Newsweek poll: "Bad Marks for Bush"

In the 2000 election, George W. Bush did quite well among young voters, winning more than a million of them nationally than his predecessors, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush.

Right now, young voters seem to be moving in the other direction....though that could change. Here's the latest poll from NEWSWEEK.

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May 24 - Young voters continue to turn a cold shoulder on President George W. Bush and his policies, according to the latest NEWSWEEK GENEXT poll. As the battle for the White House begins to heat up, voters aged 18-29 are giving the incumbent president poor marks on his handling of the economy, the war in Iraq and overall job performance.

The article is here.

Independent young voters in Florida could decide the election

A great article from the Tampa Tribune about young voters in Florida, with a variety of takes on all the candidates running,

The first interviewee talks about the health care crisis---a determinative factor for his vote, he said:

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McMullin wanted to hear Kerry's speech about health care because, as a modestly paid employee of a small business, he's concerned about the cost of insurance that he has to bear himself.

``For jobs that don't offer it, it's pretty expensive,'' said McMullin, who hopes to find a better job teaching English to middle school or high school students.

``I know we're probably never going to have a system of socialized health care,'' said the former citizen of Canada, which has such a system. ``But if there's a way it could be funded so it wasn't so expensive, I think that would definitely be a plus for the hourly working guys, the cashiers of the world.''

Cashiers his age - often part-time or full-time students whose talk about the future remains mixed with their efforts to sort through romance and pop culture - are among the presidential campaign's most overlooked voters.

Yet along Central Florida's Interstate 4 corridor, where a significant percentage of undecided swing voters could tip the balance of a key electoral state, the under-30 vote could prove crucial.

One in five corridor voters is an Independent, like McMullin, and that's nowhere more evident than among the youngest voting-age segment.

Protect Yourself

On June 19, Rock the Vote street teams will join up with thousands of others to Bridge the Gap in Healthcare, marching across bridges all over the nation to symbolize the divide between those of us who have healthcare and those who don’t. Walking alongside partner organizations Americans for Healthcare and Jobs with Justice, Rock the Vote street team members will help add a young voice to this important national discussion.

Think you don’t need to worry about healthcare?

Reality check.

16 million young Americans in the 18-34 year old age bracket lack health care insurance.

When you enter the job market, you are twice as likely as your parent’s generation to get a job that doesn’t provide you with health insurance.

AND, Americans are losing their health insurance every minute. Literally. By the time you finish reading this blog, five more people will lose their health care coverage. Last year, 800,000 people who lost their health coverage were young people between 18 and 34.

How is this happening to our generation?

Way too easily.If you don’t go to college after high school, you become ineligible for coverage from your parents’ family plans when you turn nineteen. If you do go to college but can only attend part-time, you are automatically disqualified from both family health plans and school-based health plans. As a young person in the job market, you are more likely to be employed in part time or temporary positions, which rarely offer health benefits. Remember, while approximately fifteen percent of the general population lacks health coverage, young people are twice as likely not to have health insurance, with approximately thirty percent of young people going without coverage.

So what can you do?

Take action on June 19 and take ownership of this issue. To find out what’s going on in your city visit the official website for Americans for Healthcare at www.bridgingthegapforhealthcare.org If there isn’t already an event happening in your city, download the event organizing guide and get busy protecting yourself. Need some Rock the Vote style to jump start your creative engines? Check out our weblog from the New Hampshire democratic primary when we worked with New Hampshire for Health Care (NHHC) to educate young voters about the issue New Hampshire weblog.

Candidates for political office need to know that young people are engaged, aware and actively assessing where candidates stand on the issue of affordable healthcare. Politicians protect themselves with affordable health care, so why shouldn’t you?

The youth vote is coming

Anyone who thinks that its impossible to get generation Y engaged in elections, or who personally does not believe that change can be made through the electoral process, needs to check out a new book from The League of Pissed Off Voters. The book How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office, is all about young people who are not only using their own time, strategy and creativity to make a difference in their communities, but who through this experience have voluntarily converted to a new faith in the potential of the electoral process.

Billed as the anti-politics, unboring guide to power the book is a heady combination of heartfelt testimonial to community empowerment and a cold, hard war-plan to swing the 2004 elections. Although the authors have a clearly stated agenda, the book is inspirational reading for dreamers and planners of all political persuasions. And for politicians trying to speak the language of young, disillusioned voters, the book is simply instructional.

Of course, the title is sure to start controversy before you even crack the cover, but is this part of a useful strategy of provoking curiosity among young, non-voters? You be the judge. Bottom line is it is great to see activists embracing electoral politics and hopefully all parties will learn to reach out to this demographic of young people who are looking for a politician with enough fire and vision to match their own. The book is available directly from the League of Pissed Off Voters www.indyvoter.org or at a bookstore near you.

Independent Music Makes Waves

Political compilations could be the next trend within the independent music scene given the impressive success of Rock Against Bush, Vol 1, which has sold over 60,000 copies in the past few weeks. This just in from punkvoter.com:

In a few short weeks, Rock Against Bush Vol 1 CD/DVD has sold almost 60,000 copies and is currently #115 on Billboard's Top 200 It has charted as high as #54 on the Billboard Charts and has achieved the number one independent record in the country! Rock Against Bush is still gaining momentum on college campuses everywhere and has climbed the college charts to #6 on CMJ's Top 200 this week! It has also achieved the number one spot on other music industry charts including R&R, A&R Worldwide, and FMQB!!

