After four years, it's time for me to get out of the Eat the State! kitchen a little more. So the Activist Calendar is looking for a new editor. It's a gratifying way to add essential ingredients to ETS!, from the comfort and (relative) privacy of your home computer. But there's glamour and status, too--you'll become an expert in local progressive activities, while adding the occasional witty editorial comment to calendar listings. And the pay... well, for you, we'll double our current calendar editor's salary - twice the gratification for helping to inform and inspire effective action during troubled times. Such a deal! Prospective volunteer calendar editors can contact me at: valeriej8434@hotmail.com. --Valerie Jean

And thanks, Valerie, from all the rest of us, for a truly awesome contribution over the years! --the other eds.

For that matter, we should all say goodbye, just in case. In the two-day interlude between this issue goes to press and when it is printed (and also put on the web), the FCC will hand down its decision on how much of the remaining restraints on corporate media consolidation of ownership it will abandon. Depending on how bad it is, we'll either have a report next issue, or this will be the last issue for all of us, and in two weeks you'll be reading the new Clear Channel-Time-Warner-AOL-Viacom-Westinghouse-Disney-ETS! publication "Shuffleboard Times," featuring in-depth articles and interviews on all your favorite international shuffleboard competition stars. Meanwhile, we'll be in jail under the new (and poorly covered) emergency D.E.M.O.C.R.A.C.Y. Act of 2003 (Draconian Emergency Measures Of Corporate Rapists Aiming to Criminalize You), passed by executive order after the quiet dissolution of Congress and emergency execution of its members earlier that evening.

This is what corporate media execs mean when they say that deregulation gives us "more choice" of media outlets. More choice, yes, of all-shuffleboard formats that reduce life to the trivia that fills time between commercials -- or what the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy once famously described as "500 channels, and still there's nothing worth watching." And still no information on the auctioning off of our culture, our democracy, our souls. The FCC decided on Monday, June 2. Stay tuned. --Geov Parrish

The World Trade Organization, while still suffering from a massive headache following the concussion it received in Seattle in 1999, is meeting in Cancun, Mexico September 10-14 as part of their continuing effort to get the people of the world to finally bow down before the almighty power of corporate capital. Groups in Mexico began planning their resistance last year, although the challenges of organizing in an expensive, trendy island resort like Cancun are numerous. Closer to home, and providing a chance to get some licks in early, the agriculture, trade and environment ministers from 180 WTO nations are meeting in Sacramento, CA June 23-25. Agriculture remains one of the most contentious issues confronting the WTO, and with things like frankenfoods and corporatization of the food supply, it ought to be. The WTO nations are having trouble agreeing on agricultural issues, which is one of the reasons for this pre-Cancun ministerial. And a good reason to show up in Sacramento on behalf of people and planet to help the decision making process along. The meetings themselves are closed to the public (of course), but a coalition of groups is planning educational forums, marches, street theater and non-violent direct actions, etc. For more information see www.biodev.org or www.sacramentoministerial.org . --Troy Skeels

The State Legislature has finished dealing with the income side of the budget. As predicted, the Democrats caved in to the wishes of Gary Locke and the Republicans to draft a budget that would contain "no new taxes." The Republican victory, however, must be tempered by the reality that city and local governments, who won't be receiving much funding from the state, and are (due to unfunded mandates) actually getting a net loss in funding from the feds, are set to raise property taxes and a whole range of fees: from user fees for parks and pools, to permit fees for construction, to the cost of fishing licenses. Add in a boost in the state gas tax and, well, the "no new taxes" mewling of Gov. Locke and the other Republicans in Washington State is not only absurd, but obviously wrong.

Still, there's the expense side of the budget to be hammered out in Olympia, and so far they're using a sledgehammer. Most of the cuts that were detailed in a previous issue of ETS! are now highly likely. In addition, the Dems and Repubs are squabbling over how much to fund the voter-mandated increases in salaries for teachers and home healthcare workers. Neither of these two expenses should even be under the knife; they were, after all, approved by voters and should be mandatory. But only Tim Eyman's initiatives seem to pull any weight with our remedial Legislature, which is eager to approve his revenue cuts, even when his initiatives prove to be unconstitutional. But when unions work to pass legal initiatives to support teachers and healthcare workers, the Republicans are quick to take the knife to them, with only a little squawking from the lame-duck, leaderless Democrats. It's past time to ditch Locke, but who's gonna run against him? Ron Sims? Much good that will do, as King County's messy finances prove.

