Ed’s Note: This is Part II of a four-part interview with Tom Foley, Republican candidate for Governor of Connecticut. After a short interlude next week in which I will write about Spring Awakenings, a musical coming to the Bushnell, I will print the third and fourth parts of the interview with Foley on March 3 and March 10, 2010.

Part I, published the week of February 1, 2010, featured some of Foley’s ideas about voter participation, being an ambassador to Ireland, and UConn’s tuition increase.

This week, Part II of the conversation heads into the other area of Foley’s past that many have expressed concern about: his participation as the Director of Private Sector Development for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from August 2003 through March 2004.

 

Much was written about Tom Foley and his task at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. In the fog of war, you can't always tell what is true.

 

The right-leaning press lauded Foley. "Characters are the backbone of any good story, and the Americans working in Iraq are the finest I have ever met," wrote Noah D. Oppenheim in "Flacks and Hacks in Baghdad: What it's like to Report from Iraq," printed in the December 15, 2003 issue of the Weekly Standard.

 

Oppenheim praised "People like Col. Nate Slate, a man trained his entire life to fire artillery, now doing a miraculous job rebuilding the town of Taji. People like Tom Foley, a multimillionaire financier, now walking the lines at Iraqi shoe factories, helping get an economy off the ground."

 

Obviously, the left-leaning press was harder on him. The socialist People's Weekly World suggested in a November 10, 2003 story that Foley invited "14 Eastern European finance officials to Baghdad to give advice about privatization."

 

In the story titled "As Iraq Death Toll Rises, So Do War Profits," writer Tim Wheeler, quoting the Moscow News, wrote that Foley met in Iraq with Yegor Gaidar, the acting Prime Minister of Russia for much of 1992.

 

Gaidar, a widely respected and criticized politician and economist, laid the foundation for the mass privatization of Russia’s planned Soviet economy. While Gaider averted a civil war, there was also much suffering during this transition to a "free market" system.

 

Foley has no recollection of the meeting with either Yegor Gaidar or the former Soviet Bloc officials.

 

"I think that is erroneous," Foley said, noting that sometimes his name is mistaken for Washington state Democrat Thomas S. Foley, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives in Congress during the first Bush administration.

 

"I don't remember meeting Yegor Gaidar," Foley said. "We had a lot of VIPs who came through from various places, and as a courtesy we would meet with them. That would not have been someone we would have looked to for advice.

 

"We wouldn't have been looking to the Russians to advise us on transition issues in a transition economy," Foley said. "It is possible, if I did meet with him, it didn't have anything to do with policy."

 

Interview with Tom Foley, Part II continued...

 

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley spent 42 minutes on the phone this morning with me answering questions about voter turnout, the role of a U.S. Ambassador, UConn tuition increases and Abu Ghraib.

 

I have split the interview into two, possibly three segments, and will focus this first segment on state issues, and his time in Ireland as U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.

 

The second (and perhaps third) portions will discuss his seven-month stint (August 2003-March 2004) as the Director of Private Development for the Coalition Provision Authority in Iraq.

 

With Governor M. Jodi Rell retiring, at least a dozen candidates have either intimated or outright declared their candidacies for governor. Since the 40-Year Plan has been keeping track, here is the list (in ABC order).

 

Democrats: Former Speaker of the House Jim Amann, Hartford health care activist Juan Figueroa, Simsbury First Selectwoman Mary Glassman, 2006 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Ned Lamont, former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy and Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi. Drop-outs: Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and State Senator Gary LeBeau (East Hartford).

 

Republicans: Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, former Congressman Larry DeNardis (New Haven), Lt. Governor Michael Fedele, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland and member of the Coalition Provisional Authority Thomas Foley, Hartford cheerleader Oz Griebel, Chester First Selectman Tom Marsh, and Newington Mayor Jeff Wright. Drop-outs: None (yet).

 

"It's an open seat," Foley said. "Open seats always attract more candidates on both sides."

 

Foley praised the good omen that was Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts over Democrat Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat.

 

"On the Republican side, people see more energy and the sentiment of voters swinging back to this side of the arena," Foley said. "This will work well for the Republicans, particularly because of Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. This makes anything possible. Nobody thought it was possible for Brown to win Kennedy's seat in December 2009."

