This Week: A Little o' This, A Little o' That

A Gallimaufry of "Quotes" of the Week! (Part 2)

Election 2006: A Word About Voting

Greetings,

The Autumn 2006 Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive is over! Thank you to the new pledgers. I not only appreciate the financial support, but so many of you sent along with your pledge some very encouraging words of support for what this project is trying to do. Amazing! And a special thanks to the many of you who increased your existing pledges, or sent them in early, thus saving me a stamp or two. As I so often tell you, I literally could not do this without your help. What kind of a community can support—even part-time!—an independent, working-class intellectual who serves as a volunteer resource for the larger community? An amazing community, that's what kind!

For those who didn't bother to look it up when you saw the headline last week—A Gallimaufry of "Quotes" of the Week! (Part 1)—here is what "gallimaufry" means: "a hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley." It's just such an odd word I had to throw it in there! Plus, it's quite accurate in this case... Part II is this week, and we'll see if there's a Part III after that. It's kind of fun, and I've got lots more notes to build on. This stuff never ends, really... We'll see.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make the Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive of Autumn 2006 a success!

Gratefully yours,

Nygaard

A Gallimaufry of "Quotes" of the Week! (Part 2)

"Character Counts"

On October 20th my local paper ran a story headlined "President Bush Campaigns for Two Struggling GOP Candidates." Here's the lead paragraph of that story from the Cox News Service:

"President Bush, who designated this week as ‘National Character Counts Week,' put his full faith and fundraising ability yesterday behind two embattled GOP incumbents whose campaigns have been sidetracked by apologies for infidelity and an ethnic slur."

The article doesn't say how much cash the Prez raised for Pennsylvania Rep. Don Sherwood, but he "raised $500,000 for [Virginia Sen. George] Allen's campaign."

Maybe, instead of "Character Counts," the slogan could be "These Characters Know How to Count (Their Campaign Contributions)."

**

Concerned About AIDS? Take Your Tax Cut and Buy a "Red" Dress

Perhaps some of you have noticed a new advertising campaign for "Red." That campaign is advertising a new line of products from companies like GAP, Armani Exchange and Motorola, the sale of which supposedly "aims to raise money to help fight AIDS in Africa."

If you didn't read the article in the October 4th New York Times you wouldn't know that "Those companies, along with Converse and American Express, created the new products, which bear the brand name Red and are to begin appearing in stores this month. The companies are committed to selling the products for at least five years, and plan to donate part of their profits to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria."

Part of their profits? Sure! Ron G. Garriques, president of mobile devices at Motorola, says, "I don't believe it's giving up profit. What I believe it is, is making more profit."

The campaign was created by the musician Bono and Bobby Shriver, "a California politician and member of the Kennedy family," who was speaking about GAP when he said, "we want them to make money. We don't want anyone to be thinking, ‘I'm not making money on this thing,' because then we failed. We want people buying houses in the Hamptons based on this because, if that happens, this thing is sustainable."

The Times then quoted Tommy G. Thompson, the former secretary of health and human services and current honorary chairman of the Global Fund, who said,

"The reason the private sector's got to be involved is there's just not enough money coming in from the government. This is a huge thing and the demand and the need is so great that we just don't have enough money coming in from the governments to do it."

**

"Strategic Importance" vs Democracy. (Guess Who Wins)

Here's a front-page story for you: "Balancing Act: U.S. Welcomes Kazakh Leader." That was the front page of the September 28th New York Times. It seems that "President" Bush was "preparing to receive the Kazakh president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, at a state dinner in Washington" the next day. But, as the Times comments, there is a "delicate balance the administration has struck with a country of growing strategic importance that has a record of corruption, flawed elections and rights violations, including the killings of two opposition leaders in the last year in disputed circumstances."

To its credit, the Times mentioned some unnamed "critics" who say that all of this "illustrates the Bush administration's willingness to sacrifice democracy, a centerpiece of its foreign policy, when it conflicts with other foreign policy goals."

Indeed, as a spokesman for a human rights group in Kazakhstan put it,

"There are four enemies of human rights: oil, gas, the war on terror and geopolitical considerations. And we have all four."

Hmm... So does Iraq. And Iran. And Venezuela. And Indonesia. And Libya. And....

**

Fearful People in the United States

The "willingness to sacrifice democracy" mentioned above seems to be out of sight of the average United Statesian, as evidenced by a thought-provoking piece that my local paper the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) ran on September 11th. Called "Reflections," the piece was introduced thusly: "A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, a Pew Research Center survey showed half of all Americans felt that the attack changed their lives. Now, five years later, we asked readers to share their thoughts about that day."

Here's one response, from one Kimberly Lang, who lives in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis called Minnetonka. She said:

"Five years after the attack on America... I still search for a reason why. When I look at all of the humanitarian undertakings we as a country perform in all parts of the world, I have difficulty understanding why Americans have a bad reputation."

Maybe she should visit Kazakhstan.

