Progressive Alaska and Don Young

The recent disclosure by the U.S. Department of Justice of some of the documents pertaining to the upcoming sentencing of ex-Veco chief, Bill Allen, have named a Representative "A" as being a recipient of a lot of unreported donations from Allen, his subordinate Rick Smith, from Veco and from others connected to Allen.

Rep. Don Young (AK-AL) is obviously Representative "A."

I've been writing about Don Young since long before Progressive Alaska existed. Just over three years ago, during the 2006 campaign, I wrote a long essay for Down with Tyranny, that attempted to compile the most information under one title yet on Young. It was called Don Young's Connections to Jack Abramoff. Some of the speculation in that article - about probable further arrests of people who were or had at one time been close to Young - came to pass. In early 2008, I again wrote an article for DwT, about Young's abrasive midwinter tour of Alaska.

On November 17, 2007, shortly after the startup of PA, I wrote about disclosures tying Young to Rick Smith of Veco, and about phone conversations between the two, recorded by the FBI, as they were investigating the possibility that Veco was laundering money to Young through golf tournament activities. This was based on an Associated Press report and a Talking Points Memo article.

Here's a listing of many Don Young articles that have appeared at PA since November 2007, and their subject matter. For interested reporters and bloggers, they're all chock full of links to other peoples' work on Young:

1) November 25, 2007: Don Young Bipolar Disorder at the ADN. Compares articles by Erika Bolstad and Wes Loy on Young. Loy reported "on earmarks in the Bering Sea King crab fishery that give distinct advantages to three companies which have donated to Young's campaigns, and penalizes companies that have not donated."

2) December 18, 2008: Locked, Loaded and Looney. Discusses Young's last-minute, illegal changes to the 2005 Transportation Omnibus Bill, Sen. Tom Coburn's request for an investigation of the changes, and Diane Benson's earlier request to the U.S. House for an investigation.

3) December 20, 2007: More Don Young Bipolar Disorder at the ADN? Compares differing versions of Bolstad's story on Coburn's move in the Washington DC McClatchy bureau, and in the ADN, and shows how the ADN quickly hid the story.

4) February 1, 2008: Advice to Don Young's Staff - Start Looking for Work... Discussed the large drop in contributions to Young's campaign in late 2007, in light of more disclosures about his rapidly growing legal fees.

5) February 4, 2008: Don Corleone Young? Discusses and links to Terry Haines' excellent wrap-up of Young's situation, published at The Alaska Report.

6) February 19, 2008: Throwing Rocks at an Obvious Target? Discusses the AK-AL debate between Diane Benson, Ethan Berkowitz and Jake Metcalfe, when they discussed Young's mounting legal problems.

7) February 22, 2008: Don Young, Spineless Corrupt Bastard. Discusses Young's weird, truncated Mat-Su Valley press appearances two days earlier.

8) March 12, 2008: Don Juan Young? Comparison of Robert Dillon fluff piece on Young from DC with the way Young reacted to the press in his February Alaska appearances.
9) March 23, 2008: The New Shape of the AK-AL U.S. House Race. The article looked at the new dynamics in that race, after then-Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell's announcement that he would challenge Young in the 2008 GOP Primary.

10) April 15, 2008: This Couldn't Have Happened without Don Young. Links to material about Young's pivotal role in the creation of the Chinese mob-run slave worker regime in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.

11) April 16, 2008: Why Isn't This Man Happy? Compared the wealth of newly emerging material on Young's probable criminal activity.

12) April 20, 2008: Hats Off to Dennis Greenia and Richard Mauer. Discusses the interesting collaboration between ADN reporter Richard Mauer, and DailyKos diarist Dengre.

13) November 3, 2008: Don Young Supporters Can't Avoid Sliming Ethan Berkowitz. Late campaign dirty tricks.

14) November 4, 2008: Alaskans for Clean Elections Respond to Young Campaign Smear. More on Young supporters' dirty tricks.

