Shut Down This Murderous Racket

Al Capone is awake in his grave in awe at the criminal racket promulgated by the health care industry: a murderous multi-billion dollar industry that keeps the world’s Superpower in the sociological Stone Age. A recent study upped the figure of Americans killed by this enterprise from 20,000 to about 45,000(citation below): that is fifteen 9-11’s a year of Americans facing a cruel, painful death at the hands of these prolific killers.

Some might say I sound like a demagogue. When you are used to insipid soundbytes and P.C.-fluff, the truth starts sounding like demagoguery. The fact of the matter is that the truth is extraordinarily painful in this country ruled by a peculiar Victorian fetish of the marketplace. Nowhere in the civilized world could one imagine civic leaders fear mongering the populace about the evils of “socialized medicine” without getting laughed out of the country. Unfortunately, these goons of capitalist oppression seem to have been collectively laughed out of the civilized world and into Land of the Free.

Nonetheless, the problem is not this visceral minority. The problem lies in those that pretend to befriend progress: that grand, archaic organ of political oppression called the Democratic Party. This increasingly irrelevant union of crooks, hucksters and swindlers has betrayed the American people beyond recognition. Their failure to enact meaningful health care reform must be the last straw.

From the beginning of the current “health reform” debacle, the game was rigged. Immediately, the only meaningful reform, “single payer,” was taken off the table, and progressives were told to rally behind a “strong public option” by Democratic front groups like Moveon.org and Health Care for America Now (HCAN). These two NGO’s organized numerous “rallies” in order to command a feeble subservience to the Democratic leadership ahead of their caving to corporate interests on the issue.

Meanwhile, single-payer activists were placed in the precarious position of having to advocate against the meaningless and amorphous “strong public option” and the tea-baggers all at once. In a country so dominated by trivial soundbytes, you have to be either “for or against” everything: no shades of gray, no third way. Unfortunately, many progressives got caught in the trap and started rallying behind a bill (Obama’s Health Care Bill HR 3200) that no one knew anything about. This clever catch all was meant to accomplish exactly that: institute no meaningful reform while tricking a significant portion of progressives into thinking that we were now seeing “The change we can believe in.”

Nonetheless, single-payer activists were thrown a couple bones. One was a promise of a vote on the “Weiner Amendment” on the house floor. This amendment would have replaced the current bill with HR 676: the single-payer bill. The other, more meaningful bone was the “Kucinich Amendment,” which would have lifted loopholes that prevent individual states from enacting single-payer legislation. This approach seemed more tactically sound than expecting much of an up-down vote on single-payer on the house floor. The Canadian health system was enacted province-by-province, and it seemed reasonable to expect the same here: the more “enlightened” states lead the way, attract a significant spike in businesses fleeing other states so as to cut health expenses, and gradually the states fall like dominoes.

Kucinich told a crowd in Aurora, IL this summer to focus on his amendment. He informed us that the Single-Payer vote (Weiner Amendment) was a smoke screen doomed to failure because of the lack of adequate time to organize sufficiently for the vote.
I then attended several organizing meetings and stressed the need to emphasize the Kucinich Amendment as the most tactically prescient step forward for single-payer activists. I suggested that people not bite the Weiner amendment bait. As a veteran of the NGO industrial complex, I saw the Weiner Amendment for what it was: a chance for progressive Democrats and single-payer NGO’s to claim victory (just by bringing the issue to a vote), and to thus muster some fund-raising. I could picture the fund-raising letter: “Dear Single-Payer Activist, today we scored a major victory in the House of Representatives by bringing Single Payer Health Care to a vote for the first time. But there remains a lot of work to be done in order to win the vote in the future. Please help us in this mission by donating today.”

Unfortunately, many activists bit the bait. Action alert after action alert instructed people to call their reps and urge them on the Weiner Amendment.

In the end, both the Kucinich and Weiner amendments were removed from consideration by house leadership this past week. Meanwhile, Democratic cheerleaders have been trumpeting the success at instituting a “public option” in both the House and Senate versions of the health reform bill. The proposed public option will cover about 3% of the population, while roughly 33% of Americans are un- or under- insured. Many progressive democrats inform me that this is the best we can realistically do given the conservative dynamics of the American populace. I don’t understand what American populace they are talking about. As someone who goes out to the bungalow belt of Chicago to knock on doors practically everyday, I can say with full confidence that only an insignificant wacko minority is repelled by the thought of “Medicare for all.” Perhaps we can figure out a way to leave those few people out when we finally do institute a single-payer system.

Progressive leaders have fallen to the right of the American people. Americans crave and need meaningful health care reform in line with the remainder of the civilized world. They crave and need leadership in Washington that stands for the interests of their constituents: leaders that aren’t fearful of lifting their heads above the fray, pounding their fists on the podium and declaring “It is time we shut this racket down. Let us throw the insurance companies into the dustbin of history once and for all, and end this domestic terrorism that kills 45,000 Americans a year!”

Unfortunately, to get to this point, we are going to have to purge the Congress of almost every last one of its members, and stop thinking that the Democrats or the NGO industrial complex will ever bring Americans their cherished Medicare-for-all.
(http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE58G6W520090917)

Platform 2010: A Voice Against Violence

I intentionally started my campaign for the U.S. House in Illinois’s 5th District early so as to address some of the deficiencies from my effort earlier this year.

