Vaughn/ Kemp
Big Bucks Win Again?

It's hard to dislike Brian Kemp personally. He's backslapplingly friendly, and as a candidate he still professes to believe in the value of grassroots campaigning and constituent services. But beneath the "aw-shucks" exterior, Kemp has a conservative record that keeps him on Governor Sonny Perdue's short list of go-to legislators. With Athens forming the lion's share of his district, it's little surprise that Kemp is now putting a more moderate veneer on his conservative credentials.

State Senate District 46 is not exactly a hotbed of conservatism, and running to the center is a strategy that worked well for Kemp in 2002 against Doug Haines. Not every Democrat in Athens is liberal, and the vast majority of Democrats throughout the rest of the district are moderate to conservative. So what's a fairly conservative Republican to do?

The obvious choice is to take ideology out of the debate, by blurring party lines at the expense of issues, and by accentuating the "safe" issues, such as education. Republican or Democrat, everyone can get together on supporting education, especially when you use the most general and generic of terms. After all, when have elections ever been about policy?

Once the issues ground is neutralized, then a candidate can eliminate the need for party identification at all. While some voters are diehard party loyalists, those who identify themselves as "independent" are growing in number with every election. Kemp says, "Athens voters are smart… this isn't a Republican versus Democrat kind of race." Call it wishful thinking, but it's the only view to have if you're a Republican running in a majority Democratic district.

That's why Kemp is trumpeting his support for early education. Kemp's predecessor, Doug Haines, was a vocal advocate of the Georgia Early Learning Initiative. Despite his allegiance to the Republican leadership that axed GELI, Kemp continues to portray himself as a champion of early education. Kemp's underfunded replacement for GELI passed the Senate but stalled dead in the Democratic-controlled House.

Kemp faces a strong opponent in Becky Vaughn. As a female, she is more likely to bring in moderate female voters (a sizable chunk of just about any electorate.) She has strong support from the local and state Democratic establishment, and her campaign is one of the standard-bearers for the resurgence that the folks in Atlanta are hoping to create.

Surprisingly though, Vaughn faced no primary opposition in her bid to unseat Kemp. Doug Haines, who lost to Kemp in 2002, took a pass on his old seat in favor of his congressional bid. Shannon Mayfield, a local boy who made good on the staff of Lieutenant Governor Pierre Howard in the '90s, was heavily courted but also begged out. Local bigwig Jane Kidd flirted briefly with the idea of running against Kemp, but decided to sit out as well. (Kidd is now running for the state House of Representatives.)

Although not as dynamic a campaigner as Haines, and not as well connected as Kidd, Vaughn represents a serious threat to Kemp's career as a State Senator. In order to beat Kemp, though, Vaughn's campaign will face an uphill struggle to get her message out to the voters. Also, Kemp has promised to mount an intensive grassroots campaign. In order to stay competitive, Vaughn must not only be able to compete in the mailboxes and on the radio, but also with grassroots organization and volunteer efforts.

Questions also remain, as they do with any candidate challenging an incumbent, about Vaughn's ability to raise enough cash to beat Kemp. So, like seemingly every race on every level, the deciding factor will probably be money. Kemp's victory two years ago surprised a lot of people, including statewide GOP leaders. As a result, this race is being highly targeted by both parties, and Kemp's incumbency gives him a significant advantage in fundraising.

Speaking of fundraising, Kemp has recently taken issue with Vaughn's tactics, alleging that she has raised 78 percent of her money outside of the district, and that 88 percent of her contributors are "special interests and lawyers." Kemp himself has picked up some money from PACs and special interest groups, but not to the level that Vaughn has.

On the surface, there's nothing wrong with PAC money. Federal and state laws limit contribution amounts, and considering the "special interests" that are donating to Vaughn's campaign, their presence is innocuous. One large donor to Vaughn's campaign, Emily's List, is a PAC dedicated to electing pro-choice, female candidates to public office. Something tells us that given the fact that he is both anti-choice, and of course male, Kemp was never in the running for that endorsement.

Meanwhile, both candidates are quietly gearing up for a long race. If Kemp's previous campaign is any indication, he will take the offensive early, focusing on Vaughn's lack of legislative experience. However, Kemp's experience, and more importantly his record, may prove to be a liability for him as well. Many of his votes on choice, the environment, the flag and yes, education, are out of line with what many Athens voters want, and now that he has a record instead of just promises, Kemp may find the going tougher than in 2002.

Martin Matheny
Martin Matheny was communications director of the Doug Haines For Congress Campaign in the 12th District Democratic Primary.

