tune in, call in to WHVW 950 AM this morning 8-10 am; new "Dollar a Month" club idea!...

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Joel Tyner

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Jun 20, 2009, 12:33:06 AM6/20/09
to Real Majority Project

Hi all...

Feel free to tune in and call in (at 483-9489) to our "Common Sense" show on WHVW 950 AM this morning from 8 to 10 am (with co-host Rich Carlson)-- with whatever might be on your mind today!...

[thanx again much to Leonardo's Italian Market and Cafe, Hudson Valley Clean Energy, and The Phantom Gardener for advertising on the program; call us at 242-9017 if you'd like to help us on this!]

Joel
242-9017/876-2488
[check out newly updated blog, folks--

p.s. One of the things we'll be discussing is WHVW station owner J.P. Ferraro's great new idea for a Dollar a Month Club to build up funding from grass-roots sources (us across Dutchess) to get local homes completely off grid and on renewable energy...(contact him at wh...@whvw.net or 483-9489!)...

See: http://www.WHVW.net/energy ; could possibly work hand in hand, maybe, with great effort already underway for Independent Dutchess Energy Alliance modeled after Cambridge Energy Alliance-- and/or with Dutchess version of Town of Babylon's Long Island Green Homes program-- and/or local version here of Berkeley's great solar financing district legislation!...see:

Also-- don't forget-- save the date-- Tues. June 30th 6 pm Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone will be speaker at very special forum at Vassar College Rockefeller Hall Room 300-- "Bringing Sustainable Energy Infrastructure into the Hudson Valley"-- sponsored by Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Sustainable Hudson Valley, Hudson Valley Smart Growth Alliance, and the Vassar College Sustainability Committee-- with David Dell from the Independent Dutchess Energy Alliance (see: http://www.CambridgeEnergyAlliance.org ) introducing Bellone; Tom Kacandes/Prism Solar, Libby Murphy re: tidal power potential; email man...@aol.com for more info on this very important event!...

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Eleven more we'll be touching on this a.m. on WHVW-- besides taking your calls...

"Obama's False Financial Reform" by William Greider

"'The Responsible Left': Funding Obama's Expanding Wars" by Jeremy Scahill

"The Iranian Uprising Is Homegrown, and Must Stay That Way" by Stephen Zunes

"Nonviolent Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles" by Stephen Zunes: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4923

"Obama and Anti-War Democrats" by Norman Solomon

"Don't Cede More Economic Authority To Unaccountable Fed" by John Nichols

"Obama's Doctor Knocks ObamaCare" by David Whelan [for Forbes, no less!]

"As Criticism of Obama Mounts within Gay Community, Gay Rights Pioneer Cleve Jones Calls for March for Equality on Washington"

"Iranians Flex the Power of Nonviolence" by Matthew Rothschild

"A World Apart" [speaking truth to power re: Middle East] by Bernard Avishai

"We Need to Combat Hate Crimes" by Brian Gilmore

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From http://www.WHVW.net/energy ...(from WHVW owner JP Ferraro-- contact him at wh...@whvw.net):

Alternative Energy, Part II
11 June 2009, Pirate Joe

    Well, I have certainly expressed my frustrations about the lack of any real movement towards "alternative" (better expressed as "renewable") energy. Just as I have predicted in previous screeds, Exxon et al, futures traders and all their buddies are engaging in wholesale oil market manipulation once again. As I write this, the price of gas in this area is about a dollar higher than the recent low. This, after the "experts" told us late last winter that it would only go up 20 cents (as if I really believed that).

    So why are we still depending on Big Oil? Because "the powers that be" have never made any meaningful push to renewable energy sources. Why haven't they done so? Because that would cut Exxon and all the other greedy, profiteering curmudgeons (that suck out our life blood) out of the picture. The unwritten, unexpressed rule is that we will make no serious move to renewables until the last drop of profitably obtainable oil has been wrung from the ground. We can look forward to decades more of rape by large corporations and Wall Street before any relief will come. aside: sounds like the health-care thing, doesn't it?

