Although we're rapidly approaching the 2004 presidential election, it often seems that we're still shadowboxing over the 1960s.

Whoever becomes the Democratic presidential candidate will be drawn into a political and cultural fray over racial equality, abortion, gay rights, environmental sustainability and economic justice -- all issues that galvanized a generation during that tumultuous decade of 1963-1973.

The two leading candidates, in addition to the president, are Baby Boomers. Yet, the experience of that generation has affected them differently.

George W. Bush basically skipped the 1960s. He drank, rather than inhaled. He played fraternity pranks while others boogied to the Stones. He was a cheerleader while his classmates protested official lies. He didn't fight in -- or against -- the war in Vietnam. He never joined movements that promoted first-class citizenship for racial minorities, women or gays and lesbians. He never fought for new protections for the environment.

Nor was he part of the Silent Majority of Baby Boomers who avoided the chaos of the era, led sober, responsible lives and went on to join the workforce and raise families.

Bush, instead, was a privileged son who took for granted his eventuall entitlement to power. He did some sporadic time in the Texas Air National Guard while others worked in the Peace Corps or fought in the war against poverty. He worked, off and on, at businesses his father gave him to run, while many of his classmates carved out careers dedicated to changing society.

Truth be told, he didn't really become a responsible man until he was forty.

Call him the anti-'60s president. His views on abortion, same-sex marriage, waging war and social and economic justice were not forged during his youth. They were hatched as part of a middle-aged quest to pursue his family's dynastic political power. His views are far more conservative than most of the huge generation that embraced greater tolerance and liberal social attitudes.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination must be able to demonstrate that Bush's views are outside the mainstream of American society and that he has shown precious little of the "character" or compassionate conservatism on which he based his 2000 campaign.

Fortunately, we have two Democratic candidates superbly prepared for the battle that lies ahead.

Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) clearly grasps the changes that have transformed our society. He embraces racial and gender equality, as well as gay civil rights. He understands the critical necessity for environmental protection and energy independence. He comprehends, at a visceral level, the daily struggle waged by the working poor for economic dignity. He instinctively knows why our national security requires that the rest of the world respect -- not resent -- the United States.

A charismatic and charming campaigner, Edwards has helped remind many Americans of their core principles and values. Unlike the president, who works hard to manipulate our fears, Edwards appeals to our hopes for greater fairness and a safer future.

With a few minor exceptions, the views and positions of Sen. John Kerry (D- Mass.) closely mirror those of his younger rival. Kerry is also a forceful and articulate campaigner who has proven his ability to respond to political attacks with a rapid and powerful response.

Like Bush, Kerry was also a privileged son. But the choices Kerry made tested his character and gave him a well-deserved reputation as a man of courage and conscience.

Unlike Bush, Kerry was a bona fide member of the Vietnam generation who fought both in and against the war. As a decorated veteran and distinguished anti-war activist, Kerry has been able to appeal to large segments of his generation, particularly Vietnam veterans, who previously remained fairly detached from the electoral politics.

Bush never expected that a former Green Beret would stand on a Des Moines stage and tell an audience how John Kerry saved his life in Vietnam. As Robert Poe recently wrote in Salon.com, "By the time he was finished, something remarkable had happened: A presidential challenger had, as the world watched, grown larger than the incumbent president."

Afterward, the 2004 presidential election suddenly morphed into a referendum on character.

Kerry's engagement on both sides of the Vietnam War -- in addition to his decades of experience in the Senate and expertise in national security -- is the major advantage he brings to the cultural wars still at the center of American politics.

Ruth Rosen is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Forget the angry white men of 1994, the soccer moms of 1998 or the NASCAR dads of 2002. This year, Democrats believe that single women -- one- fifth of the nation's population and 42 percent of all registered women voters -- are the demographic-swing group that could decide a close election, oust President Bush and alter the political landscape in Congress.

Who are these unmarried women? They are never-married working women, divorced working mothers raising kids alone and widows who are worried about their economic security.

Last December, Celinda Lake and Stan Greenberg, two well-known Democratic pollsters, released the results of a survey that Democrats are taking to heart. "Unmarried women represent millions more voters with very clear concerns about the economy, health care and education," said Lake.

To this, Greenberg added, "If unmarried women voted at the same rate as married women, they would have a decisive impact on this (2004) election and could be the most important agents of change in modern politics."

The problem is that single women just don't exercise their electoral power. In the 2000 presidential election, 68 percent of married women went to the voting booth but only 52 percent of single women cast a vote.

That means that 6 million single women failed to vote in an election that hinged on a little more than half a million votes nationally and a few hundred votes in Florida.

The survey showed that single women could have altered the outcome of the 2000 election. Had single women -- who favored former Vice President Al Gore by 31 points -- voted at the same rate as married women in Florida and other swing states, Gore now would be sitting in the Oval Office.

How do we know that single women would help elect a Democratic president? We don't necessarily; they are not particularly tied to any one party. But 65 percent of the single women surveyed -- a diverse group that crossed class, regional, ethnic and racial lines -- said the country is headed in the wrong direction.

The reasons for their disgruntlement are not hard to fathom. Single women, who mostly earn modest salaries, are not great supporters of either tax cuts for the wealthy or huge expenditures for war or the military.