My friends, volunteers, supporters and dissuaders have given sharp praise in some domains and offered prescient criticism in others. For both, I am deeply grateful.

Among the praise I have received are compliments on my ability to articulate my message elegantly and understandably, to not waver or panic in front of a microphone or television camera, and to stand firm on the issues that mean most to me. I have also been told that I have broad appeal for someone who is unequivocally to the left, as is attested by my concerted effort to reach out to anti-war conservatives, for example.

The criticisms I have received are that often I can come off as too negative or angry. In reviewing video and images from the campaign earlier this year, I must admit that I have given off a negative aura on several occasions. I whole-heartedly agree that it is important that I don’t allow my valid criticisms of mainstream politics affect my personal demeanor: that I don’t let my anger at greedy bankers affect my overall composure.

Another criticism is that I get too caught up in the individual issues and fail to package them into a coherent vision for the future of this country. In this realm, I must admit that I too often assume that people know where I am coming from. Many activists in my midst have read many of the same authors and tend to get their news from similar sources and have generally supported similar candidates and political movements. However, in running for Congress, it is necessary that I reach outside of my base and appeal to the vast majority of Americans who are not political junkies.

Rather than merely trash mainstream politicians for being shills for banks, insurance companies and military contractors, I should explain precisely what sets me apart, and what values I will espouse as an elected member of Congress:

First and foremost, I will stand for liberty and democracy, those two heralded values of the western liberal tradition. I do not believe that the western tradition was built purely around empire and conquest. While the preeminent powers most certainly committed heinous crimes in the developing world and elsewhere, I also believe they invaluable contributed social, cultural and political ideals. I believe the former was inconsistent with the latter.

In this spirit, I will stand as an ambassador of peace. I believe that it is inconsistent with the Western liberal tradition to take peoples’ lives as part of our foreign policy. I am also appalled by the seeming lack of appreciation for human life in our political elite, and increasingly throughout society. Martin Luther King Jr correctly observed that “my country is the greatest perpetrator of violence in the world.” For making this observation, he was vilified and branded a “radical.” In my mind, there is no clearer demonstration that our country suffers from a serious ailment of violence than when a great leader is disparaged for admonishing his country for its violent ways.

We must recognize violence as the great American epidemic. From the streets of Baghdad to the streets of Chicago, violence is a problem that is tearing this nation apart at the seams. If we do not usher in a new generation of leadership ready and willing to tackle this epidemic, we will rapidly descend into a state of thorough irrelevance.

I ask that we all take the time to reflect on this problem and internalize it: to address the inner violence, that desire to bring emotional or physical harm to others regardless of any provocation, and to conquer it, so that together we can overcome the overarching problem of our nation’s domestic and military violence.

I reiterate: violence is the great American epidemic. Violence is the problem behind so many of our other problems. Violence was the problem when we attempted to repress Communism by fighting doomed proxy wars throughout the globe. Violence was so vividly the problem when we thoroughly devastated Vietnam and lost over 50,000 of our own in a useless war of aggression and Empire. Violence, too, was the problem when we attempted to expand that ill by invading Cambodia and Laos.

Violence was the problem when we decided to dictate the future of Latin America by installing murderous dictators in Chile and Guatemala, while fighting and funding violent civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Columbia. Violence has been the American mark left on Latin America: a tradition of violence rooted in this misguided sense of superiority by our political and economic Elite.

Violence, too, was the problem on 9-11, when authoritarian religious zealots brought their backward sense of vengeance down on 3,000 innocent civilians. This act continued a cycle of violence in our relationship to the Arab world, with whom the American Empire had intertwined in dangerously injurious military and economic relations for decades. In the weeks after that horrific moment in American history, we could have risen to a new level of clarity and given power to a new movement to rescind violence in all of its forms.

Instead, the cycle continued and it perpetuates today. In 2001, we were told that the terrorists would have been defeated by now, and that we would be basking in the serenity of a perpetual peace. This is the same lie that war propagandists have shuffled around for time immemorial: that once we fight this last war, an era of peace will arrive. I see no difference between this sickly way of thinking and that of an alcoholic who assures his loved ones that tonight will be his final drink.

In order to rid our society of this malady, we must see the primary function of our lives as peace-makers. Surely, everyone must work to pay the bills, and they should undoubtedly be content in their careers. However, your prime human function on this planet is not as a paid servant of this or that employer. Your primary function is as a fellow ambassador of peace. Your essential duty is to wage peace at all opportunities, to expose and reprimand the war-makers, and to remain confident and adamant in even the most trying times. As a peace maker, you will be almost perpetually challenged: like Martin Luther King Jr, being branded a radical, you will be accused of anti-American sentiment, you will be called a coward or a Communist, and you will be disparaged and belittled.

This is why I suggested that we all cleanse the inner violence before attempting to address the outer violence. It is essential that you demonstrate your capacity to remain non-violent even when violently provoked. I have often struggled with this myself, and continue to work to overcome the internal angst.

