TAMPA BAY NEW TIMESan alternative, holistic magazine exploring Body, Mind and Spirit. |
March/April 2001Articles on the theme "Controlling the Mind"Good Servant, Bad Master Choosing Love The Greatest Discovery Past Life Alert Calming the Unruly Mind Moving Into Mindfulness Thoughtful Use of Reason Your Mind... A Control Issue Battle For The Mind Human Vs. Divine Mind A Wild Horse Other Feature ArticlesNatural Health Q & A What is... Natural Progesterone? PeopleTalk
Minerals from Mother Earth
NEW SECTION!COMMON-SENSE SOLUTIONS
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People TalkReader's ForumThe Election Nobody Won [A contribution from a Natural Law Party supporter, William T. Hathaway.] After the savage denouement of Election 2000 we can look back on a campaign that saw Gore sacrifice his principles and Bush sacrifice our democracy - all to the great god Winning. The final debacle agonized but didn't surprise us. With grim inevitability it stripped away the last facade of red, white and blue idealism. Five weeks of political thuggery made it clear that our votes don't count. Bush didn't win this election: he seized power through a legalistic coup d'état. We may mourn for Gore, but he wasn't even outraged. A true son of the system, he'd rather sink than rock the boat. Despite some positive qualities, he's not a genuine agent for change. Like Bush, he supports capital punishment, genetic engineering of foods, corporate globalization, and a military build-up. Economically, the two men differ only in the size of their trickle down. To find the reason for this Tweedledee and Tweedledum pairing, we just need to look at their mega-donors. The soft-money moguls don't want us to have a real choice. Campaign financing shows us that the major parties are just two sides of the same gold coin, two modes of control by the corporate oligarchy. The economic power base of both parties lies in the business establishment, and they represent two tendencies within it. The Republicans support a fiscal orientation aimed at preserving the value of capital by keeping taxes and inflation low. To them, a moderate increase in the number of poor people provides an anchor on the economy by holding wages and thus inflation down. The Democrats support a mercantile orientation aimed at expanding public buying power. To them, a moderate increase in the number of prosperous people enlarges the customer base. Each party contains more than this, but this is their economic core that keeps their leaders from acting against corporate interests. The alternation of power between them ensures that neither tendency gets carried so far as to destabilize the very profitable enterprise. Given this structure, the changes we need can't come from them. Through ballot-access laws, matching-fund regulations, and debate policies, the major parties try to shut out other approaches. They want to be the only game in town, and it's now obviously a shell game with no winners except them. They and the corporate media have also avoided an open discussion of their economic interests by riveting public attention on the emotional sideshow the battle of winners and losers. Politics, like the news, has become garish entertainment for an increasingly ignorant populace: we, the people. Both parties are now calling for restoring harmony, for pulling the country together, for healing the national wounds. But what they really mean is healing the wounds to the establishment. For the first time since our defeat in Vietnam, a major crack has appeared in our two-party but one-purpose elite. As they try to patch that crack and restore the cosmetics of democracy, we can expect a media campaign to create good feelings about America. But the crack is there and it can be widened; a wedge can be driven into it and it can eventually be split apart. This monolith of power can fall and something new and more humane can take its place. Otherwise the establishment wouldn't be trying so hard to patch it up and erase the memory. We must move toward overcoming the biggest barrier third-party candidates face: the lack of proportional representation in the legislative branch. From Congress, to state legislatures, to city councils, only candidates who win the majority in their district become part of the government. This winner-take-all system may seem right, after years of patriotic civics classes, but it violates a principle of representative democracy. Rather than the law-making bodies representing the diversity of our society, they represent in every case just the majority group, the one that has the most interest in maintaining the status quo. In many parliamentary systems, however, representation in the legislature is divided proportionally to the number of votes for each party. For example, in much of Western Europe all parties that poll at least five percent of the votes are represented in the parliament. The minor parties can then enter into coalitions and wield power. The emphasis there is more on the parties as distinct sets of principles and programs, rather than on the personalities of individual politicians, so election campaigns tend to be more rational and less acrimonious. The purpose of an election is not so much to determine who wins or loses, but rather the proportions in which power will be shared. And since that's based on the number of votes received, all the ballots are counted - carefully! Imagine how this five-percent rule could change the make-up of the US Congress. Our lawmakers would include a much broader spectrum of viewpoints - one that mirrors our society. Our government could become a truly representative democracy, not just a tyranny of the majority. The current non-proportional representation, as well as the electoral college, confines us to a system designed by 18th-century aristocrats. Changing it will not be easy because it serves so well the interests of their 21st-century successors. But change it we can. We must. Until we do, we, the people, will continue to be the losers. [The following is a reminder from Florida Voices for Animals not to forget our pigs.] From past stories and ads run in the Tampa Bay New Times magazine, I know that the readers and the