LIZ ACCLES Accles is national coordinator for the Welfare Made A Difference National Campaign, which today launched a public education drive. Accles can arrange interviews with current and former welfare recipients; some of their stories are available on the web page. More Information FRANCES FOX PIVEN Piven is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. Her books include The Breaking of the American Social Compact. Piven said today: “The welfare rolls are down and politicians, the media, everyone touts the success of welfare reform. But it…

NOAM CHOMSKY Author of a number of books on international relations, most recently Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs, and Institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chomsky said today: “The UN Millennium Summit has a nice wish list — it calls on governments to do lots of good things like devote resources to eliminating poverty and protect the environment. But the issues that matter can’t simply be solved by most of the countries of the world, they need to be addressed by the richest countries, the U.S. primarily. Its dominance in the world and its…

JAMIN RASKIN Law professor at American University, Raskin represented Ross Perot in 1996, chairs the Appleseed Citizens’ Task Force on Fair Debates and has also advised the Nader campaign on the debate issue. Raskin said today: “While the two major parties are squabbling over details of what kind of debates they want, the full breadth of America is not being represented. The Commission on Presidential Debates has arbitrarily set 15 percent in several national polls as the threshold for appearing in the debates, thus effectively excluding third-party candidates. It’s critical that there be lawful, democratic standards for debate participation, whether…

LARRY BIRNS Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Birns said today: “President Clinton’s waiving of human rights constraints on the Colombian military to enable it to receive over $1 billion in U.S. military assistance is a dangerously provocative step.” Birns, who has spoken with the Colombian president and recently returned from a trip to Bogotá (where he met with several senior national security officials), observed: “While the right-wing military and its associated death squads are responsible for 80 percent of all human rights violations in Colombia, the White House drug czar is increasing the militarization of the anti-drug war…

CHAD HANSON Executive director of the John Muir Project and author of Big Timber’s Big Lie in the current issue of Sierra magazine, Hanson said today: “The fire risk is coming from twigs, shrubs and saplings, material less than four inches in diameter. It’s not a problem that the timber industry in any way can solve. While the anti-environmental Republicans want to use fires as a pretext to continue logging mature forests on public lands to please the timber industry campaign contributors, the administration is proposing an equally destructive and baseless proposal: to cut down all the small and medium…

DEBORAH TOLER Policy analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, Toler said today: “While this latest trip to Africa by Clinton is supposedly about stability and democracy, the corporate agenda also needs to be scrutinized. In exchange for paltry trade benefits, the ‘NAFTA for Africa’ African Growth and Opportunity Act made sub-Saharan Africa the only region in the world now subject to MAI [Multilateral Agreement on Investment] conditions. The recently announced loans from the Export-Import Bank are intended to undermine Brazilian and Indian sales of less expensive generic AIDS drugs and encourage African countries to go even further into debt…

HARVEY WASSERMAN Author of the just-released book The Last Energy War: The Battle Over Utility Deregulation and senior advisor to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Wasserman said today: “Utility deregulation is a $200 billion scam that will gouge both the ratepayer and the environment for decades to come.” CHARLIE HIGLEY Energy research director for Public Citizen and author of the report “Money Harvest: Utility Holding Companies Are Threshing Ratepayers,” Higley said today: “The public has the right to control the electric power industry — reliable and affordable electricity is an absolute necessity in our modern society. Electricity deregulation, which…

DARA SILVERMAN National organizer of United for a Fair Economy, Silverman said today: “At the marches in the street, at trainings and in the Shadow Conventions, the themes of economic inequality and the concentration of corporate power were the basis of almost every message… Already 66 corporations, including AT&T and Raytheon, have given over $50,000 to both Al Gore and George W. Bush’s campaigns for president.” More Information NORMAN SOLOMON Executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Solomon appeared on the PBS “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on Wednesday. He said today: “Let’s face it: Most of the words that…

REV. JAMES LAWSON Pastor emeritus of the Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, a colleague of Martin Luther King Jr. and a protester, Lawson said: “People are continuing the historic way of social change — they are in the streets risking jail and position, working to change the status quo.” GARRICK RUIZ A member of the Direct Action Network in Los Angeles, Ruiz was hit by approximately 10 rubber bullets on Monday evening when police opened fire. He said: “I was trying to get people out of the area while avoiding a stampede, but the police started firing off…

VAN JONES National executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and executive director of Bay Area Police Watch, Jones said: “We have a great deal of concern about the plans of the LAPD given their long history of unlawful police violence and disregard for civil liberties. Both parties have participated in building up larger and larger and less accountable police forces coast to coast, and it’s not surprising that both parties are now relying on those overgrown police forces to stifle dissent.” TRACY KATELMAN Environmental co-chair of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, Katelman said…