AMY GOODMAN: Senator Bob Dole steamrolled through New York and turned due south for Super Tuesday contests against Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. His remaining rivals brushed aside pointed entreaties from Dole, after his impressive New York showing yesterday, to direct their fire at President Clinton. But Buchanan continues his attacks on Dole, labeling him the biggest taxer in the history of the Republican Party. Forbes says Dole is usurping his ideas about a simplified tax code. Yesterday, Dole snared all 93 delegates at stake here in New York, even though more than half of those voting, according to exit polls, feel that the Senate leader lacks new ideas. Forbes spent more than $2 million on the New York race, but it turns out, after a recount, that he didn’t win a single delegate. Pat Buchanan largely ignored New York and was shut out in the hunt for delegates. Dole’s New York showing brought his national delegate total to 382. Forbes has 72, Buchanan 62, with 996 needed to clinch the nomination.

For a bit of reaction to the New York primary, but, more importantly, some creative opposition and creative thoughts and ideas that are being put forward by women around this country, we’re going to turn next to former Congressmember Bella Abzug. But before we do that, we wanted to share a little of this.

SANDY RAPP: [singing “Hats Off to Bella”] I’ve got a TV, looks into time,
Across the planets to where you can find
A reincarnate U.S. of A.
Which enjoys a certain shift of focus you might say.

Choice is a given, an ipso fact
Chief Justice Barbara Jordan’s got a handle on that.
And when the band plays “Hail to the Chief”
President Abzug appears on the screen.

And they sing: Hats off to Bella, kudos to her,
Top of the morning, top of the world,
The Stars and Stripes, the red, white and blue,
President Abzug, here’s to you!

AMY GOODMAN: Well, President Abzug, how does that sound to you?

BELLA ABZUG: Thats very cute. That’s that great song by Sandy Rapp. It’s a great album that she’s got on CD and on tape, which has some really terrific songs.

AMY GOODMAN: We only wish that Barbara Jordan could be enjoying it with you, too.

BELLA ABZUG: Yeah, I wish she were. Yeah, great loss.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Bella, it doesn’t look like that’s happening in 1996 —

BELLA ABZUG: No.

AMY GOODMAN: — at least according to what we see in New York. Before we go on to the Contract with Women of the U.S.A., can you give us a brief reaction to the primary yesterday here in New York? Does it mean anything to you, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole sweeping New York, Forbes saying he’s going to stay on to the end, Buchanan in there still as they head on to Super Tuesday?

BELLA ABZUG: Well, you know, the Republican Party is in disarray, and that’s because their program is in disarray and their candidates are in disarray. I mean, you’re going — you know, as I said, I pity the party in the sense that they’ve got Bob Dole, who was probably 22.6% stronger than Sominex. And they’ve had to reject Buchanan, who has represented the ugly right-wing assault on all kinds of Americans in this country. And what’s left is Forbes, who has a tax-saving plan that will again benefit the rich. So, I mean, I think they’re in disarray. And there has been, as a result of all of this, a clear picture that the administration, with its programs, which tries to address itself to people, will be reelected. I think that the Dole thing also shows the kind of control that the Republican Party exercised here by keeping other people off the ballot. And that’s the kind of government they’ll probably run, of control and right-wing major focus, which I think, unfortunately, Dole has allowed himself to yield to, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something before we go on to the Contract with Women of the U.S.A., and that is a question I’ve asked to a lot of people over the last few weeks. Do you think Buchanan is really the extremist here? Do you think that the Republican Party is successfully marginalizing him to make it look like they’re a bit more moderate? Do you think Bob Dole is really that different?

BELLA ABZUG: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I didn’t say that. Quite the contrary, I’m saying that he’s allowed — the Republican Party has allowed the right wing to dominate its party. It has constantly been moving the Republican Party further and further to the right. And the more Buchanan had participated in this campaign, the more Dole himself is moving to the right, as the Republican Party has. They have not got in control of their party any longer. And it’s a very sad thing to see, that despite the fact that the people are now trying to reject Pat Buchanan, that his focus is becoming a focus in the Republican Party itself, like the question of reproductive rights itself. People are afraid to even mention the fact that there’s room for, as they say, people of all points of view under the tent, but there is no room for a majority of the people in this country, for example, who believe in reproductive rights and Roe against Wade.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Bella Abzug. And let me introduce her formally now, former U.S. congresswoman, leading women’s rights advocate, lawyer, public speaker, writer, organizer, co-chair of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, WEDO, an international network with consultative status at the United Nations. Bella, there’s so much to talk with you about. You can give us real history and context, that is so often lacking from the corporate networks’ coverage of politics in this day and age. But I want to focus specifically on something that’s being released around the country now, and that is the Contract with Women of the U.S.A. Can you tell us how this came about and what it is you’re calling for?

