Volunteers for a Better America

Time for Consideration of Universal Service

by Kathleen Robbins            
             For over two years now, Air Force transports have been landing in the dead of night with no end in sight. They are bringing home the bodies of the young men and women who have paid the ultimate price in a war that never should of happened. Other flights also land after dark, carrying the wounded, the young men and women who will bare the scars of this war for the rest of their lives.

But we never see these horrific scenes, for this war unlike Vietnam, is a war being fought out of the public eye. A war in which the government has taken extraordinary measures to keep the true cost of the war and the magnitude of the suffering from the consciousness of the American public.

One of the major reasons the government has been successful at this near total news blackout is the Iraq War is the first major conflict since before the Civil War in which those who serve, do so voluntarily. The net effect of this is that those in power don’t have to worry about their children serving, in fact out of the 535 representatives and senators, only 7 have children who have served in the military and only one of those in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In the 60s, the draft was inherently unfair, giving the politically connected and economically privileged a way out while forcing the poor to serve. Thankfully, we no longer have that type of draft today, but the economic realities of our country are creating a similar situation in the volunteer military. Because of the lack of economic opportunity, small rural counties across America have nearly twice the death rate due to the current war compared to the counties of the same population size near metropolitan areas[1].

For the first time since Vietnam, our military struggles to reach their recruiting goals. This year the Army to date has repeatedly missed their goals and expects to do so for the entire year. Those already in the military are being sent back to the war zone for 2^nd or 3^rd time. People who signed up for short-term duty in the National Guard are being called upon to spend extended periods of time on active duty.

Isn’t it about time to rethink our idea of national service? What would America be like if virtually all young men and women served our country in some way, just as our grandparents did following Pearl Harbor? Would our politicians be so ready to send our young men and women to war if their sons and daughters were at risk?

The time for consideration of a Universal Service policy has arrived. A policy in which all mentally and physically able young men and women between the ages of 18 to 26 would serve our country for two years, choosing among a variety of options such as the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or one of the branches of military service.

This fall, only about two thirds of those entering the 9^th grade will graduate with a regular high school diploma[2] in four years. What kind of life are they going to have in our post-industrial society where a high school diploma is a bare minimum for employment? What does this lack of education for a huge segment of our population portend for the future of our country?

By fully engaging the ideas and energy of America’s young men and women we can begin to address the unfulfilled needs of our youth and our society. At the same time, changing the face of our military that is increasingly isolated from the power structure of America, which sends them to war. Finally, it would provide a meaningful opportunity, something beyond shopping trips and bumper stickers, for those who serve to help to shape and build their nation in which they, their children and their grandchildren will live in the years to come; a true ownership society in which we all feel we have a stake in the outcome and the power to make a difference.

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[1] Cushing, Robert & Bishop, Bill New York Times, 20 Jul 05 www.nytimes.com/2005/07/20/opinion/20bishop.html

[2] Hebert, Robert Education’s Collateral Damage New York Times July 21, 2005: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/21/opinion/21herbert.html

REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM AND THE SUPREME COURT VACANCY

by Charles M. Evans, PhD
With the nomination of Judge John Roberts to replace Justice O’Connor, much of the commentary has centered upon the possible fate of the right of women to terminate a pregnancy as described in Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood.   The more concerning threat, however, is not to Roe itself but to the underlying constitutional right upon which the Blackmun decision in Roe rested: the right of personal privacy.

Justices Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas, as well as a number of conservative lawyers, jurists, and academics, deny that there is a constitutional right to personal privacy.  They point out that the word “privacy” is not found in the Constitution, and that therefore no such right was intended by the original framers of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or subsequent amendments to the document.  These conservatives, often called “originalists”  believe that the Constitution must be interpreted using only the explicit language of the Constitution as understood at the time of ratification. Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas have stated in a number dissenting opinions that the Court erred in finding a right to personal privacy, and that decisions such as Roe v. Wade and Johnson v. Texas (striking down state laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy), were wrongly decided and should be overruled.

