Author: mopress

ACLU Press Release received via email May 18.

On Friday, the Senate may take up and vote on HB 2465 by Representative Denny, a bill that closes the recently opened meetings where the state’s voting machine examiners review
voting technology.

“We had to take the Secretary of State to court to make the agency abide by the Texas Open Meetings Act,” said Will Harrell of the ACLU of Texas. “Now, after a court declared that
citizens do, in fact, have a right to see how the state certifies these machines, the Secretary of State wants the legislature to close the door again.”

The ACLU of Texas and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit under the Texas Open Meetings Act last year, and in January a Travis County judge found in favor of public
access. The next meetings to certify voting equipment, scheduled for May 25th and 26th will be held in public.

“If the Senate does not amend this bill, the May meetings may be the first and last time the public can watch the state’s certification meeting process,” said Adina Levin, Project
Director for ACLU’s Cyberliberties Project. “That would be a terrible shame and a disservice to the computer security professionals, polling place volunteers, public interest groups, county administrators and others that have an interest in opening up this process.”

Instead of allowing the public to attend the actual examiners meetings, the bill creates a public forum where members of the public can comment to the agency on voting machines.

“A public forum is fine,” said Harrell, “and we appreciate that the Secretary of State has agreed that there should be public input. But this public forum does not replace the need for
access to the meeting where the examiners look at the systems, question the venders, and deliberate with each other.”

“The process for deciding which electronic voting machines are good enough for Texas is too important to be held behind closed doors,” said Levin. “If the public is watching, the
examiners will do a better job, the vendors will be better prepared, and the Secretary of State will get better advice from both the examiners and from experts in the public who can intelligently comment.”

Received via email.

It looks like this Minuteman thing is going to serve as the pretext for getting out of Iraq. Clearly, the Iraq war is lost and Bush will have to, as they say, “declare a victory and leave” before the mid-term elections. He will claim that the situation has stabilized, that Iraq is safe for democracy etc., and, of course, the Iraqis will play along with this, since about the only thing that unites them is their fervent desire to wish the last American soldier “God speed”.

The National Guard is “needed” on the border and as Governor Terminator says, if America can afford the war in Iraq (which, of course, it can’t!), it can afford to patrol its borders. Of course, it cannot do both, and everybody knows that, but nobody will be churlish enough to say so! Moreover, more young Americans may be willing to join the Guard if all it involves is, say, a month’s full-time service per year harassing the ever-polite Canadians or pushing Mexicans around. Indeed, a Swiss-style “draft”, making such service compulsory, could probably be introduced without too much opposition.

I have always believed that the psychological reaction to defeat in Iraq of Americans, still traumatized by the defeat in Vietnam, would be to withdraw into the homeland and circle the wagons. That, in fact, will be a blessing for everybody: for us in the rest of the world, who are thoroughly sick and fed up with American meddling, both public and private, in our affairs, and for Americans, who will then be able to get on with the job of taking back their country from the crazies and re-building it on a sound basis.

I also saw in the BBC website the other day a report that some conservative groups are starting to attack the gas-guzzling SUVs that Americans are so fond of on the basis that America’s profligate ways are making the US dependant on foreign oil and that should be corrected. Clearly, even the crazies are starting to realize that they’re crazy!

A final point. The EU official in me reads about this “Northern Wall” and says “Whatever happened to NAFTA?” You couldn’t build a wall between EU Member States, nor, indeed, have a system of work permits. All of this seems to amount to a tacit admission that NAFTA has failed and will now be quietly buried, although, here again, nobody will say that out loud.

By Sonia Santana

HB 166 died in the Texas House Legislature on Thursday
May 12, 2005. HB 166 was our best attempt at a verified
paper ballot trail for Texas this session.

The original bill filed by Rep. Aaron Pena (D-Edinburg) was amended in the Elections Committee by Chairwoman Mary Denny (R-Flower Mound) to the point it was simply a study bill. We can’t proceed too slowly on this issue in Texas for Rep. Denny’s tastes.

Despite the fact the bill was pretty uncontroversial by the time it reached the Calendars Committee, the powers that be, still could not risk their perceived loss of power. The bill had bi-partisan support with 4 Republicans on board including Mary Denny on the committee substitute version, and still it was quietly killed in Calendars with no vote scheduled on the floor.

