Ode to Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer

[H2O Man]

In the past week, I have had e-mails, phone calls, and even a visitor at my home, asking me to join in an important project. These friends are all opposed to a plan for a huge power line to be run from Canada to New York City. The plan is being pushed by a group called New York Regional Interconnect.

From the information I have read thus far, it is clear that this is part of the Cheneyification of America. It is a project geared to enrich those associated with large energy corporations, at the expense of average citizens. The plan is being pushed through in an under-handed manner that is hardly surprising, considering the cast of characters involved. Two that stand out are Walter Rich, a railroad tycoon, and his chum Sherwood Boehlert, the soon-to-retire congressman from central New York.

Mr. Rich's lack of ethics are documented in "Railroaded in Cooperstown," a book by David Butler, Sr., the former Chief of Police for Rich's New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway. (Boehlert's true nature comes through in the book, too.) Mr. Rich brought Karl Rove to Cooperstown a while back. It's not so much that I am concerned about what type of riff-raff they accumulate on their own property; it's the impact they have on the local communities.

The proposed project, which has not been shown to benefit anyone other than those who are invested in the energy corporations, has been shown to pose a substantial threat to those in it's path. It threatens the health of those closest to it, and the quality of life of those living nearby. Thus, a growing number of citizens are banding together to oppose the project.

The opposition includes local republicans, democrats, greens, and independents. Some of the best information on the opposition comes from the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition's web site. See: http://www.udpc.net/

I live just north of Delaware County, and am joining with people in the Broome and Chenango Counties. It's not the first time that we've joined together with such groups. For over 20 years, I was involved with the effort to get the Richardson Hill/Sidney Center Landfill Superfund Sites taken care of. The 120-acres of toxic waste dumps there were located on a mountain top that had streams heading to two large rivers, the Susquehanna and the Delaware. The dumps impacted the quality of life not just on the mountaintop, but along both rivers as well.

More recently, I've mingled with many of these same friends and associates at the trial of the St. Patrick's Four, in Binghamton, N.Y. The group gathered at the federal courthouse included people ranging from local anti-war activists who were old enough to remember the Berrigan Brothers taking part in similar protests as the brave Catholic Workers on trial, to college students, and even Ray McGovern, who recently asked Donald Rumsfeld to tell the truth for a change.

There were also pro-war demonstrators there. In the first couple days, the Binghamton police kept the two groups apart, because of the tensions. By the third day, everyone realized that we had more in common than not, and both sides, and the police, were all on good terms.

One of my friends, who spent far more time at the trial than I did, is a former co-worker. She is a child psychiatrist, and one of the most sincere and dedicated human beings I've had the pleasure to know. In 1992, in 1996, and again in 2000, we would organize our co-workers, and do voter registration drives in the poor neighborhoods in rural Chenango County. We supported Bill Clinton, and we supported Hillary Clinton.

My friend told me that she had called Senator Clinton's office regarding the NYRI plan, and got a typical bureaucratic non-answer. We discussed our disappointment in Senator Clinton's move to the right on the Iraqi war. We are both democrats, but we are frustrated when any elected democrats become non-responsive to our needs, and are not open to hearing our concerns.

To use Hillary as an example, I note that I have met her twice. The first time was at the State University in Oneonta, on the day she announced she was running for Daniel Patrick Moynihan's seat in the Senate. I had waited there with the crowd of supporters, while she met with Moynihan at his Pinder's Corners farm. The next time I met her was in Sidney, NY. I waited with a group of local citizens, mainly democrats, while she met behind closed doors with local republican leaders. We never found out was she was discussing with them.

Now, I'm an old-fashioned democrat. A grass-roots activist democrat. A Fannie Lou Hammer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party type. So if a democratic senator's office is going to be non-responsive to the community concerns being expressed by those who have invested time and money supporting their campaigns here in our neighborhoods in central New York, I am not going to sit like a bump on a log.

