October 1, 2011 by mike.

Your state is on fire, the drought is causing rivers and lakes to dry up and that could go on for a long time.  Meanwhile, ice shelves in Canada are collapsing faster than expected and these collapses will serve to speed global warming at ocean surface absorbs more solar radiation than ice surface which reflects solar radiation to an extent.  And Britain has recorded the hottest day ever in October.  You might want to revisit your belief system that global warming is not happening.  You are on the wrong side of history with this one.

You might want to walk that position back a wee bit.

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September 26, 2011 by mike.

There are reports of police assault on the occupation of Wall Street.   The first amendment grants us the right to assemble and speak out.  It’s a shame that this country has so little tolerance for first amendment rights.

I am reminded of the video I have seen from China when the military was streaming toward Tiananmen Square and the Chinese people flooded into the streets to slow the military, they pleaded with the soldiers to join the protest, to side with the people. The pleas were not heard.

It’s going to be hard for the protestors who occupy Wall Street to reach the police who are ordered to come in and disperse the crowds, but things change when the shock troops of the empire hear the message that peace, freedom, equality, justice are not always compatible with order.   We have to reach across the lines and ask the police to choose constitutional freedoms over order.

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September 21, 2011 by mike.

if you’re talking about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out…

I share John Lennon’s ambivalence about the revolution, but I think there are revolutions coming.  Maybe a revolution doesn’t have to include the choreography and armament to take the Bastille?

How about a revolution in agriculture?  We watched a video about colony collapse disorder last night: Vanishing of the Bees.   Well done, sobering, broad review of the situation for our pollination partners.  I used to keep bees.  Most beekeepers develop a pretty strong connection to their hives, to the collective being that is a beehive.  The beekeepers in this movie certainly showed that connection.  I don’t want to give the story away, so I will just say that I think the filmmakers are correct to identify bees as “canaries in the coal mine.”  I think we need a revolution in the way we approach agriculture and food.   Global food.  What should it look like?

Also thinking about our global economic system.  Tikkun has a piece by Leonardo Boff on the Crisis of Capitalism.  This is an interesting read.  I do have a sense that the current global economic crisis is qualitatively different from previous downturns.  We face some pretty staggering demands from the natural world.  We now live in a world of more extreme weather and the likelihood is that the trend to more extreme weather is just getting started, so the solution is a really major retooling of the world economy where sustainability rather than profit is the goal. Stabilizing the environment is going to require more than a game of three card monte based on cap and trade.  The shell game has always been entertaining, but the game is fixed and the outcome is about fleecing the mark.   (if you look around and you can’t spot the mark, you are the mark).  Here’s a little taste of that Boff piece:

I believe the present crisis of capitalism is more than cyclical and structural. It is terminal. Are we seeing the end of the genius of capitalism, of always being able to adapt to any circumstance? I am aware that only few other people maintain this thesis. Two things, however, bring me to this conclusion.

The first is the following: the crisis is terminal because we all, but in particular capitalism, have exceeded the limits of the Earth. We have occupied and depredated the whole planet, destroying her subtle equilibrium and exhausting her goods and services, to the point that she alone can no longer replenish all that has been removed…

The second reason is linked to the humanitarian crisis that capitalism is creating.

Before, it was limited to the peripheral countries. Now it is global, and it has reached the central countries. The economic question cannot be resolved by dismantling society. The victims, connected by new venues of communication, resist, revolt and threaten the present order. Ever more people, especially the young, reject the perverse capitalist political economic logic: the dictatorship of finance that, through the market, subjugates the States to its interests, and the profitability of speculative capital, that circulates from one stock market to another, reaping profits without producing anything at all, except more money for the stockholders.

So our gaze in the US of A is currently fixed on the three card monte game that is the national election cycle.  Here we go, keep the cards rotating, let the media cover the “debates” and comment on who won and who lost, like a winner could be found in this crowd (Huntsman?  What is he doing in the GOP?) The media talking heads perform like they have one lonely brain cell in their pretty little heads, they stay away from any significant, in-depth questions, or if they ask a good question, they watch as somebody pulls the string so the candidate can recite a talking  point that may or may not have anything to do with the question or the underlying and significant issue.

Just think about how bad it is when the country is having trouble deciding whether Obama is a better choice than a candidate like Perry or Bachman.  Yikes!  Obama has made some disastrous choices, starting with his choice of Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner and he’s turned out to be sort of an Eisenhower Republican, though maybe some of us were hoping to get a democrat in the WH or even a Rockefeller Republican.  Can’t get there from here.