As Congressman, I will not only oppose all wars of aggression and Empire, but will also address the causes of our domestic violence. Depending on where one resides on the political spectrum, everyone has their hypothesis as to the cause of our society‘s violence: guns, video games, movies, poverty, drug use and so on. All of these enablers more so than causes. For the primary cause, again we must look inward. We must ask ourselves where the vicious cycle originates, so that we can gradually put the brakes on this violence with time.

Just as a kid who was abused is more likely to become an abuser, so too will an abused people be more likely to abuse in turn. I am suggesting that our society is violently provoked. I am saying that our country has developed a loathsome attraction to violent control and domination. We have police officers that are hired solely to run a muck in our poor communities: to flex the muscle of the state and throw the population into a state of shock, fear and despair. The rule of the street becomes violence, and so the most backward and violent elements in society take undisputed control of the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, we have an education system geared towards teaching subservience and a narrow view of morality rather than the great Western values of freedom and democracy. As a small “d” democrat first and foremost, I always look forward to dissent in my ranks. I have great admiration for those that are willing to challenge my convictions with intelligent and rigorous argument. This should be the desire of all Americans, and these values should be instilled from an early age. Instead, we wage war on youth by attempting to control what they wear, they hear and what they should fear. We attempt to mold them into “good Americans” by ignoring the core western values and instead emphasizing the malady that is ripping this nation apart.

If the relative freedom of the University years ever makes an American too upright, then surely the career years will send them hunched over again. Among developed Western nations, we are the worst, or near the worst, in all of the following indicators: amount of vacation time, health coverage, life expectancy, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, poverty and inequality. While other nations have progressed to be more healthy, affluent, equal and free, we have been pummeled into regression by the ever-violent ruling elite, whose determination to control the masses is absolutely relentless.

In order to survive, one must work. Unfortunately, in order to work in this country, one must be shackled. In some cases, one is granted reasonable and affordable health care. In others, one is dumped square into the racket that is the dastard American health insurance market. Often, one must work a year without vacation or sick time, without any union representation or recourse to file complaint, before one is “rewarded” with inadequate health insurance. Of course, the CEOs, bankers and violent militarists who manage this country wouldn’t know: most of them have never had to toil through the wreckage like the rest of us.

People are made to toil so that they will remain feebly dependent and subservient. They won’t dare question because questioning might lead to retribution and bastardization. While not physical violence necessarily, this amounts to a severe emotional violence. People’s soul, their human essence, is savagely beaten to the point that all of their precious human faculties quit functioning: their ambition, their confidence, their rationality.

Unfortunately, people replicate this behavior in their interactions with others. They seek to control and dominate, to belittle and conquer, to be the king or queen: not through merit, but by pure emotional force.

Instead of conquering others, we should all conquer the need to conquer. Instead of installing our metaphorical flag anywhere and everywhere, let us be guided by principle and reason. Let us discover those vanquished traits of ambition, confidence, and rationality, and use them to help navigate this nation back in the direction of greatness.

I believe we can stop failing by most demographic measures and instead institute a culture of success. I know that once we have overcome the epidemic of violence, we will be as capable as any of the great civilizations through time.

What separates me from the sitting Congressman, the Honorable Mike Quigley, is that I am an activist. I am not entering the electoral arena as a career move: I am doing it so as to give voice to my belief in the power of non-violence and in the valor of this fantastic Western tradition that we have inherited. I met Mike several times during the last campaign, and sincerely believe that he is an amicable person and an appreciable political leader. What’s more, he is a considerable improvement over his predecessor. However, he has not demonstrated that he is going to address the principal problem of violence in this nation. He had two chances to vote against continued war funding for these illegal and immoral wars, and he voted for the funding both times. He has had several months to rise on the floor of the Congress, or at a rally or public forum, and rally this nation to an end to these monstrous wars, but instead he has been silent. He has also been silent or near-silent on the other major issues facing the working majority of this country: ending the banker bailouts and reforming our monetary system, auditing and ultimately abolishing the federal reserve, instituting a single-payer national health care system (the only workable system), and instituting a new Workers’ Bill of Rights, to guarantee the right to unionize and collective bargain and to secure protection from out-sourcing and other ill effects’ of the neo-liberal trade regime.

I am not running to be a nice guy that might give you a listen once in a while. This campaign is about defending the core values at the backbone of this country from encroachment by the inane, objectionable and violent ruling elite.

A Revered President; A Non-Existent Society

Watching President Obama’s press conference on Wednesday evening, one couldn’t help sensing certain hopelessness in his delivery: an understanding that he was advocating a continuation of the same old insurance company racket. Obama is first and foremost a politician and not an academic: an inherently reactionary personality-type without a significant and principled national health care movement to react to.

This nation’s prime dysfunction is the lack of a genuine social movement for anything substantive. The last movement died somewhere in 2003-2004: drowned in a sea of Democratic propaganda about changing the Emperor’s clothes. I was busily organizing the peace movement throughout Illinois at the time. We were turning out thousands of protestors on a regular basis, and backing the street manifestations with a frontal grassroots blitz of letters and calls to congresspeople, followed by the occasional sit-ins at their offices. To all involved, it was clear that the anti-war movement would shut down the war after a few years of persistence.

