Israel is preparing a massive assault on the civilian population of Gaza, its rag-tag defenders, and its political leaders. “The time is approaching for a comprehensive, sharp, and severe Israeli operation,” according to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. After declaring that he held Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniya personally responsible for the safety of the captured Israeli soldier, Olmert stated: “I ordered…the army…to be ready for comprehensive and ongoing military action, in order to strike at the terror organizations, their commanders, and anyone involved in terror.” In case this might be understood as something less than a declaration of open season on the entire population locked up in the narrow patch known as the Gaza Strip, Olmert went on, “Let it be clear – we will find them all, wherever they are, and they know it. Let it be clear that no one will be immune.”

Before proceeding, let it be clear about how the Geneva Conventions define the Israeli threats: collective punishment by an occupying power against the civilian population.

The governments of Europe and the United States, the powers that shipped their problem of anti-Semitism onto the backs of the Palestinians during the twentieth century, can only urge their ravaged victims to cave in to the Zionist ultimatum. Of course, this should come as no surprise, since the same “statesmen” consider the courageous attack against an occupying army “terrorism”, while the bombing of a family spending a day on the beach is... well, that's just good clean warfare. At least twenty civilians in Gaza have been indiscriminately killed by Israeli bombing this month alone, with nary a peep from Western governments or press. Imagine the howl if one-tenth this number of Israelis were killed by a hand-carried bomb.

In spite of the propaganda disseminated in the Western press, Hamas has been exercising great restraint in observing a cease-fire for the past year and a half. As the world’s banks, including those in Arab countries, cave into U.S. brinkmanship and refuse to transfer money into Palestine, resulting in a “humanitarian crisis” (as if the Palestinian people have not been enduring a humanitarian crisis since 1967 and before); as the Israelis escalate their military attacks on leaders, fighters, and above all civilians, in Gaza, the Hamas leadership has continued to advocate a “cooling off period” until saner heads can prevail. Obviously, the Israeli leadership is intent on preventing this. Like the schoolyard bully warning the kindergartner to “put ‘em up or I’ll kill you”, the Palestinians are told, “You can fight or not, but either way, we’re going to kill you."

Since most of the Palestinian leadership is in the occupied West Bank, and the population there can hardly be expected to idly watch as their cousins are helplessly slaughtered, the conflict must inevitably spread. Will this be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – the camel being the cowardly ruling elites of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc. – and finally lights off a conflagration throughout the region?

In a future article I hope to open a fuller discussion of the problem of Israel-Palestine, and its history. For now I only wish to address the urgent need for the “civilized world” to intervene to prevent the genocide against the powerless and innocent people of Gaza. Those who openly or tacitly approve the Israeli attack – and Bush will certainly be one of them – must share the verdict of history with those who approved of, or remained silent on, Hitler’s bombing of Guernica and Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. What do the Democrats and Republicans have to say? What do my opponents in the Alaskan congressional race have to say?

In Anchorage.

Hard at work collecting signatures, so I haven’t had much time or energy for political statements. Thanks for the comments, especially phil, for carrying on. The signature gathering is going well, and I’m meeting lots of great people. Hard on the feet and head, though. Looking forward to rest and home-cooking in Juneau. I plan to make a road trip in late July, through Fairbanks, Anchorage, Homer, and points in between. I need to bring some help. Any volunteers for a Great Alaskan Adventure? I’m also looking for help elsewhere: Sitka, Ketchikan, and every other town in the state (and around the world!)

Meanwhile the Bush fear-mongering grows apace. A handful of morons are provoked by a federal agent into “aspiring” to commit terrorist acts, and all the real news – the continuing bloodbath in Iraq and Afghanistan, the creation of a new domestic spy agency, etc. – suddenly loses importance, as the mainstream media discovers they can grovel at a still lower depth.

Ciao for now.

One of my favorite contemporary authors is Frank McCourt. In his latest book, "Teacher Man", he recalls an incident from his impoverished Irish childhood. Asked to leave a bookshop (where he'd gone to find out the ending of "Julius Caesar") he writes, "I backed into the street embarrassed and blushing and wondering at the same time why people won't stop bothering people. Even when I was small, eight or nine, I wondered why people won't stop bothering people and I've been wondering ever since."