Punkvoter has been featured on:

CNBC's Dennis Miller Live interview with Fat Mike, CNN Inside Politics ran an exclusive story, Howard Stern interviewed Fat Mike and over 25 major radio stations have done their own unique Rock Against Bush coverage. Hundreds of newspapers and magazines have written about this punk-rock effort.including Rolling Stone (Current issue w/ Usher), Alternative Press(cover) and CMJ (Cover).

ABOUT ROCK AGAINST BUSH VOL 1

The Rock Against Bush compilation was released on April 20th and is the first of two volumes. The comp consists of 26 songs (17 are unreleased and exclusive) from some of the most notable bands in punk and rock: NOFX, Ataris, Anti-Flag, New Found Glory, Alkaline Trio, Descendents, Ministry, the Offspring, Social Distortion and several more. The Rock Against Bush comp is accompanied by a bonus DVD that is packed with informative material and music videos from bands like Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, and NOFX. There are also trailers from political films Uncovered, Unprecedented, and No More Enrons, and even a piece from comedian and Grammy nominee David Cross! Suggested retail $8.98

Buy this CD/DVD at music stores everywhere or on-line for $6.00 at Fat Wreck Chords:http://www.fatwreck.com/albumdetail.php3?cat_num=675&sd=QKuKENHRMXIAAHed1x0

Defense department not sure about troop levels in the future

Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, testified to the Senate yesterday about the situation in Iraq. He said that it is possible we will need more troops in Iraq in the future, and that he is not sure how long the current force of 135,000 will have to stay.

Here's an excerpt from the story:

"Many authorities on the Middle East and the military warned before the war that Saddam's supporters would melt away before an invasion and return to fight a guerrilla war. Those experts, who included retired Marine general Anthony Zinni, former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to stabilize the country.

Asked by Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat, whether there would still be 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of 2005, Wolfowitz said he did not know. "Our current level is higher than we planned," he said. "It could be more, it could be less."

Nick Confessore on the military draft
From TAPPED:

IT'S DRAFTY IN HERE. A friend of mine who is currently an inactive Army reservist forwarded me some memos he received regarding future mobilizations -- memos that indicate that we are not far from some kind of conscription in the next few years. According to my friend, recruiters are telling inactive reservists that they're going to be called up one way or another eventually, so they might as well sign up now and get into non-Iraq-deploying units while they still can. There's also a "warning order" -- i.e., a heads-up -- from the Army's personnel command that talks about the involuntary transfer of inactive reservists to the active reserves, and thus into units that are on deck for the next few Iraq rotations.

My understanding of how reserve call-ups work is imperfect, but if memory serves, the inactive reservists -- known as the Individual Ready Reserve -- are people who have already fulfilled their term of enlistment but can be called up as individuals if the military needs their particular skills or specialty badly enough. In other words, after a couple of years of dipping into the main reserves -- essentially chewing through them to sustain post-9/11 deployments, the Afghanistan occupation, and then the Iraq invasion -- we're now dipping into the inactive reserves. And if we still need more manpower after that -- well, then we start drafting.

There is no question we do not have enough manpower (among other things) in the active-duty military to sustain our current "operations tempo," as the military wonks call it. And there are many good arguments to be made for reinstating the draft, albeit one that would look very different from the corrupt and unfair Vietnam-era draft. It's worth thinking now about what kind of draft we'd like to see if the need for one becomes inavoidable.

--Nick Confessore
Posted at 11:35 AM

Eminem used against prisoners?

From Allhiphop.com

Two British men detained in the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
allege they were tortured & forced to listen to Eminem at deafening
levels. The men described their abuse in an open letter to George Bush
released by the NY based Center for Constitutional Rights, which is
providing counsel for the men. In December of 2003, a Lebanese man who was
on a pilgrimage to Islamic holy sites & was instead detained by U.S.
troops, made the same accusations.

Rock the Native Vote

A group that we support is organizing a concert to encourage Indian Country to vote.

"One voice, One Community, Developing a Political Consciousness as Native People."

Send us your favorite songs with a political edge

Not that many artists can figure out how to mix politics and dope beats. With the rise of bling-bling and all that, hip hop, for example, is not the same vehicle for political expression that it once was in the era of Public Enemy.

But maybe things are changing...

Send us your favorite current songs with a political bent. Some of ours:

1. Wyclef, If I Was President
2. Black Eyed Peas, Where is the Love
3. Outkast, War

Thinking bigger about voter registration

We got an interesting email from a reader. He points out that in some countries, the government registers people to vote automatically. Why not here?

It is certainly the case that if the government WANTS you to register for something, it does it: think about the draft, or Social Security.

Step back and look at the whole issue in the context of our nation's history. Voter registration itself is really a legacy of the desire to PREVENT people people from voting. You had voter registration so that people who could not vote---and that has meant just about everybody except white men with property at some point in time over our history---would be kept from doing so.

Think about. Voter registration is designed to keep people from voting, not to empower them to vote.

Do you agree?

* * * * * *

Hi -

You guys have such a great organization and such a
wonderful program going. I'm glad someone is doing
this. It's awesome. Oh, and I particularly approve of
the idea of partnering with Ben and Jerry's. That was
cool.

So my question is this...
Are you guys lobbying Congress for any kinds of
reforms?

You know, in almost every other country people are
automatically registered to vote when they reach legal
age. Some countries even require their citizens to
vote (not that it's such a wonderful idea). So why
can't we do something like this in the United States?
Your organization has the peopole power and the
knowledge; it seems like lobbying Congress for such a
law would be one of your projects.

Just a thought.
- IK (name withheld by RTV)