| Number 98 | December 15, 2000 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, I haven't heard too much response yet to the Context Club idea that I raised in last week's edition of the Notes. Nygaard Notes readers seem to be a busy bunch, and given that it is also sort of a busy time of year, what with Kwanzaa, Hannukah, Christmas, solstice, and so forth, maybe my timing isn't so good. So I will wait another week or two to see if there is more response to the idea. If there is, then we'll start talking details like time and place. If not, I may delay the start date by a couple of months or something. So, let me know if you are interested; details to follow. Some of the things that I do not put into Nygaard Notes include recipes, gardening ideas, bicycle repair tips, and art criticism. Just so you know. Not much room left, better quit here. Keep those cards and letters coming! Solidarity, Nygaard |
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This week's "Quote" of the Week speaks of indigenous activist and political prisoner Leonard Peltier. Many Nygaard Notes readers are familiar with the case of Leonard Peltier, who was convicted in the 1970s of the killing of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Oglala Reservation in South Dakota. For those of you who are not familiar with the case, I recommend that you visit the website of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee at www.freepeltier.org. You can also write or call them at P.O. Box 583, Lawrence, Kansas 66044, or 785-842-5774. I mention this now because, after 24 years in prison, the movement to free Leonard has reached a crucial point. One of the things that lame duck presidents sometimes do before they leave office is to exercise their power to extend clemency to federal prisoners who the President believes, for whatever reason, should not be in prison. No one knows whether Bill Clinton is inclined to grant clemency to Mr. Peltier, but he has said that he will look at and issue a decision on the case before he leaves office in January. As a result, the FBI has launched a propaganda effort to turn public opinion against Peltier and blunt the effort for his release from prison. Some of you may have seen evidence of it in your local papers already. The Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!), for example, published a lengthy commentary in last Saturday's paper entitled "Peltier Deserves as Much Mercy as He Showed His Victims -- None." The piece was written by a local law enforcement officer who stated that there "was nothing amiss during any of the proceedings against Peltier," and ended by rhetorically asking whether the president would be "weak" and grant clemency, or would he "act responsibly and recognize that Peltier has earned a lifetime of incarceration?" I won't go into all of the facts of the case here, as the organization above is a better source than I am for the details. I will say that it is worth your time to learn something about the case, since the case of Leonard Peltier has so much to teach about the issue of political prisoners in the United States, about the history of indigenous political organization, (especially in the past 30+ years), about the nature of law enforcement propaganda, and about the power of the state. Many individuals and organizations around the world are urging the President to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, including the above-mentioned Amnesty International. Just a few of the organizations that have recently, in many cases repeatedly, called for Peltier's freedom are:
Prominent individuals calling for Peltier's release include
...among many others. Importantly, the Assembly of First Nations of Canada and the National Congress of American Indians of the United States, in their first-ever joint meeting in July of 1999, both passed unanimous resolutions calling for the release of Leonard Peltier, a strong show of solidarity among scores of distinct and autonomous Native Nations. I urge you to become at least somewhat informed about this case, and take whatever action your conscience dictates. |
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Various legislatures are going to be coming back into session next month, including the Minnesota State legislature. Since the dominant theme of our "leaders" continues to be fiscal conservatism despite our rosy macroeconomic picture, I think it is time to re-introduce a feature I haven't run since last February: "Tax Cut Consequence of the Week." Despite the fact that I had grown to sort of like this awkward-sounding name, the new incarnation will have a new name, one with a bit more "zest" and "punch," as we say in the media business. To inform new Notes readers, and remind old ones, the point of such a feature is simple: Many governments at every level - federal, state, county, and local - are choosing to deal with their chronic budget surpluses by giving tax rebates and/or lowering tax rates, rather than by investing that money in meeting human needs such as health care, housing, transit, welfare, and so forth. This is despite the fact that Americans remain among the lowest-taxed people in the industrial world. This ideology – that our taxes are too high rather than that our spending is too low – is so dominant now that it is unusual for media outlets to give much space, if any, to the real consequences of such a miserly approach to public budgeting. Giving that space is what I intend to do with this occasional feature. The following facts address the reality in our own state, Minnesota, but the odds are very high that the same basic reality exists in your state. Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura said on November 30th that his approach to any new spending will be conservative. "Tax cuts, not higher spending, will be my focus," he said on the occasion of announcing the latest projections of a mammoth surplus. The previous Republican administration felt the same way. Why this should be so is a subject for another Nygaard Notes. The fact is that the State of Minnesota has had large-to-huge budget surpluses for almost seven years, beginning with the first forecast of a surplus, announced in November of 1993, just after the end of the last recession. The most recent projection calls for a surplus of over $3 billion during the next budget cycle. The grossness of the issue was made clear in the remark of the State Finance Commissioner upon announcing the forecast: "I was here a year ago to tell you we had a boatload of money. Today I'm here to tell you we're busting at the seams." So there's the new name of the occasional feature that will focus on the real-world consequences of the tax-cut ideology that is running rampant around the country. Instead of "Tax Cut Consequence of the Week," tune in next week for the first installment of "Busting at the Seams." |