Patriot Dreams
Celebrate War

Tired of all the radical leftist rhetoric and antiwar propaganda that fill Athens' streets like malapropisms at a Bush press conference? Me neither. But if ever you do find yourself looking to add a bit of jaunty jingoism to your democratic diet - if Fox News just doesn't get you off like it used to - don't fret, comrades: July 4th marked the grand opening in Atlanta of the National Museum of Patriotism.

Lodged colorfully in Midtown beside both the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and the Center for Puppetry Arts, the museum's gaudy red and white exterior seems plucked from the main drag in Panama City.

The museum was founded by Nicholas Snider, former vice president of United Parcel Service and the world's most prolific collector of "patriotic jewelry and sweetheart keepsakes." (By now you are already in your car heading down 316, but there's more.) The museum is quaint as far as "national" museums go: the main exhibition area is about the size of a basketball court. At the entrance a hammy salute to public servants and leaders screens in a room with only two chairs - which is perfect, since a friend and I are the only guests at the museum. (As the skin on Reagan's face flaps about on the screen, all I can think of is the reverence with which the former president held our Constitution - the pit of our patriotic peach - especially when his administration lied to Congress, and the American people, and anyone else who'd listen.)

First, it must be asked, what is patriotism? It's easy to say it is the love of one's country. But is that the love of what one's country has done, and what one's country is? Or is it the love of what we wish our country had done, what we wish our country will be?

In this case, patriotism is in the eye of the curator. Either way, museums - at least powerful ones - tend to be provocative, tend to reveal the little-told.

This museum consists of about a dozen displays, most of which focus on military service. The most interesting is a 14,000-strong collection of war memorabilia - mostly WWII keepsakes such as pins and bracelets - which soldiers made or commissioned during the war and sent home to their lonely LuAnns.

Another display, an almost cute exhibit, is a platform with a collection of miniature monuments and famous symbols that, the visitor's guide says, "represents the history of America." The lights around this display dim and a spotlight and voiceover briefly touch on each item: a mini-Mount Rushmore, an itty-bitty Iwo Jima, a cutesy Capitol, a diminutive Declaration of Independence, a substandard Statue of Liberty, an undersized Uncle Sam and the United States Seal, and an American Indian that could fit in a cupboard (which, boldly, draws no mention of slaughter or displacement.)

Then there is the "Open Doors" exhibit, a photo essay featuring 30 black and white portraits of 30 Vietnam War POWs 30 years after their release. (Yes, John McCain's gnarly face is among the bunch.) Text beneath each photo generally relays a sense of resolve and optimism possessed by the former prisoners - perhaps both despite and because of the time they spent behind the bamboo bars. The title, "Open Doors," comes from an ex-captive, who noted, "There's no such thing as a bad day when you have a door knob on the inside of the door."

Another display simply showcases a jeep - a restored 1945 Willys-Overland, the small, green, keyless ones that bounced around in M*A*S*H. Visitors are encouraged to sit in the driver's seat, choose as headgear either an Army peak cap or a combat helmet, and say "Cheese."

Touch-screen kiosks, each dedicated to a branch of our uniformed services, consume a large part of the museum. Guarding the Marine kiosk are two armed and uniformed Marine mannequins; guarding the Navy kiosk two sailor mannequins, and so on. The touch screens play footage of advanced weaponry and give information about each division.

Another display, called the "Hall of Patriots," features Georgia's civilian and military superpatriots, among them no less than Martin Luther King, Jr.

What are you waiting for? (1405 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30309. Toll Free Phone: 877-276-1692, Hours: Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission: adults: $6, seniors (65+)/students: $4, active duty military: free. Children 6 & under: free)

Tanner Brown
Tanner Brown is a local freelance writer and patriot.

AMERICA'S LAST WAR
Bush Eyes Invading Iran

In fascist societies, a tiny coterie of hoodlums denies millions a say in their future. But the few invariably dominate the many by tacit consent. Fascists immobilize the citizenry by recasting government as a movement.

When doubts start to arise about one of the fascists' more ambitious moves - for example, Hitler's 1938 annexation of Austria - they launch a bigger, more ambitious gambit - say, his 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Unlike plodding democracies, fascism's dynamism denies its subjects the time to digest, much less react. Blitzkrieg against Poland in 1939 made it pointless to protest the relatively bloodless absorption of the Czechs; invading the colossal USSR in 1941 made Poland seem relatively minor. Each new outrage /triumph exceeds the scope of the last; each new war eclipses its predecessor.

Fascism is politics as entertainment: bigger, bawdier, and - as with the German invasion of Russia - ultimately doomed when it overreaches.

