----- Original Message -----
From: SergioL652 at aol.com
In a message dated 8/11/2004 4:32:41 PM Eastern Standard Time,
nathanne at nathannewman.org writes:
>The silliness of the Greens and Nader is that
>they think running in the general election is the only way to influence
>politics, when quite obviously the openness of US primaries gives groups
>the ability for similar influence.
-Right... The way that minority positions were so well represented in the
democratic
-primaries (sarcasm off). The progressives in the DP could not even get
minor
-concessions into the platform.
>From Kerry's website, positions on civil rights:
http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/civil_rights/
"Rigorously Enforce Our Civil Rights Laws- As president, John Kerry will strongly enforce our nation's civil rights laws, support affirmative action to reduce discrimination and expand opportunity, and strongly enforce equal justice for all victims of hate violence. He will also back the Fairness Act to reverse damage done to civil rights laws by right-wing judges and only appoint judges with a record of enforcing the nation's civil rights and anti-discrimination laws."
For those who don't know, the Fairness Act (see http://www.movingideas.org/blitz/fairness.html) is the top civil rights legislative goal, designed to reverse a slew of bad Supreme Court interpretations of the civil rights acts, including restoring protection against discriminatory use of public funds, put punitive damages in the civil rights laws, apply age discrimination laws to the states, ban mandatory arbitration of civil rights claims, and make sure that undocumented workers can get full compensation for any denial of civil or labor rights.
Kerry also calls for earned legalization for undocumented immigrants and restoration of protection for the disabled taken away by the courts.
He also has an extensive gay rights agenda-- yes, not including gay marriage, but including ending all employment discrimination, supporting gays in the military, and a broad set of rights for domestic partners http://www.johnkerry.com/communities/lgbt/equalrights.html
So it's clear that a range of civil rights activists representing a range of minority interests have clear concessions in Kerry's program.
Nathan Newman