Focus 580; 2002 Election: 15th Illinois Congressional District - Talk To The Green Party Candidate

Good morning this is focused 580 our morning telephone talk show. My name is Jack Brighton sitting in for a couple weeks for David Inge. We have to give him a break every once in a while. Glad you could listen this morning during focus the 10 o'clock hour we will talk about politics with a candidate for the 15th Illinois Congressional District Carl Estabrook is his name. He is the Green Party candidate for the 15th Illinois congressional district a district which is a quite large Actually it includes the entire counties of Ford Iroquois deal wit Pyatt Moultrie champagne for million Douglas Edgar Coles. I feel like I'm reading a severe weather I was going to say it sounds like a tornado record right. Cumberland Clark in Crawford and nearly all Livingston County and portions of McLean make in Lawrence WA bash Edwards white ceiling and Gallatin counties very large districts in an article tornado. Right. Well I can see the show's gotten off out of control already. That's quite alright Carl Estabrook is our guest during this hour of the show and if you have questions about his views on things the point of this hour is to give you a chance to talk to the candidates.

You can do so very easily by calling us at Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's 3 3 3 do you match that up with the letters. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Anywhere else. Also I'm happy to take your questions by e-mail the address talk at will dot UIUC dot edu. So any time during this hour questions for Karl Estabrook are welcome. Just to mention Carl Esterbrook has a long talk and he's written a lot about history politics and theology he has been a visiting professor of sociology here at the University of Illinois for the past 15 years he's also taught at Brown University Notre Dame and the University of Rochester and he has. Bachelor master's in Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University. You also have probably seen his column in the the octopus see you city you view weekly newspaper if you are in or around champagne Urbana intitled news from Neptune and also has hosted for a long time a radio program

on ninety point one FM. And with that good morning Carlist rock Good morning Jack and may I say at the top that I have not only not only am I happy to be here I have been a fan of your program ever since I came to town. As I have said to you before I think that what you and David do and your associates here on this program is without actually there is no better in the country that I've ever heard. Thank you very much so you want my vote. Yeah yeah try to ask me a tough question. OK. Actually I would defer to the caller OK. Of which there already is one. And you know I do have some questions for you but let's talk with a listener in Urbana online number one. Good morning. Yes doctor. Yes I have two concerns that I'd like you to comment on if you will. Now that what I'd hoped for has come to pass. That Hussein is called Bush's bluff. There's still remains a

danger. We've seen the White House and Defense Department launch a huge propaganda campaign demonizing Hussein presenting speculation as fact and scaring the population into thinking that an attack was eminent. And I'm sure that King George will give up his royal sting who's saying there's too much oil and face saving at stake. So do you think the American people have learned something and that they won't succumb to for their propaganda. And my second concern is what is this war on terrorism. It seems to be that we just pick a country bomb the hell out of it kill a lot of civilians say by leaving it in shambles and go on to the next country. Bush was right that he's not a nation builder he can destroy it. I think we're in much more danger now than we were before 9/11 because we've

never addressed. We've never even recognized the cause. So would you please comment on these issues and I'll hang up and listen thank you very much yes. I think you put your finger on perhaps the most dangerous situation that we face right now and it is quite remarkable and I myself must say central to our campaign that there is so little formal dissent in the U.S. that we have the Republicans and Democrats falling over each other to say oh yes we have to go off and kill Iraqi citizen was in order to drive this tyrant out of office. And it is quite remarkable I mean even the events of the last 24 hours seem to me to point this up. You know an awfully sharp way here we have the Iraqis saying that they will allow inspectors in without conditions in the White House immediately says oh no that's not enough. Now if it weren't clear before that the. US is aching for a war that the war party in

