their campaign funds come from individuals (not corporations or PACs), and they currently support sound policy. The same applies to men as well, of course.

Why is Sen. Clinton’s career worth keeping tabs on if you’re not from New York? Because she’s widely considered to be a candidate for the Democratic party nominee for US President.

Andrew Rosenthal writes about the absence of political dissent in the New York Times. When I cross the quad of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I am reminded of how there is no serious, organized, national opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Perhaps there are a few conversations amongst like-minded friends here and there, but locally the UIUC campus is like what Rosenthal describes. The local AWARE (anti-war, anti-racism effort) group protests regularly, but their efforts aren’t replicated across the country. It’s even hard to see anti-war footage on anti-war news reports (like Democracy Now!) that isn’t a repeat of old footage.

I wonder why that is, and I recall that the anti-war protests took a vacation to stump for pro-war candidate Sen. John Kerry in the last presidential election. The voters were told that his method to manage the war was better than the current war management under Pres. George W. Bush. So if Kerry voters won, they’d get a pro-war president. If Kerry voters lost, they’d be stuck with a pro-war president. With this kind of dichotomy, what do we have to look forward to?

Let’s hope the so-called anti-war Left doesn’t take another vacation to celebrate the achievements of the Democratic party—pro-war Sen. Hillary Clinton (who will probably win reelection because she has more money to spend than her anti-war challenger and plenty of media support from Time Warner’s NY1 in New York). It’s easy for anti-war supporters to say they won’t stump for any pro-war candidates when there are no candidates to consider and no election around the corner for most people’s radar (sadly, most Americans don’t vote in mid-term elections). We’ll see what happens when a presidential election draws near. I remember what happened last time (Wikipedia).

Former US Vice President Al Gore complains about the consolidation of the corporate media but no mention is made how this conflicts with his other loyalty: the Democratic Leadership Council.

First, check out this Gore quote from the Associated Press

Questions of fact that are threatening to wealth and power become questions of power, he said. And so the scientific evidence on global warming — an inconvenient truth for the largest polluters — becomes a question of power, and so they try to censor the information.

Yes, all fine and with the movie title namedrop as well, but when he was in power he was reluctant to challenge large-scale pollution. According to Joshua Frank and leading environmental muckraker Jeffrey St. Clair, Gore supported a free-market approach to handling pollution by supporting NAFTA which helped move big business polluters to Mexico where environmental law is weaker and less frequently enforced than in the US. Gore was placating the DLC, a group he conflicts with when he criticizes a monolithic media.

While Gore makes his claim, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is running for re-election and getting quite a boost from Time-Warner station NY1 financially—Time Warner has donated $100,000 to her campaign making that corporation the number 6 contributor to her campaign—and in the form of excluding her anti-Iraq-war competition, Jonathan Tasini, from televised debates by setting the bar for inclusion ridiculously high. NY1’s public relations manager, Edward Pachetti, says

The criteria are that a candidate must poll at least five percent (including margin of error) in a recognized independent poll and would need to have spent and/or raised $500,000.

Listen to Tasini and Ralph Nader, who also knows a thing or two about being excluded from televised would-be debates, as they talk about this development in depth on Democracy Now! on Wednesday, August 9, 2006 (Ogg Vorbis or FLAC format). Their discussion starts at 25m26s into the show. Nader points out that any ballot-qualified candidate should be able to participate in any debates. Any modern media player can play these files (scroll down a bit to see the list of operating systems and media players).