Esther Press

Today's Nader/Gonzalez email is a beauty!:


Senator Obama said earlier today that I haven't been paying attention to his campaign.

Actually, I have.

And it's clear from Senator Obama's campaign that he is not willing to tackle the white power structure - whether in the form of the corporate power structure or many of the super-rich - who are taking advantage of 100 million low income Americans who are suffering in poverty or near poverty.

Senator Obama is opposed to single payer national health insurance.

Why?

Because he favors the health insurance giants over the millions of Americans in poverty or near poverty who are uninsured or under-insured. Eighteen thousand Americans die every year because they cannot afford health insurance, according to the Institute of Medicine.

Senator Obama wants to expand the military budget which is loaded with waste, fraud and abuse - instead of cutting it and investing the long ignored peace dividend in the inner cities with good jobs and public works - including schools, clinics, and libraries.

Why?

Because he fears and favors those thousands of lobbyists in charge of enlarging the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us against.

Senator Obama says he favors a living wage. But he doesn't say he would immediately increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour, which is the equivalent of the 1968 minimum wage adjusted for inflation - because by doing so he would offend the big corporations who exploit labor in places like Wal-Mart and fast food chains. (The minimum wage needs to be increased immediately, not phased in over a number of years, as Senator Obama would have it.)

So Senator Obama, let's get specific.

We're looking for deeds, not, as Shakespeare put it, words, words, mere words.

Your public career, which I have also been paying attention to, is long on words, and short on action when it comes to consumer protection, cracking down on corporate crime, curbing the violence of toxic environmental racism, and extending clean, affordable public transit, among other issues.

For the purposes of the here and now, three things:

One, why don't you support single payer national health insurance, which is supported by a majority of doctors and the American people?

Two, why do you favor expanding the military budget which is replete with waste, fraud and abuse?

And three, why don't you come out and support an immediate increase of the minimum wage to $10 an hour?

When can we expect the authenticity of hope and change?


Your contribution could be doubled. Public campaign financing may match your contribution total up to $250.

Calamari Press absorbs 3rd bed.

The Democrats doing what they do best: caving. Watch what the Man of Change, the Anti-War Man, Obama, does very soon when that bill heads to the Senate. Yes, We Can Vote for More Financed War in Iraq! Yes, We Can!

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The Nation forced to take that first bite of eating its words on what a Man of Change Obama is.

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PAC Contributions and contributions from individuals giving more than $200:

Obama

Wall Street--$19,103,109
Big Oil--$1,102,918
Pharmaceutical Companies--$696.063

Total: $20,902,100

McCain--

Wall Street--$12,402,178
Big Oil--$1,373,408
Pharmaceutical Companies--$210,160

Total: $13,985,786

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McCain, that trusty old insider, that conservative warmonger, has taken less money than Obama. Who's that Man of Change guy again? That good knight who'll clean up the streets?

Today's Nader/Gonzalez email, titled "Obama's Right Turn"--



Obama and the Democrats are raking it in from the big corporations.

Big corporate executives, for some reason, like Obama and the Democrats, but do not like Nader/Gonzalez.

Therefore, we must rely on you - our loyal supporters.

After securing the nomination, Obama immediately ripped into absentee black fathers, while kowtowing to the right-wing AIPAC lobby.

What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong is that Obama is moving right.

He's got the corporate money, the powerful lobbies, and big business in his corner.

And he's not looking back.

But we have to make sure Obama knows that we are organizing.

And will be relentless in pursuit of justice throughout the year.

Obama might have the corporate executives and big law firms in his corner.

But we have you.

And with your help, Nader/Gonzalez will be on ten state ballots by the end of the month.

And forty by the end of the summer.

So once again, thank you for your generous and ongoing donations to our campaign.

Together, we are making a difference.

Onward

The Nader Team

PS: We invite your comments to the blog.

Your contribution could be doubled. Public campaign financing may match your contribution total up to $250.

The Chico Enterprise-Record updates the fire damage. Now 72 houses destroyed. Staggering info here: "Those fighting the blaze totaled 3,826 people, 10 helicopters, eight airtankers, 22 bulldozers and 521 engines."

Highway 99 south

There have been significant fires around us here in Chico. A week ago twenty homes were destroyed about 30 minutes to the west of us. And this week the Humboldt Fire, ten minutes to the east, has created major damage. The last I looked there were 52 structures destroyed and over 23,000 acres of land burned. There were other fires in Santa Cruz and Vacaville last week, and one started recently in Paskenta. Lisa and I decided to volunteer at the Animal Rescue Facility this morning, and we were given the unfought-over task of laundering soiled pet bedding. We were aided by a retired female sheriff's deputy--"female" mentioned because we would find out from her that the force was only 10% female. She had some interesting stories about working during the San Francisco earthquake. The three of us hauled about 12 large contractor-grade garbage bags over to the coin laundry and spent about $90 of donated money cleaning and drying everything. When we returned three hours later, the amount of donations had seemingly doubled. There were pallets of dog food and, rather humorously, suddenly huge amounts of recently donated, clean bedding, next to which we placed our newly laundered towels, sheets, and pads.

