Richard,
Kevin explained himself just fine. That you don't get it isn't his problem.
Your unimaginative sophmoric tirades are laughable at best.
Melinda
Richard <rsierra12@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dumb reply. Logos?? Who said M couldn?t give her opinion??
Gibberish?? Explain yourself and tell the board exactly what I said that you
feel was untrue and why you think it was untrue. Instead of the usual fluff,
Fluffy, you think you can get off your fat, lazy, too imaginative ass and
manage doing an interlinear response to my brief comments? /R
---------------------------------
From: NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Kevin White
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 10:37 AM
To: NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [NewPacifica] Obama's Voting Record (Matt Gonzalez: "Count Me Out")
"Accept the Progressive pov?" You make it sound like the Logos. There is
room for other opinions. Even for your "rad/anti-rad" gibberish.
K
----- Original Message ----
From: Richard <rsierra12@xxxxxxxxx>
To: NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 12:07:23 PM
Subject: RE: [NewPacifica] Obama's Voting Record (Matt Gonzalez: "Count Me Out")
Melinda?s anti-rad and rads. She can?t even accept the Progressive pov
and analysis rendered by Matt G.
By the way Matt was live on KPFA?s Morning Show this AM. /R
---------------------------------
From: NewPacifica@ yahoogroups. com [mailto:NewPacifica @yahoogroups. com] On
Behalf Of Melinda Iley-Dohn
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 9:19 AM
To: NewPacifica@ yahoogroups. com
Subject: Re: [NewPacifica] Obama's Voting Record (Matt Gonzalez: "Count Me Out")
Maybe they don't have the same views that you do. Those of us who support
Obama
did so after weighing our alternatives. It's fairly disengenuous to accuse
Pacificans
of a lack of judgement because they differ from your opinion. You are
entitled to
express your own opinions and to vote as you chose. Kindly respect the
right of
others to do the same.
Mitchel Cohen <mitchelcohen@ mindspring. com> wrote:
I am amazed that WBAI seems to have uncritically
jumped onto the Obama bandwagon. It is even offer
as a premium some compilations of Obama's
speeches. One would think that there would be
more reflection on Obama's actual record, above
and beyond the notable enthusiasm that his candidacy has generated.
So I offer this to the WBAI / Pacifica community
to think about. It is written by Matt Gonzalez,
who is a former president of the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors, and who is running for
Vice-President of the United States on an independent ticket with Ralph Nader.
- Mitchel Cohen
The Obama Craze: Count Me Out
by Matt Gonzalez
Part of me shares the enthusiasm for Barack
Obama. After all, how could someone calling
themself a progressive not sense the importance
of what it means to have an African-American so
close to the presidency? But as his campaign has
unfolded, and I heard that we are not red states
or blue states for the 6th or 7th time, I
realized I knew virtually nothing about him.
Like most, I know he gave a stirring speech at
the Democratic National Convention in 2004. I
know he defeated Alan Keyes in the Illinois
Senate race; although it wasn?t much of a contest
(Keyes was living in Maryland when he announced).
Recently, I started looking into Obama?s voting
record, and I?m afraid to say I?m not just
uninspired: I?m downright fearful. Here's why:
This is a candidate who says he?s going to usher
in change; that he is a different kind of
politician who has the skills to get things done.
He reminds us again and again that he had the
foresight to oppose the war in Iraq. And he seems
to have a genuine interest in lifting up the poor.
But his record suggests that he is incapable of
ushering in any kind of change I?d like to see.
It is one of accommodation and concession to the
very political powers that we need to reign in
and oppose if we are to make truly lasting advances.
THE WAR IN IRAQ
Let?s start with his signature position against
the Iraq war. Obama has sent mixed messages at best.
First, he opposed the war in Iraq while in the
Illinois state legislature. Once he was running
for US Senate though, when public opinion and
support for the war was at its highest, he was
quoted in the July 27, 2004 Chicago Tribune as
saying, ?There?s not that much difference between
my position and George Bush?s position at this
stage. The difference, in my mind, is who?s in a
position to execute.? The Tribune went on to say
that Obama, ?now believes US forces must remain
to stabilize the war-ravaged nation ­ a policy
not dissimilar to the current approach of the Bush administration.?
Obama?s campaign says he was referring to the
ongoing occupation and how best to stabilize the
region. But why wouldn?t he have taken the
opportunity to urge withdrawal if he truly
opposed the war? Was he trying to signal to
conservative voters that he would subjugate his
anti-war position if elected to the US Senate and
perhaps support a lengthy occupation? Well as it
turns out, he?s done just that.
Since taking office in January 2005 he has voted
to approve every war appropriation the
Republicans have put forward, totaling over $300
billion. He also voted to confirm Condoleezza
Rice as Secretary of State despite her complicity
in the Bush Administration? s various false
justifications for going to war in Iraq. Why
would he vote to make one of the architects of
?Operation Iraqi Liberation? the head of US
foreign policy? Curiously, he lacked the courage
of 13 of his colleagues who voted against her confirmation.