Washington wants to kill Arabs. It would seem to me to be obvious now and I think you know as far as your first question is concerned it is obvious to people in this country some of them. Some people I've talked to who were active in the anti-war movement and 1960s and 70s claim that they have not seen the level of opposition to American foreign policy ever. That is it is higher now they say than it was in the 60s and 70s or even against the Reagan wars in Latin America in the 80s. I think they're right. I think there is an awful lot of grassroots opposition to this war. And I think it's simply not being reported I mean our own local. Daily newspaper makes it a policy of not covering demonstrations. So the fact that there have been demonstrations all around this town against this war isn't you know isn't mention the war and is as you suggest in your second question seems to me to be central to American foreign policy. It has to do with what's been called

demonstration wars. The indication to the world at large is there's only one bully on the block. I mean if you want to know what those wars abound for I ask your local mafia don you know you've got to intimidate him in order to keep him in line. And this is intimidation in the part of the world that is central to American foreign policy and that is the Middle East because our oil is still unfortunately located and they're saying and one of the differences between the Green Party that I represent and Republicans and Democrats is that we condemn this war and we condemn the war on terrorism as being itself a Potemkin village of a policy. I mean it's a it's a put up job. It needs to take the place of the old crusade against communism that allowed American imperialism to ratchet around the world without opposition because after all we had we had cause to fight for. There's a real sense in which 9/11 was the best thing that ever happened to the Bush administration imagine where they'd be right now if they couldn't wrap themselves in the war on terrorism the economy being where it is people would be

making it you know. I'm making light of the Bush administration and its ineptitude in domestic matters but instead we're talking about Bush or some people are giving him too much credit. I mean even talking about him is King George George willed referred to him as Teddy Roosevelt I mean this is ridiculous. And the reason is that they have the war on terrorism to cover themselves with. Look at the quick follow up. Then how would you deal with the need to do to address the safety concerns of the American people given the events of 9/11 how would you deal with the fact that terrorism is a real threat to America. Well I think it's a good question Jack because the question itself points up how little the Bush administration has done. Look if you look at what happened if you look at what happened a year ago in the attacks the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington seem to me the elementary starting place would be to say well let's make sure that sort of thing can't happen again let's

armor cockpit doors for example as Ralph Nader has been saying for the better part of 20 years let's put systems in airports that make it impossible to bring exposes on airplanes. The Bush administration which is willing to spend billions of dollars killing Afghans hasn't been able to do those two simple things. Now it seems to me that you know you want to stop what happened on September 11 last. That's the first two things you do. We have not had an independent investigation of the sorts of things that led up to September 11th. What were our national police forces doing. Where was the FBI where was the CIA. There's more and more indications that you know there was there were massive intelligence failures Al Qaeda didn't come as a surprise to the United States. September 11th last where where is the investigation of what went wrong after any.

Military tragedy for example. There is always an investigation of who's responsible for it a court martial. And we haven't had any court martial of the people who allowed so last September 11th happened and the result has been you know these wild fantasies about oh well the Bush administration planned it you know now those are wild fantasies but you can see where the fantasies come from when there's been no investigation of how it really happened. OK. Congress is grappling with the homeland security legislation to establish this this this very large. Department a coordinate the federal government efforts at dealing with homeland security in its center intelligence gathering and coordination so forth. What do you feel about that do you think that's an important measure that Congress and the nation can take. Here I'd want to quote a conservative congressman a congressman so conservative that he even lost a primary to another conservative congressman that's Bob Barr down in Georgia. The Bob Barr illustrating the point that no one can be wrong all the time pointed out when the USA Patriot Act came before the

Congress that this was nothing new. Remember the act came before Congress within a month of September 11th it was a three hundred forty two page document. Now not only did the Congress people who voted on it not read it. So the document itself hadn't been made up in the last couple of weeks it was all sitting on the shelf as Bob Barr pointed out these were things that police forces federal state and local had wanted for want for a long long time and had been denied by the executive and by the courts. Once again wrapping themselves in September 11th the police forces suddenly said oh we need to do black bag jobs we need to sneak into people's houses without telling them you know and burgle their their their effects because that's the only way we can we can protect against terrorism. Now wait a minute. They haven't done the elementary things to protect against terrorism and they haven't investigated how they investigated how the terrorist attacks happened. But here they suddenly have a whole new set of police powers. And that runs into something that we in the Green Party have talked about for a long time the necessity for control the police the police are out of control at the local level and at