Instead, they worry about economic security, health care, good schools and Social Security. They are also more likely to hold progressive views on abortion, gun control and gay rights -- all wedge issues that will influence voters' decisions in the next election.

So how do we mobilize this huge and diverse group of single women, described by Page Gardner, who manages the Women's Vote project, a nonpartisan research organization, as "the single largest demographic group of nonvoters?"

Democrats have already started reaching out to this untapped group, which includes 16 million unregistered single women and 22 million who are registered but don't vote.

In 2002, the Democratic National Committee launched a training program called Democratic Voices to prepare women to spread the Democratic Party's message to their friends and co-workers. The DNC plans to expand this outreach during the 2004 election.

But the party must be strategic. It needs to discover why this group feels so detached from politics or what keeps these women from registering and voting. Democrats also need to be more inclusive and explain how their policies and goals would address and improve the lives of single women, not only those of "working families."

They also might remind single women of the three generations of women and (a few good men) who braved relentless ridicule, social stigma and personal ostracism during the 70 years they campaigned for a woman's right to cast a vote. Although they launched the struggle for suffrage in 1848, it wasn't until 1920 that women became full-fledged citizens who could vote.

Opponents of suffrage, amplified by millions of female voices, argued that women didn't really want to participate in the political process and were quite happy, thank you very much, to let men make the decisions and shape the future of the nation.

Single women need to prove these opponents were dead wrong. If she were still alive, Abigail Scott Dunaway, the 19th-century Oregon suffragist would explain that they also have a debt to those who came before us. Speaking to the single women of her time, she said:

"The young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation, should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price. It is for them to show their gratitude by helping onward the reforms of their own times ... The debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay to the future."

Spread the word: Single women could elect the next president.

Cynthia Hernandez, a petite and pretty 21-year-old grocery worker, felt exhilarated, rather than weary, after traveling by bus from Los Angeles to Northern California. Riding with her were her 2-year-old daughter, 50 other union members and religious leaders of all denominations from Southern California.

She was part of the "Grocery Workers' Justice Pilgrimage," representing 70,000 workers who have been striking Safeway and have been locked out from other Southern Californian supermarkets for the last four months. They're struggling to keep their health-care benefits, a problem that will eventually affect many middle-class workers.

The pilgrimage journeyed north to persuade Steven Burd, president, chairman and CEO of Safeway, who lives in Alamo, to return to the negotiating table. Knowing that Burd is a devout evangelical Christian, religious leaders hoped to "change his heart" and to appeal to the faith he professes.

They also came to deliver 10,000 cards -- written by shoppers, children and congregants -- that asked Burd to resume bargaining until labor and management reach a fair settlement that protects the health care of all workers.

As the bus arrived in Alamo on a chilly but sunny morning Wednesday, they were warmly greeted by Northern Californian religious leaders and community supporters. Together, they held a prayer vigil in front of Alamo's Safeway.

"Mr. Burd, lift up your eyes and see the people who are suffering, " said a rabbi. "We need affordable health care," said a minister. After each religious leader spoke, the crowd of several hundred chanted, "Do not close your ears to the cry of the needy."

The 4-month-old strike has, in fact, devastated the lives of many workers, some of whom have lost their homes and had their cars repossessed. Many can no longer feed their families and are deeply in debt. "I don't know how I'll pay the rent next month," Hernandez told me. "I have nothing left."

Then, the peaceful crowd marched toward Burd's home, chanting "Health care now!" To their delight, passing drivers honked in solidarity and a few neighbors rushed out of magnificent homes to offer unexpected words of support.

Because only a small delegation of religious leaders were allowed to climb the private road to the gated Alamo Ridge community, the striking workers never saw the wooded forests and rolling hills that shelter the 15 families who live in this exclusive enclave.

Stationed at the gate was Guy Worth, who would only describe himself as "Mr. Burd's personal representative," but who turned out to be a Safeway security guard. He received the bins of cards and then, much to his evident discomfort, found himself drawn into a prayer circle with religious leaders.

On the way back, I asked Hernandez what we in Northern California should understand about the grocery workers' strike.

"What happens to us," she said, "will happen to everyone else in the country. If our strike is broken, then employers will know they can end health care for all workers."

The grocery workers oppose Safeway's effort to raise the amount they must contribute to their health-care costs. The union also refuses to accept a "two-tier" system in which future employees will receive lower wages and benefits than current workers.

With a turnover rate of 30 percent a year, grocery workers would soon be reduced to the kind of subsistence-level pay earned by nonunion workers at Wal-Mart, which, says Safeway, is why the corporation, to stay competitive, must curtail wages and benefits.

"It's a race to the bottom," said Hernandez, as she wheeled her sleeping daughter in her stroller. "If we 70,000 workers don't get decent wages and health-care benefits, some of us will end up on welfare and most of us will use the public health care system. And who's going to pay for all these public services? The taxpayers, of course! Well, I don't want to live like that. Why shouldn't our employer pay a living wage and health benefits so that we can retain our dignity as workers?"

The Rev. Carol Been, a Lutheran minister in the Bay Area, echoed Hernandez's sense of urgency. "There's a race to see which employer can pay the least to its workers and the real issue, of course, is health care."

The striking workers certainly know that. So, by the way, did voters in New Hampshire's primary, who told pollsters that health care was even more important than the economy and the war in Iraq.