I looked around on the internet, and I found a web site for a candidate who is challenging Senator Clinton in the primary. His name is Jonathan Tasini, and his web site is:
www.tasinifornewyork.org

I called his office on the teephone, and spoke to two people from his campaign. These are people who I've never met, and who I've never spoken to before, yet I felt like I was talking to old friends. Though they are from the New York City area, they are familiar with this region, interested in our concerns, and very well informed on the issues I called to discuss.

In the recent past, when I get the requests for contributions from the offices of Senator Clinton (and I've gotten as many as three in one day), I've done no more than enclose a note saying I can not in good conscience support a candidate who supports the Iraqi war. I refuse to invest a penny or a minute to aid a politician who weighs the potential political advantage of sending American kids to their death in Iraq. That is the Cheneyification of the Middle East.

Now I have found a democratic candidate for senate who is strongly against the Cheneyification of Iraq and of central New York.

[Me.]

1. I Too Worry About How Our Esteemed Senator Is Trending

I worry that she is still too connected to a DLC mind set and about the deal she may make with the devil if her presidential aspirations are true.

Cheneyification of America
Now can we talk about *shadow government*?

[H2O Man]

2. The American public

is not looking for a candidate who is "tougher" on Iraq and Iran that George W. Bush. The tiny minority who favor the spread of violence are republican/neoconservatives, who will never give serious thought to supporting Senator Clinton. She is betraying the people on the progressive left who have tended to be loyal supporters of her in the past.

[faithnotgreed]

3. k & r - any post with love for ms hamer

and discussing working to stop the the machinery in all its forms (whether its clinton/dlc or cheney etc) has my vote and my thanks
some people dont realize the extent to which the lot of them (conyers and a few others withstanding) in washington dc are parts of the same rotten tree
the magnitude of what has been going on and continues well unabated is cause for serious attention

we need true change and im so glad youre researching alternate candidates in current politics while also spreading the love and fight that is ms hamer

thank you again

[H2O Man]

4. Thank you.

I appreciate your comments. We need to make significant investments in the political system, in order to begin to effect changes that are needed to save our constitutional democracy. I think that people today would do well to listen to people like Mrs. Hamer, and to read what people ranging from Malcolm X to Vine Deloria Jr said about a democratic party that refused to hear what she was saying.

[faithnotgreed]

5. im very much with you on that

really looking the hard stuff/status quo in the eye? and then willing to acknowledge what the truth is and do the hard work of speaking out and bringing change?

love of country in its highest form

there are such ugly truths about democracy that seem to be forgotten (often times conveniently, other times because people just arent educated in what really happened but instead have learned the rinsed out half truths sanitized to maintain illusions of who should have power - and how they get and keep it)

[Me.]

7. Kick

Hopefully this thread won't get lost in what is becoming a big news afternoon.

*shadow government*

[H2O Man]

10. Bad timing

on my part!

[Me.]

6. Local NYC News Has Been Warning

that our Con-Ed bills (gas & electric) are likely to rise 72%.

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. That's one way to eliminate poverty I guess.

Freeze or over heat the poor to death. :(

8. kick for the environment n/t

[robertpaulsen]

11. Recommended! Tasini sounds like one of the good guys.

Thanks for trying to spread the word. I hope people read this and realize we do have genuine alternatives to running our foreign policy on a stupid Pottery Barn analogy. Not that Hillary made that analogy, but that's certainly how she acts.

12. you mention Catholic Worker

Dorothy Day is my Godmother. She and Peter Maurin started the Catholic Worker. My parents were good friends with Dorothy and worked with her, and had a Catholic Worker Farm in Missouri for a while, though from what I hear, my mother did not like the alcoholics staying at our house.

My father said if I ever needed help from heaven, I surely could get some good help from Dorothy. And when I asked my father what she was like, he said "strictly business".

[H2O Man]

13. That's interesting.

For many years, I received the Catholic Worker's newspaper. I knew the Berrigan brothers, and admired their work. I still have some of Daniel's "The Book of Uncommon Prayer" in a notebook that I read to try to keep a hold of whatever sanity remains with me.

My older son recently started in social work. His supervisor is an old co-worker and friend of mine, who had trained as a Jesuit. We used to have wonderful discussions about liberation theology.