the national level and they are out of control because of the necessity to control dissident groups dangerous groups classes who do not belong in the consensus in the in the views of our rulers Well they got a lot more tools as a result of 9/11. We have a couple of the calls to talk with let's go on and speak with a listener in Champaign on line number one. Good morning you're on focus 580. I would like for you to abortion right. I think a small Quest Yeah right. All right well thanks very much with large questions. Abortion gay rights and global warming. I've endorsed what's been cold the scene what's been called the consistent ethic of life this is the seamless garment network statement and I quote I'm committed to the protection of life which is threatened in the day's world by war in the arms race abortion poverty racism capital punishment and

euthanasia. I believe these issues are linked under a consistent ethic of life. I challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace reconciliation and respect in protecting the young protected. I'm against things Jack that destroy human life and that includes the list of things that I just went through and unfortunately the policies of my government right now. Gay rights. I'm a traditional liberal in this fashion by traditional liberal I mean 18th century liberal. The idea is that as GK Chesterton said people have the right to be their own party little selves. What I mean is that the state should withdraw from what we call private behavior. The problem is that private behavior is somewhat difficult to define. It's not a sharp line between private behavior and public behavior so to speak. And so what we're doing as a community is negotiating that difference. It seems to me that the

principle is clear the application is a little more difficult. But on the whole what most of what passes as gay rights seems to me to be you know sort of obvious the for example. Domestic partnerships and things of that sort. I mean I think by the way the state shouldn't be in the marriage business at all. It should simply get out of the marriage business. I mean this is a holdover from other notions of society. And you know the sorts of thing I mean we're seeing that happen in a way if you look at the last generation or so in this country people form their families with out with less and less reference to the state so to speak. And you know that's still going on. Global warming somehow didn't hear global warning. The suggestion is that you know if there's science on this is pretty clear. The politics on it a good deal less clear. I mean people laughed at the United States in the recent Johannesburg literally they laughed at me and sorts of things the U.S. was saying about what it was doing for the environment. Well look the Green Party begins with a concern for the

environment but it also begins with the notion that the only way you deal with the environment is politically that is that there are political interests right now large corporate interests. What we sometimes refer to as corporate globalization that is the real threat to the environment. Thank you Jen Jacques is not only not only asking the questions providing me with something to drink that right it well we to be a gracious host here. Let me just follow up a little bit on that and we've got a couple of the calls I promise we'll get right to the e-mail question as well. On the abortion issue or the issue of the statement you made in terms of consistency in terms of you know protecting life you know my sense is that the Green Party in general most people who consider themselves Greens would strongly support a woman's right to choose whether or not she is going to have an abortion. And I'm wondering we're you know and when it comes to legislation and the Acts of Congress would you support that.

Well as far as the Green Party is concerned. Whether it's most or some I don't know this is certain has been but a matter of a great debate with a great debate within the Green Party and indeed within my campaign as it's been a debate in this country. But I must admit I'd like to question some of the assumptions of the debate. For example even the notion of choice. A very strange notion indeed for most people certainly most of my friends who have had abortions who have considered abortions didn't consider it a matter of choice at all. They considered it something that they really had no alternative about. When and this is not only not particularly true you know for poor people but even for people privileged people. The notion is that there was no possibility for them to have a child at a time when they were in school or you know when they had of a family already to support but the circumstances were such that they didn't have a choice at all. Now it seems to me that the first thing we should do if we think that we want to defend human life. Before birth and after birth one of the first things we want to do is make sure that the

supports for human life is there and are there. And that's why the Green Party supports and this campaign supports such things as a guaranteed annual income universal health care rights to housing education and jobs. Then we might begin to talk about choices. But we certainly can't now. Right now it's a it's our euphemism it's a propaganda triumph to say that what we're talking about here is choice. All right. But I think you understand my question is going given. Let's say Congress passed legislation that really truly support American families people who you know chose to have children and provided much better support for education health care etc. so that there were many more options for people who chose to have children if if that were the case would you then would you be interested or would you support proposals that would make it illegal for women to obtain abortions. I certainly would think that they're the sorts of proposals that have to do

with protecting human life would apply to unborn human beings as well as born human beings. How you're going to work that out is difficult. You know perhaps to say I mean I don't want to put in jail women who've had abortions. I do want to say that offering abortions as a legal option indeed the only legal option is a mistake because what's at stake is a human life. I think we both watched our wash our own children being born and I can't I can't see that our old child to be fundamentally different from that same organism and two hours before two weeks before or two months before. And therefore I can't support a system that says here's our solution will simply end these lives. OK well we are. Not quite at our midpoint here but let me reintroduce our guest Carl Estabrook is the Green Party candidate for the 15th Illinois congressional district and we're taking your questions if you'd like to speak with the candidate on the issues that concern you.

