Progressive Populist: Stop Corporate Power Grab

[J Cullen <reporter@xxxxxxxx>]

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THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST:
A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF THE HEARTLAND
October 1997 -- Volume 3, Number 10
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EDITORIALS
Stop the Corporate Power Grab

President Clinton has sent his request for Congress to give him fast-track
consideration of trade agreements. Other reports in this issue discuss the
perils of greasing the skids for more "free-trade" agreements that open up
American markets and export American manufacturing jobs. The bill the White
House drafted does not mention the Multilateral Agreement on Investments
(MAI), the secretly negotiated deal to undermine local, state and national
authority to regulate corporations, but the wording does allow MAI-type
provisions on investment under the section on trade principles.
	Such an agreement could allow corporations to sue governments to
stop enforcement of performance requirements and other "unreasonable
barriers" such as state or federal laws and regulations to protect the
environment, workers or consumers [See "MAI Fast Track Set," 8/97
Progressive Populist]. Nations already are suing at the World Trade
Organization to overrule U.S. environmental regulations.
	We are at a pivotal point, not unlike the United States in the
1890s, when corporations consolidated their position after the Supreme
Court declared that corporations were entitled to civil rights afforded
natural persons. Then the corporations neutralized state power to regulate
them. Now they are trying to neutralize national sovereignty in the name of
free trade.
	Opponents of free rein to corporations should call or write their
congressional representative and senators. Call them toll-free at
1-800-522-6721, courtesy of the AFL-CIO. And remember that our enemies are
not the Mexicans and other Third World workers, but the multinational
corporations that are exploiting them and us.

Well, dang, Fred Thompson's Senate committee has found out that access is
for sale in Washington. Now what are they going to do about it?
	So Roger Tamraz, an oilman, spent $300,000 to get into the White
House at least four times, despite National Security Council objections. He
hoped for President Clinton's assistance with his project to build a
900-mile pipeline from Caspian Sea oil wells to the Mediterranean.
	Tamraz, who also gave to the GOP in the Reagan-Bush years, didn't
even get the favors he was seeking. Of course the obscenity is that regular
citizens get no more than a passing glimpse into the Executive Mansion on
the official tour, and not much more entree in Congress.
	Our correspondent, Sam Smith, writes in his new Great American
Political Repair Manual that six industries - waste management, mining,
natural gas, coal, oil and nuclear energy - gave congressional candidates
and political parties $31.1 million in contributions in 1992 and gained
$34.4 billion in subsidies and tax breaks.
	The Center for Responsive Politics reports that in 1995-1996 all
the tobacco companies together gave $6.8 million in soft money
contributions - $1 million to Democratic Party committees and $5.7 million
to Republican committees. For that Big Tobacco not only gets kid-glove
treatment, even after their executives perjured themselves before Congress
a few years ago, but a $50 billion tobacco tax break was snuck into the
budget bill.
	Perhaps the biggest boondoggle in recent history is the B-2 stealth
bomber, at $2 billion a copy. Now the General Accounting Office has found
the B-2, the pride of the Air Force, can't fly in the rain and the plane's
radar-deflecting skin is damaged by heat and humidity.
	Molly Ivins noted in late 1995, the House voted to keep the B-2
program alive by a margin of 213-210. The 210 members who voted against the
B-2 got an average of $113 in campaign contributions from the Northrop
Grumman PAC - Northrop being the maker of the B-2. The 213 who voted for it
got an average of $2,073 from the Northrop PAC. Northrop also gave $182,000
in soft money during '95-'96.
	Candidates and officeholders protest that they are obliged to
scrounge for money from the get-go and keep after it, or they can forget
about hiring the consultants and buying the media exposure that is needed
to get elected and re-elected these days.
	The solution is public funding of campaigns, under which candidates
would voluntarily limit their private fundraising and spending in exchange
for public funds. Last November in Maine, voters approved a Clean Money
Campaign Reform initiative, by a 56 to 44 percent margin, that offers full
public financing to candidates who reject special-interest contributions
and agree to campaign spending limits.
	The success of the Maine ballot initiative has given greater energy
and focus to campaign finance reform efforts in more than a dozen states,
including Vermont, Massachusetts, Missouri and Arizona. U.S. Rep. John
Tierney, D-Mass., has filed a "Clean Money, Clean Elections Act" for public
financing. Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., and Paul Wellstone, DFL-Minn., are
said to be preparing a similar bill for the Senate.
	But the Republican congressional leadership, which has no problem
raising funds under the current system, is in no mood to allow a
substantial reform of campaign finance, knowing that it would benefit
Democrats and/or honest politicians. They don't even want the watered-down
reforms that senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.)
are promoting.
	If it takes running reform candidates to change Congress, then it
is time to start raising those candidates.
	In the meantime, as Smith suggests, we should force politicians who
talk about family values to talk about their own corporate dole; support
legislative efforts toward public financing; work to reform state and local
elections; and pressure parties to reform finance rules for their own
primaries.
	For information on campaign finance reform, contact Public
Campaign, 1320 19th Street, NW, Suite M-1, Washington, D.C. 20036; (202)
293-0222 phone; E-mail: info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Internet site:
www.publicampaign.org

Two recently published books ought to find their way to every progressive
populist bookshelf. They are Jim Hightower's There's Nothing in the Middle
of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos and Sam Smith's Great
American Political Repair Manual.
	Hightower's long-awaited volume, due for release in October,
survived the purges at Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins publishing house.
That suggests that the New York bean-counters see commercial possibilities
for Dead Armadillos, and why not? Dead Armadillos is a distillation of what
Hightower has been saying for years on the stump, on the radio and in
publications like the Progressive Populist.  It is powerful stuff.
Hightower examines the Dismal Science of Economics and what the big shots
are doing to the little guys, writing in simple terms, so that anybody can
understand it.
	Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual, published by W.W.
Norton and subtitled, How to rebuild our country so the politics aren't
broken and politicians aren't fixed, also puts the political and economic
theory down on the ground where the goats can get it.
	If your local bookstore doesn't carry Smith or Hightower, but you
have Internet access, you can order them and the books of other Progressive
Populist writers at our web site, http://www.eden.com/~reporter.

