By Ted Volskay
Simpsonville, SC

To those of you who do not know me very well, my daughters are on their HS debate team. HS Debate is wonderful because it makes students look at both sides (pro/con) of an issue. As a parent who values what debate has to offer including development of critical thinking skills in-lieu of blind faith, I actively support my daughters and the debate team with my participation as a parent/volunteer judge. I usually judge the Lincoln-Douglas (LD) or Public Forum Debates (PFD). This weekend I was judging PFD and the resolution for debate was “Russia is a threat to United States interests”. Two student teams are randomly selected (by coin toss) to argue the PRO or the CON side of the issue. After hearing several rounds (this week and prior debates), I was bothered by a recurring argument for those who argued in favor (PRO) of the resolution. Their argument was:

Russia is a threat to U.S. interests because Russia has threatened to aim their missiles at proposed U.S. missile defense installations in Eastern Europe which will be installed only for defensive purposes.  

The name “Missile Defense,” like many of the Bush Administration initiatives (“Patriot Act” and “Clear Skies Initiative”) is an oxymoron for the following reason:

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is the unwritten policy whereby those countries (US, Russia, China) that possess long-range missiles armed with nuclear warheads co-exist in peace. It is very unlikely that a country will initiate a nuclear war with another country that is capable of retaliating with nuclear weapons. In other words, the US won’t launch a nuclear strike against Russia (and visa-versa) because we know that Russia is capable of retaliating with nuclear weapons from remote locations. There is little incentive to wage nuclear war if the likely outcome is mutual/self annihilation. Consequently, the MAD policy apparently works. There have been no nuclear exchanges between countries since the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan in 1945. 

The Missile “Defense” initiative threatens to change the calculus of the MAD policy. There are many reasons why the Missile “Defense” shield may never work as advertised; however, if it does work to the satisfaction of those who control it, it would enable the United States to launch a first strike against Russia and survive because the Missile “Defense” system would hypothetically protect us against certain nuclear retaliation by Russia. Consequently, the Ronald Reagan/George W. Bush Missile “Defense” initiative accomplishes the following:

1) It disrupts the peaceful equilibrium achieved by the MAD policy;
2) Hypothetically, it would allow the US to launch a nuclear strike against Russia and survive;
3) It resurrects the Cold War between the US and Russia;
4) The response by Russia (Russian missiles aimed at US Missile “Defense” systems in eastern Europe) will foment mistrust between the US and Russia and another layer of irrational fear among an ill-informed and disengaged American electorate; and
5) Most importantly, it provides yet another reason to increase military spending (feed the military-industrial complex that REPUBLICAN President (and Army General) Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell address warned us about:

According to NPR, President Bush’s proposed budget freezes domestic spending and increases military spending. If approved, the military budget alone will be $750,000,000,000 ($750 billion) or more than the entire military budgets of every country in the world combined. If you listen to this link to NPR, you will realise that insane military spending is a bipartisan effort. After all, who wants to be accused of being weak on defense? As a former Navy officer, I agree with General Eisenhower: strong defense? ABSOLUTELY!; self-perpetuating, self-serving out of control military-industrial complex? -NO! I predict that the insanity of out of control defense spending will eventually stop but only when the country is literally bankrupt and the real fear of spiraling inflation, unemployment, and Americans living in third world conditions displaces the irrational fear that cuts in defense spending will lead to imminent attacks by Russia, China, Castro, Hugo Chaves, North Korea, and terrorists sneaking across every border.  

By Tom Clements
Friends of the Earth, Columbia

Get into a mind warp and come with me down the nuclear rabbit hole on this mad ride…

On Jan. 29, after dealing with legislation allowing alligator hunting, the members of the South Carolina House Agriculture Committee got down to the business at hand of defining nuclear power as renewable energy. While there was some discussion, much of it quite confused and simply the espousal of pro-nuke positions, the bill passed by a vote of 12-5.

Now, the definition of “renewable energy resources” in South Carolina includes “nuclear energy” and the bill moves to the full House. The bill is likely to come up as early as Tuesday, Feb. 5, where it is very likely to pass and be sent to Gov. Sanford for his signature.

While it may strike you as ridiculous or impossible that this is happening, recall that many of these legislators are hard-core “conservatives” who could give a rat’s ass about reason, logic, science, public opinion, or being fiscally conservative. They might well affirm some southern stereotypes that come to mind. They are acting simply to serve the nuclear industry (Duke Energy), which has as many lobbyists down at the legislature as there are alligators down in the swamp, or road-kill possum on a country road.