15) January 3, 2009: Young-Berkowitz Race One of the Ten Biggest 2008 Upsets.

16) January 10, 2009: AK-AL 2010 Democrats Poll Results & Runoff Poll. Matchup of Alaska Democrats for the AK-AL 2010 seat.

17) April 15, 2008: April 15th Wasilla Teabaggers Rally. Nice pictures of Don.

18) April 16, 2008: Don Young on Socialism - From The Alaska Report. Video by Dennis Zaki from the Wasilla Teabaggers Rally.

19) September 12, 2008: How Much Does Don Young Have to Grab Before He'll Accept That His Work for the State of Alaska is Done? Criticizes Young's moves since he was stripped of his GOP House posts. Guest post by Howie Klein.

There were other articles about Don Young at PA, but these are most of the major ones, and a few that add depth to certain issues.

Progressive Alaska covered Young less in the late summer and fall of 2008, than earlier. Like many in Alaska, I believed the polling that showed Ethan Berkowitz a solid favorite in the race. And since the 2008 U.S. House gains by Democrats and the House GOP move to strip Young of his posts, he has been very marginal. And there has been no lack of other issues to address. I expect he will be back in the news a lot, though. Real soon.

When I first became involved in finding out more about Young, back in July 2006, as I volunteered to help Diane Benson, I told her, "You're one phone call from the FBI away from being our next U.S. Representative."

I thought that call was going to come a long time ago.

I've never stopped thinking that it will eventually come.

image adapted from DZ

UA Prof. Rick Steiner on Democracy Now on His NOAA Program De-funding

More on this soon, but it is truly fitting that Prof. Steiner's long-term, ongoing siege is aired nationally the same day music I dedicated to him 16 years ago, Shadows, is premiered in Spokane, Washington.

Watch the 2009 Alaska Federation of Natives Conference on the Web

Here's the link.

This may be one of the most important AFN gatherings in its history.

Cenk Uygur Hearts John Ziegler?

Well..... not quite. But he raises some interesting points.

Earlier this week, progressive commentator Cenk Uygur, from the talk video/webcast The Young Turks, covered conservative mockumentarian John Ziegler's ejection from the Western Conservative Political Action Caucus convention last Saturday.

Uygur, observes that his program has asked some of the same questions posed by Ziegler to CPAC head, David Keane:



OK. But maybe Cenk should have watched this YouTube, made last May, when Ziegler failed to object to the ejection of Anchorage Press reporter, Brendan Joel Kelley, from the sparsely attended Anchorage showing of Ziegler's propaganda piece, Media Malpractice:


I'll email a link to the Kelley ejection video to Cenk.

Essentially, Ziegler - once again - shows his rank hypocrisy.

Heroic Women Artists - Part Three - Diane Benson's Central Role in Alaska's Future

Thursday at noon, you will be able to watch the movie For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska on your computer. Or - possibly - on your Alaska cable-connected or satellite-connected TV. It will be shown during the luncheon of the opening day of the 2009 Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, being held at Anchorage's D'enaina Center.

The movie, produced by Jeffrey Silverman, and directed by the late Phil Lucas, centers on two heroic women in Alaska's past - Alberta Schenck Adams and Elizabeth Peratrovich. These two Alaska Natives challenged the territorial civil rights paradigm during World War II that continued to give Alaska Natives second- or third-class citizen status here at the same time our first people were fighting very hard to defeat the enemies of the USA.

Tlingit civil rights activist, political maverick and multi-faceted artist, Diane Benson, created a play eight years ago, based on the story of Elizabeth Peratrovich's winning battle. Benson's play and her research for it serve as important parts of the material incorporated by Silverman into the movie. Benson plays Peratrovich in the film.