Workers such as Hernandez are desperately trying to hang on to their middle-class dignity. They deserve our support. There, but for good fortune, go the rest of us -- and probably sooner than we may realize.

Imagine that you earn $8 an hour working for Wal-Mart. Then, you learn that the store is recruiting workers, at $10 an hour, to convince neighbors and shoppers to vote against a law that would limit the size of "big- box'' stores in unincorporated areas of Contra Costa County, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Great, you think. I'll apply. But Wal-Mart won't hire its own workers because the corporation isn't sure it's legal to use them to promote a political campaign.

When you realize that Wal-Mart will pay higher wages to those campaigning to keep your wages low, you get angry -- which is how I've learned about the Arkansas retailer's countywide plans to repeal the ordinance.

Last June, the Contra Costa Country Board of Supervisors passed the ban when it recognized that Wal-Mart's seductive low prices come with hidden costs to residents. The retailer's subsistence wages drive down the pay of other workers; its huge super-centers undermine local small businesses and create more traffic congestion. Taxpayers, moreover, end up paying for workers' health care because they can't afford costly benefits on such low pay.

In response, Wal-Mart -- which never takes no for an answer -- immediately parachuted in paid workers to gather 27,000 signatures to force supervisors to either rescind the ban or place the issue before the voters. Supervisors have put the question on the March 2 ballot.

To fight off these restrictions, Wal-Mart has just launched a campaign to convince the community to vote "no." At its Martinez, Pittsburg and Antioch stores, Wal-Mart has hung banners and posters advertising its new "Consumer Action Network (CAN)," a rather transparent effort to persuade shoppers to vote against the limiting ordinance.

Last week, workers at Wal-Mart handed out flyers that describe CAN as a "good government" program. (Many low-income shoppers, who receive some form of government assistance, might mistakenly think CAN is a government-sponsored program.)

In exchange for signing a membership card (and providing your personal information), you get "a personal membership card, free newsletters, important bulletins and an invitation to special events."

You also get a chance to fill out a voter registration application, which is conveniently mailed to Wal-Mart's CAN, rather than to the registrar of voters. If you want more information, you are referred to an 800 telephone number.

But 20 calls to the number elicited the same response: "Only 'Kathy' knows about the program, she's on the other line, so just leave your name and number." Is it conceivable that Wal-Mart has hired only one person who is familiar with CAN? Or is this just a ploy to gather names and phone numbers to enlist shoppers in its political campaign?

Meanwhile, a coalition of community activists is gearing up to support the ordinance. They include the nonprofit group ACORN, which promotes affordable housing and open space; union members; and religious, environmental and "smart growth" organizations. But they face a formidable enemy -- the largest corporation in the world, which has unlimited funds to reach their intended goal of building 40 new super-centers in California.

Supervisor John Gioia knows that "Wal-Mart will have a great advantage. It will also turn it into an anti-union campaign. So we need to appeal to the good sense of Contra Costa County voters and explain that this is about losing open space and taxpayers subsidizing Wal-Mart. It's also about Contra Costa County -- not Wal-Mart executives in Bentonville, Ark. -- having the right to make its own decisions about local planning. "

Now, the challenge is to convince Contra Costa County voters that the lowest possible prices come at a steep price for the entire community.

I'm re-reading George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, "1984," so I may be a bit sensitive to official language that masks what's really going on. In the bleak world of "1984," as you may remember, the Ministry of Truth publishes lies, the Ministry of Love tortures people and the Ministry of Peace wages perpetual war.

I'm hardly the first to notice that the Bush administration has excelled at using language to say one thing and mean its opposite -- now popularly known as doublespeak. The "Healthy Forests" program, for example, allows increased logging of protected wilderness. The "Clear Skies" initiative permits greater industrial air pollution.

Last week, the president employed doublespeak again. In the name of "improving" Head Start -- the federally funded preschool program that provides early educational, health and nutrition services to 1 million impoverished children -- he pressed Congress to pass legislation that would allow states to "opt in" and to match block grants to participate in the program.

"Opt in." Sounds generous and inclusive, doesn't it? But what it really means is shifting responsibility for Head Start to the states, most of which are crushed by budget deficits and don't have the money to fund the quality programs that prepare poor children to arrive at school ready to learn. The result? The quality of Head Start program would vary widely, with cuts decided by individual states.

Shifting funds to California, according to Amy Dominguez-Arms, vice president of Oakland's Children Now, "could undo a comprehensive preschool program with proven positive results for children. What we're worried about is that it would lower quality standards and that the state would use the funds for other purposes."

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, sees Bush's legislative proposal as an attempt to dismantle Head Start and as "part of a bold plan to break the sacred covenant between people and their federal government. If it ain't broke, don't fix it," says Edelman. "More importantly, if it ain't broke, don't break it."

She's right. Head Start enjoys the highest customer satisfaction score of any federal agency. Even the Bush administration's own Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) concedes that Head Start provides our poorest children a quality early childhood education.

So why is the president willing to dismantle Head Start? "Management flexibility," he says. More doublespeak. The president's real agenda is to starve and shrink federal programs and get out of the business of providing services to the poor. The problem is, the poor can't afford to pay for the private services that might replace public ones.

Since it began in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson's war on poverty, Head Start has benefited 20 million at-risk kids and families. Studies have shown that kids who participate in Head Start commit fewer juvenile crimes, need less special education, are more likely to graduate from high school, and that every dollar invested during the first seven years of a child's life saves $2 to $4 of federal dollars later on.