You're welcome to call us we have a couple of people waiting in a couple lines open 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 around Champaign-Urbana toll free anywhere you hear us 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 We'll go next to a listener in ur band on one number two. Good morning you're in focus 580. Yes in some people's minds. You know as I remember. When one thinks of the Green Party in that category and labor represent very different interests with sometimes conflict that is in the minds of some people. And I wonder if you could address stressed broke to be why the average working person or why organized labor which seems to feel he has no choice but to work within the two party system why they should vote for you. The Green Party candidate.

Sure it's a good question. For I begin perhaps by making a distinction between the average working person and organized labor organized labor in this country seems to me has a lot to answer for not just you know historically but very recently as a conservative the trades union movement its politics are seen to be have been disastrous in many cases. And since organized labor in this country represents at best 13 percent of the working force we see that you know something has gone badly wrong here an interest in organized labor actually representing the interests of the average working people as you say. But that said let's look in the larger context I think what's wrong. The reason that the opposition that you have suggest that between the Green Party and Labor has been an assumption is this caricature of the Green Party as suggesting we all should you know wear organic fibers lives in trees or you know when you know a well-furnished cave or something like that. That's certainly not what the Green Party environmental movement have been about. They've been about thinking about using the resources of the

world in an intelligent fashion and producing for use we use rather than for profit. It's an opposition to corporate control of the economy that is at the heart of the Greens notion of environmentalism and that's also obviously at the heart of Labour's century literally centuries long struggle. This is extremely important. I mean this my campaign is part of what is nothing less than the largest mass movement in human history. And this again as is often misrepresented in this country because when I'm talking about is what's called the anti-globalization movement is a very bad term it's a term of propaganda once again because what we're speaking of here is that worldwide movement that came to public attention in Seattle at the end of 1999 that opposes the corporate control of the world economy. And this movement is a conjunction of the environmental movement and labor movements and many other social movements as a matter of fact. It was on display this

last February in Porto Allegro in Brazil where 50000 people from various organizations like this came together to talk about as they announced their theme that another world is possible. Well it seems to me that on that basis there is a conjunction between labor and environmentalism. That may be the most important political the most important long term political issue in the world today. Thank you. All right thanks for the call. We have a couple callers waiting and we have an e-mail question as well the question is from someone here on the campus if elected would you be willing to support Democrats in organizing the house allowing Mr. Gephardt to become speaker. Should you hold the balance of power. I've got to tell a story here about Gephardt an order to stop Department to school with my wife and she probably not be too happy with my telling this story but she was a student politician you know in college. This is Northwest University and a good part was couple of years her senior I think senior when she was a freshman something like that.

And he advised her to get out of student politics and make way for a man who might have a career in it. Now that was then this is now right. You know this we may not want to or to put it another way there may be other things that I want to hold against Reggie apart other than his advice to my wife in a political career. But. Look I mean the two parties don't agree on all the important issues. Issues of. I mean we have two pro-business pro war pro rich anti poor anti environment an anti worker parties. Now to say OK I'll get together with the Democrats and organize the the house in their favor Well sometimes yes sometimes Now there's a Green Party Maxim not left or right but out in front. And I think that's important. I don't see much difference on most important issues between the good parts of this world and the Richard armies and you know if that's the case you know what I do as a Congress person. I don't know maybe I'd go have a drink with Bernie

Sanders. OK well we have a couple of the callers waiting word of mid-point here with Carl Estabrook Green Party candidate for the 15th Congressional District. And we're doing a program in which you can ask questions of the people who would like to represent you in Congress. If you'd like to join the conversation around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free elsewhere. 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And by e-mail talk w i l l dot U R U C dot edu. I also want to quickly mention that we will have the other candidates for the 15th Congressional District of Illinois on the show in fact tomorrow Tim Johnson will be on the show. At 11 o'clock he is the Republican incumbent in Congress for the 15th Congressional District and also Joshua Hart he is the Democrat candidate and he'll be on the show on October 3rd at 11:00 a.m.. Let's continue with questions from listeners we'll go next to someone in Villa Grove online over for good morning.