management care about animals. Would New Times' readers assist Florida Voices for Animals with a petition to help pigs? Unlike dogs and cats with whose charms we are all familiar, pigs are out of sight out of mind. We like to think they are living on "farms" rooting about and splashing in ponds, happily oinking. Sorry friends, they are not. State and federal laws allow them to be kept in factories under horrific conditions. Female breeding pigs are confined in barren metal enclosures measuring just two feet wide for almost their entire lives. These "gestation crates" are so small that they cannot even turn around. They suffer joint diseases, lameness, skin abrasions and what in humans would be called insanity from stress and boredom. They constantly wave their heads and bite the bars as neurotic coping behaviors. Gestation crates are so cruel that they are outlawed in other countries but, tragically, they remain common in the United States, including Florida. Like all animals, pigs experience pain and suffering, and they deserve at the very least to be treated with a minimum of humane care. But, unfortunately, animals exploited for food in the US have been excluded from most state anti-cruelty laws. Together, out of basic human decency, we can do something about gestation crates. Calling ourselves People For Humane Farms, folks from all over Florida are collecting signatures for a ballot initiative. When we get enough signatures on our petitions, we can put this issue on the Florida ballot. This will allow Florida voters to decide about limiting the confinement of pregnant pigs. We need thousands of volunteer petitioners to collect the signatures of registered voters. We need YOU! Will you help collect signatures on this petition? Call Gael at Florida Voices for Animals (813) 969-3755. Sincerely, Gael R. Murphy, Educational Coordinator, Florida Voices for Animals. [And let's not forget our food.] Fast-Food Meditation As I continue on my spiritual path, I strive to remain conscious of my every thought enlightenment in the present moment. Ancient Buddhist teaching suggests eating mindfully is a most important practice of meditation. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast-Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All American Meal, really made me stop and think before eating my next fast-food meal. Working in a world of slaughter processing beef, immigrants are paid low wages. It's a dangerous job working in an IBP meatpacking plant - a loss of a finger gets you around $2,200 in compensation. These plants once killed 175 cows per hour but, due to high demand and profits, they now average 400 per hour. A stroll through a meatpacking plant would include air smelling like burning hair, blood, grease and rotten eggs. As you visualize this scene, we move to another. The cleanliness of the meatpacking process. About 200,000 people get sick every day from food-borne disease. Of these fourteen die. A high rate of 78% of ground beef tested contained microbes spread by fecal material. The public is not informed when contaminated meat is recalled from fast-food restaurants. The PAC monies to our government are hard at work! Schlosser admits he likes cheeseburgers and fries, but he no longer buys fast food. "A good boycott, a refusal to buy," he said "can speak much louder than words." AnneMarie Dyer, Dunedin [A comment on the constitutionality of the Fortunetelling Ordinance.] Re: Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners Fortunetelling Ordinance No. 00-71 In response to Dr. Paul Daniele's article in the last issue of New Times, I would like to say that I sincerely empathize with his position concerning the Pinellas County Fortunetelling Ordinance. However, under our Constitution, no law-abiding, United States citizen can be singled out and persecuted for practicing any form of religion, and fortunetelling - whether we agree with it or not - is a religious endeavor for many. The following definitions were taken from the 1996 revised edition of the Riverside Webster's II Dictionary. These definitions clearly make the Pinellas County Fortunetelling Ordinance No. 00-71, in and of itself, a violation of the First Amendment: CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF, Religion: 1. a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power accepted as the creator and governor of the universe. b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief. Supernatural: 1. Of or pertaining to an order of existence beyond the natural world. 2. Of, pertaining to, or attributed to a divine agent. Divine: Of, relating to, or being a deity. A clergyman. Divine: 1.To foretell: prophesy. Deity: A god or goddess. God. God: 2. A being of supernatural powers and attributes that is worshiped by a people. Clergyman: A man who is a member of the clergy. Clergy: The body or persons ordained for religious service. Foretell: To tell of beforehand : predict. Prophesy: 1. To reveal by or as if by divine inspiration. 2. To foretell. Inspire: To guide or affect by divine influence. Psychic: Responsive to supernatural or nonphysical phenomena. Fortuneteller: One who claims to he able to predict the future. Note how all of these words are not only related, but some are actually the definitions of others. Not one of them uses words denoting a particular denomination; however, they all fall under the category of a "religious" experience, practice, or belief. And then there's the word "free," clearly legible in the First Amendment: Free: 4. Exempt: -adv. without charge. Exempt: To release from an obligation or duty to which others are subject. Thus, the mere definition of the words "religion" and "free" makes the Pinellas County Fortuneteller Ordinance 00-71 blatantly in violation of the First Amendment - the Amendment that protects every United States citizen's religious freedom. L. Warburton, Dunedin Have an issue you feel strongly about and would like to share with our readers? Anything from 200 - 700 words. E-mail: editor@altnewtimes.com or send to: PeopleTalk, Tampa Bay New Times, P.O. Box 6143, Clearwater, FL 33758-6143 Copyright (c) 2001 Altnewtimes, Inc. All
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