"Leave no child behind," Bush promised during his campaign, stealing the decades-old slogan of the Children's Defense Fund. Well, right now, Head Start serves 3 out of 5 eligible children. Yet it would only cost $2 billion a year to give all eligible kids the chance to participate in Head Start.

What does it say about the values of our society that we are willing to spend $4 billion dollars a month waging war in Iraq and give huge tax breaks to millionaires, but don't have enough money to give American children the benefit of early education that prepares them for learning in school?

Doublespeak is dangerous: Bush's "opt in" proposal is designed to dismantle Head Start, hardly what the American people expect from a president who calls himself a compassionate conservative, devoted to improving children's education.

Would you like a Wal-Mart "supercenter" store to move into your community? Think of the low prices and the convenience of one-stop shopping! You just park once and get whatever you need -- groceries, drugs, plants, toys, dog food, even eyeglasses.

Sounds great, doesn't it? So why have nearly 200 communities refused to allow such big-box stores to enter their lives? Do they know something we don't?

To find out, I embedded myself in the Wal-Mart wars that have recently broken out in Contra Costa County. What I learned, in a nutshell, is that Wal-Mart's nonunion, big-box stores drag down other workers' salaries, destroy downtown businesses, prevent smart-growth development and increase traffic congestion. What really surprised me though is that we, the taxpayers, end up subsidizing Wal-Mart stores by paying for the health and retirement needs of its workers.

Wal-Mart has announced its intention to open 40 new supercenter stores -- each the size of four football fields -- in such fast-growing California suburban areas as Contra Costa County.

But Contra Costa County has fought back. A year ago, Martinez prevented a traditional Wal-Mart store from expanding into a supercenter that could sell groceries. On June 3, the county Board of Supervisors voted to ban such supercenter stores from unincorporated areas of the county.

In making its decision, the board cited a study done by the San Diego County Taxpayers Association (SDCTA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. It found that an influx of big-box stores into San Diego would result in an annual decline in wages and benefits between $105 million and $221 million, and an increase of $9 million in public health costs. SDCTA also estimated that the region would lose pensions and retirement benefits valued between $89 million and $170 million per year and that even increased sales and property tax revenues would not cover the extra costs of necessary public services. "Good jobs, good pay, and good benefits should be the goal of an economy," SDCTA concluded, "and supercenters are not consistent with that objective."

Wal-Mart, as is its custom, has launched a counterattack against Contra Costa's ordinance. The company parachuted in platoons of signature-gatherers who are stationed outside discount stores and asking shoppers to sign a petition that would place the board's decision on a ballot. If they collect 27, 000 legitimate signatures, Wal-Mart could reverse the board's ban.

In response, a coalition of community groups have mobilized to defeat Wal- Mart's counterattack. But they face a formidable enemy. Over the last 40 years, Wal-Mart has grown into the nation's biggest employer and the world's largest retailer. Every two days, Wal-Mart opens another superstore. It has more people in uniform than the U.S. Army. Last year, it banked about $7 billion in profits.

The troops fighting Wal-Mart's invasion of Contra Costa County include the Gray Panthers, small businesses, dozens of churches, the National Organization for Women, and environmental and smart-growth activists. Young people, recruited by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), fan out daily to discount stores and try to convince shoppers not to sign Wal-Mart's petition. They even carry cards that allow voters to withdraw their signature if they have already signed the petition.

The generals in charge of this community resistance are union leaders. John Dalrymple, director of the Contra Costa Central Labor Council, admits they face an uphill battle. The giant retailer is infamous for its take-no-prisoners, anti-union policies. Wal-Mart's ability to offer such low prices, as any union member will tell you, has been achieved by paying its workers -- or "sales associates" -- low wages, offering unaffordable health coverage and no retirement benefits and importing most of its products from developing countries, some of which use child and prison labor.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1179, located in Martinez, is headquarters for the war against Wal-Mart. Barbara Carpenter, the union's president, comes from a family whose members have worked for decades at retail companies that provided decent wages, affordable health benefits and pension plans. "It's about saving the American dream," she told me.

Wal-Mart, she points out, lowers wages among working families and crushes family businesses. "It not only pays workers less than most of its retail competitors, two-thirds of workers don't have health-care coverage -- a cost taxpayers are picking up across the country.''

Did she say taxpayers? That's right. We, the customers, get such low prices and convenient shopping because we, the taxpayers, subsidize Wal-Mart profits by paying for county public health services, food stamps, and social services for its retired employees.

So should you shop at Wal-Mart? To make up your mind, consider this: If you earn a livable wage or are protected by a union, you can probably buy all your monthly needs at Wal-Mart. But that's because the average Wal-Mart employee, who earns about $15,000 a year, cannot do the same.

Convenience and cheap prices, it turns out, come with hidden costs.

Ruth Rosen is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She can be emailed at rrosen@sfchronicle.com

McCarthyism. The very word conjures up the image of someone using smear tactics to question a person's patriotism and to silence dissent. Could such political persecution happen again in our country?

That is the question some Americans pondered last week when the U.S. Senate unsealed 4,000 pages of transcripts from secret sessions held by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1953-54. He used these closed hearings to weed out witnesses who refused to be intimidated and as dress rehearsals for public hearings.