    You know something? That's not good enough. I'm tired of total dependence on fossil fuels. I'm tired of the filth they pour into the air, not because I've bought into the global warming thing, (I have not) but because I don't think we should have to breathe that noxious stuff. I'm sick to death of seeing the countryside desecrated by ever-widening and ever-extending highways, while efficient modes of transportation, such as rail, are almost completely ignored. I'm disgusted by the complete eradication (in many cases) of entire mountains as we strip-mine ever-greater amounts of coal. I don't want any more "controlled radiation releases" or worse yet, a Chernobyl style event at any of our "safe, secure and vital" nukes. Nor the B.S. about how their waste, (the deadliest stuff known to man) is just fine stored away; no matter that it remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years. And yes, I loath the ugly, paved-over sprawl that keeps spreading over our once verdant countryside, as it cuts down trees and other growth that, among other things, replenish and clean the air we breathe.

    I don't suppose that I can do much to make renewable energy happen on a nationwide scale. But I might, or rather we might, be able to do something about it here in Dutchess County, USA.

Forget the government, Barack Obama, the establishment, Big Oil and Wall Street. Forgetting them is truly the key: we, as human society, will never get anywhere unless we show them we can act, live and work without and despite them. In other words, let's make renewable energy happen the same way and with the same resource we made the Vietnam war end: the people. We can build our own solar/wind stations. We can build our own electric cars: if they existed in the 1890's, how difficult can it be? Now, put them both together: even if the car only had a range of 100 kilometers, that would be quite enough. Most of us could reduce our gas usage something like 99% that way. Wall Street and Big Oil can manipulate the price of a barrel of crude all they wish, it's meaningless if we never need to buy the stuff.

So Here's The Gist Of My Idea:

    Yet I've digressed. What I want most to discuss is off the grid homes. Yes, that's what I said. Homes that run entirely on renewable energy. I figure it would take about $100,000. to take an "average" home off the grid, this is, of course, a "guesstimate" which will be revised as more data come into this project.

    Here's the question: would a dollar a month be worth it to you to make it start happening? That's $12. a year. If all of Dutchess County's 275,000 residents contributed that amount yearly, there would be 3.3 million dollars generated per year, which could take 33 Dutchess County houses off the grid every year: no corporate or non-renewable energy required, si vous plaît. Perhaps you're thinking that this in not the biggest step in the world, but even though it isn't, it is. This would "show the world" that it could be done, and make no mistake, others will take notice. Perhaps it will start a movement, as other counties across the country adopt the "Dutchess County Renewable Energy Initiative" (I kind of like the way that sounds) and we start, once and for all to discard the yoke of bought-off government, Big Oil and Wall Street and take our energy and financial destinies in our own hands.

    So I, and some friends, are going to establish a mechanism to get this going. Want to help? Let me know, 845.471.9500, 845.483.9489, wh...@whvw.net.

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Obama's False Financial Reform
by WILLIAM GREIDER
June 19, 2009
The most disturbing thing about Barack Obama's call for financial reform was the way in which the president falsified our predicament. He tried to make it sound as though everyone was implicated in the financial breakdown and therefore no one was really to blame. "A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street," Obama explained. "And a regulatory system basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis--the Great Depression--was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st century global economy."

That is not what happened, to put it charitably. Unlike some other presidents, Obama is much too intelligent not to know this. The regulatory system was not overwhelmed by historic forces. It was systematically gutted and dismantled by the government in Washington at the behest of the banking interests. If Obama wants details, he can consult his economic advisors--Summers-Geithner--who participated directly as accomplices in unwinding the prudential rules and regulations. Cheers were led by the Federal Reserve with heavy lifting by both political parties.

The president's benign version of events reminds me of what compliant politicians and opinion leaders said after the war in Iraq they had endorsed turned disastrous. "Hey, we were all fooled." If Obama were to tell the truth now about what went wrong in the financial system, he would face a far larger political problem trying to clean up the mess. Instead, he has opted for smooth talk and some fuzzy reforms that effectively evade the nasty complexities of our situation. He might get away with this in the short run. Congress doesn't much want to face the music either. But Obama's so-called reform is literally "kicking the can down the road," as he likes to say about other problems. In the long run, it will haunt the country because it fails to confront the true nature of the disorders.

Giving more power to the Federal Reserve to be the uber-regulator of banking and finance is a terrible idea (I examine the dangers in a forthcoming Nation article). Asking the cloistered central bank to resolve all the explosive questions about the over-reaching power of financial institutions is like throwing the problem into a black box and closing the lid, so people will be unable to see what happens next. That is the idea, after all, the reason Wall Street's leading firms first proposed the Fed as super-cop, then sold it to George W. Bush and now Barack Obama. Give the mess to the Wizard of Oz, the guy behind the curtain. He can do miracles with money, but don't watch too closely. This constitutes the high politics of evasion.

