Author: jpritikin

Get ready, America, for a lesson in one of our country’s strangest states. What makes Alaska so different? It’s not just the cold and the empty landscape. Alaska is the only state in the union to have had direct democracy since its founding. The other 23 states with the ballot initiative adopted it long after they became states.

So it’s fair to say that Alaska has been shaped more profoundly by direct democracy than any state in the union. As every bit of Gov. Sarah Palin’s life is scrutinized, you’ll hear lots of odd things for which direct democracy is part of the answer. (Here’s my strongest prediction about this choice: once Americans learn how Alaska works, Leno and Letterman will start making jokes — and it’ll be years before they stop). For example, she’ll have to admit — as she has done in the past — that she smoked marijuna. But she’ll have an explanation that may surprise people. Marijuana was LEGAL in Alaska until 1990, and not just for medicinal purposes. Thank the voters for the right. The voters also took the right away.

You’ll also hear about her love of hunting and fishing, and her husband’s work as a commercial fisherman and in the oil fields. You’ll hear a lot from environmentalists about state management of public land. Alaska law in all these matters has been profoundly shaped by the ballot. And you also should expect to see her attacked by good government types as "not a real reformer" for her decision not to back a ballot initiative establishing public finance in Alaska. The measure was defeated in Tuesday’s primary elections there.

For an overview of Alaska’s initiative and referenda history, check out the state page on ballotpedia.

Fighting terrorism will not be easy in this age of ours when the superpowers and their allies have all the necessary ammos to justify their terrorization of unarmed civilians while the have-nots have very little to lose through their mindless suicidal acts of vengeance or retribution.

As far as America is concerned, what is needed is thinking outside America’s current paradigm to combat this menace. It is good to see that under a new leadership the Pentagon is realizing this fact. The 2008 National Defense Strategy, approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and released by the Pentagon on July 31 says that while the military’s top priority is to defeat al-Qaeda and other extremists, but winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone will not achieve that. Nor will the use of force alone accomplish the mission. The most important thing the military can do, the report says, is to prepare friends and allied nations to defend and govern themselves. Coming as it does from the Pentagon the report shows that the department is admitting the follies of strong arm tactics alone. Truly, without a combination of political measures that address the underlying root causes and economic incentives, it would be impossible to combat terrorism of the have-nots.

In this age of insecurity, America needs a total reevaluation of her position vis-à-vis the ‘other’ people of our world. And in that evaluation, she must weigh properly her actions in the Dar al-Islam. She must recognize that with the burial of the Caliphate, the Muslim world is fragmented and there is no leadership that speaks for all 1.5 billion Muslims that are spread all over the globe. The current leadership in most Muslim countries is utterly corrupt and spineless to have a meaningful dialogue with its counterparts in the West, especially the USA. It is that vacuum in leadership that has unfortunately brought to the fore individuals like OBL to speak about collective humiliation of Muslims in the post-Caliphate era. While most Muslims share those grievances stoked by OBL and his deputies, only an insignificant segment of the population share either their vision of politics or their ways and means. If American leadership fails to make this distinction between groups like al-Qaeda and nominal religious Muslims, it will only play into the hands of the very nemesis that it purports to defeat.

America must also take into consideration rising anti-American political and religious hostility produced by American unilateralism. As much as she must restrain her trigger-happy fingers from firing on civilians, and getting into uncalled fights with others, she cannot allow herself to be seen as awarding oppressive governments. She cannot allow Israel and other such rogue partners to use American weapons to kill unarmed civilians. She must set a higher standard of morality and fairness for herself in everything she does, including the military trials of rapist and murderous soldiers and the detainees of the Guantanamo Bay prison. She simply can’t afford Pharaohnic arrogance and Hamanic despotism.

So, will American leadership change its mindset that prefers war over negotiation?

In a debate on January 31, 2008, Senator Obama said: “I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.” As Kevin Zeese (Director of Democracy Rising) has noted "if this statement is to be taken seriously it would mean a paradigm shift in U.S. foreign policy away from militarism towards diplomacy, foreign aid and cooperation with other nations. It will also mean shrinking the already too large defense budget creating the ability to invest in the new energy economy, U.S. infrastructure and the basic necessities of the American people. The vast majority of Americans – a growing super majority – opposes continuing keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, bombing Iran and wants a less military-based foreign policy. Now is the time for greater emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, multilateralism and foreign aid. The people demand it. War is not the answer to any of these conflicts. The U.S. is not made more secure by creating new enemies and draining our treasury."

Zeese is right. By ending the "mindset" that led to the Iraq War, it will allow for a re-prioritization of resources at home and abroad, moving the U.S. away from a military economy toward a civilian one. Now is the time to begin to end the mindset of war. Is Obama ready for that challenge?

In Berlin rally of July 24, 2008, in front of a crowd of some two hundred thousand people, Obama preached the wisdom of true partnership and true progress through trust and cooperation. He called on people to "tear down new walls" between races, countries and religions. He said, "The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. … Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century."

As America tries to come out of the shadow of Bush-Cheney era of deception, surely Obama’s speech is very refreshing, much like John F. Kennedy’s, offering some nuggets of hope in an otherwise hopeless world of ours. Only time would tell if such high-sounding, and yet not unrealistic, words can be put into practice by removing the curse of perennial war through shared expectations, cooperation and negotiation.

American Politics – the Path Forward – Accountability

As the adage goes – you do the crime, you must serve the time (in prison) – something must be done with accountability. When a criminal absconds from justice that day is a sad day for its victims. And when the most powerful man on earth abuses his authority and misleads his nation into war thus devastating the world, it is catastrophic for all. And that is what President George W. Bush has done in the last eight years of his office. He ruined American economy and destabilized the entire globe. He killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people overseas and brought about the death of thousands of his own countrymen, when it was not necessary. By deliberately overwriting international laws in matters of treatment of prisoners of war (the so-called enemy "unlawful" combatants) and ignoring human rights, he has essentially made all Americans traveling outside vulnerable to similar abuses that were meted out to prisoners in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons.

No President in American history has probably done more harm to America’s image than President Bush. It will take years, if not decades, to wipe that nasty bloody stain he leaves behind when he vacates the White House in January 2009. America ought to hold Bush and his inner circle of advisers accountable for committing the worst mass murder of this century.

By lying to the Congress, Bush violated U.S. Laws related to Fraud and False Statements, Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001 and Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Title 18, Chapter 19, Section 371.

If Americans fail (which is a foregone conclusion) to send Bush to the World Court in The Hague for war crimes, the Congress owes it to its own electorates to at least impeach or try him internally per its own laws. [While on July 25, 2008 the House Judiciary Committee has opened up hearings on Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment resolution, it is highly unlikely that President Bush will be impeached by the Congress because of opposition from Speaker Pelosi.] As has been argued by former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, Bush needs more than impeachment. He said, "For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did." In all fairness, Bush should be tried for crimes against humanity.

