"President Bush held a private meeting with congressional leaders on Feb. 27, and they decided to kill the new ergonomic workplace rules by using the Congressional Review Act....According to those vivid imaginations on `The Wall Street Journal"s editorial page, the new ergonomic safety rules were "hastily" and carelessly enacted by haughty bureaucrats paying no attention to the real-world costs of redesigning workplaces so that repeated movements don't wind up crippling people.Actually, it took 10 years to get these regulations ready -- 10 years of open hearings, open testimony and invitations to all sides to participate. But as the `Journal' reports in its refreshingly frank way, contributors who "invested" in Bush's presidential campaign are now looking for "a return on investment."

"The bankruptcy "reform" bill was a nice start. Please note that on Wednesday, `The New York Times' reported: "Associates First Capital, one of the nation's largest consumer lenders, was charged by federal regulators yesterday with routinely deceiving and lying to customers, tricking them into costly loan refinancing and purchases of expensive `credit insurance' that generated fees for the companies but often were of little benefit to borrowers." Those borrowers will now find it much harder to declare the bankruptcy into which they have been forced. Step Two of "return on investment" is to scrap workplace safety rules, because who cares about the pain and suffering of American workers when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Association of Wholesale Distributors all put big bucks into Bush's campaign?

"Suddenly we are less concerned about the pain and suffering of workers and more concerned that the new rules might allow someone to "malinger" (!); that the definitions of the medical problem is too vague; that the workers get overly generous compensation -- 90 percent of their salary for up to three months. Imagine. This standard argument of "Somebody's going to get away with something!" is often used effectively against social programs, but it doesn't work out quite that way in practice. Medicare and Medicaid fraud, for example, is not the consequence of malingering by individuals but of vast, deliberate cheating by some doctors and hospitals. We tend to watch the wrong mouse hole when it comes to waste, fraud and abuse. But repetitive stress syndrome is not limited to the factory floor, to unionized workers or to Democrats. Nice, white, middle-class, Republican voters get it, too. I doubt they will be happy to learn that they must experience pain and suffering with no recourse because the National Association of Manufacturers gave mega-bucks to Bush's campaign.

When you can't use one arm for anything without a hiss of pain, it does bring the larger problem of safer design vividly to mind. There is nothing inevitable about repetitive stress. Redesigning jobs and tools to avoid it is almost a no-brainer, though someone does have to sit down and think about it. The business lobby is now engaged in one of its Never-Never Land fantasies about how much the new rules will cost. (These folks do this every time someone tries to raise the minimum wage, too.) They now estimate the cost in billions and billions of dollars. Of course, they don't count how much the regs will save in medical costs, time and (excuse me for mentioning it again) pain. Fortunately, the coalition of companies out to defeat the new regs only had to spend a couple of million in campaign contributions. This system pays off for business like a stacked poker deck." --Molly Ivins, 3/7/01

"PRESIDENT Kim Dae Jung of South Korea may find a chilly reception for his “sunshine” policy towards North Korea in Washington this week, for if one characteristic has emerged clearly from the foreign policy of the new Bush Administration, it is a willingness to offend old enemies. In the space of six weeks, President Bush has bombed Iraq, angered China, told Moscow to expect reduced aid, worried much of Europe with his insistent approach to national missile defence (NMD) and made clear that he does not intend to share cocktails with Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader, any time soon. The diplomatic temperature at the last Cold War frontier on the Korean peninsula is dropping swiftly, straining relations between the United States and South Korea, hitherto one of the closest military alliances in the world.

"President Kim, who flew to Washington [Wednesday] to try to steer the new Administration towards a policy of engagement with North Korea, wants the sort of solid support he got from President Clinton for his efforts to end decades of hostility between the two Koreas. So far, there is little indication that he is going to get it. The Bush team, openly dubious of the prospects for rapid change in the North, is emphasising conventional disarmament to reduce tensions rather than more talks to curb Pyong-yang’s missile programme, while demanding more concrete gestures of reconciliation from the North. During his confirmation hearings, General Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, flatly referred to the North Korean leader as a “dictator”. The South Koreans are rattled: “We are really afraid that the change in Administration could undercut the peace process,” an adviser to Mr Kim said last week. The North Koreans are sabre-rattling again, condemning the “hardline” stance taken by the new Administration and threatening to abandon missile and nuclear agreements with the United States.

