Welcome to Evergreene Digest!
According to folklore, there are two things you don't want to see made: sausage and laws. Yet on Capital Hill our elected leaders are planning to make a law that would cause Upton Sinclair (author of The Jungle, the expose on sausage making and other slaughterhouse irregularities) to lose his lunch.
Squeeker of the House Pelosi and other House Democrats are planning to give President Bush a $178 Billion (nine zeroes) blank check for Iraq. Seeking to avoid a vote on funding the Iraq war during the fall campaign season (and thus avoiding a "nasty" policy discussion on the issue and accountabilty), they are considering combining President Bush's two pending requests into a single bill to be voted on this spring!
And, as if that weren't enough, comes news the day I write this (April 24) that this same mischief of mice ("mischief" being the correct term for a group of mice!) are planning to add extended unemployment benefits and new education funding for veterans to that combined war funding bill, making it more palatable for anti-war Democrats to provide money for Iraq until the next president takes office!
Now you have to understand that all this effort is being expended to continue a war that Joseph J. Collins, a former senior Pentagon official who served under Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, has called a 'major debacle,' 'classic case of failure.' And all for no reason at all: a Pentagon-sponsored exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network. (Don't blink: the White House is supressing this report!)
Is it any wonder, then, that Chris Hedges of The Philadelphia Inquirer argues that "the left has lost its nerve and its direction, that the current Democratic Party...has betrayed us"? He believes that progressives "must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves."
Someone find me a sausage factory, please. I need to settle my stomach!
Thank you for reading Evergreene Digest.
The Staff
PS: Almost forgot to mention that four additional sections of Evergreene Digest are in the new format: Economics, Foreign Affairs, Gender & Sexuality, Government & Politics. Only five sections remain to be reformatted. That will be done by the July issue. Thank you for your patience during our remodeling.
Highlights This Month
Former Rumsfeld/Wolfwowitz Deputy: Iraq War Is A ‘Major Debacle,’ ‘Classic Case Of Failure’
Think Progress
 The National Defense University is an elite military institute funded by the Department of Defense. Both President Dwight Eisenhower and Gen. Colin Powell studied there, and diplomat and historian George Kennan — best known as “the father of containment” — taught at the university.
Given the institution’s ties to the Defense Department, it’s therefore significant that it has chosen to publish a withering critique of the Iraq war written by Joseph J. Collins, a former senior Pentagon official who served under Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Collins’s conclusions were based, in part, “on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations,” and were completed in fall 2007. From his study:
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Read the entire study...
Mike Luckovich
 US troop deaths push monthly toll to 7-month high in Iraq
The clashes in Sadr City _ a base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia _ show little sign of easing as Iraqi and U.S. troops try to exert control over an area containing nearly half of the Baghdad's population.
Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press
Iraqi girls look a a damaged school building after an airstrike in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq on Wednesday, April 30, 2008. Health officials said two were killed and 16 wounded in the strike, which occurred Tuesday evening. The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.(AP Photo/ Karim Kadim)
The U.S. military death toll hit a seven-month high of 50 on Wednesday - with more than half the losses in Baghdad as American forces wage growing street battles against Shiite fighters.
Iraqi civilian deaths also remained high following the Iraqi government crackdown on Shiite militia factions - accused by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of using residents as human shields during close combat in the teeming Sadr City slum.
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US Weighing Thousands Of More Troops For Afghanistan
Julia Ward Howe: Beyond the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Mother's Day and Peace
womenshistory.about.com
Julia Ward Howe's accomplishments did not end with the writing of her famous poem, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." As Julia became more famous, she was asked to speak publicly more often. Her husband became less adamant that she remain a private person, and while he never actively supported her further efforts, his resistance eased.
She saw some of the worst effects of the war -- not only the death and disease which killed and maimed the soldiers. She worked with the widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides of the war, and realized that the effects of the war go beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. She also saw the economic devastation of the Civil War, the economic crises that followed the war, the restructuring of the economies of both North and South.
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Nik Scott
Pelosi Plans $178 Billion Blank Check for Iraq
Democrats seek to avoid Iraq funding vote during the campaign this fall
Andrew Taylor, Democrats.com
Democrats in Congress, seeking to avoid a vote on funding the Iraq war during the fall campaign season, are considering combining President Bush's two pending requests into a single bill to be voted on this spring.