And though he often cites his background as a
civil rights lawyer, Obama voted to reauthorize
the Patriot Act in July 2005, easily the worse
attack on civil liberties in the last
half-century. It allows for wholesale
eavesdropping on American citizens under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts.
And in March 2006, Obama went out of his way to
travel to Connecticut to campaign for Senator
Joseph Lieberman who faced a tough challenge by
anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. At a Democratic
Party dinner attended by Lamont, Obama called
Lieberman ?his mentor? and urged those in
attendance to vote and give financial
contributions to him. This is the same Lieberman
who Alexander Cockburn called ?Bush?s closest
Democratic ally on the Iraq War.? Why would Obama
have done that if he was truly against the war?
Recently, with anti-war sentiment on the rise,
Obama declared he will get our combat troops out
of Iraq in 2009. But Obama isn?t actually saying
he wants to get all of our troops out of Iraq. At
a September 2007 debate before the New Hampshire
primary, moderated by Tim Russert, Obama refused
to commit to getting our troops out of Iraq by
January 2013 and, on the campaign trail, he has
repeatedly stated his desire to add 100,000 combat troops to the military.
At the same event, Obama committed to keeping
enough soldiers in Iraq to ?carry out our
counter-terrorism activities there? which
includes ?striking at al Qaeda in Iraq.? What he
didn?t say is this continued warfare will require
an estimated 60,000 troops to remain in Iraq
according to a May 2006 report prepared by the
Center for American Progress. Moreover, it
appears he intends to ?redeploy? the troops he
takes out of the unpopular war in Iraq and send
them to Afghanistan. So it appears that under
Obama?s plan the US will remain heavily engaged in war.
This is hardly a position to get excited about.
CLASS ACTION REFORM:
In 2005, Obama joined Republicans in passing a
law dubiously called the Class Action Fairness
Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a
venue to hear many class action lawsuits. Long a
desired objective of large corporations and
President George Bush, Obama in effect voted to
deny redress in many of the courts where these
kinds of cases have the best chance of surviving
corporate legal challenges. Instead, it forces
them into the backlogged Republican-judge dominated federal courts.
By contrast, Senators Clinton, Edwards and Kerry
joined 23 others to vote against CAFA, noting the
?reform? was a thinly-veiled ?special interest
extravaganza? that favored banking, creditors and
other corporate interests. David Sirota, the
former spokesman for Democrats on the House
Appropriations Committee, commented on CAFA in
the June 26, 2006 issue of The Nation, ?Opposed
by most major civil rights and consumer watchdog
groups, this Big Business-backed legislation was
sold to the public as a way to stop "frivolous"
lawsuits. But everyone in Washington knew the
bill's real objective was to protect corporate abusers.?
Nation contributor Dan Zegart noted further: ?On
its face, the class-action bill is mere
procedural tinkering, transferring from state to
federal court actions involving more than $5
million where any plaintiff is from a different
state from the defendant company. But federal
courts are much more hostile to class actions
than their state counterparts; such cases tend to
be rooted in the finer points of state law, in
which federal judges are reluctant to dabble. And
even if federal judges do take on these suits,
with only 678 of them on the bench (compared with
9,200 state judges), already overburdened dockets
will grow. Thus, the bill will make class actions
­ most of which involve discrimination, consumer
fraud and wage-and-hour violations ­ all but
impossible. One example: After forty lawsuits
were filed against Wal-Mart for allegedly forcing
employees to work "off the clock," four state
courts certified these suits as class actions.
Not a single federal court did so, although the
practice probably involves hundreds of thousands of employees nationwide.?
Why would a civil rights lawyer knowingly make it
harder for working-class people to have their day
in court, in effect shutting off avenues of redress?
CREDIT CARD INTEREST RATES:
Obama has a way of ducking hard votes or
explaining away his bad votes by trying to blame
poorly-written statutes. Case in point: an
amendment he voted on as part of a recent
bankruptcy bill before the US Senate would have
capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent.
Inexplicably, Obama voted against it, although it
would have been the beginning of setting these
predatory lending rates under federal control.
Even Senator Hillary Clinton supported it.
Now Obama explains his vote by saying the
amendment was poorly written or set the ceiling
too high. His explanation isn?t credible as Obama
offered no lower number as an alternative, and
didn?t put forward his own amendment clarifying
whatever language he found objectionable.
Why wouldn?t Obama have voted to create the first
federal ceiling on predatory credit card interest
rates, particularly as he calls himself a
champion of the poor and middle classes? Perhaps
he was signaling to the corporate establishment
that they need not fear him. For all of his
dynamic rhetoric about lifting up the masses, it
seems Obama has little intention of doing
anything concrete to reverse the cycle of poverty many struggle to overcome.