Benson's own son's almost fatal injuries in late 2005, while serving as a paratrooper for the U.S. Army in Iraq - after his enlistment had expired - severely curtailed Benson's continuing and maturing artistic creativity, as she crafted two campaigns to unseat Alaska's sole representative in the U.S. House, Don Young.

Although Benson has sometimes been quite outspoken when asserting Alaska Native rights or defending her own tribe, clan and moiety, her longtime work on behalf of victims of sexual abuse and violence remained fairly secret until a now-hidden article by Anchorage Daily News reporter, Lisa Demer, was published on May 1, 2008:

She told the crowd in the Hilton Anchorage ballroom that she was repeatedly sexually abused in Alaska foster care, that when she was a young teenager and went to the police, a Ketchikan officer not only didn't pursue charges but said he wanted to get in on it, and that she was raped three times by age 20. She didn't even try to report those, she said.

[Benson] said she's talked publicly about her experiences for a dozen years at [confidential - see note below] victim conferences around the country, though the rapes might be news to people in Alaska. It's not the kind of thing she'd bring up as a campaign strategy, she said. She talks about the worst times of her life to offer hope to other women, she said.

"If I can be a person who can get out there and do what I do, after this violent, neglectful and abusive kind of history and still demand my dignity, find my self-respect, after all of it, so can somebody else," Benson said.

When Benson opened her 2008 campaign Anchorage office, I watched her dance Tlingit dances for the first time since her son. Latseen, was injured. When a bunch of us held a fundraiser for Celtic Diva and Writing Raven to attend the 2008 Democratic National Convention, I watched and heard Diane sing a Tlingit song for the first time since Latseen was hurt.

Thursday I won't be able to be there and watch Diane play the role of Elizabeth Peratrovich on the screen, in front of hundreds of her Alaska Native brothers and sisters. I'll be teaching at UAA.

But I'll be there, the next day and the next, to help Diane carry forth her vision of Alaska's sustainable future.

Heroic Women Artists - Part Two - Deborah Fink Vindicated

British human rights activist and soprano, Deborah Fink, was cleared of London Police charges last week, in the matter of her arrest and detainment last May, during a protest against a visit there by Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

Debbie's arsenal has a lot of weapons: the music of cabaret songs (which she sings, with her own anti-war lyrics), a visit to Israel and the occupied territories, where she has worked in the olive groves, and the poetry of University of Alaska professor, Linda McCarriston (set to my music).

In the May 12 episode, however, she was arrested at a bagel throwing incident:

The Israeli minister's visit had been kept quiet right up to the last minute, and no communique was to be issued after the talks. But on the Tuesday evening, hearing that he had been invited to a reception with heads of the Jewish National Fund (JNF),the main Zionist fundraising outfit, Jewish peace activists managed to trace the Hampstead venue and turn up to demonstrate. The JNF,described in the Guardian as a "humnitarian and environmental charity", was founded to assist Jewish settlement in Palestine, and been kept going since the Israeli state was established 61 years ago, not only as a means of raising funds but because it could exclude Arab farmers and workers from its land, and eradicate trace of former villages, while the State and governments denied official discrimination. Lieberman would be less hypocritical. But Gordon Brown meanwhile is a registered patron of the JNF,which is a registered British charity.

As guests arrived at the home of JNF chairman Samuel Hayek, some demonstrators threw bagels (stale I hope) at them. Protesters denounced Lieberman as a racist, and compared him with the fascist BNP. Lieberman’s security guards delayed his arrival until the demonstration had been dispersed by police.

Deborah resisted:

Demonstrators who refused to move away sat down, but police waded in and forcibly dragged them away. Debbie Fink, who had remained standing with the banner of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods was arrested, and taken away in handcuffs. Debbie, an operatic singer and music teacher was held overnight at Holborn police station, before being released on bail. I understand she may be charged with assaulting two police officers.

She was charged with assaulting one of them. On October 6th, Debbie was exonerated:

A Jewish peace activist was today found not guilty of using threatening and abusive words and behaviour and of assaulting a police officer.