"The new cold front is being propelled, to a great extent, by American ambitions for NMD. The threat of attack from North Korea is one of the central justifications cited by the Bush team for creating a missile shield. While much of Mr Bush’s foreign policy is still at a formative stage, the President has signalled a tougher stance on a variety of fronts, most notably Iraq. NMD is emerging as the defining factor in Mr Bush’s international vision, despite opposition and anger in Beijing and Moscow and concern across much of Europe." --Ben Macintyre, 3/7/01

We criticize the Republican Party for being exclusionary, for not having a bigger tent, don't we? Is it reasonable to respond to the recent electoral theft by blaming Democrats? Excuse me? Isn't that simply a case of "blaming the victim"? It reminds me of a rape case, in which the victim is castigated for having worn a short skirt. That is illogical. The Democrats had 45% of the money, the GOP 55%, but the Democrats still gained seats in both the House and Senate, and Gore got more popular votes than the other guy. The theft of the Presidential election is a shame, but bad stuff sometimes happens to good people. We got raped. We are a crime statistic. Come to grips with it. The American people got forcibly screwed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The majority in the Court violated their most sacred trust to the American people, and in one stroke destroyed their good names forever. That action was infamous. Listen to that again: it was an infamous action, that undercut two hundred years of effort invested in preserving and strengthening our democracy, so such a thing could never happen in our country. What a tragedy. WE didn't do anything wrong. The Busch family is, and has always been, so morally corrupt, that this is simply business as usual, and caught up in the heat of the moment, the centrist conservatives of the Supreme Court made a Faustian bargain. Get mad! But when you get mad, don't get mad at yourselves, or your friends. They were not the perpetrators of this outrage, they are your fellow victims. In the aftermath of an act of violence, it is common for the victims to feel disassociated and confused, and yes, to often blame themselves for what happened. Get over it!

There are as many types of Democrat as there are regional accents and regional priorities in the United States. We ARE the BIG TENT, and let's not forget the strength of being that. We're not always going to agree on every issue. A little fighting inside our big tent is healthy, but let's not go overboard. The GOP would LOVE LOVE LOVE for there to to be a Democratic Party and a Liberal Party. Divide and conquer. That is how they won the last election, remember? Karl Rove would have an orgasm at the thought of that happening! I don't want to deny Mr. Rove a release, but not at the expense of the Democratic Party. Hey, nobody knows what to do in the aftermath of this election. We have an unelected doofus in the White House, nursemaided by Vice President "Dead Man Walking" Cheney, and a slim but tightly united GOP majority in the Senate. Hey, think about it. If all fifty of the GOP vote as a block, and "Dead Guy" casts the deciding vote, what is the point of Democrats making a doomed but principled stand? No point. What they can do is bide their time, avoid conflicts, and keep one eye peeled in the direction of Strom Thurmond, without being too obvious about it. It isn't nice to stare, after all, and nobody really wants him to actually DIE, just maybe to slip into such debilitating dementia that he is forced to retire. He's had years and years and years to speak his mind in Congress, now it ought to be somebody else's turn. And then? Then things will get interesting again, and there will be ample reason for Democrats to pull together, because they will again have the hammer, figuratively and literally. Let's not waste time squabbling in the meantime. Are there any actuaries out there? Just offhand, what is the life expectancy of a 99 year old man who has been hospitalized five times in the last year? Pretty high? Umm, not very likely. It is fairly common for people of that age to hold on by sheer will power until a birthday, or an important family event like Christmas, and then topple over. Look, I'm not going to try to sugar cost this. Thurmond probably wants badly to live to be 100, and still be in office, to set some kind of record. That satisfaction is probably one of the keenest desires he has in his life, so there is reason to think he will make it, unless circumstances intervene. Once that milestone is reached, however, it would be no surprise if he quickly declines. Then things get interesting in the Senate, they get more interesting in 2002, and even more interesting in 2004.

The GOP has always been the party of "old white guys", so it is appropriate that the top of the GOP contains such a collection of doddering white geezers. Clever ones, don't mistake me. The vessel may be tarnished, but these foxes still have guile, and increasingly less to lose. They are gamblers, with all their chips on the table, going for broke. Why? because they realize this is their last best chance, as demographics and history overtake them, and wash away the perks of wasphood they have enjoyed all their lives. Meanwhile, our young accidental President, a pseudo-geezer hiding in a frat boy body, is carrying the water for his father's entire generation, to buttress that status quo, to stand against the tide and storm of history, that is blowing away all of the past, all of the trappings of privilege he grew up in, that he feels are his birthright. Just because he is in office, doesn't mean he did anything right. Just because we lost, doesn't mean we did anything wrong. Hold that thought for a couple of months, and let's let events play themselves out. Be a bit patient, these things sometimes take a bit of time to work themselves out. In the meantime, let's not squabble, okay? We need each other.--Arthur Leeper, 3/8/01

