Gay Rights, Iran, the DPO Summit, the AFL-CIO Convention, Paul Krugman, the Talking Heads, the V-22 Osprey, Todd Haynes, Bob Dylan and the Idiocy of "Supply-Side Economics"
Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.
Dear friends,
First of all, as Basic Rights Oregon said, yesterday was a proud day for Oregon. The forces of intolerance failed to gather enough signatures to force a vote to overturn Oregon's new domestic partnerships law. YAY!!! Kudos to the Legislature (including my opponent in the primary, Speaker Jeff Merkley) for passing the partnerships law, and to the voters of Oregon for refusing to jump on a bandwagon of intolerance.
Second, on a scarier note, Seymour Hersh - one of America's greatest journalists - has an article in the October 8 New Yorker about the strong possibility that Bush and Cheney plan to attack Iran. And on September 26, the United States Senate - with Gordon Smith, but not Ron Wyden, voting "yes" - passed a resolution on Iran that Senator Jim Webb fears the Administration may well decide to 'interpret' as authorization for such an attack. Here's an idea for the week: Call Gordon Smith at (202) 224-3753 or email him and urge him to tell the President to rely on diplomacy, rather than military action, to deal with Iran.
Speaking of the military, kudos to Time magazine for its expose on the V-22 Osprey, the insanely expensive and unsafe helicopter/airplane boondoggle that is about to make its combat debut in Iraq. Veterans' health care is in shambles, but we spend billions on the Osprey. That's exactly the kind of irrational Pentagon budgeting that I'll fight against in the United States Senate.
Meanwhile, it's been a great few days on the campaign trail. The team spent the weekend in Bend for the Democratic Party of Oregon Summit. The best speech? Peter DeFazio's, of course. The best hospitality suite? Ours. Our team of super-volunteers, the college kids, Andrew, Carl, Ethan and Henry, put on a great party, and a tremendous weekend of work overall. Gene McCarthy's legions had nothing on these guys. It was great spending time with supporters, both those I already knew, and some I had not yet met, like Louise Johnston of Forest Grove, who really made us feel great by telling us she had come to the conference largely for the purpose of meeting the campaign team. For more pictures, visit our photo gallery.
Unfortunately, I had a bit of a cold, which, as I told summiteers on Sunday, proved that this has already become a very dirty campaign: My opponents are resorting to germ warfare. And I'm not even sure who to blame. Was it Gordon Smith - or the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee???
Then yesterday, it was on to the AFL-CIO convention in Seaside. I had a chance to speak, for which I was very grateful, and told a great audience of labor activists the truth - that we can only restore the great American middle class by strengthening the labor movement. We need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and restore a real right to organize by imposing real penalties on employers who fire people for trying to form unions. We need fair trade policies - no more NAFTA and CAFTA giving the middle class the shafta. I was kicking myself afterward, however, for forgetting to add that we also need to repeal Taft-Hartley.
At the end of the day Monday, I had a chance to catch up on a couple of days of the New York Times, and there are two pieces you should be sure to read. Monday's column by my main man Paul Krugman, arguing that George Bush is not a departure from, but a logical extension of, modern conservatism, closed with a paraphrase of one of the greatest songs of the Talking Heads! Krugman and David Byrne, together again for the first time!
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times Magazine has a long article about the great director Todd Haynes - creator of terrific films like "Superstar" (a strange and poignant movie about pop star Karen Carpenter) and "Far From Heaven" (a terrific dark-side-of-the-1950's movie that I saw, I am proud to say, with tickets I won after submitting the winning comment in one week's edition of that late, lamented Oregonian feature "Pie Fight"). Haynes is working on a grand new film about Bob Dylan, whose music was the soundtrack of my childhood. (And still, to some extent, my adulthood.) And - I didn't know this - Haynes lives in Portland! And the article has very nice things to say about Portland. I bet it brings us some tourists.
Oh, and here's one more thing to read: Jonathan Chait's op-ed about the idiocy of the "supply-side economics" myth that tax cuts pay for themselves, a fairy tale that no real economist believes, but is an article of faith with people like George Bush and Gordon Smith.
Take care, and see you soon -
Steve