I recently received a note calling my attention to a "sickening" happening on the other side of our world: "Found this thru Drudge Report and sickening does not even describe what this conference is all about...the hi life that these delegates will indulge in at the world's expense....Please read and publicize. What possible real tangible progress will be made by getting 60,000 people together for posh parties? Can these numbers be wrong?"

This person was writing about a story in an English tabloid, THE SUN, which headlined, Lobsters, caviar and brandy for MPs at summit on starvation. The irony, of course, was that the world's leaders were attending a summit dealing with the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and the need of the world's poor for basic food, shelter, and a healthy environment, but our leaders were visiting in the style of world leaders while so doing. Well, dah ! Since what the world's leaders are doing on their visit to South Africa is no different than what they do on other state visits around the globe, one wonders about the motives of those who call our attention to the irony of business as usual at this particular conference. Should our leaders wear tuxes and drink fine wines at meetings of the World Trade Organization, but wear sackcloth and ashes and sip "contaminated water" when they hold conferences on how to better the lives of the poor? To make it clear where we stand on the matter, if THE SUN is being honest in its distaste for the way our leaders live, why did it wait so long to call our attention to their behavior? And why now? As for Drudge, he could have called our attention to similar lifestyle behavior at opulent meetings of our elected officials near impoverished areas of our cities a long time ago. It's not as if the stories haven't been written and published.

Here's part of what I wrote to the person who was "sickened" by THE SUN's prediction of what supposedly woud happen at the World Summit:

"I really don't understand [your response to the story in THE SUN]. I know for a fact that when world leaders go to the other world conferences they eat at fast food restaurants, and when Bush goes abroad, he just chews gum. All kidding aside, do you think that the politicians attending this particular conference are doing anything different than they do at the other world conferences? Of course not. It's just that the irony of their isolation from the man on the street is more obvious in South Africa, even if at this particular world conference, unlike most, they're trying to do something about such things as pollution, contaminated water, and the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

"About your question, 'what possible real tangible progress will be made by getting 60,000 people together for posh parties?' That's a distortion of what even THE SUN wrote. What posh parties? How many of those 60,000 delegates fit inside the Michaelangelo Hotel, which is the source of ALL of the living high on the hog info in the story? Further, I don't know about you, but if I went to Africa I would choose to drink bottled water, too, rather than the local "contaminated water." In short, based on your question, I think you've been had by an article that provides more heat than light."

Normally, that would have been the end of it, and you wouldn't be reading any of this, but today I found this in a piece written by a person on my side of the political fence:

"...178 world leaders meet in Johannesburg between groaning-table banquets and wine-and-cheese tastings to discuss why millions of predominantly darker-skinned children than the people of Crawford, Texas never see real bread, cheese or the age of eleven. "

Here's more of the same from a Canadian:

"The setting of the summit tells the story. Government, WTO and corporate delegates gather in the lavish hotels and convention facilities of Sandton, the fabulously wealthy Johannesburg suburb that houses huge estates, English gardens and swimming pools, and has become South Africa's new financial epicenter. "

My concern is that the accumulative effect of such comments by folks of good will will serve to further damage the purpose of the Summit, which is to better the lives of the poor.

There has been a three-pronged attack on the Summit Conference. First, the wealthy nations, with Bush in the lead, are fighting hard to water down the goals of the meeting. For example: "The United States is seeking to erase specific targets and timetables on many topics throughout the plan, which includes 150 pages addressing biodiversity, food security, clean water and health care." WP, 8/28/02. Another: "Incredibly, global warming has been squeezed off the agenda at Johannesburg. Is it because the different treatment of ecological debt and financial debt is too embarrassing? Because if you change the accounting system to measure what really matters, such as whether or not the environmental budget is balanced, Europe and the US look hopelessly indebted. " GUARDIAN, 8/27/02.

