Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 31, 2000Volume 28, Number 26



In her talk at the President's House, Arianna Huffington decried the nation's drug war, which she said is "fundamentally unjust" to minority populations.



Huffington says vote for 'none of the above'

Radical action is required by "average" American citizens to "cleanse" the political system and "take back" democracy from the special interest groups that control it, political commentator and author Arianna Huffington said during a campus visit as a guest of Branford College.

A precipitous decline in voting rates, particularly among college-age students, signals that the nation has reached "a crisis in democracy," she told her audience at a tea at the President's House hosted by Branford College master and political science professor Steven B. Smith. A "movement" is needed to fight the "perception that voting doesn't matter," said Huffington in her talk, titled "How to Overthrow the Government."

She called upon members of her audience to take a number of steps to protest the "corrupt" political system and reclaim democracy. She urged them to hang up on pollsters and vote "none of the above" in the upcoming presidential election if their choice between Al Gore and George W. Bush would be a pick of "the lesser of two evils."

The reason Americans should not participate in polls is because their results "drive" policy, yet the young, the poor and minorities are underrepresented in them, Huffington said. In fact, under 30% of the nation's citizens bother to respond to pollsters, and most of them are "bored and lonely Americans," she told her audience.

"The next time you get a call [from a pollster] during the middle of your dinner, simply hang up on them," Huffington suggested. "Politicians don't do anything without consulting polling results. We cannot do anything about their addiction, we cannot do anything about the demand side, but we can do something about the supply side. We can dry up that supply. Politicians would have to acknowledge that poll results are useless and, therefore, they will have to start thinking for themselves, which is going to be really hard at first because those muscles have atrophied."

So far, about 20,000 Americans have responded to her recent book, also titled "How to Overthrow the Government," by pledging to hang up on pollsters, said Huffington. She offered her audience members a "manifesto" listing 11 actions cited in the book, including refusing to talk to pollsters, that Americans can do to restore a truly democratic political system.

A vote of "none of the above" for president," Huffington explained, is a "protest vote" that shows "you don't want to settle" and that "you believe [the candidates] do not adequately represent our democracy."

"Do you known anyone who is excited about either of them? If you do, let me know, because I am concerned about their mental stability," she quipped.

She described both Bush and Gore as politicians unable to launch real reform in government or "take risks," and said that "it won't really matter" which one wins because there is so little difference between them. "Both are beholden to corporate interests," Huffington said.

In fact, the catering of politicians to special interests has resulted in an American system of government in which there no longer is a difference between the two major political parties, Huffington said.

"I frankly believe that the distinctions between right and left are obsolete; the distinctions between conservative and liberal are obsolete," she commented.

In her talk, the commentator and syndicated columnist identified two national "crises." One is that America is fast becoming two nations -- one represented by the prosperous, which is the group "all politicians speak to," she said, and the other made up of "the 36 million Americans living below the poverty line" and "college kids burdened with credit card debt."

Another crisis, she said, is the federal government's drug war, which she described as a "$40 billion-a-year disaster" that is "fundamentally unjust." She pointed out that a person arrested for possession of five grams of crack cocaine gets a mandatory five-year jail sentence, while possession of 500 grams of powdered cocaine carries the penalty of probation. Noting that there are two million people in jail in America, Huffington said that 60% of drug offenders in jail are African Americans.

"To me, it's so unjust. If you are a middle-class kid from Yale, you get a second chance if you get caught with drugs. But if you are an African-American kid from the inner city, you don't. You become a felon, and just try to rebuild your life as a felon," said Huffington, who advocates the abolishment of mandatory sentencing for drug offenses.

Huffington told audience members that the encouraging news is that they can make their voices be heard on important issues.

"Direct action, protest, civil disobedience campaigns -- they really do work," emphasized Huffington, noting how protesters at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle undermined the agenda there, and a group of just 200 AIDS activists have pressured Al Gore into taking a stand on the issue of generic antiviral AIDS drugs in South Africa.

Among the other issues she encouraged her audience to fight for in order to change the political system are same-day voter registration and Internet voting, and the public funding of political campaigns.

"We have the power, we just have to exercise it," stated Huffington.

--- By Susan Gonzalez


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Bible scholars joining Divinity School faculty

Alumni's films featured in festival


Pundits ponder what's wrong with America

Architecture Dean Stern appointed to Hoppin chair

Stern's design for Harlem River boathouse cited by NYC art commission

Sierra Leone minister calls for U.S. assistance

Chubb Fellowship honors noted Latin musician

Colin Gay named Taft Assistant Professor of Physics

Exhibit highlights area's Gothic Revival buildings

Conference will examine Ukrainian politics

Goldblatt is reappointed as master of Pierson College

Fishermen's 'New Yorker' to hold first annual benefit dinner

School of Music event celebrates its string program

Miniconference marks the 30th anniversary of coeducation

Herbert Mudie, leader of Yale's Y2K effort, dies

Managing conserved Maine forest land will be topic of discussion

Spring Fever: A Photo Essay

Goldman-Rakic honored by Dutch university

Paul Gilroy will discuss his new book

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