An Activist’s Life, by Thomas Leavitt

Paul Krugman: “The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago.”

It is with pleasure that I inform you that the Board of Directors of Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER) has voted to endorse SCA 14, the Political Reform Act of 2004.

If the 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate runs all out, with no
regard for the possibility of helping to re-elect Bush, the result may be
an exodus of many of our members and a degradation in how we are
perceived by reasonable people from which we might never recover.
This would hurt us especially at the grassroots level, where we work
face to face with other progressives.

I get the strangest stuff in my inbox.

When Dave Cieslewicz was campaigning for mayor of Madison earlier this year,
the veteran environmental activist received valuable support from leading
local Greens.

On December 10, ABC News pulled its fulltime embedded reporter from her job of traveling daily with the campaign, a move that entailed canceling an in-depth interview of the candidate that had been planned for the next week in Iowa. Also on the 10th, after the Kucinich campaign sent out a press release about the change, ABC said the same reporter would still cover the campaign part-time and without the traveling. On the 11th, ABC’s reporter informed the campaign that she would be traveling some, including a trip to Iowa to conduct the interview this weekend or next week.

(Socialist Worker, Sept. 19) — After the 2000 election,
Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader was
roundly denounced by Democrats as a “spoiler” who
helped George Bush defeat Al Gore (ignoring the U.S.
Supreme Court’s decisive role during the Florida debacle
in stealing the election for Bush).

As the 2004 election approaches, the vast majority
of the left — including many who campaigned for Nader in
2000 — has made defeating Bush (by implication, with a
Democrat) its number one priority.

Links and pointers to various studies of Santa Monica’s early Public Electronic Network (PEN).

PRESENTATION OF THE FINAL REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL BY THE SANTA MONICA COMMITTEE FOR YOUTH

Pointer to excellent article by LAT on the process of investigating the Columbia disaster, and the politics of the original shuttle’s design.

All images of gay gatherings at national sites,
including the Millennium March on the Washington Mall have been ordered
removed from videotapes that have been shown at the Lincoln Memorial
since 1995 according to a civil service group.

“The campaign against the Grassroots Democracy Key Value- waged by
self-anointed “Green” leaders against the grassroots rank and file of the
Greens themselves, has suceeded.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two-time Green presidential candidate Ralph Nader
yesterday informed party leaders that he will not be joining six other
declared candidates in seeking the Green Party nomination for the presidency
in 2004. Many Greens expressed surprise and regret at Nader’s decision.

Pointer to article: “The first U.S. case of suspected mad cow disease was found in an animal in Washington State the USDA announced tonight. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said that a single “downer” Holstein cow that was either sick or injured and intended for rendering, not food processing, tested presumptively positive for the brain-wasting illness. The farm in Mabton, WA, about 40 miles southeast of Yakima, has been quarantined and meat from other animals in the herd are being traced for testing. The USDA will hold daily briefings on its investigation.”