What are the lessons to be learned from this poisonous period in our nation's past?

One is how quickly our fragile freedoms can be eroded. McCarthy rose to power in 1950 on a tsunami of anti-communist hysteria, brandishing a list of "known communists" in the State Department, and held public trials to enhance his own political clout. He fell from power only when his attacks against the U.S. Army -- broadcast to millions of Americans in their living rooms -- exposed his indecent persecution of innocent people. The Senate censured him in December 1954. Discredited and disgraced, he died three years later, at age 47.

Nevertheless, his influence lasted for more than a decade. Loyalty oaths, indictments and blacklists destroyed the reputations and careers of thousands of innocent people. Fear of internal sabotage and infiltration of all institutions crushed dissent. A pervasive atmosphere of fear quarantined permissible debate.

Anti-communism, in short, turned into a political weapon. In his splendid "Story of American Freedom," historian Eric Foner reminds us that "Anti-communism became a tool wielded by white supremacists against black civil rights, employers against unions, and upholders of sexual morality and traditional gender roles against homosexuality..." It was, he writes, "an inauspicious time to raise questions about the imperfections of American freedom."

Another lesson is that most official secrets and lies eventually see the light of day. Some repentant former official writes a revelatory memoir. A new administration opens up the archives and historians and journalists excavate deeply buried secrets. It took only days, for example, for the world to learn that Secretary of State Colin Powell had received forged and faked evidence when he made his case for war in Iraq at the U.N. Security Council.

The Bush administration, infamous for its excessive secrecy, should take this caveat to heart. Attorney General John Ashcroft has encouraged federal agencies to reject Freedom of Information Act requests; President Bush has illegally sealed the papers of former presidents; and the USA Patriot Act has expanded government surveillance powers and trampled upon the privacy rights of American citizens.

Could the chill of fear that froze political debate in the 1950s occur again? In an interview with National Public Radio, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., says, "History is a powerful teacher . . . I think there's greater awareness of McCarthyism and there's greater resistance against those who would try to still voices that they disagree with."

He's partly right. As of last week, more than 100 communities had passed resolutions against cooperating with the USA Patriot Act. San Mateo and Marin counties, as well as the city of Sausalito, recently added their names to the growing list. Librarians in Santa Cruz and other communities, moreover, are shredding the library-use records of their patrons, rather than give them up to John Ashcroft.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who initiated the release of the transcripts, thinks the newly released McCarthy papers provide a timely reminder of the danger posed by fear itself. "We hope that the excesses of McCarthyism will serve as a cautionary tale for future generations."

But Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator who voted against the USA Patriot Act, is far more pessimistic. In an interview with NPR, he warns that "This is a dark hour for civil liberties in America. What I'm hearing from Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, South Asians and others, suggests a climate of fear toward our government that is unprecedented."

Last lesson to be learned: Never take civil rights and liberties for granted. Freedom, as it turns out, requires constant struggle, not only on the battlefield, but here at home as well.

"Our weapon is our nakedness," Helen Odeworitse, a leader of 600 women who peacefully seized control of an oil terminal in Escravos, Nigeria, told the Associated Press. Odeworitse and other women held 700 western oil workers hostage and shut down a facility that exports half a million barrels of oil a day.

The unarmed women villagers, who ranged in age from 30 to 90, threatened to remove their clothes -- a traditional shaming gesture that would have humiliated and damned ChevronTexaco throughout the region.

Takeovers of oil sites are common in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Armed with machetes and guns, men routinely threaten corporate executives with kidnapping and sabotage. But the all-women protest stunned the corporation and, in the end, the women's threat worked. Rather than removing or harming the protesters, the oil company engaged in a 10-day marathon negotiation with them.

Desperation, the women later explained, is what led to their protest. Escravos is the Portuguese word for slaves and that's how these women view themselves. Despite its great oil wealth, the Niger Delta is among the poorest places in West Africa. While oil workers enjoy comfortable homes, a modern hospital and satellite television, villagers live in rusty tin-roofed shacks, without running water or electricity.

The women's demands reflected their determination to escape such grinding poverty. ChevronTexaco, they insisted, should help fund the development of the region. So, they demanded that the oil company employ 25 of their sons; install electricity and water systems in their communities; build schools, clinics and town halls; and help them build fish and chicken farms so that they can sell food to the corporation's cafeteria.

To their surprise and delight, ChevronTexaco agreed to their demands. As soon as the agreement was announced, the women -- many with babies bound to their backs -- celebrated by singing and dancing on the docks. Without harming a soul, they had forced a multinational corporation to help them transform impoverished villages into modern towns.

Dick Fligate, a ChevronTexaco executive, reportedly conceded that the protest was a wake-up call and that the corporation would have to pay greater attention to the needs of local communities. But he may change his mind. As soon as these protesters left the Escravos oil terminal, women from other villages seized four more ChevronTexaco oil facilities in southeastern Nigeria.

What is taking place in Nigeria is nothing like the anti-globalization protests westerners have watched on television. These women are local villagers who, by engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience, are demanding that the wealth that lies beneath their land be shared with them.

Whether their peaceful protests will succeed is hardly assured. Nigeria, let us not forget, is what the American government calls a "strategic interest": It is the fifth-largest oil supplier to the United States.