It goes without saying that Bush’s trial would be a solace to millions who lost their loved ones and were directly affected adversely by his criminal actions. It would also help to restore confidence in American leadership and heal the wounds caused by his administration. It would also enable people from outside to look upon the USA favorably with respect and admiration, and help not only to close the Atlantic divide but also along the global fault lines. People would know that no crime, big or small, goes unpunished in this nation we call the USA – the land of the brave (brave enough to put its own highest authority behind the bar for committing crimes against humanity). That trial would also be a sufficient deterrent for any would-be Hulagu Khan from embarking on an imperial trail and committing mass murder.

Is the Congress ready for that task? Or will political expediency sideline this major issue of our time?

What Next? Politics as Usual?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, "The strongest is never strong enough to be the master unless he translates strength into right and obedience into duty." However, American democracy and leadership are failing in that measure.

Journalist Jonathan Rauch observed in his book "Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government" that the American government probably has evolved into a sprawling, largely self-organizing structure that is 10% to 20% under the control of the politicians and voters, and 80% to 90% under the control of the countless thousands of client groups. Coming as it does from a veteran observer of American politics, such a prognosis is not a healthy one. Today, an American political candidate must raise millions of dollars to stand a chance in getting elected for a gubernatorial, senatorial or congressional post, let alone the presidential race. The candidates raise money in small increments from tens of thousands of individual contributors and Political Action Committees (PACs), whose agendas are less well publicized and less scrutinized. And it has produced a new group of power brokers: the fundraisers.

Fareed Zakariya has also noted in his book "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad" that an American candidate must now spend the all-important year before the primaries winning the support of thousands of affluent contributors. As a result, raising money has become the fundamental activity of a political campaign, and performing well at fundraiser the first, indispensable skill for a modern American politician. Hence the sad spectacle of modern American politics, in which politicians ceaselessly appease lobbies, poll voters, genuflect before special interests, and raise money. Of course this does not produce good government – quite the contrary – and so the search for good government continues in America.

One can well imagine the hideous, devastating influence on politics when a PAC combines with the military industrial complex to push their shared agenda. This is exactly what has happened with the Israeli Lobby, which includes the Neocons, when it allied itself with the Christian Zionists and the war industry to exercise their “unmatched power” over U.S. government policies to push the country to war against Iraq. Such an unholy alliance is very harmful to the national interest of America and must be stopped for the greater good of America and humanity at large.

It is known that legitimacy is the elixir of political power. Most politicians are now lacking that legitimacy. American public dissatisfaction with the effects of politics continues to grow. As duly noted by Zakariya, if these problems grow people will be more inclined to define democracy by what it has become: a system, open and accessible in theory, but ruled in reality by organized or rich or fanatical minorities, protecting themselves for the present and sacrificing the future. This is a very different vision from that of the enthusiasts of direct democracy.

The battle for the soul of American democracy must, therefore, continue. This, according to Professor Cornel West of Princeton University, in large part, is a battle for the soul of American Christianity; because the dominant forms of Christian fundamentalism are a threat to the tolerance and openness necessary for sustaining any democracy. As Americans try to choose their path, they must weigh between their new found fondness (or misadventure) with Constantine Christianity that pushes them toward an imperialistic identity and a Prophetic one that adds a moral fervor by caring for the poor, public service, tolerance and compassion. Which option will they choose?

In this regard, we should not be oblivious of the unpleasant truth that the vast majority of white American Christians supported the evil of slavery – and they did so often in the name of Jesus. And then there were also abolitionists who were Christians. There lies the classic case of American Christian schizophrenic experience!

How ironic it is also to see American Jewish lobby today to fuse with right-wing evangelical Christians whose anti-Semitism, past and present, is notorious and despicable, and whose support for the Jewish state is based on the idea that its existence paves the path for the second coming of Christ, who will slaughter them for their unbelief! As much as the majority Christians in the USA ought to sort their way out of the mess that they got into, the Jewish Americans cannot afford not knowing the danger of playing with the fire. They must distance themselves from the conniving foot soldiers of the Armageddon. The must also avoid being a party to American policy makings that are unjust, shortsighted and harmful in the long run.

As America introspects it is worth remembering that the embrace of communism and fascism in the 1930s did not seem as crazy at the time as it does now. If Americans fail to pick the right choice, signs are too clear to suggest that they may settle for fascism.

As the dust of 9/11 settles down and the bloodstains of Iraq dry up, American people will realize that it is not terrorism that is the greatest threat to their national security. But it is their very democracy – increasingly manipulated by a powerful coterie – that is the greatest threat to their national security.

In closing it is worth noting an observation from an American military historian Victor Davis Hanson: "The real hazard for the future, as it always has been in the past, is not Western moral decline or the threat of the Other now polished with the veneer of sophisticated arms, but the age-old specter a horrendous war inside the West itself, the old Europe and America with its full menu of Western economic, military, and political dynamism." He continued, "Gettysburg in a single day took more Americans than did all the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century."

More Americans have now died from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than all those combined in 9/11. Is there something to learn from this experience?

Habib Siddiqui

When he talks about his track record of striking nerves in Springfield, Pat Quinn comes off as more than slightly amused.

Illinois’ lieutenant governor of five years, Quinn has become increasingly vocal in calling out the General Assembly, the Cook County Board and his own boss, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, for what he perceives as intrusions into taxpayer rights.

Most recently he took issue with the Assembly’s plan to give themselves pay raises as Cook County taxes steadily creep upward.

“A lot of people today feel that the office holders too often ignore the public point of view,” Quinn says. “Indeed there may be some that are even contemptuous of the public point of view.”

Last week Quinn picketed one of the governor’s speeches, urging the public to sign a petition dissuading lawmakers from allowing the automatic 7.5 percent pay raise to take effect. Blagojevich dodged the crowd by entering the building through a back door, and Senate President Emil Jones refused to shake Quinn’s outstretched hand as he brushed past him.

“When he walked in, he said, ‘What’s your name?’ to me,” Quinn says. “Not very complimentary, I guess.”

Despite the cold reception, the stunt worked. The lieutenant governor collected more than 17,000 signatures in 48 hours, putting enough pressure on the Assembly to call a vote and cancel the raises.

Quinn takes pride in his ability to move the masses, referring to his grassroots campaigns as the unstoppable force to Springfield’s immovable object. He has built his political career around his support of initiatives, public referendums and recall of public officials, all of which he regards as vital components of participatory government.

“I believe in direct democracy,” Quinn says. “It’s a good safety valve to have when things go askew in government.”