But alas, the movement completely discombobulated right before us. I watched willing volunteers start spending their time working for an “exciting” new senate candidate in Illinois, and others join the Howard Dean campaign and ultimately the John Kerry campaign. By the time the “exciting” Illinois senator rose to national prominence, based primarily on his capacity to string multiple coherent sentences together in a forceful manner (what low standards we have come to possess), the social movement had become the man himself. When this happens, the social movement stops existing: it is trumped by the ambitions of one man and the party that supports him. Wall Street, the banking industry, the health insurance racket, and the military industrial complex had not-so-cleverly beaten this nation’s last great movement.

According to many sociologists, the Frenchman Alain Touraine prime among them, a society is defined by conflict among social movements. As such, a nation without social movements is also void of society. As in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and other authoritarian systems, society has become thoroughly entrenched by the ruling elite in the Land of the (buy one get one) Free. The uniquely American brand of government is particularly trying and burdensome insofar as a significant portion of the population is convinced that we have a functioning democracy.

I would argue that we are governed by a bureaucratic plutocracy: a system that intentionally drowns the populace in trivial details so as to guard against independent thought. Social interaction is frequently driven by promotion rather than genuine amicability. Since no one in my generation seems to be gainfully employed, everyone is an independent contractor: peddling some sort of pseudo-art or music, or their graphic design or website design “business,” and so on. Even those supposedly working for grassroots political movements operate on a business model of consuming all who stand in their path. To them, you are a name on a list and a potential donor. The message becomes nothing but a tool to procure sustenance for the organization: to the point that the movement gets engulfed in the organization.

For six years, we have been functioning as a nation without society. We have the skeletons of society: people bustling around doing stuff, newspapers printing stuff, televisions broadcasting stuff, and a couple political parties advocating stuff. But the stuff is primarily noise and irrelevant sound bytes.
The closest thing to a genuine social movement today is the inspiring conservative anti-war movement, as evidenced in the appreciable success of the Ron Paul presidential campaign and the succeeding Campaign for Liberty movement. In addition to offering a principled opposition to war, this movement raises prescient criticisms of this nation’s monetary system and an essential reform: abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Unfortunately the Left has been more hesitant than the right to critique its mainstream party, though there are notable exceptions. Two of them are right here in Illinois. Firstly, the sit-in at Republic Windows last winter demonstrated that Chicago might still be the labor movement capital of the universe, and that not all workers have been consumed by the ravenous Democratic Party. Secondly, the Illinois Green Party, through persistent and painstaking grassroots work, has become an established party on par with the two corporate parties. Their Gubernatorial candidate, Rich Whitney, won greater than 10% of the vote in 2006 and looks to build on that atop an eclectic slate of seasoned activists in 2010.

Nonetheless, a significant portion of the largely dormant left has been looking to the president for guidance. He is undoubtedly a brilliant man insofar as he navigated the confusing legal, bureaucratic jungle that is our political system and achieved a historic feat last November. However, his accomplishment was not, as is widely regarded, the result of some social movement. In fact, he shunned the remaining minute traces of social movements at every opportunity. He said he would fight to end the war, and then expanded it, said he would fight to restore civil liberties and take a principled stand against warrant-less wiretapping, and then reversed his decision. And most recently he said he was for “universal health care,” and yet echoes the same drivel of bygone years.

People must stop looking to the president for solutions to this nation’s numerous problems: unending wars of empire, avarice throughout the banking industry, a political class that is a mere shill for said banking industry, and a national discourse that has become incredibly trivialized by the saturation of corporate-controlled media. Addressing these deficiencies, re-instituting a democracy and reconstructing civil society will require arduous labor over the course of many years. I invite all concerned citizens to join a local anti-war group, or create one if there isn’t one already, and be as visible and intelligently provocative as possible. Do the same with alternative political parties that build off of local involvement, such as the Greens or Libertarians. Join one of the local movements for single-payer health care, or any other movement built upon substance rather than noise. We need people of courage to take on the duty of lifting Americans above this feeble reverence of Wall Street’s latest White House implant.

Of course, you can also help our efforts here in the 5th Congressional District by giving any size donation in order to help build the momentum we need to seriously challenge the Chicago Democratic establishment in 2010. You can donate online at www.mattreichel.us or by sending a check to:
Elect Matt Reichel to Congress
1726 W. Carmen
Chicago, IL 60640

Thank you for your continued Support!

Reichel Launches 2010 Campaign Bid

I have been emailed, called and approached on the streets by numerous supporters over the last three months about my plans for the 2010 campaign season. How will I follow my impressive 7% score in the special election to replace Rahm Emanuel in Illinois’s 5th Congressional District?
After much consideration and reflection, I have decided to officially announce my candidacy for the same seat in 2010.

The primary issue of my campaign will remain “ending the American wars of aggression against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” These are no longer Republican wars; upon assuming power, President Obama asked for an additional $100 billion of funny money to expand this imperial bloodbath and the Democratic Congress obliged. When the “Emergency Supplemental” passed the U.S. House the first time, 51 Democrats cast an “anti-war” vote against the spending. When an even worse bill returned with funding included to bailout foreign banks through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), these 51 Democrats could have killed the war funding. However, 21 of them changed their mind amidst intense pressure from former 5th district rep Rahm Emanuel. Among them were local reps Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez. Current 5th District Rep Mike Quigley voted for the funding both times.