Still, their peaceful protest proved successful and has already inspired copycat occupations. As she left the Escravos oil terminal, Anunu Uwawah, a leader of the 10-day action, reportedly exulted, "I give one piece of advice to all women in all countries: They shouldn't let any company cheat them." Clearly, some women were listening.

Six months after 9/11, we experience an eerie sense of normalcy. The Oscars generate their usual hype; friends once again discuss divorce. People return to airplanes; fans eagerly await a new baseball season.

Yet, nothing is normal. Beneath the routine sounds and sights of daily life lurks the stark, unsettling fact that our society is not as democratic as it was last summer.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks created a legitimate need for heightened security, intensified surveillance and enhanced intelligence. Like other Americans, I fully support the Bush administration's effort to protect us from further terrorist attacks. But nothing -- absolutely nothing -- justifies the secrecy that has shrouded the Bush presidency, its gratuitous violation of civil liberties, or its corrosive constraints on our most cherished democratic practices.

Consider what has happened during these past six months. President Bush has repeatedly invoked executive privilege and refused congressional requests for information. He created a shadow government without informing congressional leaders. He overturned the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and gave himself the right to seal past presidential papers since 1980. He deposited his own gubernatorial papers in his father's presidential library where they are inaccessible to the public.

On the defense front, the Bush administration appointed John M. Poindexter -- who, along with Ollie North, masterminded the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scam -- to head the Pentagon's new Office of Information Awareness. The president has extended the war on terrorism to Yemen, Georgia and the Philippines without a declaration of war or congressional approval. He even declared a new unilateralist Bush Doctrine: The United States reserves the right to enter any nation to pursue terrorists or destroy weapons of mass destruction, whether or not it is invited by a head of state and without seeking approval from the U.N. Security Council.

Members of Congress are finally resisting this assault on the system of checks and balances that our nation's founders created to protect our democratic government. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is suing Vice President Dick Cheney for refusing to hand over records from secretly held energy meetings. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has asked the GAO to investigate the impact of Attorney General John Ashcroft's Oct. 12 memo to all federal agencies, in which he urged them to resist Freedom of Information Act requests.

But Congress must do more to restore its check on an increasingly imperious presidency. The Bush administration is using the threat of terrorism to curtail civil liberties, bully legislators, scatter troops across the world and intimidate Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria with the threat of pre-emptive tactical nuclear strikes.

George W. Bush should remember that he lost the popular vote and never received a mandate from the American people for these policies. His current approval ratings, according to many political analysts, rest more on fear than on a national consensus.

He should tread carefully. Americans recognize that patriotism is not only the willingness to fight fascism or terrorism, but also the passion to protect our democratic freedoms right here, at home.

Ruth Rosen is a Chronicle editorial writer.

The President didn't ask the networks for television time. The attorney general didn't hold a press conference. The media didn't report any dramatic change in governmental policy. As a result, most Americans had no idea that one of their most precious freedoms disappeared on Oct. 12.

Yet it happened. In a memo that slipped beneath the political radar, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft vigorously urged federal agencies to resist most Freedom of Information Act requests made by American citizens.

Passed in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Freedom of Information Act has been hailed as one of our greatest democratic reforms. It allows ordinary citizens to hold the government accountable by requesting and scrutinizing public documents and records. Without it, journalists, newspapers, historians and watchdog groups would never be able to keep the government honest. It was our post-Watergate reward, the act that allows us to know what our elected officials do, rather than what they say. It is our national sunshine law, legislation that forces agencies to disclose their public records and documents.

Yet without fanfare, the attorney general simply quashed the FOIA. The Department of Justice did not respond to numerous calls from The Chronicle to comment on the memo.

So, rather than asking federal officials to pay special attention when the public's right to know might collide with the government's need to safeguard our security, Ashcroft instead asked them to consider whether "institutional, commercial and personal privacy interests could be implicated by disclosure of the information." Even more disturbing, he wrote:

"When you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold records, in whole or in part, you can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records."

Somehow, this memo never surfaced. When coupled with President Bush's Nov. 1 executive order that allows him to seal all presidential records since 1980, the effect is positively chilling.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, we have witnessed a flurry of federal orders designed to beef up the nation's security. Many anti-terrorist measures have carefully balanced the public's right to know with the government's responsibility to protect its citizens.

Who, for example, would argue against taking detailed plans of nuclear reactors, oil refineries or reservoirs off the Web?

No one. Almost all Americans agree that the nation's security is our highest priority.

Yet half the country is also worried that the government might use the fear of terrorism as a pretext for protecting officials from public scrutiny.

Now we know that they have good reason to worry. For more than a quarter of a century, the Freedom of Information Act has ratified the public's right to know what the government, its agencies and its officials have done. It has substituted transparency for secrecy and we, as a democracy, have benefited from the truths that been extracted from public records.

Consider, for example, just a few of the recent revelations -- obtained through FOIA requests -- that newspapers and nonprofit watchdog groups have been able to publicize during the last few months:

- The Washington-based Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization, has been able to publish lists of recipients who have received billions of dollars in federal farm subsidies. Their Web site, www.ewg.org, has not only embarrassed the agricultural industry, but also allowed the public to realize that federal money -- intended to support small family farmers -- has mostly enhanced the profits of large agricultural corporations.