Yeah. Earlier you mentioned the United States oil is lying under the fair lease. Yeah the 15th Congressional District is one of the largest districts in our country with respect to crude oil reserves crude oil production. And in fact the state of Illinois has thirty thousand oil wells and I wonder do you view. Domestic oil production as a resource that should be protected and nurtured and encouraged and. Please remember I'm talking about domestic oil production not alternative energy production and I'm sorry I have to hang up and listen and I thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Thanks the question. It's a good and important question and it's a complicated one in some ways. And with that last remark let me just say first of all that the Green Party is primarily interested in renewable energy and alternative energy and so forth. But that oil politics are unavoidable today because it is at the very center of

American world politics. It's important to get something straight here I think Jack because the oil issue is often misrepresented. I mean you hear a lot of people even a lot of self-proclaimed liberals say oh we have to wean the U.S. from Middle East oil we've got to start running our SUV as our own oil and so forth and I mean the questioner's question is in fact more sophisticated than that but I mean that's the sort of thing that we hear frequently. That's a fundamental it seems to me misapprehension of what's going on. The US is known literally for generation of that the world's greatest geopolitical prize is Middle East oil. Saudi Arabia has the largest proven reserves of oil. Iraq has the second largest proven reserves of oil. That's central to American world politics. Not just because and this is the important point. The U.S. needs Middle East oil to run its own. Domestic industries and even even automobiles as the caller suggests we could in fact be energy

independent based on oil and natural gas within the US. But it's not been American policy to do that. Why not import to read to keep the reserves that we have in this country and use the oil from the Middle East instead but much more importantly to control worldwide energy resources in general. Look who are the real competitors of American capitalism. A German led Europe and a Japan led East Asia remarkable pattern their pattern goes back a long way but that is the situation today in terms of the developed world the world is tri polar. OK. The US clearly dominates that right now. One of the reasons we dominated and one of the reasons we continue to we will continue to dominate it is because we control worldwide energy resources. Germany imports 80 percent of its oil. Its energy resources Japan imports 100 percent of its energy resources. So long as the US continues to draw the noose tight around middle east oil.

The competing economies can't get out of hand we have little trouble with them in the middle of the 20th century right. And they haven't bothered us much since then. OK one of the reasons they haven't bothered us is control the world energy resources. So questions of what happens with domestic oil production in terms of American overall policy are subservient to this issue of how the US is going to control the world economy which we have done since the middle of the 20th century. We've been the call's hawk with let's do that. Someone champion on line number one. Good morning on focus 580. Thank you. Yeah back to this issue of lack of a serious investigation of 9/11 and oh yeah and you know how to really deal with terrorism. You know apparently it's not widely reported a lot of FBI agents were frustrated by the Clinton and then even more so by the new Bush administration

in that they've basically been told not to investigate Saudis in general and the Bin Laden family in specific and probably big. Bush and Cheney's and others in the administration have pretty strong economic ties with these folks and I'm just wondering if you could could go into that a little bit. It's an important topic it's one that my radio colleague poem youth on the show we've done together for many years on the forgive me for mentioning you know it's a sibling station. It's not a can opener. But in any case Paul is as he has talked about this at length on our program he's interested in very much I think his guide here has been Greg Palace the American reporter works in Britain and has written a recent book called The Best Democracy Money Can Buy in which he sets out a lot of the things that you're talking about is an important question. It does not I think probably the definitive question here. It does seem to be true that the business connections and they're

very great between Cheney and Bush. Business empires and business interests in the Middle East including the bin Laden family. Are important and it also seems to be that the investigations of Saudi connections in the United States were indeed played down by the FBI this man O'Neill who died in the World Trade Center had resigned from the FBI because they wouldn't allow him to continue to investigate Saudi connections to the United States. Well there's a great move in the right wing right now to demonize the Saudis. I don't think you'll get very far because control of Saudi oil is so important to American policy as I suggested before. But I think that it's not the case that the difficulties that America faces in the world today comes just from personal connections between the Cheney's and Bush's On one hand and rich families in the Middle East on the other.