And so the wars go on.

The Democrats were brought to power in Congress and the White House on promises of changing the disastrous foreign policy posture implemented under the far-right rule of President George W Bush. Instead, they have elected to continue these wars, whilst also continuing to bailout the criminal financial institutions whose avidity has sent the international economic system teetering towards its most fantastic collapse since the Great Depression. We were promised change we could believe in, and instead have gotten short changed. All the hope in the world isn’t going to bring Americans the peace and justice they so deserve and have so stridently demanded: not while we are stuck with the same two parties of Empire and Wall Street.

In addition to addressing the issues of war, the banker bailouts and greed on Wall Street, I will campaign in support of single-payer universal health care. I’m not talking about a public option; I am talking about a public system. Everybody in, nobody out!

I was fortunate enough to have completed my Masters’ studies in France, where I was provided world-class health care in a timely, efficient and affordable manner. I then returned to the United States and have had to live without any coverage as I have searched for full-time work, or worked through one of the increasingly common temp agencies that people must endure in our backward system of industrial relations.

I sincerely believe we can change this ailing country by rising to the occasion, holding our heads high and remaining passionate and confident in our pursuits. We shall not let the goons and thugs that govern this city, this state and this country bully us around. They are remnants of an authoritarian past that is rapidly vanishing from view, while we are part of a vibrant future.

The Green Party vastly expanded its share of the European Parliament in this year’s EU elections, with the French contingent winning as many seats as the Socialist Party, which has long been the principal party of the French left. Citizens of the world are increasingly identifying the Greens as the party most adept at addressing our planet’s most pressing issues: global warming, banker greed, addiction to war, savage inequalities, urban violence, and rampant superficiality.
Here in Illinois, Green Party Gubernatorial Candidate Rich Whitney finished with greater than 10% of the vote state-wide in 2006. In 2008, the Greens followed this success by running an expansive slate, with some candidates reaching into the 30% range in two-way races. In the high-profile special election to replace Rahm Emanuel in the machine-operated 5th district of Illinois, I won 7% of the vote despite just five weeks of general election campaign time.

In 2010, I will have a full 9 months between the primary and general election. What’s more, I have not stopped campaigning and have continued promoting our movement and our ideals of peace, liberty and social justice.

I do believe we can make history in 2010, and it begins with you: the supporters who propelled me to an outstanding showing in this years’ special election. Please help jump-start this campaign by contributing $10,20,50, up to $2400 on the website at www.mattreichel.us or by sending a check to:
Matt Reichel for Congress
1726 W. Carmen
Chicago, IL 60640

Ready To Make History

I would like to begin by congratulating the Sun-Times and the Tribune for their successful coronation of Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley as the Democratic nominee for Congress in Illinois’s 5th District.

By endorsing Commissioner Quigley whilst virtually ignoring the race as a whole, providing less than ample coverage of the candidates and their campaigns, the two major dailies essentially ensured that their man would finish first amidst the low voter turnout and un-recognizable names on the ballot.

Then, the mainstream press tells the voters that the April 7th General Election is a mere detail in this Democratic stronghold: Mr. Quigley is the presumptive victor.

I wonder, “What if Chicagoans are increasingly disgruntled with the corruption and malfeasance in the Democratic Party of Chicago?”

“What if it isn’t enough that Quigley is a purported reformer? What if voters are ready to defeat the machine, rather than reform the machine?”

“What if voters want an end to these expensive wars of aggression in the Middle East, as opposed to re-focusing on Afghanistan?”

“What if voters don’t believe that our attacks on innocent civilians in Afghanistan amount to a “good war?”’

“What if voters are ready for bold, fresh ideas to tackle our economic malaise, such as abolishing the federal reserve and ridding our monetary system of its tendency to operate on the creation of artificial economic bubbles?”

“What if the tax-payers of Illinois’s 5th district are ready to be spared the immense expense of supporting a foreign empire?”

“What if Chicagoans are disgusted by these banker bailouts: handing trillions of dollars out to a criminal banker class that has shown almost no willingness to operate by the rules, and to treat their compatriots with any sense of respect and decency?”

“What if we really need a bailout of the people, wherein we invest in creating good Green jobs: putting people to work re-invigorating our public transportation and building alternative energy plants throughout the country?”

“What if we can pay for our Green Works Projects by halving the Pentagon Budget over five years, instead of running this country deeper into debt?”

“What if I can attract fiscally prudent conservatives and ecologically-minded progressives, get them out to canvass for me, phone bank for me, decorate the district with Green yard signs, and, most importantly, vote for me on Election Day?”

Then, we will make history on April 7th by electing America’s first Green Party Congressman.

-
Matt Reichel

Green Primary Field Narrows

On Thursday, February 5th, I learned that Alan Augustson, my principal opponent in the special Green primary in Illinois’s 5th congressional district, has decided to drop out of the race due to personal family issues.

