This Week:

Quote of the Week

Anti-war demonstrations

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Misleading Words

Jesse’s Friends on the Far Right

Greetings,

I hope that every reader of Nygaard Notes is contributing something - a little or a lot - to help build a peaceful, anti-imperialist response, to the current major wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq. Everyone has a different capacity for action. It’s just important to do whatever you feel is possible for you.

Enjoy this week’s edition.

Nygaard

Quote of the Week:

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

-- Howard Zinn, from “You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times,” p. 208

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Misleading Words

Nygaard Notes readers will recall that last August the United States, in supposed retaliation for the terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, launched cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and on The Sudan. Although it went unremarked in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!), an English newspaper called The Independent reported a couple of weeks ago (May 4th) that the U.S. has officially admitted that the bombing in the Sudan was “a mistake.” The official story is that the selection of the pharmaceutical factory was due to “faulty intelligence.” Sound familiar?

There was an excellent article that appeared yesterday (May 13) in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!), entitled “Embassy bombing repeats familiar pattern,” by Peter Dale Scott of the Pacific News Service. Mr. Scott, a former Canadian diplomat, had written a book in 1972 analyzing an interesting pattern of “accidents” that occurred during the Vietnam War. It seems that it was a rather common occurrence for the United States to “accidentally” bomb embassies, seagoing vessels, or whatever else it felt like, just as a peace initiative was about to bear fruit. The effect was to repeatedly derail such peace initiatives, whether they be from Romania, Poland, Russia, or even our own supposed “peace talks” led by the infamous war criminal H. Kissinger.

As Mr. Scott’s article put it, “The United States called the embassy bombings unintentional. But such correlations occurred repeatedly... The habit of timing bombs to peace initiatives apparently began as a deliberate policy of Lyndon Johnson...”

Now skip ahead 30 years to Yugoslavia. The “accidental” bombing of the Chinese embassy came one day after Russia and leading NATO nations had agreed to a set of general principles for ending the conflict over Kosovo.

Much information like the above, having to do with the often-bloody history of U.S. foreign policy, is well-known to citizens of most other countries, while it is almost entirely unknown to Americans, who by and large have been trained to think of the American government as benevolent. Given such a large disparity between the levels of historical knowledge of Americans and other world citizens, it should not be surprising that reactions to such events as the recent bombing of the Chinese embassy might be radically different depending on where one lives.

Recently the local papers have carried photos of Chinese citizens carrying posters of Clinton with a swastika on his forehead, saying “Clinton: Born to Kill.” To the average American, such pictures can reinforce the bigoted ethnocentrism for which Americans are somewhat famous. To many Americans lacking in the knowledge of American imperialism that many Chinese apparently have, “those” people may appear to be crazy and to have an irrational hatred of the noble U.S.A. Such ethnocentrism is part of what fuels our outrageous levels of military spending and the apparent tolerance of Americans for our seemingly endless wars.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in the absence of historical context, unfortunately they are often prejudiced and misleading words.

Jesse’s Friends on the Far Right

An abbreviated version of the following column appears in the May 1999 issue of ACCESS PRESS newspaper. (If you don’t have your subscription yet, call them at 651-644-2133.) Although this article is written from the perspective of people with disabilities, the same perspective holds true for any group that is disproportionately poor and in need of government services.

Jesse’s Friends on the Far Right

by Jeff Nygaard

Given Governor Jesse Ventura’s inexperience, and his self-declared ignorance of the workings of government at the state level, it seems more important than ever to be aware of the identity and philosophy of the people surrounding this Governor. With this in mind, ACCESS PRESS followed the Governor to an April 13th seminar held at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Minneapolis entitled, “Liberty in the New Millennium.” Governor Ventura gave the keynote address to the seminar, which was hosted by a Washington-based “free-market” think tank called the CATO Institute.

Some readers of ACCESS PRESS may be familiar with the CATO Institute, as they have been vocal opponents of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) since the beginning. CATO believes that the ADA has “placed huge, unnecessary burdens on businesses and local governments, often with little or no benefits for the handicapped (sic).” The titles of some of their commentaries and articles over the years speak for themselves: "Morality on the Cheap: The Americans with Disabilities Act" (1990), "The Americans With Disabilities Act: Time for Amendments” (1991), "Unreasonable Accommodations." (1995), and “Handicapping Freedom: The Americans with Disabilities Act.” (1996).

Although this reporter was there to hear the Governor, it turns out that his speech was the smallest part of the seminar. Before Mr. Ventura arrived, we all sat through an hour and a half of presentations by members of the Washington staff of the CATO Institute. Speeches were made, and literature handed out, on the subjects of legislative term limits (they support them), privatizing Social Security (CATO has a special division devoted specifically to promoting this), and government regulation (they’re very much against it).