However, a review of Anglo-Saxon legal history in Britain and America demonstrates that the right to personal privacy is embedded as the foundation of most of the personal rights explicitly guaranteed in landmark English and American documents from the Magna Charta to the US Constitution of 1789 and its Amendments.  Even though the word “privacy” does not appear in the Constitution, it underlies the legal and natural rights assumptions upon which Madison and other founders framed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

President Bush has publicly declared that he wishes to see the Supreme Court vacancies filled with nominees who share the judicial philosophy of Scalia and Thomas.  Presumably, he has selected such a person in Judge Roberts.  We must conclude, therefore, that Judge Roberts shares their anti-privacy beliefs.   If he is confirmed, the Court will move closer to a bias against any reproductive right that is founded upon a constitutionally protected right of personal privacy. This includes not only the right to abortion, but the right to use contraceptives (even in marriage), the right to no-fault divorce, the right to in vitro or other medically assisted conception, the right to decide upon the fate of any embryos that may be created through medically assisted efforts to conceive, the right to cohabit outside of wedlock, the right to engage in same gender intimate relationships, and other personal rights that we have come to consider settled.  Alarmingly, it is not just the loss of these rights in the abstract that could concern us, but the realization that these and other behaviors could once again be criminalized, and violators subject to fines, incarceration, or both.  Such persons in theory could also be stigmatized as sex offenders and subject to all of the disabilities of that classification.

CLEAN MONEY/CLEAN ELECTIONS

by Cameron Satterthwaite
If you look at the numbers (50% spending increase in one election cycle in races for some offices) or the polls (run away campaign spending rates as first or second as a major concern), you must agree that financing of elections needs fixing. Well, Maine and Arizona have pioneered a solution. It's called Clean Money/ Clean Elections or just Clean Elections. They've tried it now for the last three election cycles for legislative and state wide races, with spectacular success.

Here's the way it works:

(1) First a candidate must declare that he/she wishes to run as a clean candidate and in all ways is eligible for the office.
(2) The candidate is allowed to raise for preliminary expenses, a fixed, small amount from eligible voters in his/her district or state in chunks of no more than $100.
(3) The candidate, then, must collect from his/her district or state a specified number of $5 "qualifying contributions" and signatures.
(4) He/she must pledge, on penalty of being disqualified for the office, to neither seek nor accept private money including from his/her own pocket (The constitutionality of this feature is currently being tested in Arizona.)
(5) The candidate is then awarded an amount specified for the office from a public Clean Elections fund. The source of this fund is defined in the Clean Elections law.
(6) If the candidate is challenged by a free spending non-clean candidate funds are made available for our candidate to match the opponent to a fixed limit, 2 or 3 times th specified amount.

It's as simple as that.

In Maine now serving, 83% in the State Senate and 77% in the House (up from 77% and 55% after the 2002 election) ran as Clean Elections candidates. In Arizona, in 2004, 58% of House winners and 23% in the Senate ran clean (up from 45% and 17% two years earlier) and, in addition, in Arizona 10 of 11 state wide officials were elected clean. Janet Napolitano, the sitting governor, who ran as a Clean Elections candidate, is a strong supporter of Clean Elections. In both states more minorities and women ran for office, there were more contested races and committed and capable people who could not stomach the fund raising hassle, threw their hats in the ring.

With Maine and Arizona leading the way, momentum for Clean Elections is building. In no less than twenty states and a few cities, including California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey and Portland, Oregon, action toward Clean Elections is stirring Clean Elections procedures for some offices have been introduced, (in North Carolina, judicial candidates have the option to run clean); bills are being crafted and introduced in many states (in Illinois, a bill to make the Clean Elections option available to candidates for the Supreme Court has passed in the Senate and is awaiting action in the House.)

Electoral reform with public funding is clearly the march to the future and the Clean Elections idea is leading the way.

The Rove Story Has Legs

by Linda Beale
In light of the easy pass that mainstream journalism has given the Bush administration over the last four years, the story of White House involvement (possibly, ringleadership) in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame has actually shown some legs in the national media.  Even conservative Wall Street Journal pages have been filled with each new revelation as it becomes available.  First, of course, we were told by the White House spokesperson that neither Bush Deputy Chief of Staff Rove nor Cheney Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby had anything to do with the revelations about Joseph Wilson's wife.  And of course Bush indicated, in his typical strong cowboy manner, that any White House employee involved in the leak would be fired.  That was all last year, before the election, when the White House team seemed to be invincible to truth.