- The Charlotte Observer has been able to reveal how the Duke Power Co., an electric utility, cooked its books so that it avoided exceeding its profit limits. This creative accounting scheme prevented the utility from giving lower rates to 2 million customers in North Carolina and South Carolina.

- USA Today was able to uncover and publicize a widespread pattern of misconduct among the National Guard's upper echelon that has continued for more than a decade. Among the abuses documented in public records are the inflation of troop strength, the misuse of taxpayer money, incidents of sexual harassment and the theft of life-insurance payments intended for the widows and children of Guardsmen.

- The National Security Archive, a private Washington-based research group, has been able to obtain records that document an unpublicized event in our history. It turns out that in 1975, President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave Indonesian strongman Suharto the green light to invade East Timor, an incursion that left 200,000 people dead.

-- By examining tens of thousands of public records, the Associated Press has been able to substantiate the long-held African American allegation that white people -- through threats of violence, even murder -- cheated them out of their land. In many cases, government officials simply approved the transfer of property deeds. Valued at tens of million of dollars, some 24,000 acres of farm and timber lands, once the property of 406 black families, are now owned by whites or corporations.

These are but a sample of the revelations made possible by recent FOIA requests. None of them endanger the national security. It is important to remember that all classified documents are protected from FOIA requests and unavailable to the public.

Yet these secrets have exposed all kinds of official skullduggery, some of which even violated the law. True, such revelations may disgrace public officials or even result in criminal charges, but that is the consequence -- or shall we say, the punishment -- for violating the public trust.

No one disputes that we must safeguard our national security. All of us want to protect our nation from further acts of terrorism. But we must never allow the public's right to know, enshrined in the Freedom of Information Act, to be suppressed for the sake of official convenience.

Ruth Rosen is an editorial writer for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Everyone seems so starved for time. We quietly seethe. We get angry and cranky. We gulp antacids, painkillers and anti-depressants. We inhale the scent of calming herbs; we meditate and listen to the soothing sounds of dripping water.

In the workplace, stressed-out parents and nonparents, certain they are the ones getting the short end of the stick, privately snipe at each another. But everyone, in fact, is working too much and leading disturbingly unbalanced lives. Few of us realize that the problem lies beyond and outside of ourselves.

The fact is, we live in a post-industrial world in which two-income families are more often the norm than the exception. But most of our offices and businesses operate as though some mythical matriarch is still at home, taking care of errands, chores, children, elderly parents, and, of course, the patriarch who provides for all of them.

The result? We try to squeeze ourselves into a world designed for an earlier period in history. When people work a traditional 40-hour week -- roughly 9 to 5, Monday through Friday -- there is simply no time for anything resembling a balanced life. And so we become overwhelmed, our nerves get rattled, our children feel neglected, our communities disintegrate.

Americans have always preferred individual solutions and resisted using government for social welfare. As a result, we simply don't have policies that ease the burdens of parents. Family leave, still unpaid, benefits just a few. When new parents need time to take care of an infant, most places of business just shift the work to other employees.

Consider the situation of Elena, Mary, Michael and Alex, four people who work in the same government agency and enjoy the warm, collegial atmosphere their boss, Marc, promotes. Beneath the surface conviviality, however, silent resentments simmer.

The reason? Each of these individuals feels overworked but quietly blames the others for their acute sense of deprivation.

Marc, a wiry, athletic 45-year-old, is a brilliant leader, much admired by his employees. Married to a hard-working attorney, he long ago decided to create a family-friendly workplace. In his view -- a rarity among managers -- the workplace must be flexible and accommodate the needs of families. When his 6-year-old daughter needs to be picked up from day care, he simply ends or leaves a meeting.

He happily allows new mothers to work from home. When parents ask to share a position, he expertly juggles job classifications and shows baffled bureaucrats how it can be done.

Marc means well. What he doesn't understand is that his family-friendly policies irritate the childless employees in his agency. The work the parents leave undone ends up on the desks of the nonparents. But Marc doesn't have the resources to hire additional staff or the authority to restructure the agency he administers.

Elena, a 34-year-old Russian immigrant, is a tall, svelte woman who loves working for an employer who honors parenting. When she had her first baby, she worked from home for a few months, then gradually returned to the office part-time. After her second child, she did the same. Now that both her children are in school, she has resumed a five-day work schedule. Recently, she was promoted to the managerial ranks.

Elena counts her blessings -- a flexible employer, a husband who shares the child-rearing and housework, and, most importantly, an enormous, extended family whose members appear the instant they are needed.

Mary, 20 years her senior, watches Elena with a mixture of awe and resentment. Still married to her childhood sweetheart, Mary regrets that she delayed having children until it was too late. Now she winces whenever her younger colleagues talk about their babies. She's also furious at the ``privileges'' that young working parents now enjoy. ``I'd have a lot less work if these parents didn't constantly come and go,'' she complains.

Though bitter, Mary is also proud of her distinction as a policy expert in employment issues. ``I pride myself on being a pioneer. Through my activism, I helped change public policies that really improved the lives of working women.''

Michael, a 52-year-old recreational mountain climber, has two grown children in their 20s. He knows what young parents like Elena and Marc face. He appreciates their time constraints; he empathizes with the relentless responsibility they bear at work and at home. He knows what it's like when the school nurse calls and says you need to take your ailing child home. He remembers what it's like to stay up all night with a feverish kid. He knows how many evenings it takes to explain algebra to a musical genius who thinks she's the dumbest kid in the class.