Ralph Nader, talking about being told to not run for the presidency.

Missed this: New York Times article from April 20th, detailing the Pentagon's undercover campaign to promote the war through television military analysts.

Watched The Color of Pomegranates, directed by Sergei Parajanov. Intense, visually interesting, slightly surreal movie. Wholly imagistic, symbolic, dreamy. About the life of Armenian poet, Sayat Nova. Beautifully shot, superb costumes, set designs.

Then watched The Take, directed by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis. Well-done documentary on factory reclamation by workers in Argentina. It's a surprisingly active movement, involving 200 factories of worker-reclaimed factories. Features some non-mawkish, heartbreaking scenes, including the real effects of unemployment on the central family.

Began watching Oldboy, directed by Park Chan-wook. Only 20 minutes in, but already am hooked by this frenetic, well-shot and well-written film. Nightmarish, modern, Seoul. Looking forward to finishing this tomorrow night.

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Mulholland Falls, viewed over the weekend, is a terrible film. I could explain, but I'd be wasting my life.

Today's Nader/Gonzalez email, titled "Ralph in AP Poll":



An Associated Press poll released on Friday shows:

Barack Obama 47 percent

John McCain 43 percent

And Ralph Nader 6 percent.

And that's Nader at six percent with virtually no mainstream national press coverage.
Why is Nader's six percent important?

Because this might be the year when the Presidential debates are busted open.

Google has shown an interest in hosting debates.

And McCain has floated the idea of ten town hall debates.

To get into these debates, it's important that Ralph show a certain level of support.
He's got that, according to the most recent AP poll. And then it becomes important that he gets on as many state ballots as possible.

We're working our hearts out to get him there.

By the end of June, we should be on ten or so. And we're aiming to be on more than 40 by the end of the summer. To help fuel this summer ballot access drive, you can give up to the legal limit of $4,600 each.

But we'll take whatever you can afford.

Remember, getting Ralph on the debates changes everything.

Jesse Ventura, when he ran for Governor of Minnesota, was at ten percent.

He got on the statewide debates and moved to 20 percent.

And then people sensed a three way race.

And he won.

As we learned this weekend at the Belmont Stakes.

There are no foregone conclusions.
So, let's work together to get Nader/Gonzalez to the starting line.

Then line 'em up, ring the bell, and let 'em run.

Onward

The Nader Team

PS: We invite your comments to the blog.

Your contribution could be doubled. Public campaign financing may match your contribution total up to $250.

Reading Valerian Albanov's In the Land of White Death.

Also bought K2--The Savage Mountain by Charles S. Houston, M.D. and Robert H. Bates.

"Mr. Obama is a liberal" and other nonsense in Frank Rich's New York Times op-ed. Barack Obama is as corporate centrist as anything imaginable. Russ Feingold is a liberal. Is it only the Times that allows its theater reviewers to make the jump to political reviewing?

Today's Nader/Gonzalez email:



Senators Obama and McCain:

We were reading the other day about the tobacco legislation you both support that is making it's way through Congress.

The bill would give the federal government the authority to regulate tobacco.

And it would ban flavored cigarettes - like strawberry and chocolate.

Flavoring makes tobacco smoke more attractive - especially to young people.

So, we agree - flavoring should be banned from cigarettes.

Here's the curious thing, though.

Under the bill, all flavorings would be banned.

Except for menthol.

Menthol cigarettes make up fully a quarter of the more than 375 billion cigarettes consumed in the United States every year.

And 75 percent of African-Americans who smoke smoke menthol cigarettes.

We know you've both been busy on the campaign trail.

So, maybe you missed it last week when a bipartisan group of seven former secretaries of health sent you and other members of Congress a letter protesting the menthol loophole and demanding that menthol be banned along with all other flavorings.

Citing studies that show that an estimated 80 percent of African-American teenage smokers pick menthol brands, former health secretary Joseph Califano said that the menthol loophole was "clearly putting black children in the back of the bus."

The letter that was sent to you says that the loophole "caves to the financial interests of tobacco companies and discriminates against African-Americans - the segment of our population at greatest risk for the killing and crippling smoking-related diseases."

"It sends a message that African-American youngsters are valued less than white youngsters."

Just wanted to make sure you saw this letter.

And the New York Times article about the letter.

We also noticed that the National African-American Tobacco Prevention Network at first supported the legislation, but now opposes it because of the lethal menthol loophole.

So, here's to the hope that both of you will be able to make a change we can all believe in.

What say you to the youth of America?

Onward

The Nader Team

PS: We invite your comments to the blog.

Your contribution could be doubled. Public campaign financing may match your contribution total up to $250.

The most-balanced and best op-ed article the NY Times has run on the presidential race--only, of course, when the whole thing's over.

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Another good read in The Nation, "Iron My Skirt".

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I've been meaning to write a piece on homophonic writing for about three years now, and I probably will do that in the next few weeks. This is simply a "for your interest," if you are (interested).

The Nader/Gonzalez e-mail that I received today, with the Subject titled "The Trick":



How do you get people to vote against their own self interest?

That's the trick.

One way is to make people believe in a dream.

That's what all of the mainstream politicians are doing - feeding that dream.