Secondly, multi-national corporations are working hard to turn the Summit into a trade fair, placing their own commercial interest first, again with Bush's cooperation. For example: "Accusations that big business is hijacking the earth summit and pushing its own agenda of free trade and privatisation in developing countries overshadowed the first official day of the conference yesterday....Charities and pressure groups reacted angrily to the announcement of 192 partnerships involving big business in giving aid to developing countries.The partnerships will see schemes involving water, sanitation and electricity provision being introduced but some only on the condition that public services are privitised to the benefit of big business. Tony Blair is a keen advocate of the schemes and the UK is involved in 20 of them.... A partnership between McDonald's and Unicef, the UN children's fund, involves creating a world day for children in which the company will donate money to the fund for each burger eaten by a child.." GURADIAN, 08.27.02

"A letter from 31 political groups congratulating [Bush] on not attending the summit and urging him not to sign any new environmental treaties" indicates the third prong of the attack on the Summit, indirect political pressure geared to undermine its validity as a viable method of bettering the lives of the poor. The language of the letter pulls no punches:. "'Even more than the earth summit in Rio in 1992, the Johannesburg summit will provide a global media stage for many of the most irresponsible and destructive elements involved in critical economic and environmental issues. Your presence would only help to publicize and make more credible their various anti-freedom, anti-people, anti-globalization and anti-western agendas.' The letter identifies lack of clean water as the most important environmental issue at the summit [,perhaps because Bush is pushing behind the scenes for privatized international water supplies,] but adds: 'Conversely, the least important global environmental issue is potential global warming, and we hope your negotiators can keep it off the table and out of the spotlight.' The fact that seven of the organizations that signed the letter had been funded to the tune of more than $1m by Exxon Mobil, the arch enemy of greens, came as no surprise to Friends of the Earth, to whom the letter was leaked. FoE director designate Tony Juniper said: 'This letter casts a grim light on the iron triangle of the Bush White House, corporate polluters such as Exxon Mobil and the conservative right. They are determined to block any progress at the summit.'"

You may be surprised to learn that during the last presidential elections we sponsored one of the leading pro-Nader, pro-Green sites on the web. We called it Nader Watch and it was edited by an experienced, intelligent Naderite with impeccable political credentials. While it was part of the Bush Watch site, its editorial policy and all of its content was controlled by Doris, the Naderite. You might want to check it out at http://www.bushwatch.net/naderwatch.htm . We supported the site in spite of the inroads Nader was obviously making into the Gore popular vote lead. Our rationale was that Nader and the Greens had valid points to make and that it was only fair to represent them on our web site. At the same time, however, our Bush Watch editorial position, was anti-Nader and anti-Green, because we felt that Nader and the Greens could possibly tip the election to Bush. Unfortunately, the Repugs decided that Nader and the Greens were helping Bush win, created pro-Nader/anti-Gore ads, and paid to have them screened on key TV stations. Further, while Nader and the Greens promised not to focus on key states where Nader votes could eat into slim Gore leads, the closer we came to November, the more everyone realized that it was a hollow promise. This, of course, is just politics as usual, and neither Nader nor the Greens should be criticized for their use of the typical and traditional political survival skills, which, as we all know, includes lying, obfuscation, and distortion.

But, as in the WHO song, we won't get fooled again. For the last three months we've been getting Green letters in which we're told that progressives should work together to make the world better, but that the Nader Green progressives would not want to have a vote for the Dems on their consciences, because there's no difference between Gore and Bush. Given our previous experiences with the Greens, we see their argument as the hot air of politics as usual. Like both Bush and Gore, the Greens will say just about anything to win. The true Green position was rationally articulated when Tom Fusco, campaign manager for the Carter for governor campaign in Maine said in July at the Philly convention of the Green Party, "Our responsibility is to the Greens; the broader picture does not matter."

And that's just it, the broader picture does matter. With Bush at the helm of the most repressive and the most conservative government we have experienced in our lifetimes, I don't believe we can afford a Bush-controlled Congress in 2002 or another Bush term in 2004. Bush is taking our nation back to an ideological stone age and, if allowed to continue, we will be spiritually and politically devestated by 2008 and the Green Party will still be blaming it on the Dems with no end in sight. Face it, our political system is governed by a two-party system, splinter groups remain splinter groups, and the nation as a whole is growing more conservative, decade by decade, hence the more conservative New Dems (NDC). (I'm not at all pleased to be the bearer of such bad news, believe me.) Like the SDS in the Sixties, the Greens' only hope is for our nation to be so miserable, so devastated by having the most repressive, most conservative, least progressive major party in power that some kind of political revolution would ensue.