BELLA ABZUG: Well, actually, you know, 188 countries, including the — and plus the United States, approved an international platform for action in Beijing at the United Nations Fourth World Conference last September. The U.S. and many organizations made specific commitments. The U.S. pledged to advance women’s lives in the areas of equality, power sharing, education, health, working rights, ending violence, promoting women-owned small businesses, etc. And though it’s not legally binding, they were also inspired by 30,000 women who represented millions, who were the nongovernmental representatives at this conference, and it therefore was a large consensus — consensus agreement by all governments and so many thousands of women. And therefore, I suggested at the time that it was the world contract with women.

And so we’re now releasing, the day being March 8th, International Women’s Day, the beginning of a national grassroots mobilization campaign called the Contract with Women of the U.S.A., just as there will be contract with women of Bolivia, contract with women in Nigeria, contracts with women in Italy, etc. This is basically a grassroots mobilization campaign to make women’s concerns a central issue in policymaking and elections at the local, state and federal levels. We are also working with the Center for Women Policy Studies on developing state contracts with state legislators who are adopting the contract to state concerns. And today, already, six or seven states and women legislators in six or seven states have announced their participation is the campaign and the development of state contracts that reflect local and state priorities.

What does it all mean? Well, Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America has clearly run into a stalemate and massive rejection by the American people. Our Contract with Women of the U.S.A. reflects the realities and offers an alternative and unifying vision in which women and men can work together on an equal basis for our mutual benefit. It’s been endorsed by more than 90 women’s organizations, just as a beginning, and we expect hundreds will be participating. It has also been endorsed by state and federal legislators and other individuals. And the calls for a 12-point program of social and political equality for women, higher living standards, access to full reproductive rights and affordable healthcare, an end to discrimination and violence against women, and the dealing of sharing of responsibilities between the workplace and the family, and many issues which are dear and near to the needs of the majority of Americans in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk a little about women as peacemakers.

BELLA ABZUG: Well, one of the, I think, outstanding things that took place at Beijing was that there was, for the first time in international conferences, a recognition that one of the important features that is missing at the peace table is the participation of women. You look at negotiating tables, you look at all kinds of conflicts that are taking place, you only hear from statespersons or military persons that are men. I think that there’s such an imbalance in that, that finally it was recognized that if women were part of conflict resolution, as they are in many cases every day in their own lives, that there might be a difference. And so there’s a big emphasis in the program adopted in Beijing of women as playing a role at places wherever the issues of peace are discussed. In other words, women are no longer just satisfied to be at the kitchen table. They want to be at the peace table. They also have to be at the table where economic decisions are made by world economic institutions, like the World Bank. They want to be at the table at the United Nations. Unfortunately, there are only five ambassadors in the United Nations, out of 189 countries, who are women. They want to be presidents, cabinet ministers, and they want to be a lot more than 10% of the members of a Congress, as they are in this country and most countries in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Another plank of your program is educational equity, and maybe you can talk a little about that in relation to women and girls.

BELLA ABZUG: Well, I think that it’s important to understand that there is a tremendous problem about education, in many ways, because the cultures of our society are obviously invading our areas of concern, and that it’s important that we recognize that unless there is access, openness and an opportunity to participate equally on all issues that are available in an institution, educational institutions, from the bottom to the top, that we will, you know, be making it increasingly difficult to improve the process of both men and women in what they have to accomplish in this country if they’re not fully equipped and given the fullest possible opportunities.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking with Bella Abzug, former congressmember and now head of WEDO, which is an organization called the Women’s Environment and Development Organization. They’ve put out a Contract with Women of the U.S.A. And this —

BELLA ABZUG: I don’t like the way you say that: “They put out a contract.”

AMY GOODMAN: I didn’t say “contract on.”

BELLA ABZUG: I know. Newt Gingrich’s contract is a contract on.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask you this: Is the current administration — will President Clinton sign on to your Contract with Women?