Deborah Fink, a founder of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods was arrested on May 12th while protesting against the visit of Avigdor Lieberman, the right wing former nightclub bouncer, now foreign minister of Israel.

About 15 mainly Jewish protesters, between the ages of 25 and 70, had gathered outside a house in a residential street in South Hampstead where Lieberman was due to attend a garden party organised by the Jewish National Fund. Claiming that the demonstration posed a security risk, police officers demanded that the protestors move. When they refused, the police lifted and dragged protestors to a cordoned area largely out of sight of the venue.

Fink was vocal in her objections and put up a strong physical resistance when the police tried to move her, whereupon she was arrested. Fink, who is 5 foot 3, was later accused of assaulting one of the 6 foot tall officers.

However, dismissing the charges, District Judge Baker ruled that in the circumstances, the police had no power to require the protestors to move and certainly not to move them by force. The demonstrators were protesting peacefully and posed no threat to public order. They had taken advantage of Mr Lieberman’s visit to express their support for Palestinian human rights and disapproval of events in Gaza but had not sought to stop anyone from attending the garden party. In preventing Fink and her fellow protestors from exercising their fundamental right to protest, the police had not been acting in the execution of their duty.

Deborah has been singing parts of my cantata, The Skies are Weeping, to raise money to rebuild the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. It was destroyed, along with every other Gaza hospital, in Operation Cast Lead last winter. Although materials for rebuilding of this Christian hospital have been procured, the Israelis are not letting them into Gaza.

At those fundraisers, Deborah has sung the song I set to this poem by Linda McCarriston:

God the Synecdote in His Holy Land i.m. Rachel Corrie

Around you the father gods war. This
Father. That father. The other father.

What more dangerous place could
A woman stand, upright, than on that sand, as if
She were still antiphon to that voice, the other
Mind of that power. The very idea!

Crush her back in to her mother!
Crush her. Crush her. Consensus. War.

Here is a recording of Deborah Fink singing the song.

Sen. Begich This Morning on Health Care Reform & Economic Recovery

Go, Sen. Franken!

The two most courageous U.S. Congress Freshmen - Rep. Alan Grayson and Sen. Al Franken:

Heroic Women Artists - Part One - Chiwoniso Maraire and Sahar Afarin

While researching aspects of the music of Afghanistan, I happened upon Youtubes of and an interview with the young Afghan singer, Sahar Afarin. She sings songs from many of the cultures in and around Afghanistan.

The efforts by women musicians, singers and artists, in many parts of the world, to be allowed to freely express themselves are sometimes astounding, often heart-rending, and always tales in perseverance.

The web site freemuse.org, which documents struggles for freedom of expression worldwide, has a short interview with Sahar Afarin. It also has interviews with dozens of other artists from around the world, describing their struggles to sing or play their art freely, in the face of one oppressive structure or another.

One of the artists interviewed by freemuse.org is Chiwoniso Maraire. Maraire is American, born in Olympia, Washington. Her father, the legendary ethnomusicologist and mbira player, Dumisani Maraire, was sometimes a guest at KRAB radio in Seattle, when I worked there in the early and mid-1970s.

An expert on many musical topics, from Shona music to the quickly moving currents in African hip hop, Chiwoniso Maraire is well-known as an advocate for open borders, women's rights and freedom of expression. Commenting on the status of artists in Zimbabwe, Maraire said, "I don't think the artists are going to stop speaking. If anything, there is going to be more artists speaking. From what I can see, definitely. So long as there's arrests and everything.... we will keep talking."

Here is a Youtube of her, singing Wandirasa:


Here she is, with Kris Kristofferson, in Oslo, for 2008's Music Freedom Day:


And here is Sahar Afarin, singing in Kabul this past spring:

Grayson's Anatomy

Speaking of "Number One Target," it might be time to dust off my Don Young opposition files from 2006 and 2008.