House Democratic aides said Thursday that Bush's $108 billion request to finance military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, the end of the 2008 budget year, may be combined with his $70 billion request to continue the war into the next president's term.
"You vote one time and get the money out of the way," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House panel responsible for the Pentagon budget. He cautioned that House leaders have not officially endorsed the idea.
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Democratic leaders may add unemployment benefits to war bill
The plan would make it more palatable for anti-war Democrats to provide money until the next president takes office.
By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press
 President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., participate in Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 23,2008, honoring Dr. Michael DeBakey, not pictured. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
House Democratic leaders plan to try to add extended unemployment benefits and new education funding for veterans to President Bush's war funding bill while dropping lots of other party priorities.
Facing a veto threat, Democrats such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi don't want to try to add billions of dollars for roads, bridges and other ideas such as heating subsidies for the poor and increases in food stamp benefits.
Democratic aides say Pelosi's plan is tentative and had not been widely shopped to rank and file lawmakers. Pelosi said Thursday that she had yet to brief her colleagues.
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What does it mean to call McCain a 'war hero' candidate?
We need to distinguish the war hero from the war. Fixed ideas about war heroes get into what we call "morality wars," crucial struggles about which values should prevail, who should be admired and for what qualities.McCain is running as a war hero, but those who oppose dishonorable wars are also heroes.
Charles Derber and Yale Magrass, Christian Science Monitor
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Ken Mitchell
"624787." In his first national campaign ad for president, John McCain is shown reciting his rank and serial number as he lies in a Vietnamese hospital bed as a prisoner of war. The ad describes him as "a real hero."
Let's be clear; Senator McCain is running for president as a war hero who plans to win the campaign based on character and honor. On the surface, it seems churlish to critique the idea of a war hero. And criticizing a tribute to courageous and self-sacrificing soldiers would be disrespectful.
But inextricably tied to the idea of the war hero for president is a discussion that goes beyond individual soldiers or prisoners of war, such as McCain, to the wars they fight and what their role in the war says about their moral merits as national leaders. This turns out to be surprisingly problematic.
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Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers
The Dark Side of "Tax Freedom Day"
In general, states with late tax freedom days not only have higher after-tax income, but lower poverty rates, fewer working poor, and lower-infant mortality. Data from the 2007 Development Report Card for the States shows that states with late tax freedom days tend to score better than do states with early tax freedom days on performance, business vitality, and development capacity. Late tax freedom day states also tend to have a higher quality of life based on the 2008 Most Livable State report .
 By Jeff Van Wychen, Minnesota 2020
It's April 15, tax filing deadline day. With the certainty that the sun will rise, right wing tax and public policy voices will bemoan doing their part to help pay for public goods like roads, schools, and police.
They'll point to something called "tax freedom day," which supposedly represents the day on which taxpayers will have earned enough money to pay all of their federal, state, and local taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, the 2008 "tax freedom day" in will Minnesota fall on April 27-the 8th latest among the fifty states. But guess what? Despite our late "tax freedom day," Minnesota has the 14th highest after tax-income in the nation. In general, states with late tax freedom days tend to have higher after-tax income than states with early tax freedom days.
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John Darkow: Food for Fuel
The left has lost its nerve and its direction
The current Democratic Party, as any worker... can tell you, has betrayed us.
Chris Hedges, Philadelphia Inquirer
The failure of the American left is a failure of nerve. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffectual as a political force because of its refusal to hold fast on core issues, from universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans, to the steadfast protection of workers' rights, to an immediate withdrawal from the failed occupation of Iraq to a fight against a militarized economy that is hollowing the country out from the inside.
Let the politicians compromise. This is their job. It is not ours. If the left wants to regain influence in the nation's political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves.
Political and social change, as the radical Christian right and the array of corporate-funded neocon think tanks have demonstrated, are created by the building of movements. This is a lesson American progressives have forgotten. The object of a movement is not to achieve political power at any price. It is to create pressure and mobilize citizens around core issues of justice. It is to force politicians and parties to respond to our demands. It is about rewarding, through support and votes, those who champion progressive ideals and punishing those who refuse. And the current Democratic Party, as any worker in a former manufacturing town in Pennsylvania can tell you, has betrayed us.
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