I would like to extend my best wishes to Alan and his wife as they navigate these trying times, and I look forward to working with him in the future on our common goals of peace, workers’ rights and economic and ecological sustainability.
His departure from the race leaves my campaign as the clear-cut favorite to win the Green primary. This also means that we have lots of work to do. It is up to us to carry on Alan’s work of developing the Green Party both locally and nationally. It is our responsibility to campaign vigorously in these coming weeks, so as to give visibility to the aforementioned issues.

I know that my organization will rise to the occasion and successfully run one of the most effective Green campaigns for Congress this nation has ever seen. We will continue to build broad-reaching alliances of people opposed to empire, opposed to these criminal Wall St. bailouts, and opposed to the continuous assaults on our civil liberties. Together, we will knock on every door in the district, we will be present at community functions from bowling nights to ward meetings, and we will raise the stakes and threaten the Democrats on April 7th.

When people ask what my goal is in this election, I respond: “I am in it to win it, and I will be America’s first Green Congressman.”

Thank you for your continued interest in this campaign.

Sincerely,
Matt Reichel
matt@mattreichel.us

Historic Green Election: Contested Primary in Rahm's Old Seat

On March 3rd, Chicago will once again be at the forefront of history: conducting a contested Green primary for an office other than the presidency. Rahmbo’s old seat is up for grabs, and 5 of the 25 filed candidates are running Green.
After having initially filed as a Democrat, I changed over to the party with which I am more ideologically resonant after realizing that the Democratic primary is a moot point: the winner there has already been decided. Don’t believe me? Listen to what the “lakefront liberal” Justin Oberman said upon dropping out last Friday:
"When we started, the field was wide open and the prospects for a successful campaign were promising. But in the past week, that landscape has changed substantially. It is now clear that most regular Democratic ward organizations across the district will be united behind one of my opponents; when viewed in the context of the short time until Election Day and the exceptionally low turnout expected in this special election, we have determined there isn't enough time to earn the votes we need to win."


Oberman knew that his paltry $160,000 wasn’t getting him anywhere, so he decided to stop wasting people’s money and send their donations back.
Gracious of him.
That narrows the Democratic field to 14, however the politically connected candidates will continue to drop like flies because the backroom deal is done. It’s only a matter of time until the rest of us find out if it’s Alderman Patrick O’Connor or State Rep. John Fritchey.
That will leave a handful of vanity lawyers who are presumably using the election to promote their respective law firms, a doctor who is doing the same for his medical office (Victor Forys), and Tom Geoghegan, a genuine progressive on social issues who is probably only half using the election to promote his books and legal practice.
When I attempted to contact Geoghegan about signing onto my pledges to oppose military aid to Israel and to refuse corporate donations in this election, he failed to respond. When I asked for elaboration on his Iraq stance (his website includes a mere two lines quoted from 2003), there was also no response.
He did, however, update his website to include a more elaborate position on Israel/Palestine, presumably in response to a slew of emails. He says:
“In the long run there will be no peace between Israel and Palestinians without some kind of two-state solution. The urgent question is how to get Hamas (or the leading part of Hamas) to renounce violence just as part of the IRA in Northern Ireland finally did – that is, how to pull at least the “political” people in Hamas into the peace process, and peel them off from those who will never give up their guns. I would press the Administration to rely on those who can tell us how to bring about this result.”