Things are a bit trickier for our Texas-grown dictator, George W. Bush, burdened as he is by our annoying insistence on forcing him to run for the office he stole fair and square. Now that the invasion of Iraq has been universally acknowledged as an unjustifiable, counterproductive distraction from a war on terror that has yet to begin, Bush needs a still bigger war to distract us even more. Then, he figures, we'll forget about Iraq the way Iraq made us forget about Afghanistan. North Korea is too dangerous, and Syria is too small to do the job.

Next up: Iran. It's time to get even for the hostages.

The Bush Administration began test marketing a war against Iran by naming it as a charter member of the Axis of Evil. For the moment, however, electioneering to an alert-jittery electorate has forced the Bushies to place their neofascist tendencies in a lockbox. Bush and Cheney are deploying hoary Republican rhetorical ploys: referring to John Kerry as a flipflopping limousine liberal may harken to such classic GOP candidacies as Dole '96 and Reagan '80, but the war criminals of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib are playing the role of traditional Republicans only to close the deal on a gullible electorate. Whether the Bushian neofascists win the election or opt for another end run around democracy, planning for a second-term war against Iran is already under way. Administration gofer Colin Powell is accusing Iran of - you guessed it - trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The Bushies claim Iran's nuclear power plants could easily be converted into facilities for manufacturing weapons. "It is our judgment that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and a nuclear weapons program, and we'll all have to take note of this," Powell said on July 29.

They're using the same lies on Iran that they used for Iraq.

Iran, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. It continues to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to examine its facilities. Though imperfect, Iran is a vibrant though nascent democracy that requires only the passage of time to liberate its people. But as we've seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush's wars have little to do with 9/11, WMDs or spreading democracy.

With nine percent of proven oil reserves, Iran was already the world's fifth largest producer. July 14 brought an announcement that a new oil field second in scale only to Saudi Arabia's legendary Ghawar facility had been discovered there.

"Iran possesses far larger oil reserves than previously thought," writes Hooman Peimani in the Asia Times. (The Bushies floated their Iran-Al Qaeda story a few days after news broke about the Iranian oil strike.) Iran's newfound oil wealth, its strategic control of the Persian Gulf and its ideal placement for a gas and oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea - long considered the sane alternative to the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline - have mouths watering at Halliburton and the White House it controls.

But, unlike Iraq, we won't have the chance to botch the occupation of Iran. We won't get that far. Iran's military could keep us bogged down indefinitely, à la Vietnam. It has a combined active-duty troop strength of 600,000; reserves bring the total to a million. They have a respectable navy, and least 300 fighter jets. A vast nation the size of Texas, California and Montana combined, Iran is nearly four times the size of Iraq with twice its population, living on mountainous, harsh terrain. Iranians fighting a U.S.-backed Iraqi invasion during the '80s fought ferociously, which suggests that an American expeditionary force would be met by similarly passionate resistance.

The American military, already stretched thin and forced to "call back" reservists to fight in Iraq, would probably have to go ahead with contingency plans to bring back a large-scale draft next year. At least a half-million conscripts would be needed for a fight that would likely drag on for years. Hundreds of billions of dollars would be spent on hardware and weaponry, not to mention lining the pockets of Administration-connected war profiteers. War against Iran could easily push us into the abyss of economic and moral bankruptcy. The draft would prompt tens of thousands of young American men to flee. It would push us out of the community of nations once and for all. And that's if Iran doesn't have nukes by then.

Iranian leaders, feeling the pressure of American occupation troops on their borders with Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east, are well aware of the fact that Bush would like to add them to his portfolio of oil-rich Muslim puppet states. The crisis ratcheted up a notch when Israel - which doesn't make a move without U.S. approval - threatened to bomb Iranian nuke plants.

"The United States is showing off by threatening to use its wild dog, Israel [to attack Iran]," said Iranian spokesman Seyed Masood Jazayeri. "[But our] reaction will be so harsh that Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth and U.S. interests will be easily damaged."

We would be wise to pay attention.

Ted Rall
Ted Rall is the author of a new book, Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years.

Animal Control
Last Week's Scorecard

Athens-Clarke County Animal Control responded to 84 calls.
      8 complaints of animal cruelty
      3 bite cases
      1 complaint of barking dogs
      7 citations for ordinance violations

32 animals impounded
      28 dogs
      2 cats
      1 squirrel
      1 robin

22 dogs placed
      11 adopted
      7 reclaimed
      4 turned over to other agencies

Correction

In the July 28 City Pages story about the Five Points Neighborhood Forest Assessment the name of Luana Vargas was misspelled. Flagpole apologizes for the error.