Duty to Warn

After several decades as one of America’s great public-interest advocates, Ralph Nader has developed an extraordinary response when people say they don’t think he should run for president in 2004.

     During a Feb. 4 interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered” program, Nader had this to say when asked about an editorial in The Nation urging him not to run this year: “It’s a marvelous demonstration by liberals, if you will, of censorship. Now mind you, running for political office is every American’s right. Running for political office means free speech exercise, it means exercising the right of petition, the right of assembly. And so when they say ‘Do not run,’ they’re not just challenging and rebutting; they’re crossing that line into censorship, which is completely unacceptable.”

     News anchor Melissa Block followed up: “Wouldn’t censorship, though, be if anyone were physically preventing you from running? They’re not saying that you can’t run; they’re asking you not to. They’re asking you to make that decision for what they consider to be the greater good of the country.”

AUSTIN, Texas -- Friends of liberty, raise hell! To the barricades, or at least to the post office and the emails. A British citizen named Katharine Gun faces two years in prison for revealing that the U.S. National Security Agency tried -- and succeeded -- in getting the Brits to help us with illegal spying operations at the United Nations. The targets were the delegations of the six countries on the U.N. Security Council that were undecided on how to vote on the critical Iraqi war resolution.

            Now, there are two schools of reaction to this tawdry, slimy little spy episode: It was illegal, immoral and wrong, and Katharine Gun should get a medal for exposing it. Or, some are shocked, shocked to hear of spying at the U.N., where it is apparently only slightly less common than dirt.

            Well, if it wasn't much of a secret to begin with, why is this woman going to prison for telling the truth? Give her a medal anyway.

Today is the public launch of our "Censure" campaign. We're taking out a full-page ad in the Washington Post. We're also holding a press conference in Washington, including two former top intelligence officers from the CIA and the State Department, as well as:

  a.. A mother from Oregon whose daughter, a member of a National Guard unit deployed to Iraq a year ago, was injured by a mortar round; and

  b.. A father from San Diego who lost his son, a US Marine, in combat in Iraq.

Thanks to you, we've already reached well beyond our goal of 300,000 people calling on Congress to censure President Bush for misleading us in his rush to war. In fact, more than 400,000 of us have now signed on.

Can you help us make today's launch even more impactful, by calling your Representative and Senators? You can reach them at:

   Senator Mike DeWine
   DC Phone: 202-224-2315
   Local Phone: 937-376-3080

   Senator George V. Voinovich
   DC Phone: 202-224-3353
   Local Phone: 614-469-6697

AUSTIN, Texas -- Just for the record, since the record is in considerable peril. These are Orwellian days, my friends, as the Bush administration attempts to either shove the history of the second Gulf War down the memory hole or to rewrite it entirely. Keeping a firm grip on actual historical fact, all of it easily within our imperfect memories, is not that easy amid the swirling storms of misinformation, misremembering and misstatement. But since the war itself stands as a monument to what happens when we let ourselves get stampeded by a chorus of disinformation, let's draw the line right now.

            According to the 500-man American team that spent hundreds of millions of dollars looking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, there aren't any and have not been any since 1991.

LONDON -- In a way, it was heartbreaking to watch the Mother of Parliaments deal with half of a particularly nasty problem in an impressive way. It was sad and depressing for an American because the United States seems so unable even to begin to address the first half of the same problem -- how and why were we so badly misled about the reasons for going to war with Iraq. Did our leaders lie to us, knowingly distort or exaggerate? Or was their own intelligence that bad, and if so, why? And why isn't something being done about it.

"The trappings of a state of siege trap us in a state of fear ..."

Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis open up their new collection of essays with the extraordinary speech - "A Prayer for America" - that Dennis Kucinich delivered two years ago, when the wound of 9/11 was fresh and the Bush Administration had just begun to serve notice how it intended to exploit it.

Engaged in a continuous PR blitz, presidential campaign strategists always strive to portray their candidate as damn near perfect. Even obvious flaws are apt to be touted as signs of integrity and human depth. Such media spin encourages Americans to confuse being excellent with being preferable.

     Eager to dislodge George W. Bush from the White House, many voters lined up behind John Kerry in late January. It’s true that the junior senator from Massachusetts is probably the best bet to defeat Bush -- and, as president, Kerry would be a very significant improvement over the incumbent. But truth in labeling should impel acknowledgment that Kerry is not a progressive candidate.

            AUSTIN, Texas -- Philanthropy may not be high on your list of Stuff to Think About -- except maybe to hope that some might be headed your way. But political philanthropy is in fact playing a large role in your life -- indeed, it is shaping the entire nation's life to an extent that deserves to be put on your list of Stuff to Think About.

            The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy is an outfit "committed to making philanthropy more responsive to people with the least wealth and opportunity." You probably thought that's what philanthropy was -- money to help people with the least wealth and opportunity. But to an amazing extent, you would be wrong. A report by the Responsive Philanthropy folks points out that more and more foundations and corporations are instead giving their money to conservative think tanks, which in turn use the money to push the right-wing political agenda.

My fellow American media consumers:

     At a time when news cycles bring us such portentous events as the remarkable wedding of Britney Spears, the advent of Michael Jackson’s actual trial proceedings and the start of the Democratic presidential primaries, it is time to reflect upon the state of the media union.

     The achievements are everywhere to be seen and heard.

     On more than a thousand radio stations owned by the Clear Channel conglomerate, the programming quality is as reliable as a Big Mac.

     In cities and towns across the nation, an array of outspoken radio talk-show hosts can be depended on to run the gamut from the mushy center to the far right.

     Television provides a wide variety of homogenized offerings. With truly impressive (production) values, the major networks embody a consummate multiplicity of sameness, with truncated imagination and consolidated ownership. These days, there’s a captivatingly unadventurous cable channel for virtually every niche market.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Love those Iowa results. Nothing better than a huge political scrum where the front-runner stumbles, the guy everyone wrote off for dead six weeks ago comes roaring back, an unknown emerges, an old war-horse drops out -- a wonderful scenario. Let's hear it for upset, confusion and the conventional wisdom with egg on its face. A banana cream pie right in the kisser for everyone who pretends they know how a political race will turn out. Happy days. Ain't democracy grand?

            Not saying I necessarily agree with the conclusions reached by the Iowa caucus-goers, but I do love it when voters make fools of the pundits, including me. My biggest reservation about the result is John Kerry, who could take the excitement out of a soccer riot.