The budget will have to be settled soon, hopefully by the time this issue of ETS! hits the stands. If not, the Legislature will be facing a terrible problem: the state's revenue forecasters will be issuing the newest revenue forecast on Monday, June 9, and it's expected to be lower than the previous forecast. That will have terrible consequences for the budget process, potentially sending the Legislature back to square one to argue over whether or not to increase the sales tax to cover the additional projected shortfall. At the very least, even if a budget is approved before June 9, the new revenue forecast will be bad news for next year's legislative session, which may have to go through a renegotiation of the budget if the economy doesn't improve. Eventually, the Legislature will have to look at the revenue side again and decide if they're going to keep supporting a regressive sales tax based on a manufacturing economy (when we've moved to a mostly service-based economy) or bite the bullet and propose a state income tax. Right now, they're shirking their duty, both Republicans and Democrats.--Maria Tomchick

While the Legislature pounds away at the budget, Gov. Jellyfish continues to fiddle, spending his time on a doomed quest to attract the new Boeing 7E7 plant to Washington State. It seems everyone but Locke, Patty Murray, and a few Seattle newspeople know that the quest is fruitless. As a state, we've done nothing about the things that bother Boeing chief executives: traffic congestion, pesky unions, high sales taxes (although not on airplane fuel--a giveaway to Boeing that the jerks have never appreciated), or reform of environmental and unemployment tax laws. Now Gov. Locke, in a time of budget woes, has asked the Legislature to dig deep and come up with $16 million to build a new pier and rail facility to handle larger cargo containers at the Everett port--mostly for Boeing's benefit. Locke wants to build the pier regardless of whether we get the contract for the new Boeing plant. Boeing, it turns out, wants to ship bigger containers into Everett because those containers will hold bigger airplane pieces assembled in Japan that can be more quickly put together into complete airplanes in Everett. In other words, Boeing wants to ship more jobs overseas, and Locke's so happy about it that he wants to spend $16 million to help them do it. Next thing you know, Gov. Jellyfish will propose we become an anti-union, "right-to-work" state. It's time for a regime change in Olympia.--M.T.

The betrayal of voter-mandated raises for public school teachers is one of the major reasons one of the Democrat's most powerful union supporters, the Washington Education Association, has announced it will not support Gary Locke for re-election. That leaves the obvious question of "who." Rom Sims, as Maria noted in passing, has been no better in his King County funding priorities. Former state Supreme Court justice Phil Tallmadge is running at Locke from the liberal side -- but if you've never heard of him, add yourself to 98% of Washington voters, including almost all of the Democratic Party activists essential to getting a statewide gubernatorial nomination. Tallmadge is a great example of what you might call the Norm Rice syndrome, of assuming that since he's appeared on ballots and he's a big fish in his own world, he can run a heavily contested election to higher office. Wrong. The biggest reason Locke is being such an asshole is that he thinks it'll improve his national party profile should a Dem ever regain the White House, and there's no down side -- he's confident he can get away with it at the polls. He's probably right, but that shouldn't stop someone from trying to bring him down or at least hold him accountable. His budget choices will, quite literally, kill people. --Geov Parrish

For years, ETS! has run the "Focus on the Corporation" column put out by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor. Mostly we run it as a way to emphasize the corporate side of the state that needs devouring; the content itself, in my opinion, ranges somewhat unevenly from OK to superb. Rarely have I found it truly problematic. But this week's installment is a good example of how out of touch many progressives appear to be with conservative thought.

The theme of the column is why Ari Fleischer should have resigned as Bush's Press Secretary due to Bush's violation of Ari's conscience as a conservative Republican. But not only are the three examples the authors give ones no self-respecting Republican would utter these days, but the most obvious Bush crimes that really are troubling true conservatives are conspicuously missing. Fiscal conservatism should, in fact, appall conservatives -- but the neo-con's patron saint, Ronald Reagan, gained sainthood by the military buildup/tax cut approach that ballooned the national debt to record levels, and Bush is only trying (successfully) to break those records from a standing start. He's also explicitly trying to so bankrupt the federal government that future administrations will never be able to restore his social spending cuts -- a goal sure to warm many conservatives' hearts. Corporate crime? Guiliani, as a federal prosecutor with Wall Street as his beat, was notorious as a camera-poser who sent white collar crooks in the front door of jail and out the back; his predecessor and successor both had better conviction records. And it's hard to find any other examples of well-known Republicans whose tough-on-crime rhetoric applies with equal -- or any -- ferocity to their well-heeled friends. As for environmental protection: Teddy Roosevelt was a century ago, OK?

Meanwhile, progressives can and should be making common cause with true conservatives on several other key issues. Foremost are Bush's alarming concentration of power in the executive branch, secrecy, and assault on civil liberties -- all of which add up to Big Government run more amok than Americans have ever seen before. Also at the top of the list: Bush's egregious misuse of the military. Lots of military and pro-military folks would never question a Commander-in-Chief in time of war, but are incensed at one who abuses basic tenets of war (e.g., "preemptive" attacks, and mistreatment of prisoners of war); puts servicepeople unnecessarily in harm's way by repeatedly lying about the need for war and using it as a first rather than last resort; and baldly using photo-ops to rewrite his own service record. Bush's year of going AWOL from even his own cushy, Daddy-influenced post (at the height of Vietnam) in the Texas Air National Guard makes Clinton's "draft dodging" or the photo of Michael Dukakis (a WWII vet) in a tank appear positively Churchillian.

Bush is an embarrassment to many old-line conservatives, especially non- evangelical Christians. But if progressives can't or won't recognize why that might be the case, and identify the points of common ground in our concern, we're doing nothing but marginalizing ourselves -- and displaying to the rest of America how proudly marginalized we are. --Geov Parrish