 

Voters are looking for answers, Foley said.

 

"We are really in a time of crisis in Connecticut and nationally, voters want to see the government do things and address their concerns," Foley said. "There is a lot of energy and focus from a policy point of view, and it makes it more interesting if you are interested in the process."

 

But, I noted, a lot of people are not interested in the process. The United States is plagued by voter apathy. How does his campaign plan to bring voters to the polls and increase voter participation?

 

"When you have good candidates, they attract people's interest," Foley said. "I think good, articulate candidates make a difference. I think the issues make a difference and draw people to the polls. I think there is going to be a distinct difference between the policy direction of the Republicans and the Democrats. There will be clear choices."

 

Interview with Tom Foley, continued...

 

During the six years I have been writing this column, I criticized, praised and offered ideas. Many times, in the course of critiquing the current order of things, I have been asked, "What exactly do you want?"

 

The thought is that once you figure out what you want, you can determine how to get it. If self-government were only that easy.

 

I have given the "What do you want?" question considerable thought. I am going to spend the next hour (pre-deadline, of course), trying to hash out a reasonable answer, so that the next time I am asked: "What do you want?" I can answer it by saying something other than "This is not about what I want…"

 

If this sounds utopian, who cares? I make no apologies for what I want. I have tried to parse the logical consequences of my policy desires, and account for them. These are in no particular order, because I want them all equally.

 

This is what I want. I may not be able to get them, and some of these may be physiologically impossible given the human genetic makeup, but this is what I want.

 

I want an end to wars – religious wars, resource wars, water wars, information wars, wars on terror, wars on drugs, wars on poverty, war on dictators, wars on people, wars for profit. I want peace. Religious and spiritual tolerance and peace.

 

I want an end to regionalism, factionalism and parochialism. I want an end to colonialism, racism, ageism, sexism, and elitism. I want no flags, false flags or logo flags.

 

In the face of multinational corporations that cross borders with their capital easier than people can migrate to new lands, the nation-state is an out-moded means of social organization. People are not illegal.

 

Furthermore, with the Internet creating a vast repository of human knowledge and the ability to communicate instantaneously, and with the planet itself confronting humans with climate change, which could doom humanity, we need to organize as one people quick.

 

More on my ideas for policy- What Do I Want?....

 

Allawi was a nine year old boy who was one of 17 people murdered in the massacre at Nisour Square in Iraq on September 16, 2007. Blackwater guards opened fire on innocent civilians.

 

Allawi's father Mohammed Kinani on Democracy Now! gave an eyewitness account of the massacre yesterday. Kinani's lawsuit against Blackwater is the only one left standing, after a federal court in Washington, D.C. threw out all the charges against the murderers.

 

Internationally, it is an embarassment for the United States. The Times of India of was one of many globally to condemn not just the massacre, but the lack of liability for it in American courts.

 

I'm wishing the best to Allawi's family, and I hope they get justice. But I am not confident in the federal court system. I should be, though, because we set a trial date of September 20, 2010 for my civil rights lawsuit for false arrest yesterday.

 

Today, of course, is the 38th anniversary of the Bogside Massacre, better known as Bloody Sunday. On Sunday, January 30, 1972, about a month before I was born, British Paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march.

 

Derry sits on the border between partitioned Northern Ireland and Ireland, and because of the Catholic minority gerrymandered into powerlessness in Derry, it was a hotspot during the Troubles.

 

I imagine that my mother read the newspaper on Monday morning and sighed with resignation, like we all do when we hears the news of the latest atrocity. What kind of world was she bringing another child into, I am sure she wondered. Did that any effect on me? Who knows?

 

Growing up, I had some cool older sisters. One of them, Kathy brought home "War," by U2, when I was eleven years old. The album cover portrait of the boy with a bruised lip, rendered in 12 inches because it was vinyl, affected me, but not as much as the music.

 

"This song is not a rebel song, this song is 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'," Bono said on the introduction to "Under a Blood Red Sky," U2's seminal live album from 1983. Larry Mullen, Jr.'s militaristic drum beat kicks in, and the Edge repeats three haunting notes.

 

"I can't believe the news today/ I can't close my eyes and make it go away/How long? How long must we sing this song?" Long before Bono was a tax-dodging millionaire, his plea for peace resonated with me. I felt lucky to be growing up at a time when war did not immediately affect my family or my environs.