The opinion posted (above) by Arthur Leeper is the most defeatist, self-pitying piece of partisan hogwash I have read yet this year. What's so positive about urging people to "get over it" because if the Democratic Party just avoids any controversy they're bound to take power in 2 to 4 years? Take power to what end? The writer assures us that principled stands are worth nothing because the GOP will win everything anyway, so just wait for Strom Thurmond to die... The quality of original thought that went into this "analysis" wouldn't get better than a C in a high school class. Keeping up with the news on the Bush follies ought to be an opportunity to formulate responses and to hold the "opposition" such as it is ( is it true "daschle" is German for "go along gracefully?") to its values and promises? But no, here we have Leeper suggesting we just feel better about ourselves while waiting for the tide to turn. Sorry, loser, I'm not so drowned in defeat as to be clinging to my Internet connection, scanning Websites to see if anyone is helping me lately.

How many OSHA regs have to be reversed before Leeper and other Dem fanatics notice that it is Democrat votes that are creating the majority in the House? And how about the Senate, which by a 2-1 margin (just where are those good-old labor-loving Dems, hmmm?) decided that catastrophic personal medical expenses will NOT be a valid reason for filing for bankruptcy, but failing at a hostile corporate take-over WILL. Where was Compassionate Liberalism on that vote?Without grassroots opposition to Ashcroft, nearly every Dem was going to vote for him. Hardly a one-vote margin for the GOP as Leeper grouses: more like a 25-vote margin for the status quo, regardless of party line. It seems that we could perhaps use a little MORE ideological purity. What's the beef with the Green Party? That Nader said what he meant? That he correctly predicted that Al Gore would be careful to run as no alternative at all? And could he have been more prophetic in his predictions, including how Dem leaders have tried to deflect attention from their sorry capitulations to Bush by reminding us that Nader won some otherwise-Gore votes? I get furious when I read all the accounts of the things Gore would have done differently as President. Oh yeah? Then why didn't he run on those issues if he thought they were important, instead of traveling the South saying he was for the death penalty and against gun registration reforms, pandering to the Miami Cuban vote on Elian (boy was that a terrific way to get votes! Not.), and refusing to defend Clinton foreign policies which favor intervention in defense of human lives, not just oil deposits?

I belong to a religious denomination that preaches tolerance for diversity. I thought that's what the Dem Party stood for, too. That's supposed to make them better for some people--hell, most of us--than a party that gets it's morality from the bogus Christian "evangelicals." The GOP and their religious buddies are preaching "get-it-while-you-can-because God-wants-you-to." Viola! Morality becomes what you want other people to be like, and you get to be the judge. Churches become "faith-based organizations;" 403(b) tax-exempt corporations run by boards, which need to be oblique and indirect about their spiritual reason for being. For some reason, new-wave Christian "evangelical" leaders think this is a good thing, though I'm left wondering, WWJD? Abandon His teaching to insure an income stream? But instead of either of these visions of human interaction, Leeper apparently believes in the Old-time Religion that preaches pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die and in the meantime the Boss Man takes it out of your hide. Because that's exactly the politics he preaches, that it's all going to get better because the beneficent Big Brother Democratic Party really, really (despite appearances) has your best interests at heart, and will eventually prove it, given time The problem isn't ideology, friends, it's lack of vision. Vision doesn't have to be unbending--after all, things will reliably be different than you planned, so be flexible. But it does give direction. And Dems as a party have no direction. For example, Dems want to debate how "inclusive" turning human services and education over to religion would be. The correct, patriotic and logical position would be to say, "Stop. The Constitution says NO establishment of religion." The answer isn't to be equally inclusive in funding all religious denominations, it's NO FUNDING OF ANY! Get it? The Dems don't. They merely want to be sure some of their people get some, too.

The Democratic Leadership Council has acquired the party and steered Democrats into the Big Money, liberal-bashing, prepare-for-the-next election mentality so ably promoted by Leeper. Issues don't matter, personalities do. Gosh, that Ralph Nader was just so--geeky! But in fact, there are perhaps 30-50 prominent politicians who, if they peeled off from EITHER party and advocated that a new coalition of greens, women, blacks, Hispanics and workers go up against the Dems and GOPs in the next Presidential election, would begin with 25% poll support, maybe more. Of course they would probably fade from that point as the well-oiled propaganda of Major Media systematically destroyed them for their a) not being perfect, b) inability to win, c) naivete, d) lack of big-time experience, or e) take your pick. And then there would be Leeper and all the other big thinkers who would help us understand that the candidate's "ideology" was the problem. Sheesh! Maybe we did get what we as a nation deserved: George Bush, Frat Rat, now president of the wealthiest, most complacent fraternity on earth, opposed by a rival fraternity (not so well-dressed, a little bit socially awkward) which really just kind of envies him. Of course both are segregated, male-dominated, and concerned primarily with their own pleasure and avoiding consequences. Sounds like the Two-Party System to me. What worked in college was to ignore the frat boys and make your own life. Think about it. And for crying out loud, get busy. --Tim Culver, 3/10/01

