FYI - they have previously given us permission to post to the website. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Weissman [SMTP:•••@••.•••] Sent: Monday, June 01, 1998 6:52 PM To: Multiple recipients of list CORP-FOCUS Subject: Avoiding the Evil of Two Lessers In the movie Bulworth, Warren Beatty plays Senator Jay Bulworth, a Clinton-like sell-out who is transformed into a tell-the-truth, anti-corporate activist. The movie's message is as obvious as the headlines of today's newspapers -- insurance, banking, oil, and auto companies give big bucks to the major political parties, and in return get the big fix out of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Anyone not putting money into the machine -- working people, poor people, inner-city blacks -- won't get anything out. The movie is great entertainment, but what is a concerned citizen to do after leaving the theater? The people of the New Mexico's third Congressional district now have an option. Instead of voting for the lesser of the two evils, Sante Fe-area citizens who wish to put a stop to corporate control of the political system have a viable alternative -- they can vote for Green Party candidate Carol Miller for Congress. Miller, a community organizer and public health advocate, calls the corrupt two-party system "the evil of the two lessers." Miller first ran for Congress in a special election in May 1997, when the seat was vacated by Bill Richardson, who was appointed to be head of the U.S. mission to the United Nations. She garnered an impressive 17 percent of the vote, effectively knocking out the machine Democratic, Eric Serna (40 percent), and electing a right-wing Republican, Bill Redmond (43 percent). Citizens activists forced to confront corporate crime and violence in their community increasingly see that Big Business dominates both major parties. The question has been how to take back the government from the corporations. Citizen activists have answered with setting up hundreds of public interest and community groups in Washington and around the country, to pressure politicians into doing the right thing. By running candidates for political office, the Greens are saying, in effect, that the failed public interest model is not enough, that it is time to become overtly political. Instead of pressuring politicians from the outside, it is time to get down and dirty and engage the political process directly, and by so doing, recapture our government from the corporations. Miller's political history is a case in point. For more than three decades, Miller has worked as a public health activist. She was turned off from Democratic Party politics after a stint with the Clinton White House, where she was invited to work on health care reform. She was invited to join Hillary Clinton's health care reform project and agreed to go to the White House in an effort to convince the Clinton administration to implement a single-payer, Canadian-style health care system. After watching the Clinton administration cave to insurance interests and reject single payer, Miller left Washington in disgust and returned to New Mexico with an eye toward confronting the Democrats and Republicans directly at the voting booth. This year, she will face the incumbent Congressman Redmond and probably Tom Udall, New Mexico's Attorney General. (A recent Sante Fe New Mexican poll shows Udall leading Serna in the upcoming Democratic primary by 35 to 26 percent with 19 percent undecided.) Udall is the son of Stewart Udall, the former member of Congress from Arizona and Interior Secretary. The Udalls have a reputation of being liberal environmentalists, but Tom has been wavering on environmental issues in New Mexico, including the proposed nuclear waste dump outside of Carlsbad, known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Miller says WIPP, which will involve the transportation of nuclear waste to New Mexico from 22 states, can never be made safe. She is also critical of Udall for not aggressively investigating the oil companies, as Udall has promised to do, for the price-fixing of gasoline. Miller is the only major candidate in the race raising the issues of corporate control of her district -- nuclear waste burial, price-fixing by gasoline companies, alleged pollution at Intel's facility in Rio Rancho, and nuclear safety issues at the government's nuclear bomb facility just outside Sante Fe at Los Alamos. She believes she can win the election, because the 17 percent she received in 1997 gave her increased name recognition and credibility, because of Redmond's corporatist record and because she believes both Serna and Udall have both opened themselves up to criticism as wishy-washy corporatist Democrats. How does Miller feel about Green Party's track record of being the spoiler and electing Republicans? "We have to get out there and run," Miller says. "If some Democrats lose, that's the price you pay." Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or repost the column on other lists. 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