 

I didn't learn about the Bogside Massacre at school, but the music captured me. So much that on my first trip to Ireland in June and July of 2007, I made it a point to go to Derry to visit the sacred site where blood of innocents was spilled.

More on The Lost Lessons of Bloody Sunday...

 

The route to transformational politics lies in believing in the power of ideas, Bill Curry, lawyer and politico, told the Connecticut Green Party's monthly statewide meeting at the Portland Senior Center Tuesday, January 26, 2010.

 

"We have to believe that the power of ideas are stronger than the money," Curry said. "You have to believe that your ideas will organize people."

 

The United States was the most powerful force in the world before it had money, armies or even a foreign policy. The American revolution, fueled by ideas of egalitarianism, equality and liberty, toppled monarchies across Europe. This is the power of ideas that we need to harness now, Curry said.

 

With a hint of resignation about the current political configuration in America, Curry's visit to the Green Party represents a milestone. For months, even years, Curry has said that the two major political parties in America are the Greens and the Libertarians, as their ideas align most with the majority of the American peoples.

 

However, the collusion between the Democrats, Republicans and corporations prevents those ideas from gaining traction in the political information war of the early 21st century.

 

Curry isn't the first statewide political figure from the two major parties to meet with the Greens. Republican state representative Diana Urban met with the Greens in the Portland Library when she was considering running an anti-war candidacy for the U.S. Senate should Lamont have lost to Lieberman in the primaries.

 

While Urban ended up switching parties to become a Democrat, and never married with the Greens, the exigencies that prompted the visit from Curry remain. As Curry put it, the Democrats and Republicans may not get along, but they have slowly become infused in the corporate state that is the American government.

 

Curry told the crowd of 18 or so people, including Green Party faithful, new Green Party members, and John Mertens of the Connecticut for Lieberman party, who was stumping to become the Green Party nominee for U.S. Senate, that the time is ripe for the ideas of a third party to take center stage in the American political scene.

 

"The kind of change you are I are talking about requires real political parties," Curry said. "Real political parties build constituencies behind ideas."

 

The Democratic Party, he said, is a mere shell, with town committee meetings resembling Madame Tussaud's wax museum more than active debate.

 

While he hoped that the Green Party could fill that role, he warned that the Green Party was not there yet. Policies drive progress and organization, he said.

 

The Green Party, Curry said, has to work out internally policy ideas, and the actual blueprint for what this transformational politics will look like. "People will buy it, they just don't know it is available," he said.

 

Read More on Bill Curry and the Power of Ideas...

 

This is a shout-out to Miss Emma Rose, wherever she may be. The assessor's database for Hartford says she has lived at 135 Tower Avenue in Hartford since 1959, and for many of those years, she also served as a librarian at Sands Elementary School.

 

Like a good librarian, she kept at least one newspaper and magazine clipping file about black liberation and American history, many of them from magazines she received at her home. I know this because I now possess 30 years’ worth of news clippings that she thought important enough to give to a dear family friend.

 

Miss Emma Rose's gray oaktag folder contains weekly news magazine covers, editorial cartoons from the Hartford Times, and creased pages from the New York Herald Tribune featuring epic moments from the civil rights movements. She even saved a 1961 Harper's Magazine Essay by James Baldwin about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s future challenges.

 

For a lifelong newspaper junkie and archivist, this was a gift from heaven, during the week of MLK's birthday, no less. A blessed friend unearthed Miss Emma Rose's amazing archive from her storage facility this week, and suggested I do something with it.

 

When I opened the musty packet, the first headline to greet me was "Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks". This undated clip, cut out in a neat rectangle and pasted onto a thick black construction paper, featured MLK quotes from 1958 and 1964.

 

"The determination of Negro Americans to win freedom from all forms of oppression springs from the same deep longing that motivates oppressed people all over the world," King said somewhere, sometime in 1958.

 

In 1964, King said "As one approaches the emancipation of today’s Negro from all those traumatic ties that still bind him to slaveries other than the physical, this half-forgotten system that bartered dignity for dollars stands as a painful reminder of the capacity of society to remain complacent in the midst of injustice."