Things are much worse than that. They're worse than that in the sense that there are the long term policies of the United States that are followed by every administration Democrat and Republican you know are defining what define policy. There's a sense in which some of the more extreme wild conspiracy theories are sort of comforting because we say oh yes it's just a few evil people who have brought this on us. As I say I think it's worse than that I think it's a general situation a situation that the Republicans Democrats both support and that you know we want to criticize. And how we're. You deal with attempts to pay for a war against Iraq I mean clearly if our so-called allies are not going to foot the bill this time around. Oh and how's that going to be paid for. Yeah I'd start by not doing it at all. I mean it was just it's incredible. Paul O'Neill the treasury secretary said yesterday two hundred billion for a war in Iraq. He is walking around money. We don't we don't need to worry about that. We talk about something like health

care in this in this country or I mean these these nickel and dime issues about prescription drugs oh we can't afford it. But two hundred billion dollars for a war in Iraq no problem. Now this. This is shameful and you know the first thing to do about a war in Iraq is you know it's not pay for it at all. Thank you. OK thanks for the call. We have just about 15 minutes left with our guest Carl Estabrook Green Party candidate for the 15th Illinois Congressional District the first time I believe a Green Party candidate has been on the ballot right for the 15th District. It's true and I place no one on the right. You know questions are welcome in the time remaining give us a call in around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free elsewhere. A hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 is much as let's say you're elected to Congress in November. That's what I say. There are going to be very few green members of the House or the Senate and perhaps perhaps none others. How do you deal with that.

Well first of all Jack I remember that the way American democracy is supposed is supposed to work is that people elect representatives who represent their views and send them to a central place to discuss those views with others. We have this notion you know to sort of get along go along the idea of the Congress. And I think that's quite wrong. It's most important that people with my views which represent the views of the majority that beat around the country get sent to Congress there would be more people like that. One of the most obscene things we've seen in a long time is the way Congress is rolled over and played dead because of the invocation of the war on terrorism. Now occasionally people put their heads up I mean Barb this splendid bar belief of California for example who voted against giving Bush a blank check on the war on terrorism. Dennis Kucinich congressman from Ohio who has begun to hold hearings on you know on his own on this war in Iraq and they don't always come from sort of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party

Ron Paul of Texas has been one of the most severe critics of this of this war. So there are people there from various places often odd places. I mean I think it's the second time I've quoted a conservative congressman today. And it seems to me it's important that people with views like this get get elected to Congress because they'll be more and more of them. OK we have a caller on a cell phone line number one let's talk with them. Good morning. This is the cell phone it can we. Can you hear me call or just talking to me. Yeah I don't have a cell phone but oh yes it is very bad. Oh wow ok. All right let me just say I put a question on hang on one of the biggest complaints about alternative politicians like Karo is is that the range of debate on gun issues is unnecessarily narrow and I wonder if you would talk about it for to. What Chomsky called the necessary illusions when you're talking about

America. OK thanks. That's a very sophisticated question and that reference to Chomsky Noam Chomsky who has been writing about politics actually whom I was quoting earlier when I was saying talk about the level of dissent in this country right now. Noam Chomsky has been talking sense about politics in America since the 60s as far as I'm concerned one of the few people who has. But yeah he one of the things that he's written about at length is the necessary allusion was the limits of allowable debate in the for profit media in the United States and that is exactly right I mean we have a political discussion in this country that runs the gamut from A to B. You know Ralph Nader got tremendous opprobrium at the last election for saying that there was little difference between the Republicans Democrats never said there was no difference he said there was little difference on the important issues. He said the issues of how people actually live the issues of war and peace the issues of jobs and money the issues of the environment. And there was and there was no difference between