Quinn has fought for his concept of direct democracy since the ’70s, when he led a series of petition drives asking legislators to reform the state tax system and grant Illinois citizens the power to vote directly in referendums. His best-known effort to enact such referendums, the Illinois Initiative, received widespread public support before failing in the state Supreme Court in the late ’70s.

The ultimate line of defense, in Quinn’s opinion, would be an amended state constitution that gives Illinois residents a louder voice in the political process and limits the government’s ability to overburden taxpayers. “The people are the boss,” Quinn said at a recent conference while proposing an amendment to strengthen the power of the state’s Compensation Review Board.

Quinn says taxpayers should have the power to vote directly on constitutional amendments, which will only become possible if there is sufficient support for a constitutional convention in November’s election.

A constitutional convention, or “con con,” as it’s called by insiders, is a meeting of specially elected delegates who propose and vote on new amendments to the state constitution—which could include new regulations on campaign ethics, school funding, pay raises or a number of other possibilities. The proposals would then be sent back to Illinois voters, who would approve or reject each amendment in an up or down vote.

Convention delegates, as Quinn is quick to point out, do not have to be career politicians, nor do they have to be affiliated with any political party. This distinction, the lieutenant governor says, makes them more independent of the Springfield mentality and thus more capable of representing the true perspective of the citizens of Illinois. Many delegates attending a 1970 con con had had no prior political experience, and many never returned to politics after the meetings concluded, according to Quinn.

“They were there to do a job,” Quinn says. “And I think that attitude is why a convention is superior to just relying on the same old people in Springfield that we have today.”

Quinn’s ongoing quest to amend the constitution has given him a sort of notoriety among his peers—some see him as a man staunchly devoted to ensuring a formal guarantee of taxpayers’ rights, while others regard his actions as a threat to the stability of the state’s most important document.

“There’s just not agreement that a constitutional convention would be productive or constructive, given the political climate that we currently have,” says Jeff Mays, president of the Illinois Business Roundtable and member of the Alliance to Protect the Illinois Constitution.

Mays and the alliance believe that there are other avenues to bring about the types of reforms Quinn is pursuing. Most importantly, Mays says, politicians themselves have to stand for public election, holding them directly accountable to their constituents.

“This is a constitution you’re talking about changing. It’s not just a statutory compendium. So maybe it should take a little more time,” Mays says. “I would not want to expose our constitution to the current political winds that are blowing right now.”

Quinn says his odds of success are relatively slim, but he believes he’s got enough public support to pass the con con vote.

“There’s no question that we’re the underdog,” says Quinn, referring to a $3 million advertising campaign soon to be rolled out by the anti-con con coalition.

“The opponents of a con con, to me, they’ve got to trust democracy. They basically make an argument that the status quo is acceptable. And I think that’s where their weakest position is.”

The well-documented climate of “friction and gridlock” between every branch of Illinois government must subside, Quinn says, before the issue of amending the constitution can even be reached.

by Rob Heidrick

This November, Americans will of course select a new president. But some of the most pressing issues of our time will not be decided in that race. Rather, they will be decided at the state level with ballot initiatives.

These public questions address a wide range of issues, including gambling and environmental issues.  The most critical public questions are affirmative action and homosexual marriage.  Although one should have concerns about the widespread use of direct democracy, these measures are really the only way to wrest control over policy issues from the ceaseless usurpations of courts and return them to the people.

Three states – Florida, Arizona, and California – have proposals to amend their state constitutions to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman.  The Proposition 20 California initiative is especially important because it represents a direct attempt to undo the invention of same-sex marriage by the California Supreme Court this past May.  A Proposition 20 confrontation of this sort was impossible in Massachusetts (the only other state to legalize same-sex marriage by judicial decree) because of a more complicated amendment process.  Florida and Arizona are taking preemptive step to frustrate any future judicial inclination to redefine marriage.  Once adopted, these three measures will join similar amendments adopted in twenty-seven other states.

Marriage of course was already defined statutorily in all 50 states as a union of one man and one woman.  The problem is that courts have assumed the leadership of the homosexual revolution in the area of marriage.  Elected officials are terrified of pushing back at the courts, and the judicial overreaching is thus meekly ratified.  This is no way to address the solemn question of who may and may not be married. 

Americans overwhelmingly seek racial neutrality in government contracts, hiring, and university admissions.  Unfortunately, bureaucrats are able to keep a vast network of racial preferences in place at both the state and federal level.  Elected officials who may oppose this unfair use of race rarely raise any concerns.  In Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska have or will have ballot questions that will comprehensively ban the use of race in government.  These same measures passed easily, despite fierce and well-funded opposition, in Washington, California, and, most recently, Michigan. 

John McCain has endorsed the proposed ban (a reversal of his earlier position), and Barack Obama flatly opposes them.  (Indeed, he actively campaigned against the successful Michigan initiative.)  "I think in the past he’d been opposed to these Ward Connerly initiatives as divisive," Mr. Obama has said of McCain’s position.  "And I think he’s right.  These are not designed to solve a big problem, but they’re all t oo often designed to drive a wedge between people." 

Despite all his chatter about moving beyond racial divisions, Mr. Obama’s endorsement of affirmative action discloses that he is just another quota-loving politician, precisely the sort who has kept racial preferences in place despite their vast unpopularity and unconstitutionality at all levels of government.  These initiatives are in fact designed to solve a big problem – namely, government classifications based on race.  And in the states where they have been adopted, they have not driven a wedge between people.  They have simply compelled those governments to make decisions without taking race into account. 

All proposals to ban affirmative action are invariably characterized as "divisive"; however, it is undeniable that hiring for a government job based on race, awarding a government contract based on race, or admitting students to state universities based on race are among the most divisive practices in the country today.  Eliminating racial considerations is the only way to alleviate racial divisiveness.

Ballot questions involve a kind of plebiscitary government that the founders of this republic would have viewed with various degrees of hostility.   Their great fear was mob rule, and such fear was and is justified.  Indeed, that voters need to resort to this method of reform demonstrates a basic failure of our republican form of government.  In the case of marriage, it is an out-of-control judicial branch that nullifies legislative determinations.  With affirmative action, it is feckless elected representatives who are fearful of becoming entangled in racial politics.

But this is where we are, and the need to use these less-than-ideal means to maintain or restore basic understandings – about the proper nature of marriage and the necessity of racial neutrality to ensure equality before the law – is inevitable.    

Gregory J. Sullivan (Gregoryjsull@aol.com ) is a lawyer who resides in Bucks County.

You have to admire a man who can stay mad for almost four decades. No matter how dedicated and fired up most of us may be initially, we cop out, wear out or burn out long before that. Not former Democratic Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska, again this year, long-long-shot presidential candidate. Mr. Gravel gets mad, usually for good reason, and then, eschewing the conventional wisdom, never gets over it. You gotta like the guy, and thanks to his able co-author, Joe Lauria, you gotta like his book.

