Left Out is a public affairs program produced by WRCT 88.3FM and co-hosted by Bob Harper and Danny Sleator. Today's program is produced by Molly Meyer and Dan O'Neil. Listeners are welcome to call us at (412) 268-WRCT (9728), or send us email.
Amy Goodman will be in Pittsburgh on November 18th. She's speaking at CMU and picking up the 2004 Thomas Merton Award in the evening. More information on both events is available on the PCDN web site.
Listen to the broadcast (requires MP3 player).
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The most encouraging thing about election day was the incredible dedication displayed by the volunteers for MoveOn, ACT, the Sierra Club, the DNC, and the Kerry/Edwards campaign, among other organizations, who worked tirelessly throughout the election season right through to the close of polls last Tuesday to get out the vote for Kerry and Edwards. Left Out co-host Danny Sleator served as a precinct leader for MoveOn PAC, which meant calling and visiting voters in the precinct who had not yet voted. This was the culmination of many weeks of ground work developing voter lists, phone-banking, and canvassing neighborhoods. Left Out co-host Bob Harper served as a poll watcher for the Kerry/Edwards campaign, which meant overseeing the voting process, helping to resolve problems with registrations, and coordinating with volunteers who were canvassing voters who had not yet cast a ballot.
The most common problem Harper encountered was that in many cases voters arrived at the polls only to find that no record existed of their registration. In most cases these problems arose with first-time voters, but not in every case. The problem was complicated by the absence of an official telephone at the polling station (14th Ward 33rd District), and the near impossibility of reaching the Board of Elections to check the late registration rolls. Worse, there was a city-wide shortage of provisional ballots, which led to a court order to permit provisional balloting until 9:30PM at the City Court House.
Across the country and around the world millions of people are lamenting the election of George W. Bush for a second term in office. This year the DNC has no excuses beyond their own inability to formulate a winning strategy against a total loser of an incumbent. The loss was not for lack of money, not for lack of grassroots organization, not for the presence of Ralph Nader, not because of the biases of the Supreme Court, not the successes of the incumbent on domestic or foreign affairs, and not solely the weakness of their candidate. So why did we lose? And what do we do now?
Some say the Democrats have to be better Republicans. Others say that the Democrats have to embrace liberal principles forthrightly. Still others say that the Democrats are bereft of a clear position on the issues. Yet others accuse the Democrats of lacking "morality" or "values".
We at Left Out believe that the central problem is that the Republicans have outmaneuvered the "reality-based community", creating their own reality that exists independently of any facts (as demonstrated, for example, by the recent PIPA Study showing that, among other things, that 76% of Bush supporters believe that Hussein had direct links to al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks, and that 64% believe that the Duelfer report affirmed the existence of a WMD program and actual WMD's in Iraq immediately prior to our invasion. How can there be a rapprochement between reason and the deliberate denial of reason? How is it possible that such a large segment of the population is so deeply misinformed about the facts?
Robert Parry wrote two articles last week in Consortium News that are well worth reading. Here's the start and end of Too Little, Too Late:
George W. Bush's electoral victory is chilling proof that the conservatives have achieved dominance over the flow of information to the American people and that even a well-run Democratic campaign stands virtually no chance for national success without major changes in how the news media operates. ...
... As George W. Bush celebrates his historic victory, the Democrats, left-of-center foundations and wealthy American liberals should finally recognize that their long pattern of starving honest, independent media has contributed to putting the nation -- and the planet -- on the edge of catastrophe
The other article is entitled Top Priority: Media Infrastructure. Perry was interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now on Thursday November 6th. You can listen to that six minute segment here.
Riding a bicyle in Pittsburgh is hell. Not because of the geography, which poses challenges for riders of every ability (Lance Armstrong himself used to race here because of the Sycamore Street climb over Mt Washington). But because of the poor design and maintenance of the roads and, above all, the incompetence and outright hostility of Pittsburgh drivers. Last Sunday afternoon Left Out co-host Robert Harper, an avid cyclist, was struck by an automobile while proceeding through the intersection of Greenfield Avenue and Panther Hollow Road in Schenley Park by a driver who pulled out from behind the cyclist, on his left side, then veered sharply right into his path in order to make a right turn.
This behavior is all too typical of Pittsburgh drivers, as any cyclist in the area can readily attest. Bike Pittsburgh is an advocacy group for cyclists in Pittsburgh who work tirelessly to improve riding conditions in the city. They maintain a file of bicycling accidents. If you are a cyclist who has been in an accident caused by the city's infrastructure or a careless or aggressive driver, please [report it]() to at the Bike Pittsburgh web site.
According to the New York Times,
A federal judge today halted the Guantánamo Bay trial of a Yemeni prisoner suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda, ruling that the special military tribunals like the one the suspect is facing at the naval base in Cuba are contrary to principles of American justice.
That the Bush administration's treatment of the prisoners held in Cuba is contrary to American justice is self-evident. What is remarkable in this dark age is that there are still judges around who would rule against it.
The NYTimes pulled a story analyzing the mysterious bulge under Bush's suit that was visible during the debates. The full story appeared in Mother Jones Magazine along with photos, which were created from the video data by a NASA Cassini image analyst. Author Dave Lindorff explained the story (and how it was nixed by the Times) on Counterspin. There was also a FAIR press release about the story.
Our point here is not to speculate about what this bulge was, but to point out yet another example of how lame the media's coverage of Bush has been. Quote from the FAIR article:
The Times' bulge story is the latest example of possible self-censorship by major news media during the election campaign. In September, CBS's 60 Minutes decided to delay until after the election an investigative segment that questioned the Bush administration's use of forged Niger uranium documents in making its case for the Iraq war, saying that "it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election".
John Perkins, the author of a new book entitled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was interviewed today on Democracy Now. From the interview:
We speak with John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.
The system described by Perkins in this interview and in his book have been discussed by the left for decades. Authors writing on these topics include William Langewiesche, Noam Chomsky, Joseph Stieglitz, Naomi Klein and others. What's new here, and what makes it explosive, is that for the first time (as far as we are aware) this story is being told from the inside, supplying new details of how it works, and making it much harder to dismiss as "leftist propoganda".
Truth Out
Common Dreams
Information Clearinghouse
Cursor
Tom Paine
The Independent
The Guardian
Consortium News