Imagine this country electing an FDR type democrat?  That would be a revolution (and would probably spark one as well).

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August 26, 2011 by mike.

Haven’t had time to look hard at this group - Climate Reality, but at first glance it appears to be an education campaign.  I am down with that.

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August 26, 2011 by mike.

Global warming, big hurricanes. Any questions?

Governor Rick Perry - please report to the North Carolina Coast to pray this huge storm away.

For those of you hanging over on the right coast, move to high ground.  Find a dry place and stay safe.

Think about the long term impact of global warming and what you want to do about it.

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August 18, 2011 by mike.

The stock market continues to be on a roller coaster ride as it slides and then rebounds as traders engage in fishing the bottom and making trading commissions, sliding a few bucks out of the pockets of the marks.

Prez Obama is on the road in his magic bus talking about jobs and job creation. The NY Post (bastion of responsible journalism!@!) is reporting the bus was built in Canada.  Well, job creation somewhere on the continent, I guess that’s good, but it might have been a nice touch to have had the thing built here in the USA to go on tour and talk about jobs.  

It’s always easy on the ear to listen to Barack talk and sometimes inspiring, but it’s a bit like holding a shell to your ear and enjoying the sound of the ocean.  It’s largely theater, the connections between the sounds and any reality are pretty slight.

The political decisions that Obama has made - from Geithner instead of Krugman or Stiglitz, to TARP bank bailouts instead of an FDR style green energy public works project, to ditching the public option in favor of a corporate insurance health care makeover, to the late 2010 deal for extending the Bush tax breaks for the have-mores, the spineless negotiation over the debt ceiling - have emptied Obama’s pockets. I think he has no means to create significant jobs legislation.  That opportunity existed in his first 100 days and is now just a faint memory.  Maybe I am wrong about this.  I would love to be wrong about this, but I tend to rely on rational analysis and the rational analysis conclusion I arrive at is bleak.  But who knows, maybe the President will take us all on a snorkeling vacation to Aruba!  Rainbow pie!

Back to rational analysis:

I think we face a different kind of downturn today.  We are so deep in the trees now that the forest vision is long gone.  What I recall is that our means of production, our fuel source, is a disaster from an environmental perspective and is also past its peak from a production angle, so that’s an ugly situation.  I think we are not-facing an existential crisis where we desperately need to look at an energy system conversion to green, sustainable energy infrastructure.  The good news is that the energy is there and will be for a long time because our parent star seems to be in its prime, but we have to wake up and appreciate the relatively clean energy raining down on us every day.  That’s happening to some extent, but there is also the prospect of resource wars and war profiteering is enjoying the low tax rates, so a rational person would have to feel bullish about the prospect for military solutions to scarcity problems.  Arab spring?  Street riots about austerity?  you connect the dots, kemosabe.

Anyway, haven’t had much to say lately.  Have been working on video projects.  Watching the madness of the Tea Party/GOP ramp up as the spokesmodels compete to make the most outrageous comments and seize the low ground for the next election cycle.

And out of the mist, the fog of war, the swirl of drone rocket debris clouds, comes the POTUS in his new bus to cheer us up with talk of jobs.

Holey moley. I don’t think talk of a jobs program is going to get it done, Barack.  What else have you got?  How is life in the bubble?  I know that having someone other than Barack get elected in the next POTUS cycle would be really bad, but getting Barack for a second bite at the apple doesn’t look that good either. The Obama fans will be angry with me for declaring the emperor is parading around naked, but I think Barack has to take a little responsibility for letting the pragmatic partisans on the other side back him into this corner. I never suggested that he bang his head on the wall of third-way politics.

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June 27, 2011 by mike.

Common Dreams is reporting that the berm around Fort Calhoun nuclear plant has breached.

The story continues to be spun, suppressed, and misreported.  I agree with many of the commenters who think this particular event may not be particularly dangerous.  The coverage of the story is a bigger story.  The dangers of building nuclear plants in floodplains along rivers (essential cooling water source) and the accumulation of residential growth and population in close proximity to nuclear plants is a big story.  The essential unsafe nature of nuclear engineering, the problem with “mothballing” plants, disposing (where you gonna dispose of stuff that will be dangerous for thousands of years?) of waste, the collateral damage to public health by the occasional radioactive emission when an “event” occurs; these things are or should be a big story.

Dahr Jamail has an update story on Fukushima at Aljazeera.   Thanks to my friend Pat Rasmussen at Temperate Rainforests for passing that one on.