This last theme, the theme of so-called “government regulation,” is an important one for disability-rights activists to understand. CATO director of Natural Resource Studies Jerry Taylor spoke to this issue. He gave several examples of “unreasonable regulation” on the part of the government, including OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Act) and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). But the first and most powerful example that Mr. Taylor used to illustrate how government continually takes away our liberties was: The Americans with Disabilities Act. At one point Mr. Taylor referred to “the horrible monstrosity that the government has become under the ADA.”

And Mr. Taylor was not alone in his attacks on this landmark civil rights law. While not being the main subject of any of the presentations, the ADA was nonetheless a key reference throughout the day. The audience seemed to accept without question the claims that the ADA has been “a major source of lawsuits,” imposing “excessive costs and administrative burdens” on the country. Never mind that these claims are not true. For the CATO crowd, neither details nor substantiation were needed.

Readers of ACCESS PRESS are aware that there is and has been a multi-faceted backlash against the ADA since it was passed in 1990. (See ACCESS PRESS, “The backlash against the ADA” October 1998, by Jeff Nygaard). But why is the ADA such an important target for the Governor’s friends at the CATO Institute?

The CATO Institute exists to “promot[e] public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.” That may not sound too threatening to people with disabilities, until you listen to what they mean by “limited government.”

Ed Crane, CATO’s President, gave a speech at the seminar entitled “Civil Society vs. Political Society,” in which he stated that there are two ways to organize a society. One way is to have decisions made “voluntarily, by individuals and companies.” The other way is to have decisions made “coercively, by government.” In the libertarian world of CATO, to understand politics you must answer a single question: Who makes decisions about your life?” As Ed Crane put it, “In a civil society, you do. In a political society, someone else does.”

People with disabilities should understand clearly the implications of this philosophy. If a company believes that their clients might be “uncomfortable” upon seeing a receptionist in a wheelchair, then they should be “free” to not hire people in wheelchairs. Likewise, companies should not be “coerced” into making basic services accessible to all; let people fend for themselves! By extension, in any case where the majority makes a judgement that discrimination is wrong, and puts it into law, this is an unacceptable limit on individual freedom.

Rather than seeing the ADA as a key civil-rights law, the 180 people who paid $50 a plate to attend the April 13th CATO seminar apparently see it simply as the best evidence of the “Zealotry, fanaticism, and contempt for the rights of the individual [that] permeates the activities of the government in Washington,” to use the words of President Crane. It follows, then, that to be consistent with the CATO’s “principled, philosophical commitment to limited government,” Congress “must consider major changes in, if not outright repeal of, the ADA.” With 73 employees and an annual budget of $12 million, the CATO Institute has the muscle to put this reactionary goal on the nation’s agenda.

For the Governor’s part, he spent most of his 25-minute keynote address re-telling the story of how he “shocked the world” by winning the governorship, and admitted that he is still learning on the job, and relying heavily on his advisors.

Toward the end of his brief presentation, Mr. Ventura laid out his top three priorities as governor. In order, the Governor wants:

1. A unicameral (one-house) legislature;
2. Strict term limits on elected officials; and
3. Lower taxes and smaller government.

Minnesotans have heard the governor say all of these things. So, if the governor had nothing new to say, what was he doing at the CATO seminar?

The Governor admitted that, when he was asked to address the CATO seminar, he knew absolutely nothing about them, even making a joke about his ignorance. As he put it, “Tim Penny told me to come, so here I am.” Given his total lack of any references to the Institute or its philosophy, it’s quite likely the Governor still knows nothing about his hosts.

So, who is this Tim Penny? Mr. Penny stood at the Governor’s elbow during the question-and- answer period, telling the Governor who to call on and at times appearing to tell the Governor how to respond. That, plus his ability to get the governor to go where he wants him to go, would seem to indicate that he is a pretty high-ranking fellow in this administration. However, a call to the Governor’s office revealed that Mr. Penny actually has no official position in the Governor’s office. He functions only as an “informal advisor,” according to a spokesperson for the Governor. Mr. Penny, a former 6-term Democratic Congressman from Minnesota’s 2nd District, has been mentioned lately as a potential candidate for the U.S. Senate. In fact, CATO President Crane pitched him for that position in his introductory remarks. No surprise there; former- Democrat Penny (I think he still calls himself a Democrat, actually) has for some time been a Senior Fellow of the CATO Institute. “I've long admired the Cato Institute,” he says, adding that “Cato seeks to define a more limited role for government in America's future, and I look forward to working with the Institute to advance that goal.”

Whatever the Governor’s intentions were in addressing the CATO gathering, his keynote address had the effect of raising money for, and raising the visibility of, this Washington-based right- wing libertarian group. Does this mean that the Governor agrees with their desire to weaken or repeal the ADA, and otherwise reduce the government’s role as guardian of the rights of its citizens? Clearly, some people who do think this way have the Governor’s ear. People with disabilities should make their voices heard in the Governor’s office as well.