RICKIE SOLINGER
Author of the forthcoming Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Abortion, Adoption and Welfare in the U.S., Soliger said today: “If the Republicans believe ‘no child should be left behind,’ they really ought to consider that children who might be left behind in this country are the children of poor mothers — the women who welfare ‘reform’ put in danger. Most Americans think today that motherhood should be a class privilege, a status available only to women who have enough money.”
GALEN PYLER
Co-chair of the organizing committee of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, which is holding an un-permitted march for economic human rights beginning at 11 a.m. today and has been organizing “reality tours” of parts of Philadelphia, Pyler said this morning: “We need a new change and a new direction in the country. Neither the Democratic or the Republican party is representing the interests of the masses of the people. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees everyone a right to a job at a living wage (Article 23), the right to ‘food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services’ (Article 25) and the ‘right to education’ (Article 26). All this is being violated every day.”
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CHUCK COLLINS
Co-author of Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity and co-director of United for a Fair Economy (which is a sponsor of the Shadow Conventions), Collins said today: “CEOs make 476 times the average factory worker; in 1980 it was 42 times. In 1976, the richest 10 percent owned 49 percent of all wealth, now it’s 73 percent. Since Nixon ran on the idea of a guaranteed family income, the debate has dramatically shifted and issues of poverty and inequality have been lost.”
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ANDREW BOYD (aka Phil T. Rich)
Co-chair of “Billionaires for Bush (or Gore),” Rich said: “If you’re a smart businessman, like I am, you don’t buy one candidate and hope for the best in November, you buy both up front, and start celebrating now.”
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THOMAS FERGUSON
Author of Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems, Ferguson said: “People regularly mistake the sound of money talking for the voice of the people; this election is no exception. Much of George W. Bush’s policies have clearly been driven by money. He shifted to privatizing Social Security to secure an infusion of money from Wall Street when he was running low because he had to spend so much to beat McCain. The pharmaceutical industry is a major force in his campaign. The military contractors are pushing the ABM. The public is not clamoring for these things. Of course, the Democrats are prisoners to moneyed interests as well.” Ferguson, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts in Boston currently researching education issues, added: “On education, all we get from Bush are bromides about local control and how much better Texas has gotten, but that’s a result of reforms he had almost nothing to do with.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020