There is an essay out about a spike in infant mortality that suggests Fukushima may have had some public health impact here on the Left Coast.

This is complicated stuff, but the handwriting is on the wall for those who want to read it: nuclear power is not safe or clean.

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June 23, 2011 by mike.

It’s hard to sort the information on the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Story, but for context, here are a couple of items to consider:

• KETV 7 in Omaha ran a story on March 31, 2011 that stated that Fort Calhoun is “one of three reactors across the country that federal regulators said they are most concerned about.”

• On June 6, 2011, the FAA issued a notice banning air flight in a 2 mile radius around Fort Calhoun.

• On June 7, 2011, there was an accident/fire of some sort at the plant.  It may have been a small matter, but like turning off the valves at Chernobyl, sometimes small matters at nuclear plants become big matters when the engineering systems develop issues.

• Business Insider has a poorly written piece (sorry, ricky, but who is OPPD?) from Jun 15, 2011 that has some good time line info and some video coverage.  OPPD is reported to have requested the video coverage not be aired.  (Omaha Public Power District) per coverage from Henry Blodget, also Business Insider story.

• Here’s an interesting story from AP that the local Olympia newspaper that covers the weakening of regulation to accommodate an aging and possibly unsafe nuclear energy industry.  (privatized profit, socialized risk model in action)

The timelines and stories, particularly the foreign coverage, do not fit together well, but the March story suggests context that Fort Calhoun is a worrisome plant.  The pictures of the plant surrounded by the Missouri River reinforce that context.  If you are interested in responsible, accurate coverage of the story, I would go with Pro Publica’s coverage.  It does not have the political edge and mission of the foreign coverage and it is likely to be more forthright that the corporate media coverage of nuclear accident stories.Another wrinkle in this story is the report that dry storage is outside the containment area and half-submerged.  True?  Maybe.  A well-informed citizenry needs to study important issues with a keen eye.  Or you can watch Fox News if you want Corporate Infotainment.

The real story, and it is being severely under-reported is that the flooding, like the tornadoes this year, is that these events are driven by global warming and climate change.  Another aspect of this story is that the nuclear industry is trying to increase its US energy future by noting the low level of greenhouse gas emissions.  But as Chernobyl made so clear, nuclear emissions are also a problem.

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June 5, 2011 by mike.

I posted the first 4 points about organizing here.  This is my condensed presentation of the 14 pages, the full presentation that is available here.  This website title - The End of Capitalism - suggests that the folks behind this project are thinking like I am.  I think that unfettered capitalism, free market globalism, is an abject failure.  Read and think carefully.  I think that free market energy, style, human waves of fashion and style, free enterprise are forces like weather.  They do good things if they are harnessed and fettered. Free market globalism, the elevation of the free market as an end in itself, the commodification of the natural world, the exploitation of people and nature that is a natural byproduct of unfettered, unregulated free market economy is a bad thing.  Environmental degradation, exploitation of individuals are economic activities that can be very profitable. Regulation of free markets, of globalism, runaway capitalism must happen or we face a bleak future.  There are powerful, minority forces working against regulation and for profit as the primary goal.  I hope the end of that form of capitalism is coming.

Ok, back to the Organizing Points.  I did the first four points in Part I.  I expect this will take 3 parts, so here we go:  Part II.

5.  What Does Solidarity Mean, Especially with the Immigrant Justice Movement?

A. Solidarity is not just financial or administrative support of other people’s struggles but fundamentally recognizing the ways in which we all would benefit by the successes of movements of oppressed people

B. Demonstrating an active notion of solidarity where people with privilege don’t sideline themselves but instead endeavor the difficult task of both providing and respecting other’s leadership in the movement

C. Managing the conflict between political analysis and understanding of successful movement building strategies and letting local immigrant communities set the terms of their movement

6.  What Is the State of the Struggle Today, Particularly Internationally

A. National liberation struggles are not the primary mode of struggle today because capitalist globalization has weakened the state as a means of achieving self- determination

B. “Three-way fight” politics argue that the struggle today consists of the global capitalist/imperialist ruling class (of liberal, moderate, and conservative persuasions), the revolutionary left, and the revolutionary right (al-Qaeda, neo-Nazis, etc.) See www.threewayfight.blogspot.com for background
C. Recognizing ideas about direct and participatory forms of democracy that arise from local and indigenous traditions of self-governance and self-management and the under- theorized state of the the struggle

7.  How Do We Organize Simultaneously on Local, Regional, National, and International Levels?

A.  Many activists express the desire to organize as a national or international movement, but are not certain how to make the connections.