Don't count on it, not in our brain-washed, dumbed-down, media-controlled, repressive, greedy, corporate republic operating under the guise of supposedly democratic principles. When the common man begins to grumble, Bush promises another tax cut, tells a tasteless joke and smirks, or agrees to another half-measure reform that will never really be policed and the electorate goes back to its TV-induced slumber. Even now, with the extensive Repug corporate greed exposed for the social evil that it creates, the Hawkish electorate backs Bush by over 60%. This is the Repug battle plan created in its corporate offices and carried out by money-puppet Bush, and the Green Party's appeal to a union-fueled Progressive past of the last century is not nearly strong enough to cause a ripple in the Repug sea of ill-will, particularly since the traditional groupings of Progressive change, such as labor unions, are being systematically destroyed

We believe the first thing disgruntled voters would want to do is to get Bush and his Repugs off their backs, and voting for the Greens in 2004 will not do it. The Dems control the Senate by 1-one-1 vote and the Repugs contol the House by only 12 votes. There are enough Green candidates and Green voters out there in enough close races to tip the entire Congress to Bush in 2002, and the Greens are interested in one thing, according to their campaign managers, to have the Green Party win. The Greens are not interested in defeating Bush, and their letters to Bush Watch show it. The bottom line, then, is that a vote for the Greens on the national or state level is a vote for Bush. Do the math.How, then, is calling the obvious to our readers' attention an insult to Green voters, as a recent letter writer to Bush Watch suggested? If the truth hurts, do something about it, but don't blame the messenger. --Politex, July 27, 2002

Note: While I welcome letters in response to the above, I've read enough political rhetoric by the Greens to last me a lifetime, so please don't be redundant by discussing the last election as being the Dems' fault, the lack of difference between Bush and Gore, Dem corporate greed, attempts at diversity in the Green Party, or any other topic that does not discuss the matter at hand: how to stop Bush from getting control of Congress in 2002 and how to defeat Bush in 2002. To praphrase the Green manager noted above, my responsibility is to the bigger picture, not to the Green Party. --Politex

And now that we're deeper into the era of Karl Rove dirty politics since Karen Hughes has left the Bush White House, it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that Bush's corporate corruption speech was pretty much by the book with respect to what Bush regularly did in Texas. Early in a speech about corrupt CEO's, Bush proposed that we reward them for their bad behavior by making his tax cuts to the rich permanent. Then he went on to propose solutions to corporate abuse that others have already proposed in Congress. Finally, he proposed weaker versions of solutions that are already in place, calling them ways to correct the abuse. This is typical of too many of Bush's proposals, like his recent program for the AIDS crisis,: he tries to take credit for the work of others and he tries to water down programs that are already in place, then calls the whole resulting mess a "reform." --Politex, July 11, 2002

Why didn't Bush address the issue that's at the root of the present corporate mess? Isn't the answer obvious? Like Bush's plan to deal with the Middle East crisis, he's not really interested in solving the problem, he's interested in papering it over until he's out of office, mouthing some vague words about the situation and appealing to a targeted voting base. That's exactly what he did in Texas when he was given the presidency by the Supreme Court and when he was told that Texas would be in debt because there wasn't enought money left to both pay for his tax cuts to the wealthy and to provide for the state services that legislation called for. That's not his problem, he said, he was leaving Texas for Washington. And those around him laughed, only some thinking he must have been kidding. He wasn't. Keep in mind that Bush's Corrupt Corporations speech was given to the CEO's of Wall Street, many of whom are involved in corrupt corporations one way or the other, if predictions of widespread corporate failings due to corruption are anywhere near the mark. If you saw the speech, you know that applause was seldom and sparse. Bush wants us to believe that Wall Street's brand of corporate capitalism has spawned "a few bad apples." Nonsense, it's spawned orchards of bad apples...it's spawned an entire industry of such orchards. (more soon) --Politex, July 10, 2002

Note: For another description of stock options corruption, see Morgenson in July 11th's NYT.