This progressive superstar manages to offend the left on two issues here. Firstly,
he trivializes the peace process in Northern Ireland and assumes that the current arrangement is acceptable to the IRA, while treating them as the indisputable bad boys on the block. Likewise, Hamas is perceived as the source of all problems in the Middle East, and predictably no mention is made of the need to combat Zionism as an ideology. Here’s my memo from the left to Tom Geoghegan: “If you’re on the left, you usually support those fighting for self-determination against an occupying power and not the other way around.”
At a candidate forum held by the Progressive Democrats of America, the group recently made infamous by throwing an endorsement at Jesse Jackson Jr in the Illinois senate seat selection fiasco, he condescendingly approached me after our respective speeches (mine available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIl39UVGHY&feature=channel_page), and said “I’m against the war, too, you know.” He was probably feeling slightly shamed to be shown up in oratory skill by a campaign novice of half his age, though this hardly excuses such a childish remark.
My conclusion is that he continues with the American tradition of progressivism: fairly reasonable on labor, environmental and health issues, while wholly apologetic to the tradition of American Exceptionalism. He goes so far as to applaud Obama’s imperialist presidency on his website, while stating that he finds it important for the United States to remain a superpower: “In the long run, if we’re going to survive as a superpower, as I hope we do, we’ll need a smidgeon of [international] law to check and balance us.” Just a smidgeon, eh?
This is as far left as the Democrats go: another do-good lawyer who found his niche fighting the man, though is unwilling to critique the over-arching superstructure of greed and Empire. He has, of course, attracted the support of the usual suspects within the progressive industrial complex: Thomas Frank and Katha Pollit publishing endorsements that sent thousands of users parachuting into his website to make contributions. It’s political big business of another sort, a nudge to the left of President Obama.
If you want a real election, the Greens offer progressives a genuine political race rooted in intelligent discourse and exchange of ideas. I will be opposing Alan Augustson, a respected Green activist who just ran for this same seat in November, amassing 4% of the vote against Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Republican challenger Tom Hanson. The Greens recruited me to the race because 4% is unacceptable in a district as progressive as this one. There is no reason that the working and immigrant majority of the district won’t support a candidacy built upon themes of non-violence and the defense of civil liberties. A contested primary will force all involved to actively campaign and recruit support at the doors, on the phones and at community functions.
I, for one, am a fan of campaigning in bowling alleys, and they are thankfully plenty in the 5th district. From Waveland Bowl on Western and Waveland to Habetler Bowl on Foster and Central, I will be finding support where Greens would normally not think to look.
The American left too often suffers from a snob complex, and I’ve admittedly been stricken with the ailment myself at times. We feel that, because we’ve read a book or two, we are unequivocally correct in our political convictions and so we deserve this air of superiority that we carry on. This is what we use as an excuse to put down the rest of our compatriots: the supposedly vile sorts that take pleasure in such crude activity as bowling.
I say, “If you don’t like it, get out of the Midwest!”
The puritan tendency vibrant within the American left must be vanquished, lest we continue to live under the rule of one mass murderer after another. If the left is going to ever rise from the pits of irrelevancy, it must stop looking down upon the would-be subjects of their purported movement. The culture of politically-correct must be dropped, if not outright combated. We must embrace liberty as our uniting principle, stop being fearful of entering into alliance with paleo-conservatives, who, after all, are the most organized amongst principled anti-war activists, and not be afraid to ask the “disgusting” majority to help.
Meanwhile, my generation, the new young professionals, must get organized. While I accept the challenge given to me by the Green party, to help organize young people, I want to make it clear that young people need to also accept working with their parents’ generation. Sure, the baby boomers’ record is atrocious: they have given us everything from a savage health care industry, declining unionism, increasing anti-intellectualism, an explosion in the practice of pop-spirituality, unsustainable levels of superficiality and loads of other undesirable traditions. However, some of them mean well, and others can provide the energy and resources we need to build winning coalitions. As such, the generation gap chatter ought be left with the coat check lady.
If we can accept that winning means embracing the greater Chicago community and becoming a genuine cultural member of this fantastic city, then we will help organize the Greens to victory in the April 7th general election, and that will be a momentous and historic victory for progressives and liberty loving people throughout the country.