Still, I am thrilled to observe a nascent rebellion gathering strength in Congress. Some 230 House members have endorsed a measure to force GAO auditing of the Fed--a small but vital step toward dismantling the central bank's privileged secrecy and intimidating mystique. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed concern (and gave a nice plug for my 1987 book about the Fed). "The fact is that the American people want to know more of the Secrets of the Temple," she said. If they do learn more, I guarantee shock and awe will grow into outrage."

Outrage is good. As someone who has been around this subject for three decades, I came to understand that the power of financial titans and their friends at the Fed depends crucially on public ignorance. Most elected representatives and senators are just as clueless as their constituents. This is not entirely their fault. The system is designed to encourage deference to murky power. In our present crisis, people and politicians are naturally bewildered by the complexities. If they knew more about how the system works, they might be able to see that most of Obama's reforms are insubstantial gestures, not actual remedies.

The president, for instance, proposes to raise the requirements for capital and liquidity held by commercial banks with strict limits on leverage--their ability to borrow. That is a virtuous proposal, but it begs the question. Why did the legal limits already in place fail to restrain the appetites of bankers? Indeed, several times in the last two decades the Fed and other central banks enacted new and supposedly more effective capital requirements to curb the excesses. The big dogs of banking broke free of the leash again and again while vigilant watchdogs at the Fed and elsewhere looked the other way. Why should we expect different results next time?

One reason why old restraints failed is the so-called "modernization" that shifted the credit functions outside regulated banks and into a variety of unregulated money pots--the so-called shadow banking system of hedge funds and private-equity firms. These all interact intimately with traditional banks and give the banks profitable ways to evade the old rules or conceal the actual condition of their balance sheets from both regulators and innocent investors. This interactions are dazzlingly complex--too complex for even the bankers themselves to fully understand--but this was not an accident of nature. It was the goal of financial deregulation enacted by Bill Clinton, arm-in-arm with the Republican Congress.

Likewise, banks were allowed to play these games by legislative creation of "off-balance sheet entities" where they can park their holdings--debts or assets--beyond the view of casual observers. This is essentially the same accounting trick that empowered Enron and other corporations to hide their true condition (then collapse). The biggest bankers played roughly the same game. In fact, it was the bankers who taught Enron and others these tricks. What public purpose is served by these devices except to conceal reality from public investors? For that matter, what is the public purpose of letting corporations, banks and wealthy individuals park their wealth in the Grand Cayman Islands? Everyone in Wall Street knows the answer. It allows them to evade "legally" US regulations and tax law.

Summers-Geithner suggest the shadowy banks like GE Capital or major insurance companies can be regulated by the Fed as "Tier 1 Financial Holding Companies." No real details available. As Joe Nocera recently noted in the New York Times, "Tier 1" sounds like the new name for "Too Big to Fail." The Fed will watch them (we are assured) to prevent "systemic risk" that could lead to national breakdown. But that is what the Federal Reserve was supposed be doing already as the "lender of last resort" charged with defending the "safety and soundness" the banking system. The Securities and Exchange Commission, likewise, is supposed to monitor hedge funds and private-equity firms that thrive on secrecy. Since the SEC failed miserably to police regular corporations, it does not sound reassuring.

Another example of extremely wishful thinking is the proposed rule on securitization of mortgages. The method of bundling home mortgages and turning them into saleable bonds was supposed to reduce risk but did the opposite. The mortgage lenders were able to execute dubious, even fraudulent loans, collect their profits up front and then sell the package to unwitting investors around the world. Obama's answer is to require the originating lender to retain a 5 percent interest in the mortgage and pass on the rest. That seems ludicrous and innocent of how that cutthroat world actually works. The financial geniuses who created the subprime mortgage scandal could hide 5 percent of the mortgage value with a couple of keystrokes--adding fees, closing costs or other dodges. To hold lenders genuinely responsible, they should be made to hold onto something like 50 percent of liability for the original loan with perhaps the other 50 percent assigned to whatever bank or investment house packages the mortgage security and sells it to financial markets. That would be "responsibility" with old-fashioned force.