What made Mr. Gravel mad back in 1971 was the arrogance of power, especially as wielded by democratically elected leaders to favor the defense industry over the common good. "The separate histories of my life and American militarism collided in 1968, when I arrived in the Senate at the age of thirty-eight," he writes. "My fight against militarism turned into a personal battle with Scoop Jackson, the senator who personified the military-industrial power even more than I personified its opposition."

In the Senate, Mr. Gravel was never a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy, displaying an independent streak right from the start. Eventually, he was a major thorn not just in the side of other senators, but also in that of the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, whom he infuriated by reading into the public record 4,100 of the 7,100 pages of the Pentagon Papers. By publishing the Pentagon Papers, Mr. Gravel cast a very large and ominous die that didn’t stop until the war in Vietnam came to its ignoble end.

"A Political Odyssey" lays out Mr. Gravel’s thesis that, far more often than not, our leaders have used fear – of the British, the Indians, the Communists, the radical Islamic terrorists – to justify ever larger outlays for defense, whether we happen to be at war or not. During his time on the national stage, however, Mr. Gravel’s main causes were the war in Vietnam and nuclear testing. But after fighting those battles throughout the 1970s, he was "swept out of office when Reagan and resurgent militarism were swept in. I sank into a long political and personal despair, only to start climbing out of it in the ’90s, seeking ways to reform the political system."

Mr. Gravel’s main reforms are direct democracy, the national initiative and the flat tax. Before you groan, stop and think what a transformation these ideas would produce in this country. (Better yet, read this book, because it is filled with information and insight.) As a prime example of the workability of the first of his ideas, Mr. Gravel cites Switzerland: "In 168 years of direct democracy, the Swiss have built the most peaceful and prosperous nation in Europe. The United States would become unrecognizable, if the people would have this same power."

There are several other good reasons to read this book. One is that it’s very well-written (Mr. Gravel’s collaborator, Mr. Lauria, is an experienced New York-based journalist whose specialty is foreign affairs). Another is that it’s refreshingly candid. He says that Republican Sen. William Saxbe of Ohio "really loathed me," Jimmy Carter was "more Stevenson than Eisenhower," Bill Clinton "was the first president since FDR who did not feel obliged to scare that hell out of people to pump up profits and power," and he describes the late Rev. Jerry Falwell as "the extreme-right political operative masquerading as a preacher."

It’s difficult to sustain anger, even righteous anger, for almost 100,000 words, and yet Mr. Gravel manages to do it without sounding shrill, probably because he doesn’t take himself anywhere near as seriously as he takes the issues.

By the end, the tone is, to my ear, just right, as when he tells us, "History is irrational. Powerful people think they can control it. They are fools. The lawlessness unleashed by the supposedly rational schemes of American, Pakistani, and Saudi intelligence beginning in the 1970s, in which terrorists and extremists were used for short-term political gain, resulted in September 11, 2001."

And don’t make the mistake of thinking Mr. Gravel is impressed by all the current talk about "change." This is how he ends "A Political Odyssey": "[Americans] cling to anyone who promises them change, however superficial. Under the current system that’s all they’ve got. They deserve more. They must participate in power to alter this nation’s march to disaster. That’s the only change we can believe in."

John Greenya is the author of "Silent Justice: The Clarence Thomas Story."

Representative government fails when corrupt politicians mostly serve corporate and other special interests. Then it is crucial for citizens to have direct democracy opportunities. This means having the right to place initiatives or referenda on ballots that can make new laws, amend constitutions, recall elected officials, or control taxes and government spending.

Though many local and 24 state governments provide rules for some ballot measures and initiatives, they have been limited by diverse establishment, status quo political interests on the left and right that feel threatened by such populist citizen power.

I was impressed by the recent Wall Street Journal article by John Fund: The Far Left’s War on Direct Democracy (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121702588516086143.html?mod=todays_columnists). He made the point that direct democracy, though sorely needed, has been successfully crushed by ugly tactics from those interests that would rather use their money and influence to control legislative and other government functions. They fear citizen power. They know how to control elections and manipulate voters. "Unfortunately, some special interests have declared war on the initiative process, using tactics ranging from restrictive laws to outright thuggery," said Fund.

I agree with Fund’s summation: "Representative government will remain the enduring feature of American democracy, but the initiative process is a valuable safety valve. …attempts to arbitrarily curb the initiative, or to intimidate people from exercising their right to participate, must be resisted. It’s a civil liberties issue that should unite people of good will on both the right and left."

If this sounds reasonable to you, then the appropriate question to ask of presidential candidates is straightforward: Do you support providing more direct democracy opportunities?

Indeed, many people want some way of creating a federal ballot initiative mechanism whereby the misdeeds or inaction of government could be addressed by Americans voting directly to get the transparent and accountable government and effective public policies they want. A national ballot measure to end the Iraq war would have succeeded in 2006, for example. Putting Democrats in control of Congress did not work. Do we need the ability to recall a president because of dishonesty, incompetence and wrongheaded policies? Yes.

Also consider that the two-party plutocracy has been able to stifle political opposition by making third party and independent candidates unable to grasp any real power, as they can do in most other democracies.

In thinking about direct democracy I was reminded of the all too prevalent view that Barack Obama will challenge the traditional, money dominated two-party control of Washington politics. So, I pose this challenge to Obama: If you truly represent a force for fixing a divisive and ineffective political system, then why don’t you explicitly come out in favor of creating more direct democracy opportunities? Why not condemn all attempts to crush ballot measures and initiatives? And why not help start a national discussion of the possibility of a federal ballot initiative mechanism?

When over 80 percent of Americans see the nation on the wrong track it is fair to conclude that representative government has failed. The two-party plutocracy has too much power. This is the ideal time to recognize the limits of electoral, representative democracy and become an advocate for more direct democracy.

President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1912, wisely observed "I believe in the Initiative and Referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative." Direct democracy is all about converting the notion of sovereignty of we the people into reality.

It comes to this: Should we be content to put our faith in elected representative or should we put it in ourselves? When you vote for candidates you don’t put your faith in yourself, you put it in them. Haven’t we been disappointed enough in those elected? We have less to fear from the will of the majority than from the actions of dishonest, corrupt and plutocracy-serving elected officials.

For political reform seeking Americans the litmus test for presidential candidates should be whether they support more direct democracy. If Obama is not just about rhetorical change, but a true reformer of the political system, then we need to hear from him on this issue.

Let him explain whether or not he supports what Ralph Nader does, who has said that presidential candidates should "put front and center empowering the American people in direct democracy format so they can move in when their so-called representatives cave in to the interests of big business. …Campaign finance reform has got to go hand in hand with direct democracy like initiative, referendum, recall." His current platform says that we need "more direct democracy reflecting the preamble to our constitution which starts with ‘we the people,’ and not ‘we the corporations.’"