But he's tired of working so much, which he attributes, in part, to covering for desperate parents. He wants to socialize with friends without dozing off when they talk with him. He wants to climb all those mountains before he's too old. And he wants to have time to visit his ailing parents. ``After working so many years,'' he says, ``I just want a more balanced life.''

Then there is Alex, a strapping 32-year-old who excels at tennis and golf and proudly describes himself as child-free, as opposed to childless. Alex doesn't like children, doesn't want to hear their noise, doesn't want them to live anywhere near him and certainly doesn't want to hear about them at work.

He's incensed when Elena leaves early to attend her daughter's soccer games. He's livid when Marc allows new parents to work at home. He's furious that he's viewed as the last person who, at the end of the day, should turn out the lights.

To his co-workers, Alex says nothing about his resentment. To anyone else, however, he's quick to explain why he feels so cranky about working with parents. ``Why should I have to do one more minute of work, just because other people decide to have children? That's their responsibility, not mine.''

All these people actually like each other, and none of them openly complain. The nonparents worry about offending the parents. They want to maintain the friendly, cordial atmosphere they have enjoyed.

Sadly, the lack of discussion means that these resentments simmer. No one thinks about how they might transform their workplace. Nor do they realize that each of them feels starved for time, that they do, in fact, have more in common than not.

Meanwhile, public debate pits these parents and nonparents against each other. Elinor Burkett, the author of ``Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless'' (Free Press, 2000), has made quite a splash by arguing that nonparents are the ones who are shortchanged in the workplace.

In her view, parent-friendly policies and tax breaks for child care discriminate against childless employees. Who, she asks, has to travel on a moment's notice or work during the holidays or cover while a father leaves early to coach his son's Little League team?

Burkett has hit a nerve. Members of a group called ``No Kidding,'' an international support group for childless adults, are positively apoplectic about the perks parents supposedly receive in such great abundance. ``Family leave is bad enough,'' argues one self-proclaimed ``child-free'' advocate, ``but if Clinton gets his way, my tax dollars will pay for that family leave.''

``Mothers,'' adds Burkett, ``expect childless people to cover as if it's an entitlement. The fact that it's an inconvenience on me never registers. I've yet to meet any parent who felt at all guilty about ripping off a childless person. Why am I expected to do more because someone else chose to do too much?''

Like other child-free enthusiasts, Burkett has little sympathy for what sociologist Arlie Hochschild has called ``the stalled revolution'' the fact that women have far greater access to education, economic independence and political participation, but still return home to a ``second shift.'' As a result, their lives often turn into a joyless cycle of relentless responsibility.

Nor does Burkett appear to notice that parents often squeeze enormous amounts of work into their day, sacrificing chats and breaks with co-workers. Nor does she notice how much work they take home with them and how little they sleep.

This is what worries Peggy Orenstein, the author of the recently published book, ``Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, and Life in a Half-Changed World'' (Doubleday, 2000). ``Juggling'' is probably too tame a word for those working parents who need two incomes in order to raise a family. Through extensive interviews, Orenstein finds that women, in particular, are torn between their desire to nurture their families and the hours they must work outside their homes.

Flexible and shorter hours are an obvious solution, but it's also an expensive one. In many northern and western European countries, both private companies and government agencies contribute to child care and add temporary staff and employees when parents take paid leave. Under these conditions, the childless -- even the defiantly child-free -- don't feel burdened by extra work.

Most American personnel policies, however, create a no-win situation. What you don't do jumps into my ``in'' box. What I leave undone turns into your workload. So, of course, there is resentment on all sides.

What should be done? For a start, we need to acknowledge the secret strains that threaten to transform friendly relationships into openly hostile antagonisms. Until we name the problem, we cannot debate the solutions. Until we realize that everyone is working too much, we won't be able to imagine how we can, together, forge a strong and united demand for shorter hours and more flexible schedules.

We also need to realize that our lives have witnessed unprecedented cultural and social changes that have radically altered life at home and work in our society.

Today, a majority of adult women work outside the home. Women in the workplace are no longer novelties or exotic tokens. We are everywhere.

Now that there is a critical mass of women in the workplace, we need to reconsider how to rearrange the relationships between family and work responsibilities.

Most Americans, for example, no longer expect to work at the same company or even the same job during their lifetimes. What we fail to realize is that people should also have the option of choosing different patterns and rhythms of work. Some parents may slow down for a few years, return to work part-time when children are in school and then go full blast when their children leave home. Others may rush to the top, have children, slow down, and afterward resume a fast-track work life. Still others may wisely choose to balance their life at every stage of their lives.

We do live in a half-changed world. Even politicians are starting to recognize this fact. Republicans, for example, speak of family values but are noticeably silent about spending real money for actual social policies that would help America's families.

Not to be outdone, the Democrats are now promoting a strong image of family loyalty and cohesion. They talk the talk, but will they really produce the health and child-care policies that families urgently need?

Meanwhile, neither of our presidential candidates ever challenges American society's current priorities, in which work trumps everything else in life.

Here's the question that we -- and the candidates -- must now answer: How would we transform our economic, social, cultural and institutional life as if parenting and families really mattered?

Come to think of it, perhaps this should be the first question put to the presidential candidates at the first national debate.