The one great bright spot in Obama's plan is the new regulatory agency he recommends to protect consumers on financial products. This was inspired by Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor who has been a brave and brilliant critic of the credit-card industry and other forms of predatory rip-offs. While it depends entirely on the details, this innovative agency could become the new tiger among tired, toothless regulators--especially if Obama has the courage to name Warren as the inaugural chair. The bankers hate this idea and will fight to kill it. They know this regulator will not be captive to them, at least not yet.
The essence of what's missing in the Obama plan is the presence of hard rules--the classic quality of laws that command private behavior by prescribing "thou shalt" or 'thou shalt not." Drawing up concrete prohibitions and commandments is obviously a tougher challenge because it requires deeper understanding of the dysfunctional qualities in the financial system. You cannot design organic reforms until you understand what really led to the breakdown. Since the government has avoided that kind of serious examination, the limp response is to turn these explosive issues over to expert regulators--the same experts who failed to see the trouble coming.

Right now, I think the political imperative is to slow down the rush to weak solutions. The political leaders understandably want to do something swiftly and get the subject off the table, but Congress would do well to drag its feet and insist instead on deeper investigations. (Rep. John Dingell and others have proposed establishing a Pecora-like commission to investigate the crisis.)

Give subpoena power to Elizabeth Warren the Congressional Oversight Board she chairs. Hire some of those investigative reporters who have no political investment in digging deeper into the mulch. What exactly went wrong? Who has bloody hands? Where are the fundamental reforms? If the economy returns to "normal' rather soon, the ardor for serious reform might dissipate with much left undone. That is a small risk to take, especially if the alternative is enacting the bankers' pallid version of reform.

National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and, most recently, Come Home, America.

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June 19th, 2009 6:47 pm
Obama's Doctor Knocks ObamaCare

Dr. David Scheiner took care of Obama for 22 years. But they don't see eye-to-eye on how to fix the health care system.
By David Whelan / Forbes

David Scheiner, an internist based in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, has a diverse practice of lower-income adults from the nearby housing projects mixed with famous patients like U.S. Sen. Carol Mosely Braun, the late writer Studs Terkel and, most notably, President Barack Obama.

Scheiner, 71, was Obama's doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate's "excellent health" in a letter last year. He's still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. "I'm not sure he really understands what we face in primary care," Scheiner says.

Scheiner takes a few other shots too. Looking at Obama's team of health advisors, Scheiner doesn't see anyone who's actually in the trenches. "I have a suspicion they pick people from the top echelon of medicine, people who write about it but haven't been struggling in it," he says.

Scheiner is critical of Obama's pick for Health and Human Services secretary--Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who used to work as the chief lobbyist for her state's trial lawyers association.

"He doesn't see all the pain, it's so tragic out here," he says. "Obama's wonderful, but on this one I'm not sure if he's getting the right input."

What should the president be focused on? Scheiner thinks that a good health reform would be "Medicare for all," a single-payer system where the government would cover everyone and pay for it by cutting out waste in the system. "A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won't starve," Scheiner says.Scheiner thinks that Obama's "public plan" reform doesn't go far enough. He supports the idea of that option for people who don't like or can't afford their HMO. But he worries that it will be watered down or not happen at all. "It's nonsense that the private insurance companies need to be protected," he says. "Why? Because they've done such a good job?"

He thinks that Americans have been scared into believing that they will lose the coverage they already have if a public plan is created. And he worries that nobody cares about the 50 million uninsured. "I have people who have lost their jobs and come to me and I give them drug samples," he says.

Scheiner says he thinks that Obama probably sees the virtues of a single-payer system but has decided it would be politically impossible to create one.

Reid Cherlin, an assistant White House press secretary who covers health issues, wrote in an e-mailed statement, "The President has been clear that while a single-payer system may work in some countries, it makes the most sense for us to build on what works in the system we have and to fix what's broken.

"He would certainly agree that there's too much waste in the system--where families, businesses and governments pay too much for too little," he added, "and that's why he's committed not just to expanding coverage but to reforming the health system to provide high-quality care at a lower cost to more Americans."

Scheiner says he never thought it was appropriate to talk about health policy with Obama, especially once he became a U.S. Senator. The one exception was medical malpractice reform. "I once briefly talked to him about malpractice, and he took the lawyers' position," he says.

Obama reiterated his opposition to caps on medical malpractice-related damages when he addressed an audience of doctors earlier this week at the American Medical Association's annual meeting. (See "Will Doctors Buy Obamacare?")

Scheiner, like most others in his profession, thinks that it should be harder to sue doctors and that awards should be capped. He says that he and other doctors must order too many tests and imaging studies just to avoid being sued.

Scheiner graduated from Princeton and then started at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons 50 years ago. After training in internal medicine in Chicago he joined a practice in Hyde Park. His partner was Quentin Young, a doctor known for supporting universal coverage and for briefly being the personal physician of Martin Luther King Jr.