B.  We need to continue to make connections between groups that are arising and working toward closely aligned goals.

C. We can look at various organizations that have made headway with local, regional and inter/national organizing. These include Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that is largely active on college campuses, Northeast Federation of Anarcho-communists (NEFAC) that is active in union organization in Boston and Montreal, and Project South, a Black training and leadership development group based in Atlanta, that was key to the 2007 US Social Forum.

The underlying piece at the End of Capitalism is from November 2009 so it is a little dated.  The Social Forums and events like the April 2011 Power Shift conference may reflect the current best practice for organizing simultaneously at local, regional, national and international levels.

The solutions and changes that we desire require that we work in cooperative manner.  With an open attitude toward groups whose ideas and tactics may make us uncomfortable, but whose visions and goals are closely aligned with our own.  Liberals, progressives, radicals, whatever we choose to call ourselves are not a group that likes to walk in lockstep.  We must demonstrate solidarity and resist a puritanical call for any distinct set of ideas or tactics that are mandatory or absolutely prohibited.  I would suggest in this regard that points 3. C. and 3. E. are very important to keep in mind.

We must

3. C.   Maintain relationships with other activists and groups who may not have engaged in the same tactics but who remained committed and sympathetic

3. E. Build mass movements where militant tactics can be present without dividing the movement

I don’t need to stress 3. D. about helping increase militancy because I am pretty mainstream in my radicalism.  I am in touch with enough folks who share my visions and goals and are more militant in their tactics, so 3. D. is not critical to me.

I do not feel that I can tell the more militant that their tactics are wrong.  We face police in riot gear at peaceful demonstrations as a regular event.  We can get roughed up and arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial.  We face an electoral system that is wildly degraded now by unlimited corporate money and that continues to resist the accountability of paper ballots that can be used to make sure that votes are counted accurately. In this environment, I am not certain about how we should proceed, but I think we liberals, progressives, and radicals need to proceed together, in solidarity.

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June 1, 2011 by mike.

It can be done.  The world we want is available.  Vermont has enacted a single payer medical care system.  Right here in the US, a state has established the medical system that would fix so much that is wrong with our health care system.  I think we can count on the free market medical care and corporate insurance interests to do everything in their power to make this system fail.  There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.  Is this the time?  I hope so.

Some links to read more about this experiment:

• Stephen Lendman piece at South Bay Indy Media
• Green Mountain care piece in American Medical News
• The push back will look like this WSJ piece or worse, I will let you find the worse, it’s out there

This experiment and push toward socialized medicine is a david and goliath battle.  Enacting legislation like this is radical. What does it mean to be radical?  A couple of bits to consider:

• (esp. of change or action) Relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough
• A person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims
• Of or relating to the root of something, in particular

Maintaining the roots of health care in the free market capitalism of health insurance profits, flattened tax rates, and annual CEO bonuses is not a reasonable formula for improving the health care system of the United States.  The change that is needed is radical.

Talking about commitment to a robust public option and failing to actually enact any public option is a capitulation to a health care system rooted in free market capitalism, a system that arguably profits from misery.  I want radical change.  I want a health care system rooted in an idea like Medicare for All.  Pose it as a pro-life scheme if you like.  I want fetuses to have Medicare coverage.

Is that radical?  I hope it is. I am a radical.

On to power generation:

Earth Times reports that Scotland has committed to 100% renewable energy grid by 2020.  That’s daring, courageous, and radical.  I am down with that.

The Beeb is covering the story that Angela Merkel has decided that nuclear power is not the future for Germany.  There is a strong environmental movement in Germany that has opposed nuclear energy.  The Chernobyl nuclear disaster gave that movement a lot of energy. The recent failure of planning and engineering at Fukushima has turned up the heat.  Merkel’s party lost recent elections and I think Merkel is making a politically wise and calculated decision.  The position that Merkel has staked out is radical.

What are the chances that the US could make these kind of radical decisions regarding power generation?  I make them slim to none.  American radicals live in the heart of the beast.

Che said he envied our position:  “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all – you live in the heart of the beast.” - Che Guevara

The fight does not have to be violent, unlawful, but it will be radical if it has any chance of effecting real change.  Thank you, Che, for reminding us why the struggle for radical politics is important.

One more quote from one of my heroes:

I. F. Stone- “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing—for the sheer fun and joy of it—to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it.”

It’s hump day, go get’m.

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