Thursday was the last day bills in the House needed to be listed on Calendars for a vote this week. HB 166 never made the cut.

I mourn the death of HB 166, not only because I worked very hard on this bill, but because it is a huge loss for all Texan voters whose votes are not secure on electronic voting machines.

We wouldn’t even consider an ATM transaction without verifiable proof of our transactions, yet we have turned over our right to cast our vote without any guarantees of how your vote was actually cast or counted. Voter beware.

Sonia Santana is a voting rights activist in Austin.

By Greg Moses

There is enough wisdom in a few of the replies below to carry the reader forward. So rather than respond tit for tat to each of the emails pasted below, I’d like to clear new ground. Along with my article offering a steady human rights keel in our approach to migrant workers, CounterPunch posted a sobering article by Paul Craig Roberts on the continuing failure of employment policy in the USA. Americans who re-elected a zero growth President may now try to blame the Mexicans, but the Mexicans do not prevent the Chamber of Commerce from creating jobs.

It is entirely too predictable during listless economic times that workers of the world are tempted to set themselves against each other, their heated frustrations gladly fanned by well placed bellows of racism and nationalism. A Philip Randolph used to love saying: let the little dogs fight among themselves so that the big dog can run away with the bone. The little dogs in this case are the Minutemen and the migrant workers. The big dogs meanwhile are burying their bones overseas.

In his CounterPunch article (of May 12) Roberts says two things relevant to this discussion. First, the USA economy is only producing service work. And second, sixty percent of the new service jobs created have been filled by Hispanics.

Under these conditions, again, it seems quite predictable that frustrated workers find it satisfying to fan the flames under the feet of some Hispanic workers rather than under the feet of the Chamber of Commerce. Indeed Roberts verges on the suggestion that there is nothing the Chamber of Commerce can do.

But simply considering the Hispanic workforce, on what basis are we supposed to believe that their willingness to work in the new jobs has caused a no-growth economy? No, we have to see the loop in that logic. If Americans stand ready to work, where are the employers, what is their labor plan, and why are they feeling no heat?

Here then are the questions that need asking. Has “sundown on the Union” changed from prophetic lyric to good enough answer? Is there not a job policy proposal that would improve the employment picture? Has capital seriously and irrevocably begun its final emigration to another future outside the USA? And are we going to let the Schwarzenegger-Minuteman gambit play us for fools by duping us once again into scapegoat-style politics, transforming ourselves into a booted society too mean and stupid to create productive labor?

Jean-Paul Sartre says somewhere that when an economy sets out to “fulfill all the needs of the nation by mass production” then the workforce will never be large enough. But where an economy depresses itself in fear of depression, there we find too many people, too many workers, or in the fine words of Scrooge, a need to reduce the surplus population.

So here is the top question for Minutemen and border governors alike: is there any freedom left in your vaunted free enterprise? Then prove it. Reverse your cycle of depressing unfreedom and demonstrate that the nation you love most is the most capable of producing freedom and justice for all.

Attention to this line of inquiry begins to pull us out of the quagmire of immigration reform into a more serious and worthwhile question. Although we work against historical roots that tie us to a fate of racism, we know enough to pull away from those roots this time around.

Under the objective conditions of the global economy manifesting themselves right now in the USA, the one thing we should keep in front of us is a humanistic human rights civil rights commitment to finding a way out — together. If we continue to turn our fellow workers into alien populations and blame them for our troubles, we will have made ourselves all into little fighting dogs too busy to notice that the bone we fight over is already long gone.

Given the challenges before us, why don’t we see the heritage we adopt when we answer with Gov. Schwarzenegger that the most creative work to be done at this time is the building of higher walls and nationwide patrols? Gov. Schwarzenegger, you talk like a smirking despot. If the Minutemen are impressed by your plans, so much the worse for them, too. In your leadership we have found an utterly disappointing answer to the problem of freedom and justice for all.

* * *

You said: “I have visions of Mexican workers building
their own Northern wall.”

That’s a great idea, did Arnold come up with that? If
not, I’m contacting my senators and congressman to let
them know I’m all for this idea.