President Bush's current attempt to resuscitate an anti-gay marriage amendment is so obviously a pathetic attempt to resuscitate his floundering presidency, it hardly merits comment. But it did capture headlines for a few days, and it should be called by its true name, as Coretta Scott King did: "gay-bashing". You may recall that Bush nominated for the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS a man who had described homosexuality as a "deathstyle" and AIDS as "gay plague". This homophobe quickly withdrew once he was "outed", but what does it say about the man who nominated him? Psychoanalyst Justin Frank has written a fascinating - if scary - book, "Bush on the Couch", which attempts to answer this and other questions.
While the amendment quickly went down in flames, the true purpose of the Bush initiative is to rally the religious right for the November election. We can expect similar ballot initiatives to pop up in key states to get out the vote, a tactic that worked very well in the last election, notably in Ohio. Whether it will work as well this time remains to be seen, as there are signs that fundamentalist Christians are more and more coming to view Bush as immoral, un-Christian, and "leading the country in the wrong direction". Perhaps they will also recall one of the principles for which our ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War: "A man's home is his castle."

On another "family value", my position on abortion is that as long as women require this procedure, it should be available to all, in a safe and clean environment. Like everyone else on this side of the question, I think, I would love to see the number of abortions reduced, and the obvious way to achieve this is by reducing unwanted pregnancies, and just as obvious, this goal depends on making all forms of safe birth control, including emergency contraception, readily available to all who need it.
So far as is known (research is scant due to "moral problems") Plan B works in exactly the same ways as the birth control pill, and if it prevents implantation of a fertilized egg, its effect also resembles breast-feeding. Plan B is a "win-win situation, something that everyone on both sides of the abortion issue could support." So said the director of the Office of Women's Health at the F.D.A., where a joint advisory panel voted 23-4 to make Plan B available over-the-counter. And yet Bush's political appointees have refused to sign the order. The president has refused to answer questions from a Congresswoman and reporters on whether he supports the right to use any contraception at all, so I guess we know his answer. And what does this moral eunuch think of breast-feeding? (The cover story of "The New York Times Magazine", May 7, 2006 is a good source here.)

Then there's Terri Schiavo. I hate to drag the poor woman out of her grave, but there's a bit of news you may have missed, since it was largely ignored. The "Miami Herald" reported on March 12 and 14 that due to cost-cutting, Florida's Medicaid Plan was no longer covering nutritional formula for people who require tube feeding, such as children with cystic fibrosis or HIV wasting. Gov. Jeb Bush's plan for the overhaul of Medicaid in Florida, including privatization, has the enthusiastic support of Washington. Just over a year ago, the Bush brothers were busy pushing through laws - both summarily tossed out of court as patently unconstitutional - to force a woman to be tube-fed against her will. This is the right-wing "culture of life".

When these questions are cloaked in "Christian values", the separation of church and state, guaranteed by the first amendment, is in jeopardy. When tax-payer money is used for the attack on fundamental democratic rights, as when Bush flew in Congressmen for his brazen assault on the independence of the judiciary during Terri Schiavo's last days, the offense becomes one more ground for impeachment.

Another thing these issues have in common is their economic - i.e. class - nature. Clearly, well-off patients will be fed, while those who can't afford it will just have to suffer all the complications of malnutrition, including starvation. The well-to-do will find access to safe, clinical abortion, just as they always have, while the poor and middle-class are left to grope in the dark. Many women of child-bearing age will follow the advice of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and have Plan B in their medicine cabinet, or a prescription for it ready at hand, while those most likely to need it - the poor and poorly-informed - are denied access. Marriage is certainly an economic institution, among other things, and health insurance, estate planning, etc. are concerns only to those who aren't wealthy. The rich - gay or straight - have lawyers to make sure that their estates are passed on in accordance with their wishes, and the rich generally don't even have health insurance since it's more economical to pay cash (at a rate steeply discounted from what the poor and middle-class are expected to pay.)
Undoubtedly, the reactionary wish-list also includes making divorce available only to the wealthy, as it was fifty years ago.

What it all boils down to is this: the government has no more business in our bedrooms than they do in our telephones or computers. While I fully support the right of church members and others to live as God or their conscience directs them, they have no right to impose their views on every other member of society.

The primary purpose of this campaign is two-fold: to force everyone, on all sides of the question, to examine it and, of course, to give everyone who favors impeachment a chance to express themselves at the polls.
It's possible - even inevitable - that other candidates will jump on the bandwagon, as inevitable as bad news from the Bush war zone, as inevitable as further revelations of attacks on civil liberties. Will the economy, stretched to the breaking point by Bush's tax cuts for the rich and massive spending for military expansion, finally unravel, with who knows what consequences? Hell, by November 7th Don Young may be calling for impeachment! (not too likely.)