no important difference between the parties because they were working for the same people but the two parties were essentially business parties and they. Didn't have any differences on these issues. I mean this is so much true that the I remember one of the road warriors from the steely strike a few years ago after going around the kind of fellow who worked in the plant was laid off and was part of that strike went around the country trying to explain the strike to people when he came back. He said You know I have come to realize that they're really trying to risk leading us with questions of abortion and guns and so forth that's not what politics is about what politics is about is money and jobs you know and on that the politicians all agree. Well I think he was quite right. I mean the gore of it all says that in this country we have the 1 percent who own the country the 20 percent who want to be like them. And then the other 80 percent Democrats Republicans you know we're talking to that 20 percent and the they don't want anybody other than that to vote. They want to keep that that group as their bases they say and in the

Democrat Republican Party there is nothing but contempt in fear of the majority and a necessity had to keep the majority in its place and so as a result what that majority wants what that's majority is interested in and health insurance good jobs minimum wage unemployment benefits things like that those have to be carefully kept in place by the Democrats and Republicans they're outside the limits of allowable debate. Let's talk with another caller in Urbana on one number one. Good morning run through 580. Good morning Carol. I say yes we change the name of the Patriot Act to the war of patriot in the NPR this morning finally admitted that at least on a weekly basis we've already been bombing Iraq so-called no fly zones of course these are not acts of terror as he points out. Terror is always something that other people do to us not what we do to other people. But a strategical question how do we broaden your

campaign from what at least was called a campus tea pot attempt. Tempest when Nader ran to the black people and the working class in general well lit up in. Hang up and let it tackle that one. Thank you. Yeah thanks. One of the things I found in running this campaign and the campaign exists only because we had more than 80 people out there connecting and collecting signatures to get around the most restrictive ballot access laws in the country. That's the state of Illinois. Actually there's one exception that exception is Bob Barr state of Georgia. But that's the only state when it's hard it's harder to get on the ballot then in Illinois and we did it and I have to insist upon the we because so many people worked on it. One of the things we found in working on that and ever since is how difficult it is to find places to talk to people. Not only do we get thrown out of places when we're collecting signatures just to

talk about the issues of the campaign the way that we're doing today. I'm amazed I thought I knew this. I'm amazed to find how difficult it's difficult to find venues to find places to talk about it. We understand that this is and goes back to the previous question because Republicans and Democrats don't want to talk about these issues they want to run a campaign like a campaign for Coke or Pepsi where the idea is to get the logo out there to get the face out there to get the name out there to talk about the issues. We want to run a different kind of campaign where we actually do talk to the folks that you describe about the issues. And it's extremely difficult to find places that I should say I don't want to Jack's happy with me for doing this. But this is a pitch open for invitations weddings funerals coffees at your house call me. We have a website. Debbie a Carle for Congress dot org and an office in champagne that you can reach at 3 5 5 7 3 13. Hey call an invite invite me to do your coffee and I will be more than happy talk about more than happy to talk about these issues because we're having so much trouble finding places to do it.

I would also want to say on the notion that the Nader campaign was a campus teapot tempest that also I think is a at least a slight misrepresentation. We have this idea going back to the Vietnam War that liberal politics or progressive politics or insurgent politics are university based. People are often surprised to hear that opposition to the Vietnam War in this country was directly proportional to the number of years of formal education. That is to say the real opposite. The more more schooling you had the more likely you were to support the government's position the U.S. government's position in Vietnam. What that meant is the real opposition of the war grew up off the campuses and we contend the real opposition to the limits of allowable debate the real opposition to the consensus of the Republicans Democrats is also grows up outside of that. It's extremely important that that fact not get out. And that's one reason we're finding it so hard to find places to talk to people. We have just about five minutes left. Five or six minutes left with Carl Estabrook Green Party candidate for the