Can you imagine Obama saying these things? I can’t.

[Joel S. Hirschhorn can be reached through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

A total of 24 states allow voters to change laws on their own by collecting signatures and putting initiatives on the ballot. It’s healthy that the entrenched political class should face some real legislative competition from initiative-toting citizens. Unfortunately, some special interests have declared war on the initiative process, using tactics ranging from restrictive laws to outright thuggery.

The initiative is a reform born out of the Progressive Era, when there was general agreement that powerful interests had too much influence over legislators. It was adopted by most states in the Midwest and West, including Ohio and California. It was largely rejected by Eastern states, which were dominated by political machines, and in the South, where Jim Crow legislators feared giving more power to ordinary people.

But more power to ordinary people remains unpopular in some quarters, and nothing illustrates the war on the initiative more than the reaction to Ward Connerly’s measures to ban racial quotas and preferences. The former University of California regent has convinced three liberal states — California, Washington and Michigan — to approve race-neutral government policies in public hiring, contracting and university admissions. He also prodded Florida lawmakers into passing such a law. This year his American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) aimed to make the ballot in five more states. But thanks to strong-arm tactics, the initiative has only made the ballot in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.

"The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the first place," says Donna Stern, Midwest director for the Detroit-based By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). "That’s the only way we’re going to win." Her group’s name certainly describes the tactics that are being used to thwart Mr. Connerly.

Aggressive legal challenges have bordered on the absurd, going so far as to claim that a blank line on one petition was a "duplicate" of another blank line on another petition and thus evidence of fraud. In Missouri, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan completely rewrote the initiative’s ballot summary to portray it in a negative light. By the time courts ruled she had overstepped her authority, there wasn’t enough time to collect sufficient signatures.

Those who did circulate petitions faced bizarre obstacles. In Kansas City, a petitioner was arrested for collecting signatures outside of a public library. Officials finally allowed petitioners a table inside the library but forbade them to talk. In Nebraska, a group in favor of racial preferences ran a radio ad that warned that those who signed the "deceptive" petition "could be at risk for identity theft, robbery, and much worse."

Mr. Connerly says that it’s ironic that those who claim to believe in "people power" want to keep people from voting on his proposal: "Their tactics challenge the legitimacy of our system."

He’s not alone. Liberal columnist Anne Denogean of the Tucson Citizen opposes the Connerly initiative, but last month she wrote that BAMN "is showing a disgusting lack of respect for the democratic process and the right of all Arizonans to participate in it." She detailed how members of this organization harass petitioners and film people who sign the petition, while telling them they are backing a racist measure.

The police had to be called when BAMN blocked the entrance of a Phoenix office where circulators had to deliver their petitions. "BAMN’s tactics," she concluded, "resemble those used by anti-abortion activists to prevent women from entering abortion clinics."

But BAMN proudly posts videos on its success in scaring away voters, or convincing circulators to hand over their petitions to its shock troops. "If you give me your signatures, we’ll leave you alone," says a BAMN volunteer on one tape to someone who’s earning money by circulating several different petitions.

What about voters’ rights to sign ACRI’s petitions? BAMN organizer Monica Smith equates race-neutral laws with Jim-Crow segregation laws and slavery. She told Tuscon columnist Denogean that voters are simply being educated that ACRI is "trying to end affirmative action . . . We let them know it’s up on the KKK’s Web site." Mr. Connerly has repudiated any support from racists.

Other opponents of Mr. Connerly deplore the blocking and name-calling. Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema told me that initiatives have been used to pass ideas such as campaign finance and redistricting reform often opposed by entrenched legislators. "People have a right to sign a petition, hear the arguments and then vote," she says. Ms. Sinema thinks Arizonans can be persuaded to vote down ACRI’s measure, much as they voted down a ban on gay marriage in 2006.

The war against citizen initiatives has other fronts. This year in Michigan, taxpayer groups tried to recall House Speaker Andy Dillon after he pushed through a 12% increase in the state income tax. But petitioners collecting the necessary 8,724 signatures in his suburban Detroit district were set upon. In Redford, police union members held a rally backing Mr. Dillon and would alert blockers to the location of recall petitioners. Outsiders would then surround petitioners and potential signers, using threatening language.

Mr. Dillon denied organizing such activity. Then it was revealed two of the harassers were state employees working directly for him. Another "voter educator" hired by the state’s Democratic Party had been convicted of armed robbery. After 2,000 signatures were thrown out on technical grounds, the recall effort fell 700 signatures short.

Ever since voters in virtually every state with direct democracy passed term limits in the 1990s, state legislators have been hostile to the process. Now Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado have all passed legislation to prohibit people from out-of-state from circulating a petition, and also to ban payment to circulators on a per-signature basis.

To his credit, Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed such curbs. In March, a Sixth Circuit federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that an Ohio law barring per-signature payment violated the First Amendment. Similarly, a Ninth Circuit panel just voted unanimously to strike down Arizona’s residency law for circulators.

Some judges think the "blocking" of signature gatherers has gone too far. In 2006, Nevada Judge Sally Loehrers decreed a "civility zone" that barred opposing sides from coming within arms’ length of each other at petition signing sites. "The blockers were off the streets within two days," says Paul Jacob, the head of Citizens in Charge, which promotes the initiative process.

Last year, Mr. Jacob was charged with conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma in a bizarre prosecution that claimed he brought in out-of-state signature gatherers in violation of the state’s residency requirement. Yet local public sector unions opposed to Mr. Jacob hired out-of-state outfits such as the Voter Education Project, an AFL-CIO offshoot that specializes in harassing signature drives.

Representative government will remain the enduring feature of American democracy, but the initiative process is a valuable safety valve. So long as elected officials gerrymander their districts and otherwise make it nearly impossible for voters to oust them, direct lawmaking will be popular. That’s why attempts to arbitrarily curb the initiative, or to intimidate people from exercising their right to participate, must be resisted. It’s a civil liberties issue that should unite people of good will on both the right and left.

When Mike Gravel appeared on camera during the early Democratic primary debates, Americans began asking who this blunt-speaking, wisecracking individual was and what qualified him to stand beside Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other, younger hopefuls. He soon reminded the nation that as a two-term Alaska senator (1969-1981), he released the Pentagon Papers—the government’s secret history of the Vietnam War. His was the era of dirty Nixon politics, global instability and OPEC oil shocks. A maverick to Democrats and Republicans, Gravel has been promoting his idea of a National Initiative for Democracy, which would grant the general population the right to make laws directly, for decades. Written with journalist Joe Lauria, “A Political Odyssey” is the kind of autobiography only Gravel could put forward, full of anecdotes, score settling and direct honesty.