Stop American Aid to Israel

Since I announced my election bid in Illinois’s 5th Congressional District, former home of Rahmbo Emanuel, I have heard every brand of “you’re insane” imaginable, often from my closest friends and confidants. People are curious as to why an “un-experienced” peace activist/ French teacher would find himself qualified to serve in the United States House of Representatives.
The first and most cogent response is: We’d be better off with a 435-long pack of hounds than what we currently have. I am insulted that anyone would dear compare my moral fabric to the corrupt lawyers and businessmen who pretend to represent us in Washington. To even reduce my credentials to the point of uttering my name in the same breathe as these foul and disingenuous people is demeaning and unsettling.
The “Other America” has been rapidly gravitating to my campaign: everyone from Progressives to Paleos knows that it’s not worth a second of their time to consider the usual establishment crooks. When I challenged the other candidates to rise to a level of moral decency by refusing checks from corporate interests, they all sloughed me off as crazy. Luckily, from an early age, my dear parents prepared me for the plight faced by functioning minds in the United States, so I am quite used to being considered crazy for my rational pursuits. I thought I would at least convince one of the other minor candidates, or someone posturing as a progressive, to take up the cause. But, alas, it will be just Matt Reichel refusing those corporate donors.
My next step is to make the other candidates, 19 and counting, commit to cutting off aid to Israel.
Oops! Did I just say that? I should probably be sent off to the nearest nut house and loaded full of big pharma drugs, sucked of all ambition, and planted in front of a television. Maybe then, after a few months of visual bombardment by Murdoch’s pawns, I’ll come around to understanding why the American taxpayer need fund Israeli atrocities year in and year out.
Instead, I gave AIPAC their couple hours of lobby action a few weeks before Christmas. I can imagine that it would be one hellish nightmare for the organization to go from Rahm Emanuel to me, so I at least wanted them to see that I am a real, breathing ambitious human being.
We met at a Starbucks downstairs from their office on LaSalle St in Chicago, just upwind from the brooding Board of Trade. The place was packed with important looking people, as we sat there leisurely chatting about the recent history of Israeli murder and the military benefits brought thus to the United States.
My rapidly moving eyeballs bounced back and forth between Vladimir’s eyes and his lapel pin (the one with the Israeli and American flags in union). I pressed him on what he thought of the numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel that have been singly stamped out by American vetoes. Firstly, he explained, you have to understand that the United Nations General Assembly is made up of people who are a small step above pirates on the evolutionary latter. There is a reason that the Security Council exists, he assured me, and it is to give a heightened voice to the respectful people of the world.
I responded: “I can’t believe you think so highly of Stalin!”
Vladimir continued (I paraphrase): “The other thing you have to remember is that France would veto those stupid resolutions as well, but they prefer to have the U.S. take the lead so as to not disturb their leverage in the Arab world.”
I couldn’t come up with any quick witticism, because I had just heard one of the most ridiculous assertions ever from someone sitting in a Starbuck’s next to a bunch of important looking people.
We then stopped shootin’ the bull and started moving on to business. Actually, I would have been content to continue chewin’ the ol’ rag all day, but AIPAC came to accomplish something. And that something, accompanied by an attractive glossy brochure, was convincing me of all of the benefits that come to Americans as a result of our investment in Israel.
One example is the Bradley Reactive Armor Tile, currently being used by American tanks in Iraq. Unsurprisingly, Israel is at the forefront of the development of military hardware, and, thanks to their experience in bulldozing through civilian neighborhoods in the occupied territories, they have made it safer for American troops doing the same in Iraq.
They are also particularly skilled in the domain of security and law enforcement, a fetish they hold in common with the United States. Increasingly since 9/11, various state, federal and municipal law enforcement bodies have regularly visited Israel to gain priceless tutelage on how to manage an Apartheid state. Among other things, this training has focused on “urban combat,” which has paid enormous dividends in our efforts to target civilians in our convoluted Empire building in Iraq.
American aid to Israel is an investment that just keeps paying off. Since they don’t accept any of that wasteful, socialistic humanitarian aid, and instead take only military handouts, the money comes boomeranging back to Americans in the form of contracts for our wonderful merchants of death i.e. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
Meanwhile, voting against aid to Israel is made purposely difficult by our friends in Washington. The Congress stuffs this figure into the larger foreign aid bill, so that you have to vote against real humanitarian aid in order to vote against military support to Israel. Even if you were a man or woman of principle on Capital Hill, the crooked lawyers and bankers who run the Big House would never make life simple on you.
However, they prefer to not let you get there at all by rigging the electoral charade. The easiest and most time tested way to get elected is to convince all of your investment banker friends to shoot you a quick 2 g-notes, while your boys involved in the big media swindle trumpet your run as something monumental.
So say you don’t have any wealthy and powerful friends? Your interest is running a campaign rooted in principles of peace, internationalism and workers’ rights. You seek to re-frame the nation’s understanding of the American dream by re-focusing our cultural energies on communing with the world, re-committing ourselves to a liberal arts based education so as to re-invigorate the national discourse, while urging the citizenry to respect and live foreign cultures and languages. In this case, your only option is to challenge the other candidates on their moral credentials until they crack.
Despite living in an era where our political system is in shambles due mostly to the disastrous effects of corporate lobbies, none of the other candidates in Illinois’s 5th district are interested in raising the moral bar. Absolutely none of them expressed any readiness to pledge with me against the acceptance of corporate donations.
And despite living through another humanitarian crisis brought on by an over-zealous outpost to the American empire, I’m sure that I will be the only candidate in this race ready to rise to the challenge of ending these crimes being committed in our names with our tax dollar.
Anyone in the Congress with a moral backbone should be pledging to immediately cease American aid to Israel. Likewise, anyone running for federal office at this hour should do the same. You can call me insane all you want, but I call myself the only man running in this primary that is willing to question Israel and corporate financed elections.
With a little luck and a lot of public pressure, we can get the mainstream crooks to crack.

The Race is On

We now have a race on our hands for the 5th Congressional seat in Illinois, as Rahm Emanuel has officially resigned, and the Governor has given us a date: Tuesday March 3rd for the primary!



1) Press Coverage in Chicago Journal Papers.

2) Volunteer Opportunities.

3) Wine-Tasting/ Fund-raiser/ Volunteer Meet-up. Friday January 30th, 6pm, 1728 W. Carmen 3, Chicago



1) In this week's Chicago Journal papers, Jessica Pupovac has written an excellent article about the "outsiders" in this race, including a lengthy portion devoted to my candidacy. Please read this article here.

2) We are under 8 weeks to go until the election: a major challenge to a grassroots campaign like this one. It is for this reason that we will begin canvassing EVERY DAY, so as to cover the district prior to Election Day.

If you are interested in helping to canvass and/or man the office, please add your name to our volunteers' list, and our volunteer coordinator will be in touch with you shortly.

3) Most importantly, you can help this monumental effort by donating to our campaign, and/or attending our official fund-raiser/wine taster:

Friday, January 30th, beginning at 6pm, 1728 W. Carmen, 3, Chicago.

Pre-Pay the suggested donation of $25 today to reserve your spot. And do not be shy about stretching your giving capacity! Each individual donor is legally allowed to go as high as $2,300: an amount that would single-handedly allow us to knock on over 20,000 doors, in an election where 20,000 votes will get us into the congress!

We shall push forward with this grassroots effort in spite of all of the challenges naturally faced by a candidacy of principle operating in the heart of the machine. While we will not match the top candidates dollar for dollar, we can take comfort in knowing that we will raise our money more honestly than they will.

I have sent a pledge to all of the other candidates, published here, demanding that they refuse corporate donations in this election. In an hour where the nation is waist deep in political scandal and concurrently drowned in financial scandal, the political elite of the nation can no longer be trusted with funding coming from corporations. This dirty money drains the integrity out of the political process, consistently leaving Americans with poor choices at the ballot box.

While none of the other candidates have signed my pledge to date, the people of the 5th district can take comfort in knowing that there is at least one candidate who will stand up for people before profit and principle before politics.



Thanks and Solidarity!