"IT ALL STARTED out as not much more than a cautionary statement of the obvious about the economy by Alan Greenspan. But sensing a politically opportunity, the sharpies around President Bush twisted caution into a cover for numbers that don't compute and a poorly disguised raid on the government's Social Security and Medicare surpluses. As he began his annual congressional testimony marathon a month ago, the Federal Reserve's chairman was trying to get across that when paying off a national debt like America's, there comes a point near the end when either (1) you have to start bribing bondholders with exorbitant premiums to get them to give up their holdings ahead of maturity or (2) federal surpluses might get parked in private places like stock market funds. The president's people hadn't thought about this before, and with problems already on the horizon in selling a ''You Can Have It All'' domestic policy, they lunged for Greenspan's thought as if it were a life preserver. The result was last week's budget blueprint, a document that does not deserve threshold credibility in a serious national discussion of priorities....

Until last week, the discussion about the national debt that accumulated during the Reagan-Bush years - the last time ''You Can Have It All'' replaced tough choices as government policy - centered on how close to zero you could come in how many years. The consensus was that in 10 to 15 years you could come pretty close. When Greenspan issued his cautionary note, the discussion was occurring in a range of $500 billion to $750 billion of debt that might still be outstanding a decade hence. And then, out of the blue, along comes President Bush's budget outline with its preposterous contention that the maximum national debt retirement that can occur is $2 trillion. All of a sudden, the Greenspan estimate of what's left ($750 billion) has been raised by a whopping 50 percent by a bunch of rookie policy makers whose preference for income tax rate cuts skewed toward the top brackets over debt retirement is infamous. The Bush assumption that the country must be $1.2 trillion in hock 10 years out is based on some of the flimsiest assumption in budget history. One is that $800 billion in debt is scheduled to mature after 2011. Against that out-of-thin-air assertion is the opinion of the Treasury Department, which indicates on its Web site that the Bush claim about maturities is $300 billion on the high side.

"The remainder of the Bush assumption is similarly preposterous in that it assumes no change in current debt management policy. Now we can all agree that for warm and toasty reasons (like birthday and wedding presents), the government's savings bond program will continue. But who would assume that the government would go on issuing 10- and 30-year bonds as it always has in the face of large and continuing surpluses? The Bush people do. Their national debt figure is not the lowest figure possible in the national interest; it is the highest figure they can come up with to help make their income tax and budget arithmetic work. The debt Bush wants to keep is the source of the ''reserve'' fund he spoke about last week, which he needs to pay for all the decisions he has yet to make (about defense, agriculture, and health care). And the money going into that fund just so happens to come from Medicare and Social Security surpluses.

"The president's budget document assumes the disappearance over the next decade of the entire, $526 billion surplus due to accumulate in Medicare's hospital insurance fund. It also assumes that $700 billion of the $2.7 trillion due to accumulate in Social Security cannot be used to pay off national debt. Put the two figures together and you have the $1.2 trillion in debt that Bush wants to keep as of the year 2011. If the administration's other spending and revenue goals were sound (which they are not), you could then have a basis for financing the tax cut on paper. But the financing would of necessity harm both Social Security and Medicare. Unless those trust fund surpluses are used solely within those vital programs to shore them up for the demands of the Baby Boom generation's retirement, there will have to be severe benefit cuts to make ends meet. By stealing all of Medicare's surplus and a chunk of Social Security's to help finance income and estate tax breaks for rich people, Bush makes future benefit slashes inevitable for the rest of us. And the key to his plan is excessive debt." Thomas Oliphant, 3/4/01

by Jerry Politex

I drove my silver Audi down Mesa Drive, the spine of Cat Mountain, hung a left at the cat's tail, drove quickly up the hilly, winding 2222 in low gear, took a right onto Balcones Drive, and came to a stop in the rear parking lot of Chez Zee.

Another sunny, warm early spring day in Northwest Austin, Texas. The lunch crowd was pretty much thinned out by now, so I had choices of parking spaces. I got out of the car, the turbines winding down, and stood by the rear entrance to the restaurant, a pretty-good place for not very expensive Southwestern food. I didn't have long to wait.

...click here to continue the novel.

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