BELLA ABZUG: Well, I don’t — you know, we don’t expect the president to sign on to a specific contract. But it’s important to know that the issues in the contract, many of which have already been seriously endorsed by this administration, as a result of the Beijing conference, a White House Council on Women to plan for the effective implementation of this platform of action has been set up. They’ve launched a six-year, $1.6 billion initiative to fight domestic violence and other crimes against women. In February, they announced a new 24-hour hotline run by them, our government, on that. They’re leading a [inaudible] to the Department of Health and Human Services on AIDS, smoking and breast cancer, conducting a grassroots campaign through the Department of Labor to improve conditions of women in the workplace, including working with employers to develop more equitable pay, promotion policies and helping employees to balance the twin responsibilities of family and work, taking steps to promote access to financial credit for women, to create micro enterprise lending organizations and to establish important initiatives to increase women’s participation in the political process.

I think that they’ve made a big commitment to the contract with American women, and I believe that steps that they’re taking in their agencies, as I’ve described them now, regular reports of people in nongovernmental organizations indicate a real commitment to these issues. Basically, they’re fundamental issues of the nation — I mean, sharing family responsibilities, empowering women, affordable healthcare, reproductive rights, workplace rights, educational equity — you know, in which it’s important to create a gender-fair, multicultural curriculum, teaching techniques and equal opportunities, if we’re to strengthen our nation, not only for women, but for men and women, ending violence, dealing very strongly with environment, and they recognize women as being an important factor in the results and the success of the nation.

AMY GOODMAN: Bella, today is International Women’s Day.

BELLA ABZUG: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: And you have been a major player on the world scene, I mean, a major force behind the Fourth U.N. World Conference for Women in Beijing. Your international career is marked by being appointed by President Ford as congressional adviser to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Decade of Women’s International Women’s Conference in Mexico City in ’75. You played a major role in the decade conferences in Copenhagen and Nairobi. And it goes on from there. Here in the United States, there is very much, I think, in the mainstream political rhetoric, a feeling of isolation, of separating from the rest of the world. How did you end up broadening out to this international sphere? And what do you think of the atmosphere in this country today?

BELLA ABZUG: Well, I always felt, to begin with, that one couldn’t really solve problems just individually. And so, I always felt, and since I’ve been a youngster, actually, a student, that we had to relate to what was first happening in our own government, if we wanted to influence the course of government. I mean, I was a kid of the Depression. And when we went to college, we said, “My god, we can’t — you know, this can’t go on.” So we took a great interest in the development and the direction of government, and that has influenced me all of my life.

Well, when I grew up, as we say, and became more and more involved in observing what the world was doing, I realized that you couldn’t really solve problems just internally, either personally or even nationally, that there was a world out there. Particularly with the development of the atomic bomb, it became clear that we had to deal with problems on a world level, not just on a local level, and that policies were made that affected countries, as well as individuals. And so, I became aware of the fact, certainly with the atomic bomb and the nuclear testing, that was affecting — bringing strontium-90 into the milk of our children, that we had to oppose these things, and I therefore became very involved in the peace movement in this country and on those issues, both as a private citizen and ultimately as a member of Congress, and later on as an activist in the international nongovernmental movement, in civil society.

And that’s the case today. I mean, the economy is globalized. Major decisions are made not even by nation-states that affect the actual conditions of men and women, and especially women. Large capital projects at the World Bank and other institutions’ projects are often at the sacrifice of the economic conditions of women. It’s what we call a structural adjustment, which falls very heavily on women and poor people. And in this country, that’s what’s happening, too. That kind of philosophy, that kind of theory internationally, is affecting the methods that are being used in the Congress of the United States today to downsize, to downgrade and to take away the safety nets and support in important programs such as, you know, Medicare, Medicaid, environment, nutrition, earned income credit and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: Bella, I —

BELLA ABZUG: And I think you can’t solve these problems just in the country alone. And the United Nations is the only universal public authority in which all countries come together and can make decisions for mutual benefit, not only on issues of war and peace, but on issues of women’s concerns, on issues of economic conditions and on issues of reproductive rights, the environment.

AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to talk — Bella, we’re going to talk more about international economic conditions. We’re going to be going to Vandana Shiva in New Delhi, India, in just a minute. I want to thank you very much, former Congressmember Bella Abzug, woman of the world, and head of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization here in New York. You can reach the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, or WEDO. Their number is 212-759-7982. That’s 212-759-7982. And you can also see the Contract with Women of the U.S.A. on our website. We’re putting it up there at www.pacifica.org. You’re listening to Democracy Now! Stay with us.