This year, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation has focused more and more on White House staffers and some peculiar coincidences.  Wilson's public statements that the White House appeared to be twisting the evidence on Niger to support its predetermined intent to wage war on Iraq was followed one day later by a State Department memorandum that mentioned Wilson's CIA agent wife.  That memorandum was apparently aboard Air Force One on an intercontinental hop that could have made the information about Plame's operative status available to Rove, Libby and others in the White House inner circle.  Shortly thereafter, several reporters talked with both Rove and Libby and were steered to the smear--Wilson (they claimed) isn't credible because his CIA agent wife arranged for his trip to Niger. 

As the New York Times said in a July 13 editorial, the news media depends for much of its information on judicious leaks that let the public in on information that the government bosses want to keep secret.  "But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary."

Let's hope that the media aren't led down the garden path to "safe news"  by the carefully timed announcement of Mr. Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy.  That is, of course, a story that needs to be covered.  But the media will not serve the public if it lets the Rove machine cavort away without further ado, free to use sensitive national security information for partisan political purposes.  Even if Rove's leak was not a crime, it was an unethical and inappropriate use of public office and the public trust in officials who are privy to state secrets.    This wasn't a whistleblower leak like Deep Throat or the Pentagon Papers.  This was the opposite:  a petty, vindictive smear for partisan benefit.  It is time that the media held the Bush administration to its stated standards of accountability.

Inaugural Post

by Linda Beale
Today our country approaches what could be a critical turning point. Will we Americans demand of our President and Congress a thoughtful, deliberate government that respects the wonderful diversity of the American population, empathizes with those who do not have the means to provide adequate health care or shelter or nourishing food to their families, and understands the trust placed upon it to secure the natural resources of this beautiful land for future generations? Or will we permit corporate greed and the corruption that stems from a super-rich elite cozying up to a power-drunk military-industrial complex to destroy the American dream?

The decision is ultimately up to us. We the People can work for a better America.

We can do it by letting our government representatives know that we will not condone torture and inhumane treatment. When the military and their hired contractors disrespect a single prisoner, they are devaluing American principles of freedom and equality. We can take back our country from those who would sell its forests, rape its wilderness, dispossess its wildlife and pollute its waters, air and earth. We the People can join together to ensure that the elderly live decent lives, the poor have opportunities for education and jobs, and the sick have decent health care. Most importantly, we can stand tall for the principles that have in the past given hope to the downtrodden here and around the globe, by condemning the smear tactics and misinformation of the extremists on the radical right. We can do it by talking to our friends, our neighbors, and our communities about the values that we cherish.

We are your neighbors, your teachers, your doctors, your friends. Our group originated as an activist volunteer group based in downstate Illinois in the course of the 2004 elections, and we have come together again as Volunteers for a Better America to work for these progressive ideals that have always been the core of what America is about. This weblog is a small step in that direction. We hope to share with you our thoughts about the pressing issues that are before our nation, based upon solid information, not the distorted misinformation that so often besets the media today. In this weblog we will talk about the environment, education, clean elections, civil rights, taxes, partisan excesses, foreign affairs, terrorism, torture and the American occupation of Iraq.

We welcome your comments (though reserving the right to edit or delete them if they are disrespectful or hateful), and hope that this weblog can become a useful forum in helping all of us in the Land of Lincoln rediscover the joys of community and the wisdom of sound factual analysis.

We also invite you to read our Mission Statement, linked at the top left, and scan our events and other linked weblogs. If you would like to join our group, please email you name, address, email, phone, and a short “blurb” about yourself to [email protected]. We’ll contact you with information on becoming a part of our online community and attending our meetings.

What Gets Amplified? The Problem with Media Consolidation

by Kathleen Robbins

We all know about Jessica Lynch, the Pentagon’s cardboard heroine, captured on 23 Mar 2003 and her supposed trials and tribulations in Iraq.  But what about a real American hero, Rachel Corrie, a woman who was slightly older than Jessica when she was intentionally crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer on 16 Mar 2003 as she tried to block the destruction of a Palestinian home with her body. Rachel’s death was reported in no less than the New York Times, but few have heard of her. 

The difference is amplification: in an environment where we are bombarded by 3,000 advertising message a day, it takes repeated exposure to rise to a level of recognition such as happened recently with Michael Jackson and Terri Schavio. And of course, what is amplified today by the major media outlets is what breaks through, creating as Bill Moyers said so eloquently, “an unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too."