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Last week I mentioned a little bit about the Reconstruction period in American history, that period after the Civil War when the United States had perhaps its best chance to usher in an era of real civil rights for all of its citizens. Pondering that period in our history made me think of a couple of things that I didn't go into last week. Here they are. Impeachment It is interesting to consider the recent impeachment of Bill Clinton in relation to the only other impeachment of a president in American history, that of Andrew Johnson in 1868. The impeachment of Johnson was triggered by his stubborn efforts to obstruct true reconstruction in the post-Civil War South, and the effort to impeach him was led by "Radical" members of the Republican Party (his own party) who believed that Reconstruction would never happen as long as the racist Johnson was president. 130 years later, I wonder about the degree of hatred of the current President and his wife, which contributed so strongly to his impeachment. Could that hatred be explained in part by the perception, on the part of many, of the President and his wife as present-day scalawag and carpetbagger, respectively? Hmmm... The Election of 1876 One of the previous controversial Presidential elections we had was the contest between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden in 1876. In that contest, the electoral college vote hinged on the results in three Southern states, South Carolina, Louisiana and, yes, Florida. This election occurred as the Ku Klux Klan was leading the violent attack on black political participation in the South and the Republican government in Washington was retreating from strong enforcement of the Reconstruction laws and policies intended to encourage and protect that participation. All in all, much of today's madness in Florida is reminiscent of 1876, beginning with a vote that was almost exactly a tie. Despite the wimpiness on Civil Rights of Republican candidate Hayes in 1876, black voters nonetheless voted overwhelmingly for him, as the alternative was a vote for the Democrats, known to many as "the party of slavery." The failure of strong federal intervention to protect black voting rights in the South almost cost Hayes the election, and certainly did contribute to that presidential election crisis, as Democrat Tilden had appeared to win the popular vote. This election wouldn't have even been close in the South, I don't believe, if the newly-enfranchised former slaves had been allowed to vote and if their votes had been honestly tallied. Hayes, however, won in the electoral college and eventually became President, after many months of backroom deals and fighting in the courts. Sound familiar? Among the first official acts of President Hayes was to order back to barracks the federal troops who had been guarding the Republican governors in Louisiana and South Carolina against a real threat of violent overthrow and replacement by white supremacist Democrats. This order to retreat put the final nail in the coffin of Reconstruction and allowed these states to be "Redeemed," which was the contemporary racist term for the restoration of pre-Emancipation systems of political, class, and race relations in the South. Think of the parallels to the present crisis: The Clinton-Gore administration, during their eight years in office, failed to take a strong stance in support of the issues that benefit the core constituencies that have traditionally been the Democrats' source of support (i.e. labor, women, poor people). I'm thinking here of welfare "reform" and NAFTA, among other issues. And, of course, the failure to take action to prevent the modern-day disenfranchisement of Florida's black voters, whether it takes the form of felony disenfranchisement laws or polling-place intimidation and fraud, is strongly reminiscent of the failures of the federal government that almost cost Hayes the election. Perhaps the biggest failure, I would say betrayal, of the Clinton-Gore administration in regard to the Democrats' core constituencies has been the acceptance of – indeed, the acceleration of – the process of removing power from the federal government and sending it back to state and local governments, a process known as "devolution" or "The New Federalism." In the Reconstruction era, a similar demand was made by the Southern planter (slave-holding) class. They demanded what they called "Home Rule," which was the euphemism of the time for the restoration of white supremacy in the South. "It matters little to us who rules in Washington," commented an Abbeville newspaper in early 1877, "if South Carolina is allowed to have...Home Rule." As in the days of Reconstruction, the federal government is seen by the modern American aristocracy as an impediment to their desire for an unfettered freedom to accumulate wealth, and the accompanying freedom to exploit the vulnerable classes to the degree necessary to accomplish it. So, in the wake of our own disputed election, we can expect to see a continuation of the shrinking of the federal government and a continued resistance to supplying the levels of funding necessary to carry out the federal government's historic functions of regulation and enforcement. I will give some examples of the consequences of this ideology in regard to Civil Rights enforcement in next week's Nygaard Notes. As with Hayes in 1876, would-be President Al Gore has no one but himself to blame for allowing an easily-winnable election to be so close that it fell to the courts to decide. A quote from historian Eric Foner is quite poignant in this context: "[T[he abandonment of Reconstruction was as much a cause of the crisis of 1876-77 as a consequence, for had Republicans still been willing to intervene in defense of black rights, Tilden would never have come close to carrying the entire South." And just think, Ralph Nader wasn't even born in 1876! |