During the Democratic primary debates, you railed against the lack of truth-telling in politics. Do you always feel you’re pushing a boulder up a hill?

It’s like pushing up a boulder with my nose. For some reason—whether it’s because I’m naturally pugnacious or just glandular—whenever I hear people say “you’re so courageous,” I think, am I really? I don’t feel courageous. What’s wrong with our country is self-evident. When I was in the Senate and ambitious like anyone else, I’d sell out a portion of myself to get elected. Yet in other quarters I was considered against conventional wisdom and totally irresponsible. The hardest part is peer pressure. You want to be liked—you don’t want to walk into a room and feel you’ve got leprosy or something’s wrong with you mentally. It’s never the difficulty of fighting for something, but you need people whose intelligence you respect to hear you, and when you’d talk you could tell they had no respect for your intellect—people who, through their silence, looked down on you.

People who weren’t born when you were a senator were shocked by your performance in the debates, too.

Well, as a young person I was dyslexic—I still am. Since I can’t read publicly very well, I became an expert at extemporaneous speaking. Generally in the Senate I’d write an outline, think it out, then speak and not even consult my notes.

You campaign featured YouTube ads that made you kind of a rock star.

The star that I became on the Internet wasn’t my work—it’s what young people did with the rock-in-the-water ad. They got a hold of my southern campaign manager and asked if they could have some time with me throwing a rock in the water. I understood immediately the significance of that image. Only after the reaction of the media did I understand the ad’s impact—it’s a metaphor for life—you throw a stone and hope you cause some ripples.

But why are certain states more reliably liberal or conservative, red or blue?

Democracy is accidental—it’s a convergence of individuals at certain points in history with events that alter people’s perceptions. One example is the accident of Abraham Lincoln at a time when it was inevitable we’d have a civil war. As a history buff, I love comparing Washington and Napoleon. They were comrades historically, but one went crazy with power while one didn’t. When Napoleon was exiled to Elba, he supposedly said, “I should have been more like Washington.” Believe me, it’s about power. It’s worse than coke or morphine.

If you hadn’t been defeated for reelection in 1980, would you have kept running—were you also addicted to the power?

I was so disgusted with government by then, I really wanted to get out. I’d been a womanizer and my marriage was in the toilet. My last term in office I was very unhappy. All my accomplishments were in the first four years—after that I suffered like an outlaw from both parties and the media. When I released and sought publication of the Pentagon Papers, I embarrassed the media. They didn’t like that.

You’re saying the media is corrupt?

It’s less corrupt—it’s corrupt at the highest level and more nuanced in the middle. A guy like Bill O’Reilly, he becomes very famous and loved within Fox News and I’m sure Rupert Murdoch goes to bed every night muttering his words. Murdoch doesn’t have to talk to him—[O’Reilly] knows what he has to do to be Murdoch’s hero and to get paid big bucks.

Do you think the Bill O’Reillys and Sean Hannitys of the media believe what they say on the air?

Look, there’s a little radar inside our heads that focuses on our enlightened self-interest and then everything points in that direction, even our spirituality. Do they believe what they say? You bet they do.

Do you think President Bush believes everything he says?

Bush isn’t intelligent enough to believe what he believes.

But you have to be moderately intelligent to run for the presidency and win, don’t you?

I don’t particularly buy that. You’ve got to be shrewd, compliant, lots of things. Sheer intelligence can be an impediment to being elected president.

Can you discuss the National Initiative? You’re famous for it and you discuss it in your book.

I believe that empowering Americans to make our laws is the solution to the shortcomings of representative government. That’s why I’ve dedicated more than half my life to this idea, which you can read about at www.nationalinitiative.us.

The former Democratic senator from Alaska discusses his presidential campaign, his role in the releasing of the Pentagon Papers and his support for NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative Campaign, a grassroots group seeking to place an initiative on the ballot of the November 6th general election allowing registered New York City voters to create a new commission to investigate 9/11.

AMY GOODMAN: Former Alaska senator and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Gravel is holding a news conference in New York City today to call for a new independent investigation into 9/11. Gravel will be speaking on behalf of the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative Campaign, a grassroots group seeking to place an initiative on the ballot of the November 6th general election allowing registered New York City voters to create a new commission to investigate 9/11.

The group is looking to appoint between nine and fifteen commissioners on the panel to conduct the investigation. Some of the people who have reportedly already agreed to serve as commissioners include Lori Van Auken, a 9/11 widow, one of the so-called “Jersey Girls”; Lincoln Chafee, the former Republican senator from Rhode Island; Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a pastor in Detroit, Michigan; as well as former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel, who joins us here today.

He has published three books this year: Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change, The Kingmakers: How the Media Threatens Our Security and Our Democracy and A Political Odyssey. His book Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change has a forward by Ralph Nader. He’ll be joining us on the show later in the week.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Senator Gravel.

MIKE GRAVEL: Amy, thank you for having me. But before we launch into the mission of my appearance, I want to comment on this young man you just had on. I’ve got to tell you, the military is in for deep trouble. That this kid felt he wasn’t very educated, wasn’t good student, I mean, I’ve—he’s beautifully articulate. Let me tell you one thing. We lose—we forget history. The First World War ended because hundreds of thousands of people walked off the battlefield. If we’re going to end this war and the strength of the military-industrial complex, it’s through courageous young men like this walking away from the stupidity and the immorality of our political leaders who lead us on fools’ errands of violence and war. And so, I want to applaud what this kid is talking about and his experience. And boy, now that is Courage with a capital C. And I just wanted to articulate that for you.

AMY GOODMAN: Didn’t you lead the initiative to end the draft in Vietnam?

MIKE GRAVEL: Oh, yes. Well, I’m very proud. It’s one of my accomplishments. I forced it. I forced the end of it. And that—

AMY GOODMAN: How?

MIKE GRAVEL: Well, it was a five-month filibuster that Mansfield made possible without anybody realizing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Michael Mansfield.

MIKE GRAVEL: Yes, who was the Majority Leader at the time. So he bought into it, and I didn’t even realize what he was doing. He set up a two-track system on legislation. So I started in May, and then by—and, of course, you were there when Ellsberg, myself and West, at the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalists, had a rollicking good time talking about this whole history, and you moderated it. And I can’t tell you how, as long as I live, I’ll never forget what a wonderful time we had piecing this together what happened.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, that, I was asking you about ending the draft. You’re talking about the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

MIKE GRAVEL: That’s right, but I got the Papers because I was filibustering the draft. [inaudible]

AMY GOODMAN: So you went on the floor of the Senate…

MIKE GRAVEL: And tried to filibuster. I failed it, because I was too nice to the staff, and so I had to use another device, which was to—and I was a freshman. So I was chairman of Buildings and Grounds, so I used the precedent, you won’t believe, House Un-American Activities Committee, where I could call at a moment’s notice a hearing and, as a result of that, turned around and got testimony from a Congressman Dowd from New York, Upper New York, who came and testified, and he wanted a federal—

AMY GOODMAN: You mean you called an emergency hearing—just to be clear, you called this man, what was it, out of bed? And you said, “You know that building you’ve been asking for? If you come and testify right now about why you need this building, we will commence the hearing.” That enabled you to hold the hearing.