Before selling his practice, he watched his income decline over the years to what he calculated to be $22 an hour ($2,100 every two weeks after withholding for taxes, health insurance and malpractice insurance.)

Scheiner thinks that any health reform should involve paying primary-care doctors better so they don't have to rush through appointments to make ends meet. He says that the medical students he encounters are no longer even taught how to do a patient history and physical exam. Patients get imaging studies and lab work instead of actual work-ups. "It's like in Star Trek where Bones had the thing he would wave up and down. They don't even talk to patients," he says.

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As Criticism of Obama Mounts within Gay Community, Gay Rights Pioneer Cleve Jones Calls for March for Equality on Washington
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed a memorandum to extend some, but not all, benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Comprehensive healthcare, for example, is not included. President Obama¹s promise to work to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, Wednesday came one week after his administration filed a controversial legal brief supporting DOMA, an action which greatly disappointed activists fighting for marriage equality. We speak with Cleve Jones, one of the giants of the gay rights and AIDS awareness movements. He is the founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and the co-founder of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. In the 1970s, Cleve Jones was a friend of the gay rights leader Harvey Milk. [includes rush transcript]

AMY GOODMAN: In recent days, many in the gay community have been sharply critical of the Obama administration¹s positions on some of the hot-button issues affecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer Americans across the country. On Wednesday, President Obama signed a memorandum to extend some, but not all, benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Comprehensive healthcare, for example, is not included.
   €       PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today I¹m proud to issue a presidential memorandum that paves the way for long-overdue progress in our nation¹s pursuit of equality. Many of our government¹s hard-working and dedicated and patriotic public servants have long been denied basic rights that their colleagues enjoy for one simple reason: the people that they love are of the same sex.
        €       Currently, for example, LGBT federal employees can¹t always use sick leave to care for their domestic partners or their partners¹ children. Their partners aren¹t covered under long-term care insurance. Partners of American Foreign Service officers abroad aren¹t treated the same way when it comes to the use of medical facilities or visitation rights in case of an emergency. And these are just some of the wrongs that we intend to right today. [Š]
        €       It¹s a day that marks a historic step towards the changes we seek, but I think we all have to acknowledge this is only one step. Among the steps we have not yet taken is to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. I believe it¹s discriminatory, I think it interferes with states¹ rights, and we will work with Congress to overturn it.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama¹s promise to work to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, Wednesday came one week after his administration filed a controversial legal brief supporting DOMA, an action which greatly disappointed activists fighting for marriage equality.
In a strongly worded letter to President Obama on Monday, Joe Solmonese, the president of the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, said, quote, ³I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones.²
The President also has been criticized for not pushing more strongly for an end to the military¹s discriminatory ³don¹t ask, don¹t tell² policy. Taken together, the administration¹s actions have angered a number of gay rights activists. Some prominent voices in the community have decided not to attend a gala LGBT fundraiser for the Democratic Party next week, which Vice President Biden is expected to attend.
Well, I¹m now joined by one of the giants of the gay rights and AIDS awareness movements. Cleve Jones is the founder of the NAMES Project, the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and the co-founder of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. In the 1970s in San Francisco, Cleve Jones was a close friend of the pioneering gay rights leader, San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. In fact, he found his body under his desk as he was shot dead in his office. Cleve Jones worked as a student intern for Milk after he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
More recently, Cleve served as a historical consultant to Gus Van Sant¹s award-winning film MILK, and he works with UNITE HERE to strengthen the growing coalition between the labor movement and the LGBT community. Now Cleve is planning a national equality march on Washington for October 11th, National Coming Out Day, to call for equal rights for the LGBT community.
Cleve Jones, Welcome to Democracy Now!
CLEVE JONES: Thank you. My pleasure.
AMY GOODMAN: There has been a lot of action in the Obama administration in the last few days. Is it really because there¹s this big fundraiser planned and some of the leading gay rights activists and donors are pulling out?
CLEVE JONES: Well, of course, I can¹t get inside their heads, though I¹ve wanted to very much over the last couple of weeks. I think the people pulling out of the fundraiser is part of it. I think the momentum building for the march on October 11th is part of it. I think that they understand that the anger and frustration is not diminishing, it¹s getting much stronger.