Obama is feeding a dream - a dream of change and renewal.

He's feeding a dream that the conditions that surround us - Iraq, the economy, the racial divide, the class divide in this country - that they are magically going to go away by voting for this centrist Democrat.

That is nonsense, of course.

Obama is not proposing any structural changes.

McCain is feeding us the dream, the fantasy of power and control.

That somehow the military might of the U.S. will prevail across the globe.

These are fantasies that are being fed by the politicians.

They are not so much lies, as delusions.

But we will have brought it on ourselves by supporting these politicians.

By ignoring any candidate or any ideas that might conflict with those dreams.

The Obama moment is a feel good moment.

It makes us feel good.

But the programs Obama is proposing - up and down and all around - are the same centrist Democratic positions.

The same people are going to be running the show.

All of the corporations are rapidly switching their contributions to the Democrats.

These are the words of the American novelist Russell Banks.

We heard Banks the other day interviewed by Chris Lydon on Radio Open Source. (Listen to the interview here.)

What wasn't mentioned was Nader/Gonzalez.

So, let us say it loud and clear.

Nader/Gonzalez.

Shift the power from the few to the many.

Free our government of corporate domination.

Restore the sovereignty of an engaged people.

Don't fall for the trick.

Help us put Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot.

We're on our way to give the American people a choice in November.

But we need your help.

And we need it now.

You can give up to $4,600.

But please, give whatever you can.

Shift the power.

Feed the living, breathing people-powered alternative.

Support Nader/Gonzalez.

Onward.

The Nader Team

PS: We invite your comments to the blog.

Your contribution could be doubled. Public campaign financing may match your contribution total up to $250.

You'll forgive me if I see politicians as not really human, but as salespeople, and not even salespeople, but even worse: someone acting human to give off the appearance that they are not, in fact, salespeople. This double shift of identity, between human actor and hidden salesperson, undergird every politican. It is the best actor, of course, that wins the nomination. No wonder, then, that Reagan and Schwarzenegger have been president and governor. Or that Jesse Ventura, an actor portraying a wrestler, would become the governor of Minnesota.

How one goes about concealing the salesperson varies from candidate to candidate. One of the more remarkable acting tricks is one that Obama used again tonight in his speech. He puts forth, and sets the tone, by promoting "mutual respectability" and "decency" in the campaign. He sets out with this as one of his guiding principles which, lickety-split, becomes a charming quality. Certainly, people like to be respected, yes? Everyone can agree on that. Certainly, everyone wants to be treated decently, and so on. But what are the consequences of this philosophy? You'll forgive me, again, if I believe that this entire Obama personalizing, humbling rhetoric, isn't being used for just "being nice." What are the consequences of pushing the rhetoric of "being nice"?

Well, certainly, there is control created. The one dictating the argument can determine when something is or isn't respectable. At any point, a policy decision, for instance, can be termed in a way that signals a move toward the personalizing rhetoric. The one who sets the tone can be the one who can call foul first, and one is, then, of course stuck in the position of having to argue with someone supposedly offended, which never works. If someone is offended, we must apologize. We must make amends. Because being offended is proof in itself that there was offense. The one who controls these strings has tremendous power. For he/she can both make the call for offense and be the one to distribute the acceptance of an apology. This is a constant movement between wounded/slighted party and noble acceptor.

I remember being told by a friend who had given me an unexpected, expensive gift that she knew, in giving the gift, that there was a need for her to control the relationship in a way, and she worried that I would feel pushed into a role of forced thanksgiver, of supplicant, of one who must respond in a conditioned way of saying thanks, and therefore the gift giver receives the response that he/she had sought out, that was already latent in the gift.

I feel Obama has used a personalizing rhetoric to "dignify" the campaign for a reason. It's one aspect he can control. He doesn't have the experience of being on the national stage that Hillary Clinton and John McCain have. He is both 15 and 25 years younger than Clinton and McCain, as well. He has no real foreign policy experience to speak of. He's been a U.S. senator for three years. While he cannot promote much in the way of what he's done, he can promote an atmosphere, at least, and a future, for the simple reason that he hasn't much of a record. There can only be a future, for in the future he will actually have an existent record. So, we get an Obama who seeks to control the "tone" of the campaign, by consistently talking about things like "our better selves"--whatever that may be--and "what unites us" and so on. For who can be against that? It's like a circular political wall of Hallmark responses, offering warm feelings to those who like to rub up against the wall, and to those who don't the wall offers "disappointed" looks. "How could you not like my warm feelings," the wall asks? "Is it because you are unfriendly?"

As far as I know, there are only four works of any serious length given over to homophonic translation. Four works in a space of 39 years. May there be many, many more to come.

Celia and Louis Zukofsky, Catullus, Cape Goliard Press, 1969. 116 of Catullus' poems get the treatment.

David Melnick, Men In Aida: Book One, Tuumba, 1983. 25 pages long.

David Melnick, Men In Aida: Book Two, Editions Eclipse, 2002.

My own Trilce, Calamari Press, 2006. All 77 poems in Vallejo's second book, Trilce, are treated mostly homophonically, but not fully.