MIKE GRAVEL: That’s right. And we held a hearing. And then, when he said—he said, “I want a federal building,” I says, “Well, I’d love to give you a federal building, but we don’t have the money, and the reason why we don’t have the money is because we’re in Southeast Asia. Now, let me tell you how we got into Southeast Asia.” And I started to read the Pentagon Papers. That’s how—and then I started sobbing after an hour of reading. I’m dyslexic, so I read terribly.

AMY GOODMAN: You had gotten those Papers from the Washington Post?

MIKE GRAVEL: Well, from Ben Bagdikian, who had gotten them from Dan Ellsberg, and the Post didn’t know that Ben had an extra copy. So Ellsberg had pushed Ben, because Ellsberg was very concerned that he couldn’t get the Papers out.

AMY GOODMAN: That the Times wouldn’t publish them.

MIKE GRAVEL: That’s right, and nor would the Post any further, because of the injunction. And so, as it happened, I released the Papers about six, seven, eight hours before the Supreme Court rendered its decision, and their decision was moot, because the world had the Papers as a result of what I did that night.

AMY GOODMAN: And you ultimately had them published by Beacon Press.

MIKE GRAVEL: Right, courageous Beacon Press, not just Beacon Press. Courageous Beacon Press, because nobody would touch it. Nobody would touch it, because they were at risk. And poor Beacon Press really suffered from government harassment. And as it turned out, I and Dr. Rotberg could have been prosecuted, but then, by that time, Watergate had been exposed, and they weren’t going to charge a religion or a sitting senator. And so, Dan Ellsberg and I never served a day in jail. And the three people within the Justice Department that came after us, they all went to jail. There’s some justice someplace.

AMY GOODMAN: They were…? They were…?

MIKE GRAVEL: They were the Attorney General Mitchell, Mardian, and the other guy I keep forgetting who his name is.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, the Pentagon Papers were the 7,000 pages of secret history of US involvement in Vietnam that Ellsberg had taken out of a safe.

MIKE GRAVEL: Totally. It’s nothing—nothing but history, nothing but history. This stuff should have never been classified, never have been classified. And what I operated on—I’m a layperson—is just very simple: if it’s important for the Secretary of Defense to know how we got into this mess, it’s important for the American people to know how we got into this mess. And this is the same situation we have with Iraq. How did we get there?

And now, this segues us into this commission here in New York. I view this very, very serious. I don’t see the body politic having the guts to go out and make a new—a real new investigation, because the way politicians act, whether it’s Democrat or Republican, “Oh, we’ll investigate a little bit, but let’s not go too deeply, because we’ve got to cover their backside, because they’ll cover our backside,” and it’s too political in nature.

And so, with the commission that we’re talking about 9/11 here in New York City, now that’s a commission that’s going to be a real commission. And that commission now can make a true investigation as to what happened on 9/11, but not just 9/11, because the war is tied with that. And so, this will give us an opportunity to vertically go into all the backup to this data and have subpoena powers to have people testify. Now, if a person perjures themself here with the New York commission, it’s perjury, so it’s a crime. And so, maybe, maybe this will give us an opportunity to have justice, and we can begin subpoenaing the President of the United States—at that time, he’ll be the former president—and the Vice President and go on down into the boughs of the intelligence and a whole host of areas to get to the truth. We don’t know the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: And how advanced is this ballot initiative?

MIKE GRAVEL: Well, it’s very serious right now, because there’s windows. When you do an initiative, there’s a window that you have to comport to. And so, they need upwards of 50,000 signatures to be real safe, and they’ve only got 10,000 signatures. And so, they’ve got about four weeks left.

AMY GOODMAN: They have to all be New Yorkers?

MIKE GRAVEL: Yes. Oh, yeah, they do. And I can’t even—I was going to try to go out and collect signatures, but legally I can’t. So I’m going to be part of a press conference, and I’ve done several initiatives myself as a sitting senator. And as you know, with my efforts with the National Initiative, I believe in this concept. What the government can’t do, the people can do through the initiative process. And so, we’ve got to get those signatures in the next forty—thirty, forty days, and it’s going to depend on people hearing my voice, hearing you, because you’ve spoken about this before and the importance of this.

And so, there’s a telephone number I want to give: (646) 537-1755. That’s (646) 537-1755. And that’s a hotline. And today, at St. Mark’s Church, that’s at Second Avenue and 10th Street—

AMY GOODMAN: Here in New York City.

MIKE GRAVEL: Here in New York City. If people will come there, we’re going to have a get-together at 7:30. It’s going to be a reception. There will be some light refreshments, and then we’ll be talking about this. Sign the guest book. Give us your address. And then what you can do is log on to our website, and that website will permit you to download a petition, and then you’ll be able to circulate the petition. But it’s key to call this phone number.

AMY GOODMAN: Mike Gravel, did you ever raise this, for example, in the debates that you were able to participate in?

MIKE GRAVEL: About the commission? Not this particular commission, because I was—keep in mind, I was shut out in September of ’07 after I had challenged the Democratic Party and Hillary, particularly, on the Lieberman 2 resolution which gave George Bush the power to invade Iran, which is still a threat that looms over our heads.

I was with Ramsey Clark over the weekend, and Ramsey joins me in feeling very, very frightened over the possibility that George Bush may go crazy again and do something significant between now and the term. Remember when Sarkozy asked him, “Well, Mr. President, you’ve did a—you know, you’ve done a fine term of office.” He said, “I’m not done yet!” Well, by “not done,” what’s he got in his mind? What more could he do?

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Gravel, when you say we don’t know the truth about 9/11, what do you mean?

MIKE GRAVEL: Government—90 percent of what the government does is held secret. It’s a whole cult. And that’s the thing that is really strangling our democracy, that we just don’t know what’s going on. And so, you need to rip off the scab and see the wound of what the government is damaging. And so, it’s a cult. And I don’t know how I can phrase it. I’ve written about the subject.

When I was—here, best example I can give you. When I was twenty-three years old, I was in a communications intelligence service. I was an agitant of the communications intelligence service, and I was a top-secret control officer. I was twenty-three years old. Now, I’m forty-two years old, I’m a United States senator, and I could not go in and take notes and read the Pentagon Papers, because they were under guard in the Senate. Now, does it get any stupider than that? And that—and I didn’t even go in. When that was—Nixon sent them to the House, sent them to the Senate, and no staff could read it or senator could read it, couldn’t even take notes. I mean, we are so steeped in this.