LIMITING NON-ECONOMIC DAMAGES:
These seemingly unusual votes wherein Obama
aligns himself with Republican Party interests
aren?t new. While in the Illinois Senate, Obama
voted to limit the recovery that victims of
medical malpractice could obtain through the
courts. Capping non-economic damages in medical
malpractice cases means a victim cannot fully
recover for pain and suffering or for punitive
damages. Moreover, it ignored that courts were
already empowered to adjust awards when
appropriate, and that the Illinois Supreme Court
had previously ruled such limits on tort reform
violated the state constitution.
In the US Senate, Obama continued interfering
with patients? full recovery for tortious
conduct. He was a sponsor of the National Medical
Error Disclosure and Compensation Act of 2005.
The bill requires hospitals to disclose errors to
patients and has a mechanism whereby disclosure,
coupled with apologies, is rewarded by limiting
patients? economic recovery. Rather than simply
mandating disclosure, Obama?s solution is to
trade what should be mandated for something that
should never be given away: namely, full recovery for the injured patient.
MINING LAW OF 1872:
In November 2007, Obama came out against a bill
that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law
of 1872. The current statute, signed into law by
Ulysses Grant, allows mining companies to pay a
nominal fee, as little as $2.50 an acre, to mine
for hardrock minerals like gold, silver, and
copper without paying royalties. Yearly profits
for mining hardrock on public lands is estimated
to be in excess of $1 billion a year according to
Earthworks, a group that monitors the industry.
Not surprisingly, the industry spends freely when
it comes to lobbying: an estimated $60 million
between 1998-2004 according to The Center on
Public Integrity. And it appears to be paying off, yet again.
The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007
would have finally overhauled the law and allowed
American taxpayers to reap part of the royalties
(4 percent of gross revenue on existing mining
operations and 8 percent on new ones). The bill
provided a revenue source to cleanup abandoned
hardrock mines, which is likely to cost taxpayers
over $50 million, and addressed health and safety
concerns in the 11 affected western states.
Later it came to light that one of Obama?s key
advisors in Nevada is a Nevada-based lobbyist in
the employ of various mining companies (CBS News
?Obama?s Position On Mining Law Questioned.
Democrat Shares Position with Mining Executives
Who Employ Lobbyist Advising Him,? November 14, 2007).
REGULATING NUCLEAR INDUSTRY:
The New York Times reported that, while
campaigning in Iowa in December 2007, Obama
boasted that he had passed a bill requiring
nuclear plants to promptly report radioactive
leaks. This came after residents of his home
state of Illinois complained they were not told
of leaks that occurred at a nuclear plant operated by Exelon Corporation.
The truth, however, was that Obama allowed the
bill to be amended in Committee by Senate
Republicans, replacing language mandating
reporting with verbiage that merely offered
guidance to regulators on how to address
unreported leaks. The story noted that even this
version of Obama?s bill failed to pass the
Senate, so it was unclear why Obama was claiming
to have passed the legislation. The February 3,
2008 The New York Times article titled ?Nuclear
Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate? by
Mike McIntire also noted the opinion of one of
Obama?s constituents, which was hardly
enthusiastic about Obama?s legislative efforts:
"Senator Obama's staff was sending us copies of
the bill to review, and we could see it weakening
with each successive draft," said Joe Cosgrove, a
park district director in Will County, Ill.,
where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up
in groundwater. "The teeth were just taken out of it."
As it turns out, the New York Times story noted:
?Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon,
which is based in Illinois, have contributed at
least $227,000 to Mr. Obama?s campaigns for the
United States Senate and for president. Two top
Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice
president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director,
are among his largest fund-raisers.?
ENERGY POLICY:
On energy policy, it turns out Obama is a big
supporter of corn-based ethanol which is well
known for being an energy-intensive crop to grow.
It is estimated that seven barrels of oil are
required to produce eight barrels of corn
ethanol, according to research by the Cato
Institute. Ethanol?s impact on climate change is
nominal and isn?t ?green? according to Alisa
Gravitz, Co-op America executive director. ?It
simply isn?t a major improvement over gasoline
when it comes to reducing our greenhouse gas
emissions.? A 2006 University of Minnesota study
by Jason Hill and David Tilman, and an earlier
study published in BioScience in 2005, concur.
(There?s even concern that a reliance on
corn-based ethanol would lead to higher food prices.)
So why would Obama be touting this as a solution
to our oil dependency? Could it have something to
do with the fact that the first presidential
primary is located in Iowa, corn capitol of the
country? In legislative terms this means Obama
voted in favor of $8 billion worth of corn
subsidies in 2006 alone, when most of that money
should have been committed to alternative energy
sources such as solar, tidal and wind.
SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE:
Obama opposed single-payer bill HR676, sponsored
by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers
in 2006, although at least 75 members of Congress
supported it. Single-payer works by trying to
diminish the administrative costs that comprise
somewhere around one-third of every health care
dollar spent, by eliminating the duplicative
nature of these services. The expected $300
billion in annual savings such a system would
produce would go directly to cover the uninsured
and expand coverage to those who already have
insurance, according to Dr. Stephanie
Woolhandler, an Associate Professor of Medicine
at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of
Physicians for a National Health Program.
Obama?s own plan has been widely criticized for
leaving health care industry administrative costs
in place and for allowing millions of people to
remain uninsured. ?Sicko? filmmaker Michael Moore
ridiculed it saying, ?Obama wants the insurance
companies to help us develop a new health care
plan-the same companies who have created the mess in the first place.?
NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT:
Regarding the North American Free Trade
Agreement, Obama recently boasted, ?I don?t think
NAFTA has been good for Americans, and I never
have.? Yet, Calvin Woodward reviewed Obama?s
record on NAFTA in a February 26, 2008 Associated
Press article and found that comment to be
misleading: ?In his 2004 Senate campaign, Obama
said the US should pursue more deals such as
NAFTA, and argued more broadly that his
opponent's call for tariffs would spark a trade
war. AP reported then that the Illinois senator
had spoken of enormous benefits having accrued to
his state from NAFTA, while adding that he also
called for more aggressive trade protections for US workers.?
Putting aside campaign rhetoric, when actually
given an opportunity to protect workers from
unfair trade agreements, Obama cast the deciding
vote against an amendment to a September 2005
Commerce Appropriations Bill, proposed by North
Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, that would have
prohibited US trade negotiators from weakening US
laws that provide safeguards from unfair foreign
trade practices. The bill would have been a vital
tool to combat the outsourcing of jobs to foreign
workers and would have ended a common corporate
practice known as ?pole-vaulting? over
regulations, which allows companies doing foreign
business to avoid ?right to organize,? ?minimum
wage,? and other worker protections.
SOME FINAL EXAMPLES:
On March 2, 2007 Obama gave a speech at AIPAC,
America?s pro-Israeli government lobby, wherein
he disavowed his previous support for the plight
of the Palestinians. In what appears to be a
troubling pattern, Obama told his audience what
they wanted to hear. He recounted a one-sided
history of the region and called for continued
military support for Israel, rather than taking
the opportunity to promote the various peace
movements in and outside of Israel.
Why should we believe Obama has courage to bring
about change? He wouldn?t have his picture taken
with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom when
visiting San Francisco for a fundraiser in his
honor because Obama was scared voters might think
he supports gay marriage (Newsom acknowledged
this to Reuters on January 26, 2007 and former
Mayor Willie Brown admitted to the San Francisco
Chronicle on February 5, 2008 that Obama told him
he wanted to avoid Newsom for that reason.)
Obama acknowledges the disproportionate impact
the death penalty has on blacks, but still
supports it, while other politicians are fighting
to stop it. (On December 17, 2007 New Jersey
Governor Jon Corzine signed a bill banning the
death penalty after it was passed by the New Jersey Assembly.)
On September 29, 2006, Obama joined Republicans
in voting to build 700 miles of double fencing on
the Mexican border (The Secure Fence Act of
2006), abandoning 19 of his colleagues who had
the courage to oppose it. But now that he?s
campaigning in Texas and eager to win over
Mexican-American voters, he says he?d employ a different border solution.
It is shocking how frequently and consistently
Obama is willing to subjugate good decision
making for his personal and political benefit.
Obama aggressively opposed initiating impeachment
proceedings against the president (?Obama:
Impeachment is not acceptable,? USA Today, June
28, 2007) and he wouldn?t even support Wisconsin
Senator Russ Feingold?s effort to censure the
Bush administration for illegally wiretapping
American citizens in violation of the 1978
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In
Feingold?s words ?I?m amazed at Democrats ?
cowering with this president?s number?s so low.?
Once again, it?s troubling that Obama would take
these positions and miss the opportunity to
document the abuses of the Bush regime.
CONCLUSION:
Once I started looking at the votes Obama
actually cast, I began to hear his rhetoric
differently. The principal conclusion I draw
about ?change? and Barack Obama is that Obama
needs to change his voting habits and stop
pandering to win votes. If he does this he might
someday make a decent candidate who could earn my
support. For now Obama has fallen into a
dangerous pattern of capitulation that he cannot
reconcile with his growing popularity as an agent of change.
I remain impressed by the enthusiasm generated by
Obama?s style and skill as an orator. But I
remain more loyal to my values, and I?m glad to
say that I want no part in the Obama craze sweeping our country.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -------
Matt Gonzalez is a former president of the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors, and is running
for Vice-President of the United States on an
independent ticket with Ralph Nader.
-
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