Illinois 15th correctional district. Questions are welcome the time remaining 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 1 4 5 5. Well talk a bit about the economy. You know that the situation for working. You know wages and health care and taxation and wondering I mean obviously these are things you address in your campaign literature. What is it you would like to see happen with regard to well let's take tax the tax system call them progressive taxes me how do you do that. First of all I think you probably have to throw out the tax code as exists right now. The internal The. US tax code right now I'm told runs to a tome that is three times as long as the King James Bible. Now people have been spending a long time looking for loopholes in the King James Bible it's a lot easier to find loopholes in the tax system so we have a tax system in this country that's supposed to be progressive. You know the more you're more your own the more you pay

supposedly. But it doesn't work out that way. We've got to find a real progressive tax system where people pay on the basis of ability to pay. And I think there's one thing that's essential to this Jack and that is wealth taxes. We tax income and that's probably a mistake. I mean I'm I'm willing to say that some tax on income is appropriate. But you know I'm a low tax not much tax what we should be taxing is wealth tax on the ability to pay. And you know I mean most other industrialized countries do this by the way. But the only way we're going to get a progressive tax system in this country a system that really does ask people to support the country on the basis of ability to pay is by taxing wealth. Ok I see a caller off the air didn't want to go on the air but asked if you could talk about your plans to talk in Charleston on Thursday. Oh yes I'm giving a talk at Eastern Illinois University on

Thursday evening and I'm embarrassed here for you know not to know the details. This is the the Greens the Greens are wonderfully decentralized movement and there are a number of different green groups within the district here. And this is the Greens in Charleston have set this up and it is scheduled for Thursday evening at the university beyond the details beyond that I don't know. You can look on our website I think coral with the sea coral for Congress dot org and 80's the details either will be there or are there already. OK very good. Well we just have a couple minutes left and you talk about a number of things in terms of you know what you're trying to do with the campaign. I mean it's going to be a very uphill battle to say the least for the first time a Green Party candidate ever runs for Congress. And I don't want to say you won't be elected because that would be calling the election too far in advance and we've all learned a lesson about that. See that's media

media self denial all of it. Yeah. But you know what do you hope will happen as a result your campaign. Well Jack it begins with the fact that people don't vote in the United States not because they're too stupid or affectless but because they know it. In most cases it doesn't make much difference whether they have a Republican or a Democratic congressman. You know so in an election like this one this fall in November perhaps a third of the eligible electorate would go to the would go to the polls. Now the Republicans and Democrats split that pretty evenly. So give them each 16 percent with one percent to argue over. Now look at that two thirds of the eligible electorate doesn't bother to go to the polls. All we need is one out of four of that group and we win. So our task is to try to talk to the people who say quite reasonably don't matter to me who gets elected to Congress because Republicans Democrats are the same we want to say to them register a vote there's a choice for a change.

It's a model we've been using in the campaign is a choice for a change on the important issues and that's us and going to the polls will give you a different representative this fall. Are there any other events that you want to mention the you're going to be speaking here or ways that people can get in touch with you to get information. Well actually what I want to do is call tomorrow when you have Tim Johnson the incumbent here and ask I say to him Look when are we getting together. We keep talking to Tim's campaign saying we want you know we want to talk about these things this is goes back to my point about having trouble finding venues for this discussion. He and I will be on a number of candidates nights in a number of forums including one by your colleagues on the television side here on the 24th of October. But they've been Timms people have been a little cherry about sitting down with us in a public forum and talking about the issues his chief of staff told the other day well we have to be in Washington a lot you know. Yes they do have to be in Washington a lot but they also should come home and talk to the voters about the issues that you and I have been talking about today. And we

have trouble getting him to do that. I have I've told him it's like a John Wayne movie I'll meet you any time any place you know you see I've said we will show up whenever you can in your busy schedule come and talk to the voters about these issues. We need places like that. And so for the Johnson people have not been pretty forthcoming about that. OK well we'll leave it at that since we're here at the universe time our guest has been Carl Estabrook he is the Green Party candidate for the 15th you know noir congressional district and he will be on the ballot on November 5th. And we will also be having the incumbent Republican Tim Johnson who is with us tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock on the show and also Joshua Harkey who is the Democratic candidate on October 3rd at 11:00 a.m.. So give you a fair chance to talk with each of those and make up your own mind. Who would you like to vote for in November. I should also mention that if you'd like more

information on our guest during this hour Carl Estabrook you can look at his Web site Carl for Congress is spelled with a c s dot com. Carl thanks so much for being here. Pleasure Jack.