And when you hear—and keep this in mind, Amy, any member of the Congress could release any secret about the government’s activities right today, because the court case, the Supreme Court ruled in my case 5-4 that a senator, under—or a House member, under the speech and debate clause of the Constitution of the United States, could not be held accountable. I was talking to Congressman Moran, and he had made the statement, “Well, you know, George Bush is about to do something in Iran.” I said, “My god! Say something about it. They can’t touch you.”

AMY GOODMAN: Jim Moran of Virginia.

MIKE GRAVEL: Of Virginia, and who’s a tough hombre.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you believe there’s another set of Pentagon Papers around 9/11 and Iraq?

MIKE GRAVEL: There’s no question about it, but how do you get your hands on it? If some—see, not every—there’s not that many Ellsbergs around. We’ve got Sibel Edmonds and others who—what people learn, and Ellsberg knew this walking into it, he was trying to find somebody in Congress. George McGovern wouldn’t do it, Fulbright wouldn’t do it. He needed the umbrage, the legal status of a member of Congress doing it.

He didn’t know I was alive until the Times wouldn’t act or the Post wouldn’t act. Then, all of a sudden, there’s this freshman who’s out there filibustering the draft. And so he called me up, “Would you release?” “Of course, I’d release it.” And I don’t know—people say, “Oh, you’re so courageous.” I’m not courageous; this is just the way I’m made. And that’s the reason why I admire this young kid, this Chiroux, that you just had on. This is what makes a difference in society, when people step up at any level of life.

AMY GOODMAN: You ran for the Democratic nomination for president.

MIKE GRAVEL: Yes, right.

AMY GOODMAN: But then, you just lost the—

MIKE GRAVEL: Libertarian.

AMY GOODMAN: —Libertarian nomination for president to Bob Barr.

MIKE GRAVEL: Right, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did you run there?

MIKE GRAVEL: As a Libertarian? Well, very simple. The Libertarian is not a war party. The Democratic Party is a war party. The Republican Party is a war party. My god, you’ve got to look around. The Green Party is not a war party. The Libertarians are not a war party. And I fancy myself very much—when people would say, “Well, Gravel is a misfit. He was a maverick,” what does that mean? It means that I didn’t fit into the Democratic Party. Now, there’s a lot of things that I like about what they do, but there’s a lot more things that I like about what the Libertarians—I believe in freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: Who are you endorsing for president?

MIKE GRAVEL: Well, I’m keeping my mouth shut. I’m going to vote, obviously, for the lesser of evils, but I’m not going to do it—

AMY GOODMAN: We’ll have Ralph Nader on next week, Independent candidate for president. What do you think of his run?

MIKE GRAVEL: Well, I like Ralph—

AMY GOODMAN: This week. We’ll have him on this week.

MIKE GRAVEL: Yeah, and I like Ralph. Ralph and I are good friends, as you can tell. He wrote the—

AMY GOODMAN: Forward to your book.

MIKE GRAVEL: He wrote the foreword to my book, but he never talked to me about running for president. He was my competitor until I got out of the race. Now I’ve got out of his way. But no, Ralph is a great, great American. There’s no question about it. His chances of becoming a president—but it’s a good place to put a protest vote if you want to put it. And so, we’ll see what happens. But we need people to articulate the alternative. I’ve not given up. I’m going to give an account of myself the rest of my life on all these issues.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of another Democratic candidate, Dennis Kucinich, you were on the debate floor with, introducing these articles of impeachment against President Bush?

MIKE GRAVEL: I think—and, of course, Ramsey Clark is leading that battle outside of the Congress. I think it’s important, because it sets the stage. It creates an appetite for people. But it’s not going anywhere.

And I really resent the identity politics that we have today. You know, you’ve got to have a woman be our president or a black person president. That’s fine. But I—very candidly, I was very excited when Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker, but I—reflecting on it, I don’t know of any woman in Congress, by and large, who is that much different from any male member of Congress. Oh, there are some that are courageous, but a lot of them are just normal. And Nancy Pelosi is no different than any male Speaker that I’ve seen in my career.

And so, she’s the one that took the impeachment deal off the table. That’s a tragic mistake. And I know why they did it: they’re playing politics. Now, from my point of view, impeachment is not what George Bush deserves. He deserves to be prosecuted. He and Cheney need to go to the Hague and stand in the dock like they had Milosevic and others. What they did was criminal. 4,000 Americans have died as a result of their fraud on the American people and—

AMY GOODMAN: Do you support Vincent Bugliosi, the Charles Manson prosecutor, who got him behind bars, his call for—we had him on on Friday. He’s written the book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

MIKE GRAVEL: Oh, there’s no question about it. In fact, I have great regrets over the fact that we never put Richard Nixon in jail. I mean, everybody around him went to jail, and he got off and rehabilitated himself. The sooner we put a president or a vice president or a secretary in jail for crimes that they commit against humanity, the sooner leaders will shape up.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. Senator Mike Gravel, I want to thank you very much for being with us, former Democratic senator from Alaska who served two terms and ran for president of the United States this past year.

Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel has been working for a national initiative process for the United States for many years. See www.nationalinitiative.us for more about this project. Gravel’s recent campaign for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination helped publicize his goal, at least among Libertarians and others who followed the party’s presidential contest this year.

Gravel’s Democracy Foundation is newly energized by the recent important Irish vote on whether Ireland should approve the Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty would bring the European Union somewhat closer to being a national entity. It establishes the first constitution for the European Union. It makes the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding on the member states (with exceptions for Britain and Poland), and establishs the post of President of the European Council, with a term of 2.5 years. The President would be chosen by the Council.

The Treaty was set to go into effect on January 1, 2009, if all 27 member nations approved it. Of the 27 nations in the European Union, only Ireland put the treaty to a popular vote. That vote, held on June 12, resulted in a “yes” vote of 752,451, and a “no” vote of 852,415. The turnout was 53%. Some of the Irish opposition came from a feeling that the proposed Constitution is not democratic enough. The consequences of the Irish referendum are momentous. Although European Union leaders are now thinking of going ahead without Ireland, the Treaty has only been ratified so far by 18 nations, and its progress has certainly been cramped by the vote. Some Europeans are arguing that the Treaty should be put to a popular vote in all EU nations, and furthermore that the voters should be able to accept or reject separate sections.

When the United States considered a Constitution in the 1780’s, each state elected delegates to a ratifying convention in that particular state. Thus the preamble to the Constitution, which starts “We the People”, is a meaningful statement, not empty rhetoric.

For more about the Lisbon Treaty, see http://eureferendum.blogspot.com.