So what separates me from the other candidates, besides impeachment? Let me begin with a short personal history.
I came of age politically during the Vietnam/Nixon era, and progressed from protest and support of "left-Democrats" to the conclusion that the only way to prevent future Vietnams and future Nixons, and to address such issues as poverty and racism, was through the socialist reconstruction of society. Nothing in the intervening 35 years has caused me to change my mind, and I expect to carry this conviction to my grave. In future columns, I will apply this socialist perspective to a variety of questions, from gay marriage to immigration "reform". And maybe even tobacco and chewing gum! (both "filthy habits", according to some socialists, which will disappear when class tensions are eliminated!)
I was active in several unions before coming to Alaska in 1975 (Work was relatively easy to find then, and I was young and footloose.) In Ketchikan, I got hired by the state ferry system in the Stewards' Department. What started out as a summer job turned into a career. From the beginning, I was a militant member of the Inlandboatmen's Union, and later, its "adopted" parent, the ILWU. These unions were among the most democratic and progressive in the country. As a convention delegate, I fought for international solidarity among workers, improved social conditions at home, and above all, for an independent political party of the working class, i.e. a Labor Party. Eventually, I worked my way up in the Deck Department, getting a license in 1988 and advancing as high as Chief Mate. Before my retirement two years ago, due in part to health reasons, I was a member of the Masters Mates and Pilots negotiating committee in collective bargaining with the State of Alaska. If elected, I believe that I would be about the only member who had spent his working life actually working.

Wait a second. From impeachment to a Labor Party? What gives?
Whether you're a worker or not - and let's define our terms: class is a matter of social relations, not income. Some factory workers may be paid more than some college professors, but the former are working-class and the latter are middle-class - whatever your position in society, if you strive for human progress, or just a way out of the morass, your interests are the same as the working class', the producers of all wealth, whose natural aspirations are for the full value of their labor, i.e. socialism.
The Socialist movement has a long and rich history in this country. One high point was the 1912 presidential election in which Eugene Debs, that granite - if flawed - giant of American Labor, captured nearly 900,000 votes - nearly six per-cent of the total. Rebuilding this movement won't be easy, what with the decimation of so much of American basic industry, the betrayals of the trade-union bureaucracy, and the abject cowardice of the major media. Things don't look so bleak if we keep in mind that we have natural allies in the billions of working people around the world. Anyhow, this is our ONLY way forward, and therefore it MUST be done.
I see a Labor Party as the natural flag around which to unite all workers: organized and unorganized, immigrant and unemployed, and the disaffected millions who see absolutely no hope. While a section of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy sees the solution to Labor's decline in simply signing up new members, what is required are bold new initiatives, which can draw on these vast untapped resources. Such a party would welcome all others - even capitalists - who yearn for a world where everyone is provided with a decent standard of living, and the barbarism of genocidal wars of conquest is deposited on the junk-heap of history. Since the natural political theory of Labor is socialism, this should be the touchstone of the party. Otherwise, as has happened in the past, the party will be absorbed into the Democratic Party, or fade into oblivion.

The secondary goal of this campaign is to generate discussion about longer-term solutions to the problems we face. I have outlined my approach, but I don't claim to have any infallible inspiration, and I encourage readers to put forward their suggestions or alternative approaches in the Comments section. Wouldn't it be great if in the next election we can field a list of candidates under the banner of socialism, an Alaskan Labor Party?
After the 1912 election, Debs stated, "It is entirely possible that in four years more the Socialists may sweep the nation." He was wrong, of course, not foreseeing the intense drive toward war and the capitulation of nearly every Socialist leader, along with the AFL leadership. I am confident that things will be different next time. Once the idea of working people fighting for political power in their own right takes hold, it will sweep the country. The most difficult part is getting started, and I ask my readers to join me in this historic task. When it finally appears, the Labor Party - or whatever it's called - will seem to have come from nowhere, but in reality it will be the product of many hard-fought battles at the grass-roots level. I predict that our future will more closely resemble the early history of the Republican Party: formed in 1856 of disparate elements united around the principle of the ultimate abolition of slavery, they were indeed swept to power four years later.
We've seen what capitalism and its two-party system have to offer. Isn't it time to consider some other solutions?