And here's a "reflection" from another terrorized United Statesian, from a middle-class suburb north of Minneapolis:

"Diplomatic relations should be terminated, deport all non-citizens, any and all U.S. troops withdrawn and all financial and commodity aid stopped with ANY country remotely considered to be a threat to our nation and its citizens. Our freedoms have permitted this atrocity to be played out on our soil. Let's not have this happen again. Ever."

**

Fearful People In Afghanistan

On September 20th the New York Times ran an opinion piece by one Joel Hafvenstein, described as "an international development consultant." His piece, entitled "Afghanistan's Drug Habit," spoke of how the rampant crime and street-level violence in today's Afghanistan is creating conditions for the return of the Taliban, or any government that can restore order. He closed with this amazing paragraph:

"Security was the Taliban's main selling point when it took control of the country in the 1990's; it could be again."

What he is saying is that, if people are freaked-out enough about threats to their lives and those of their loved ones—in other words, sufficiently terrorized—an authoritarian, or even dictatorial, government that promises "security" may begin to seem attractive.

That's why it will be so interesting to see the choices that terrorized United Statesians make in next week's elections.

**

"The Big Leagues of Philanthropy"

Right here in Minnesota we have been observing the downfall of one William McGuire, who had been the chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group Inc. McGuire, "one of the wealthiest executives in the country," earned a salary of $2.2 million in 2005, in addition to which he had accumulated stock options worth an estimated $1.6 billion as of April of this year.

Apparently that wasn't enough, because the news came out in September that McGuire may face civil and criminal charges for raking in something like $333 million from stock options that might have been backdated to raise their value. This is, as Fortune Magazine put it in a recent issue "stealing, pure and simple."

McGuire and his wife have used some of the stolen money to donate "nearly $100 million to charities, schools and the arts," according to the Star Tribune, adding that this "puts them into the big leagues of local philanthropists." Scandal or no scandal, the upscale Walker Art Center announced that it has "given no thought to changing the name of its McGuire Theater."

The practice of backdating stock options is, apparently, quite widespread among the jet-setting crowd: Bloomberg News reports that "At least 144 companies are conducting internal investigations or are subject to government probes" into the way they grant stock options.

I'm not sure exactly why McGuire got caught, but it's interesting to note how "one of the most powerful figures in American health care" is being remembered in light of being fired by the UnitedHealth board and possibly ending up in jail. A hint of how serious his company takes the charges is the fact that they plan to pay him an annual pension of "about $5 million per year."

Another hint of how such white-collar criminals are thought of was found in a business column in the local paper of October 17th, headlined "A visionary CEO stumbled over his stock options..." The column quoted a local "investment manager" who reminded us that "This is a man who's been an outstanding leader in the health care industry and this community." Adds an academic expert cited by the newspaper: "His reputation as a businessman is still fairly high."

Election 2006: A Word About Voting

As I pointed out in Nygaard Notes # 189 ("The Two Types of Government"), government really operates on two levels: What I call the Business Government is the one that serves the interest of the powerful, taking various actions to help the winners win, and to keep the losers out of the way. What I call the Popular Government is the one that enacts and carries out the various laws and programs that many workers and poor people benefit from and depend on, such as Social Security, workers' compensation, Medicaid, public transit, environmental and workplace regulations, public health initiatives, the National Weather Service, nursing home safety standards, public health laws—among many others.

My point is that, while it could and should do a lot more, government—as it actually is, right now—does do some things that make a positive difference in people's lives. And the outcome of next week's election, like any election, could either make things better or make things worse for some people. Maybe you. Certainly me.

People working for social change always need to think strategically. One of the things we need to think about is whether or not it makes any difference if one "major" party or another is in power in Washington. I think, at the moment, it does. There's one (unnamed) party which doesn't plan to do much to move us forward, it's true. But there's another (unnamed) party which seems pretty intent on moving us backward. Which party is in power, therefore, will have an effect on how much of their time and energy organizers and activists will have to spend taking defensive action in the next couple of years ("Don't let them privatize Social Security!" "No more cuts to Medicaid!" etc.) All the energy spent taking those defensive actions is energy not being spent organizing to move us forward.

So, as November 7th approaches, here are four points that I think Nygaard Notes readers would do well to consider:

1. When the upcoming election is over, the United States Congress is going to be composed—like it or not—almost entirely of people who call themselves Republicans and Democrats.

2. Neither of these parties is prepared to initiate anything like the big changes we need to keep us—ALL of us—safe, healthy, and prosperous, let alone the changes we need to preserve life on the planet.

3. Having said that, we need to ask ourselves if the leadership of one party is more intent on dismantling the Popular Government—and limiting the power of people to stop them—than the leadership of the other party.

I can hear my third-party friends yelling at me already, so here's a postscript: There are good arguments to be made for voting for so-called "third" party candidates, and I wouldn't argue against anyone planning to do that. The question to ask is: Will more or less votes for a "third party" right now—remember, they won't take power—be more useful in helping to build an effective social-change movement than getting rid of the Republican power monopoly?

These are all things to think about as you prepare to vote. And I hope you ARE preparing to vote, if you are able.