* * *

In your recent column I had to laugh when I read the quote by the Governator: “We have the money to do it. It’s not a lack of money. When we can afford the war in Iraq, we can afford to control our own borders.”

The fact is that we didn’t have the money for invading and occupying Iraq. It was only possible by means of borrowed money, mainly from China. It’s like someone saying, “I’m not broke. I have credit cards!”

Also, I’m not aware that severe California’s financial problems have been solved. Since the Governator assumed office, they’ve received much less national press, but I doubt the state is even close to being out of the woods yet.

* * *

Concerning your latest screed in Counterpunch in defense of illegal immigration, you may want to actually understand what a neo-conservative is before you banter them around, as it makes you look like an idiot.

In point of fact, neither the Goveronator Arnold or the Minutemen are “neo-conservatives”. Arnold is a liberal Republican, and the Minutemen are ‘Paleo-conservatives” along the lines of Pat Buchanan.

“Neo-conservatives” are in point of fact, ex-jewish leftists like David Horowitz and Elliot Abrams, and their motivation is defense of Israel. They are the intellectual muscle that used to be the “Scoop” Jackson wing of the Democrat Party, who at that time used the cold war, and the threat of Soviet Imperialism to justify … defense of Israel.

. . . .

I would hardly expect you to understand what you are talking about, since the rest of your article rests on the premise that attempts to enforce immigration laws is the same as the discrimination against native black people in the USA.

Such stupid assumptions and misunderstanding of facts just proves how little the LEFT is able to understand the issues, and engage in any meaningful dialogue on the important issues of today.

Foolishness by state or national officials will probably end only when the lenders cut them off, and then things should get very interesting.

* * *

Thanks again. I think your impression of the MP [Minuteman Project] as a PR pincer is spot on.

* * *

Another great piece. Things are just lining up rather conveniently aren’t they? National ID, guest slave worker
program, Schwarzenegger and the Minutemen. I’m really expecting [Texas Governor] Rick Perry to jump on board any week now.

* * *

Forget the guest worker program! Deport them all, secure the border and let them apply for a visa properly and immigrate to this country legally and properly as immigrants from Europe did in the early 20th century. Then they will truly be immigrants and not illegal aliens. Streamline the visa and immigration process so it can be done fairly quickly and with less red
tape.

Punish harshly corporations that hire illegal aliens. It’s not really about national security or anti-terrorism its’ about survival of the American melting pot (i.e survival of our multiethnic society). Why is it xenophobic to want controlled immigration and assimilation into the American melting pot? Have you ever heard of the term balkanization?

* * *

Your analysis of the immigration problem is interesting. But you say that “progressive activists” should “take to heart” the following quotation form Bacon: “Both sending and receiving countries are responsible f

or protecting migrants, and retain the right to determine who is admitted to their territories, and who has the right to work.” I wonder: Do you take your own advise–take to heart–the last half of this sentence? My sense is that you don’t.

* * *

If you take the time to read Hannah Arendt’s On the Origins of Totalitarianism (the section on totalitarianism) , the purpose of the political policy of “securing the borders” will become clear to you. Like in Stalin’s Russia, you couldn’t come or go without “government approval”. The wall that keeps folks out also keeps folks in. America is fast being made into a sort of prison. You can go to work and you can stay home and watch TV. Otherwise, it’s a risk. You can do your prison job and you can stay on your bunk and watch TV. Otherwise it’s a risk. If you have no job, then your worthless to the state and have no privileges, thus, to be discarded, ignored and disrespected. In other words, a third world country.

* * *

The party that preached fiscal responsibility has thrown it away. The people who supposedly worship the market will ram cheap oil down its throat or die (most likely, die). A very undiplomatic Bolton is sent to a very delicate diplomatic post. And the politicians that want foreigners out, will promote instead their illegal entry and their illegal driving. We seem to live in a very, very interesting time…

* * *

Note: the editor has also received an offer to join an “anti-immigration” group online for the purpose of discussing our disagreements “in a civil and friendly manner.” It sounds like something worth trying. Damu Smith sez if you want to do real spiritual work, you got to get out of your own house.–gm