This month's cover stories are on transportation policy. I know that makes
many of us snoozy but even rural people, who know little of gridlock, ought
to care about developing alternatives to gas guzzlers.
	Austin, Texas, used to be a nice, mid-sized, affordable city. Now
growth is slowly strangling our city; thoroughfares are slowed to a crawl
during "rush hour;" there is a call for more freeways to speed the
newcomers to their suburbs; and we're building a new airport.
	Meanwhile in our hometown of Storm Lake, Iowa, population 8,500,
where four cars at a four-way stop is gridlock, an automobile is still a
practical necessity. You could walk or bike around town, but you can't come
or go; the town has not had intercity transit for years, since Greyhound
stopped regular bus service. We used to have not only the bus but two
passenger trains stopping every day, but deregulation allowed the railroads
to drop those marginal routes in the '60s; then the bus lines were cut back
in the '70s.
	On tour promoting her book, Asphalt Nation, Jane Holtz Kay said she
has met a number of young people, particularly those who have visited
Europe, who return to the United States wondering why we can't have a
diversified transportation system, including a first-class rail system.
	"A good chunk of the public can't drive, including kids and old
people, and they need public transportation, even in the smaller towns,"
Kay said.
	So why do we put up with the tyranny of the automobile and the
airplane? Urge your U.S. reps to support transportation alternatives in the
ISTEA (pronounced ice-tea) bill explained in Ben Lilliston's report.
- Jim Cullen

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TABLE OF CONTENTS, October 1997
(Articles marked with * are available at our web site,
http"//www.eden.com/~reporter.)

* EDITORIAL
Clean Up Campaigns
JIM HIGHTOWER
The Underwear War Rages
True American Spirit
Two Severances
Taking the 'P' Out of PBS
Political Consultants
Legalized Bribery
* LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Economic Policy Needs New Direction
Dugger's 'Depression'
Need More Health Info
* RURAL ROUTES/Larry Evans
The Missing Voice in the Tobacco Wars
* DISPATCHES
Fast Track, Alliance, Living Wage, Family Farmers
FEATURE/Peter Montague
Why Are Feds Ignoring Monsanto
* CALAMITY HOWLER/A.V. Krebs
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor? Guess!
ADM's Corporate Culture: Buy, bye
Ethanol Lives!
Corporate Fish Story
DuPont: Better Eating through Chemistry
OBSERVER/Joan Z. Curbow
A Patch of Earth Echoes a Distant Sea
* BOOK REVIEW/Patrick Mazza
Sam Smith's Repair Manual
* TALES FROM EAST TEXAS/
Carol Countryman
Don't Mess with Texas ... Prisons
REPORT
Native American Farmers
Demand Authentic Seed Stock
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
United We Stand
DELIA YEAGER
The Passing of the People's Princess
THE SCOOP/Bob Harris
Stealth Bombs, Camel in the Capitol
ECONOMICS/Abby Scher
Women's Guide to the Economy
* COVER STORY
Gridlock and Gas Wars: Reality Sets in on the Auto's Centennial
By Jane Holtz Kay
Transportation: Strengthening
Local Communities
By Ben Lilliston
BUSINESS ETHICS/
Marjorie Kelly
Does It Pay to Be Ethical?
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
The Creeping Moguls
DAVID MORRIS
Can Hemp Break Through Drug Insanity?
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW/Sam Smith
Is Gore in Trouble?
NEWSPEAK/Wayne Grytting
Crackdown on 'Loiterers'
MADE IN THE USA/Joel Joseph
No 'Fast Track' for Trade Treaties
PRIMAL SCREED/
James McCarty Yeager
States' Wrongs Again
GLOBAL CITIZEN/Donella Meadows
Left and Right and Power
MEDIA BEAT/Norman Solomon
90 Years Later, 'The Jungle' Still Echoes
WORK IN PROGRESS
REPORT/Patrick Mazza
Odd Bedfellows Hope Proportional Reps Fit Oregon Legislature
LATINO SPECTRUM / Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales
Inspiring Students to See a Future
TED RALL
Hong Kong After 2 Months:
The Case for a Unified China
JESSE JACKSON
Do People Count?
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST/Ralph Nader:
Bank Monsters
HAL CROWTHER
Bad Moon on the Rise
COMMENT/John Buell
Fast Track to Disaster
CHARLES LEVENDOSKY
An Attempt to Ambush Indians
New Director Faces Troubled Parks
MOLLY IVINS
Have We Gotten The Point Yet?
If Only We'd Listened to You, Henry B.
Congress: Prime Choice of U.S. Politics, Right?
* CHARLIE WILSON
On Making Sausage and the Law

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