Here’s the key language of the bill:

“For purposes of this chapter, ‘renewable energy resources’ means solar photovoltaic energy, solar thermal energy, wind power, hydroelectric, geothermal energy, tidal energy, recycling, hydrogen fuel derived from renewable resources, biomass energy, nuclear energy, and landfill gas.”

One thoughtful legislator commented that you could be driving down the road and see two horses in a field and say that one of them was a mule. While you could call one of the horses a mule that doesn’t change reality and make it a mule. But, hey, in South Carolina why not try to define reality as one wants it to be, or better, as Duke Energy wants it to be…? The leadership of President Bush has been a sterling example of this, after all.

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The AFL-CIO has launched its largest-ever online survey to capture Americans’ real experiences with our broken health care system. Survey responses will be given to the presidential candidates, every U.S. senator and representative, every candidate for Congress and state and local officials in every state in our country. The AFL-CIO expects many thousands of responses, which will make this survey one the largest data sets available on individuals’ and families’ health care experiences. The survey is available here.

“You don’t have to look far to see how broken and expensive health care in America is,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. “We are doing this survey because we want to be sure every leader in our country understands exactly what’s going on – every elected official from mayor right on up to the top, and every candidate.”

Questions cover such topics as:

* Whether Americans are going into debt because of medical bills;

* Whether they are instead skipping follow-up visits, treatments and prescriptions because they can’t afford to pay for them;

* Whether people are locked in to jobs for fear of losing health insurance;

* What Americans are paying out of pocket each year for health care.

Perhaps most importantly, the survey will invite respondents to tell their own personal stories, in as much detail as they choose.

The survey will run for one month and is open to anyone. Participants can choose to keep their responses anonymous or have them published online with their first name.

In addition to reminding candidates what voters are going through, the results influence the legislative debates about policy reform.

“No doubt, special interests like insurance and pharmaceutical companies will try to scare Americans into accepting the unacceptable system we have now,” Sweeney said. “The results of this survey will keep America on track, reminding everyone of how little there is to lose and how deeply the problems run.”

By David Donnelly
Director, Campaign Money Watch

Last night as I was watching President Bush’s final State of the Union address I was struck by his unwillingness to recognize the need for change in this country. War profiteering, global warming, poor health care—nothing’s changed. He promoted a weak version of earmark reform, but it’s too little, too late, and doesn’t address the real problem.

Last week 5,000 people signed a petition asking the Republican presidential candidates to support full public financing of elections like the three leading Democratic candidates.

Will you join us? Sign our petition today!

Once we collect signatures for this petition, we’ll fax the Republican presidential candidates a letter the day before Super Tuesday, February 5th, to urge them to support full public financing of elections.

From big campaign contributions to the influence of bundlers and lobbyists, the role of campaign cash in our electoral process has gotten worse. The Republicans are pretending the problem doesn’t exist. They need to hear from people like you that you demand real change in Washington.

Let’s tell the Republican presidential candidates that Washington needs full public financing of elections.

We need to end the status quo in Washington. Thanks for your help.

To address concerns that precincts around the state may run out of emergency ballots if voting machines fail during this Saturday’s Democratic primary, the SC Progressive Network is providing voters with their own emergency ballot that they can print and take with them to the polls.

IMPORTANT: Please note that if your precinct runs out of state supplied ballots, you can vote on any scrap of paper. Do not leave a poll where the machines are not working without casting a paper ballot. Do NOT try and vote on paper if the machines are working. If you insist on voting on paper when the machines are working, your ballot will go in with the contested ballots that will not be counted until the Thursday after the polls close – if at all.

You can print your own emergency ballot by downloading this file:
emergencyballot.pdf

If you encounter problems at the polls, please call the Network’s office to lodge a report by calling 1-803-808-3384. If warranted, the reports will be compiled and circulated to election officials and lawmakers as a resource to help guide us through the uncharted waters created by South Carolina’s new touch-screen voting machines.

Obama as “radical muslim”
By Ed Madden, Columbia

I ran into a friend in the grocery store, and we started talking about politics.

“I hope you’re not planning to vote for that Obama,” he said.

Why? “You know he’s a Muslim.”

Living in South Carolina, you get used to hearing the national news talk about the nasty politics of our state. We are the land of push polls and Lee Atwater—the state that famously spread false rumors about McCain’s child in the last election, the state that saw religious prejudice alive and well in fake Christmas cards sent out last month to attack Romney. It’s become the standard intro to national stories about the Republican primary here—as predictable as the inevitable Confederate flag question at the debates.

But here I was, talking with a friend in Kroger—a friend whose opinion I valued—hearing that Barak Obama was a radical Muslim who refused to put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in. “He won’t put his hand on the Bible,” he repeated.

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