 

At first, when browsing the articles and collection, including a 1963 special section of the Hartford Times called "The Negro in Hartford" by a young Don Noel, I didn't see a rhyme or reason to Miss Emma Rose's collection.

 

Leafing through the pages, the clips seemed disparate. I found an editorial cartoon of a black man being hauled into a paddy wagon by white cops by Hartford Times cartoonist Ed Valtman from 1967. As the black prisoner looks over his shoulder at his crying wife, who holds a baby, he says "Don't Worry, I'm on my way to better housing."

 

Perhaps this cartoon applied to the column I wrote two weeks ago, about the police brutality from the Welfare Incident in Asylum Hill in 1966. But the date, and the prisoner's coy smile, played off the frowning police officers seemed to play to stereotypes of irresponsible black men feeding off the system, leaving their women to fend alone.

 

Read More from Miss Emma Rose's Archive...

UPDATE, 1/24/10: In the 10 days since I actually wrote this piece, I realized I forgot one Republicans, business cheerleader Oz Griebel, and another three GOPers announced in this time frame.

CTLocalpolitics has the poop on Mark Boughton, xenophobic Danbury mayor, Jeff Wright, Newington Mayor and Tom Marsh, First Selectman of Chester.

 

When I started writing this column three days ago, exactly 10 people had announced candidacies for the Connecticut gubernatorial race.

 

The next day, there were nine, then there were 10 again. If you’re having trouble keeping up with the shifting political landscape as players struggle to fill the power vacuum left by departing incumbents, you’re not alone.

 

To sort all this out, I am going to list all the candidates who have so far expressed interest in running for governor in 2010.

 

With some candidates displaying self-centered opportunism and a lack of dignity and integrity in chasing higher office, it’s easy to become cynical about the nascent gubernatorial contest, which is still 10 months away.

 

Yet at the same time, these large crop of candidates brings with it a dose of optimism that yes, this is good for self-governance, this means healthy debate and exciting ideas will be exchanged. I’m not saying this will happen, but it’s good to hope.

 

Even more reason for optimism is the calcification that petrified the upper-echelons of executive office since 1994 has softened.

 

Without further ado, here is a rundown of the candidates, some of whom will be shuffled again in a few weeks, for sure.

 

Read about the candidates, after the jump...

 

Wandering around the stacks of the UConn law library during a study break recently, I chanced upon a slim volume entitled "The Welfare Incident: A Lost Opportunity." Intrigued, I picked it up.

 

Published on February 28, 1968 by the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, the report details the events of September 14, 1966.

 

On this date occurred the so-called "Welfare Demonstration Incident" in front of the offices of the Commissioner of the State Department of Welfare, 1000 Asylum Avenue, Hartford. The following report, to me, seems apropros, considering that Sunday, January 3, 2007 was three years to the day that I was thrown in jail by members of the Hartford Police Department and the Connecticut State Police for suggesting protest activity.

 

I understand that Asylum Hill in the turbulent 1960s was a hotbed of radicalism. Some long-time Hartford residents who read these pages may recognize the events, and if they do, I would love to hear from you.

 

Having never heard of "The Welfare Incident," and being extremely partial to and curious about any event referred to as an "Incident," I opened the report on "The Welfare Incident." According to the first page, written by Arthur L. Green, then the Director of CHRO, the report represents months of study, more than one hundred interviews and review of film and tape taken during the incident.

 

The report begins with an introduction, which I shall reprint much of, as it presents an excellent, short summary:

"On September 14, 1966, a march was made to the offices of the State Welfare Commissioner. The march was generally composed of minority group persons, both Negroes and Puerto Ricans, many of whom were welfare recipients and other poor persons.

"The marchers also included clergymen, college students and others who work with poor and minority group people of who identified with the purposes of the march. In addition, there were some representatives of civic and public services organizations.

On Unearthing the Welfare Incident, con't...

Editor's Note: Joe Santana sent this to me in December 2009, and we printed it in the Hartford News in December while I was studying for exams. I am finally putting it up now.

When Joe sent this, he included a personal letter telling me that he is really hoping that he can get out and get his associate's and bachelor's degree and become a teacher. Joe, I'm rooting for you. We all want you to succeed, and I hope this helps you get to your goals.