We¹re really baffled by this. You know, we voted in enormous numbers for Obama. We want very much to believe that he has our best interest, as well as the entire country¹s, in his heart. But he seems to be continuing this really hurtful policy of doling out increments of rights, fractions of equality. And I think our movement is really beyond that at this point. We¹re tired of this state-by-state, county-by-county, city-by-city struggle for fractions of equality. And this latest thing, this is really just crumbs. And it¹s disheartening to see so many of the leaders of our community standing there behind him while he sprinkles out these crumbs.
AMY GOODMAN: One of those who was there was Tammy Baldwin, well-known lesbian Congress member. She will not be boycotting the fundraiser. She said she¹ll be there, but she¹ll bring the concerns of those who are boycotting. And she, too, is deeply concerned.
This memo that he signed, it was late in the day. Not to be confused with an executive order, it means whatever of the limited rights that were granted expire on the day President Obama leaves office. And we¹re not talking about healthcare here for federal employees who are gay or lesbian‹visiting rights, I guess he said, to the hospital.
CLEVE JONES: Well, it feels like Clinton all over again. You know, Bill Clinton gave wonderful speeches and told of his vision of a country, a vision that he claimed included us, and what we got out of that was the Defense of Marriage Act and ³don¹t ask, don¹t tell.² So, what we¹re getting now from President Obama are flowery proclamations, probably a few key appointments for some of our more powerful community members, and very little for ordinary people.
And on this issue of healthcare, I think it¹s ironic that this memorandum does not extend healthcare benefits. But that¹s also an example of an area where my community could be very helpful, I think, in helping to build support for the President¹s healthcare package. My community cares deeply about access to healthcare. So much of the impetus for marriage rights has really come out of our experience with the epidemic, so we certainly would be a staunch ally in his efforts to provide affordable healthcare to all Americans. So I feel that he¹s burning some bridges rather rapidly.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a clip from this past year¹s Academy Awards. Actor Sean Penn, who won an Oscar for his role as Harvey Milk in the film MILK, talked about equality and gay marriage in his acceptance speech.
     €       SEAN PENN: For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren¹s eyes if they continue that way of support. We¹ve got to have equal rights for everyone.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Sean Penn, who played Harvey Milk, won the Oscar for that. We¹re going to be talking about ³don¹t ask, don¹t tell² in a minute.
We¹ll be speaking with the first African American Secretary of the Army, Clifford Alexander, who is a strong proponent of Congress repealing ³don¹t ask, don¹t tell.² But I wanted to go back in time a bit. Actually, Harvey Milk graduated from my high school, from Bay Shore High in Long Island. But you met Harvey decades ago. You have devoted your life to helping to fulfill his dream. Can you just talk for a moment about what that dream is, and your experiences with Harvey, how you met him, the assassinated San Francisco City Supervisor?
CLEVE JONES: Well, I met Harvey on Castro Street back in 1975. I was pretty much a street kid. He got me off the street. He got me to go to school, got me to cut my hair, get a job. He was a great father figure.
AMY GOODMAN: When was this?
CLEVE JONES: I got to San Francisco at the end of 1972. I met him in passing but didn¹t really pay attention to him until probably ¹75. And then, when I came back from a couple of years of hitchhiking around the world, it was 1977 and his last campaign and the campaign against the Briggs Initiative. And that¹s when we got close.
AMY GOODMAN: Which wasŠ? The Briggs Initiative?
CLEVE JONES: The Briggs Initiative was a really hateful initiative. It was a referendum to require the dismissal of all gay and lesbian schoolteachers‹or actually, not just teachers, anyone working in the school district, plus any heterosexual who supported their rights. It was a bitter fight that we won statewide in California thirty years ago against many of the same people who opposed us with Proposition 8 this past year.
And, you know, Harvey had a message of liberation and equality, but he also was very critical of the established gay leadership at the time and said that they were all too willing to accept crumbs, to accept compromises. I think Harvey understood clearly that every time our community accepts compromises or delays, we are really participating in undermining our own humanity. No other group of people would settle for fractions of equality. There is no fraction of equality. You are an equal people, or you are not. So, I am‹
AMY GOODMAN: He was the first openly gay elected official in the United States?
CLEVE JONES: Actually, I want to correct that. He is known to be the first openly gay, but in fact I believe that honor goes to a woman named Elaine Noble, who had been elected to the Massachusetts state legislature two years prior. And then there were two members of the Ann Arbor city council who came out after they had been elected. But he was, I think‹I think his significance was as our first really shared public martyr. There are many martyrs to this cause, but he was the one whose name became known...
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