Joe has been transferred from HCCC to Gardner Correctional in Newtown, and it looks like he will be getting a long stint on his violation of probation charges. He was under a microscope for publishing items here and in the Hartford News, and he apparently made a mistake and was transferred to a higher security facility.

I haven't had a chance to talk to him, this is what I am told from friends and family. I look forward to hearing from him, and when I do, I will post an update.

 

55 days it took for the medical unit here to finally respond to my paper request form. I was on my bed reading The Cider House Rules by John Irving when my cell door opened.

 

If it were a Monday, then my assumption would be that my counselor was calling me down for a legal phone call to my public defender. But it was a Friday afternoon, and the whole facility had been in locked down since Monday.

 

If I were familiar with the medical unit, I would’ve recognized that Fridays are sick call days. Sick call is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a call out to the sick.

 

As the cell door opened, I decided that putting Mr. Irving’s book down would be the smart thing to do. Mind you, in a cell, at H.C.C., during lockdown, is nothing like a regular day.

 

The cell doors open all the time. For breakfast, recreation, lunch, recreation, dinner, recreation, then one more open window of recreation.

 

So I flung the book across my mattress in a hurry to get out of the cell I have been kept in since Monday. That’s four days of no shower and no communication with anybody.

 

I rushed out of my bed, put my khaki pants on, brushed my teeth and grabbed my inmate identification card in under 60 seconds. When I stepped out of the cell, I heard the usual from the other inmates.

 

“Where you going?” and “Why you out of your cell?” I gave everyone the “I don’t know” shrug and kept it moving towards the command center of this floor.

 

Letter from Inside the Belly, Part III, top...

 

Jon Lender at the Courant this morning has a piece about my lawsuit: "Activist Claims State Police Engaged in 'Political Spying' Online." Specifically, the story discusses e-mails I recovered from a variety of Freedom of Information Act requests I did in connection with the CT State Police and my arrest from January 3, 2007.

 

These e-mails show that the Connecticut State Police use fake e-mail adresses to monitor political activists, parties and protests. Lender and the Courant did not put the documents up online, and I'd like everyone to have an opportunity to read them and draw their own conclusions.

 

Of course, the last sentence is always the most important:

Krayeske, now a law student, also said Rell's chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, forwarded to the state police governor's security detail an e-mail that a state employee had sent to her, in which Krayeske had advertised a civil rights rally on the steps of the Supreme Court Jan. 30, 2007, while his criminal case was still pending. Krayeske cited it as another indication of improper scrutiny of political activity. Rell's office declined comment on the allegation.

So, for your viewing pleasure, as posted above, I offer a few of the documents showing "eforpeace@hotmail.com" and the Lisa Moody e-mail (download it here).

For identification purposes, Lt. Greg Chelso was the head of the Governor's Security Unit in 2006. The eforpeace@hotmail.com on John DeStefano is first. I spoke with Gabriela Campos, Dan Piper and Mark Rutkowski, all members of the Central Connecticut State University Progressive Student Alliance, and none of them know an "Earl Williams," the name to whom the email is "registered."

 

For additional ID purposes, look at the names on Campos' post to the CCSU_PSA forum - Dave Pudlin, Evelyn Mantilla, David Blitz, Dave Ianno, Dan Piper, Dave McCluskey and Danny Strahanich. And, oh yeah, DeStefano's chief of staff, Shawn Matteson. Why do state police need to know what elected officials like McCluskey are up to?

 

Then one of Chelso's google blog alerts set to receive any blog posting saying "jodi rell" then is the Lisa Moody email to the state police.

I sent the email on January 26, 2007, and I bet many people here got a copy. I sent it to everyone in my email list, including Carol Wilson, a Department of Administrative Services employee who had previously shown interest the40yearplan.com.

 

Despite Wilson's comments "he just won't leave me alone," according to an FOIA request on her email inbox, the last time I had emailed her prior to January 26, 2007 was April 2006, and she responded positively about attending a forum I was hosting at La Paloma Sabanera.

Below is the entirity of the first FOIA request I did to the CT State Police, which shows the first "theseriousbrother@yahoo.com" e-mail (at page 32). The email address is blacked out because it is an investigatory technique not otherwise known. Download the entire .pdf here.

 

State Police E-mail spying on Activists