"Give me night, or give me Blucher"

The failure of state government is that it failed to govern, failed to administrate and failed to establish sound budgetary principles underlying each and every budget for the last thirty years. Greens for our part need to address these fundamental issues of accountability, fiscal responsibility and prioritization in the budgetary process. We need to get the handcuffs taken off, increase state revenues through direct royalties from oil companies and accounting that prevents deficits.

Student protests are all well and good, but political, legislative, electoral and Constitutional actions loom as the only viable alternatives for the mess we are in today. Prioritization: 1. Education; 2. Regional water planning, 3. Increasing revenues, 4. Re-organization of debt (feel free to add to this list, it's just off the top of my head.)

The impact of a dysfunctional government are profound and CA has certainly touched the face of God at this point. We should tremble at the potential cataclysmic impacts and not simply bask in the upsurge of a student movement that rekindles memories of our youth. It is indeed a downward spiral to the abyss that mesmerises us..

What did we fail to do as Greens? 1. We failed to predicate political work on consolidating mass public support; 2. We failed to prioritize issues, often falling behind the 'social movements" of the moment. 3. We failed to develop sound grassroots organizations that were capable of amassing the information and data around us and from there developing strategies and focused campaigns with something more then a "message". 4. We failed to develop leadership that could work together and assimilate our experiences onto a learning curve capable of benefiting our future work.

We missed the boat. "Give me night, or give me Blucher" said Wellington on the verge of defeat at Waterloo. He got Blucher. Has anyone seen Blucher?

Not with a bang.

The condemnation of the current political regime in Sacramento has become nearly universal. The following T. S. Eliot inspired quote appeared in the August/September issue of Connections, a publication of the Peace and Justice Center, Stockton, CA.

This is the way California ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. With a failure of leadership so complete, so total, as to leave the state bereft of hope for its future.

Those were the final words of an opinion piece by Robert Cruickshank from his July 19th post at Calitics.


I am not as pessimistic as Robert was in this post, but then maybe he sees more of the intestinal insides of power politics than I do. After all, he is a delegate to the State Democratic Party. I still hold out the hope of a fundamental change that I believe is necessary if the never truly realized dream of California is to have another chance.

It should be clear to all that the frustration with Sacramento politics as usual has essentially gone viral in California. Comb through the comments to OpEds in the opinion pages of any California newspaper from the very Libertarian Orange County Register to San Francisco Chronicle and you need to hack through the resentment with a mental machete, filtering it out to determine if there is any real substance to the comment or just emotion.

We are now ready to got through another long, painful and secretive budget process. Economic recovery has not come to California. If history repeats itself, California will lag the rest of the nation in terms of job creation and that makes it very difficult to be optimistic about revenue projections for the State. It appears that history will also repeat itself in that the real negotiations will take place in secret meetings and then both sides will run to the nearest microphone to sell the result as a victory for their side.

California needs a legislature where there are no backroom deals, where the process of legislative budgeting if fully transparent and open to media and the public, where the education of our children is an assumed responsibility of government, where the care of the ill and dying is not determined by the need to pay executive bonuses, where water is a human right and not a tradeable commodity.

If your legislator is not running to deliver all of the above, then it is time to go in a new direction. Those goals, common to most Californians, define what Green candidates can, and if elected, will deliver. Green candidates who do not accept corporate donations are set free to serve the public rather than their masters.

If Ex-Legislators tell the truth, what do our current crop tell?

I am astounded the termed out State Senator Sheila Kuehl has found way to describe the problems of the much lauded water legislation so that even a dummy like me can understand it. This propensity for telling thing truly is probably why some of her legislation never passed… she didn't play the Sacrament game.

Click Read more! to find out just how far truth takes her from the party line.


Kuehl has started to release a series of four essays on that recent water legislation. The first one set the stage and specifically dealt with the manner in which a bill to authorize the monitoring of ground water is an empty bucket.

Think oil. Think sticking a straw into the ground and drawing water out of vast underground lakes. There is an amazing amount of fresh water underground in California and the state has mapped the various "basins" and "subbasins" where it lies. Some groundwater is polluted and can't be withdrawn. As to the rest, private landowners, corporations, cities and other public entities draw it out in wells.

Assembly member Jared Huffman referred to SBX7.6 as providing "California’s first comprehensive groundwater monitoring requirement". Kuehl, on the other hand is a bit more objective.

One of the bills just passed, SBX7 6 (Senate Bill 6 in the 7th extraordinary session of 2009), provides that entities may "volunteer" to do groundwater monitoring of the quantity, not the quality of the groundwater (a much watered down bill from its original introduction, no pun intended).

In addition, even if they do volunteer, monitoring entities are still prevented from entering onto private property or even asking private property owners in their entity district to submit to monitoring. So, although we finally have something in the law about groundwater monitoring, we can't compel it. This is particularly troubling in the many districts where private landowners control most of an entire basin. Under the bill, voluntary monitoring may start in 2012.

Finally, paying for the monitoring is a problem as, when there is no monitoring entity, the Department of Water Resources is allowed to monitor, but may not charge private well owners. If DWR determines that all of part of a basin is not being monitored they must identify existing monitoring wells, determine whether these wells provide sufficient information and, if not, and if the State Mining and Geology Board concurs with the determination, perform the groundwater monitoring. However, since there is no extra money in DWR's budget for increased monitoring, it is not clear how they would accomplish the goal.

Today, she released the second in her series, this one covering the restructuring of the governance of the largest source of water for both agricultural and urban use, the California Delta. Once again she neatly lays out the scope of the mess that we are in.

For years, a combined federal and state entity called Cal-Fed tried to work out possible agreements, but was hamstrung by lack of funds and lack of authority to enforce agreements. A Delta Protection Commission, made up of more than twenty members, has struggled to put together a protection plan. A Delta Blue Ribbon Commission and the Public Policy Institute of California have both created extensive recommendations.

I have long felt that there were two major problems with the new governance structure. One is the lack of public representation. The major change is the naming of a new Delta Stewardship Council to create a plan for the Delta and then to see that everyone follows the plan. By law, the plan must have a dual objective of meeting both the environmental needs of the Delta as well as the needs of California for water for other uses.

In reality this will be a lobbyist driven effort with only the nominal authority to enforce the plans that they develop. They are a planning agency with some authority to block project that do not meet the plan. Unfortunately, the planning will be controlled by the Governor, who appoints 4 of the 7 members of the board, public be damned.

Kuehl and I agree on the second major weakness. The State of California has no money and so it not going to adequately fund the Delta Stewardship Council. Kuehl's point is similar.

As with every other aspect of state funding this year, the lack of funding for the entities created by this bill are troubling. The Conservancy has to find its own money. The Stewardship Council is only funded for a year. The Council has no fee authority and no power to require water users to pay for any of the improvements in the Delta. Time will tell if this has the same weakening effect that such a lack of funding had on all previous Delta governance entities.

The lack of such honesty from California Legislators is shameful.

CA State Education Budget Cuts and the Governor's Race

The recent upsurge of student strikes and rallies surrounding the CA budget cuts and education cutbacks are significant in their scale and scope. Our task as Greens is to focus their political impact and develop campaign strategies, such as the one in Orange County that increased voter support for Greens. The election of Dana Silvernale to the Northern Humboldt Union High School Board is a significant accomplishment and an indicator of our viability as a political and electoral option.

These issues raise the immedicacy of a viable Green candidate in the next Governor's election.

"Protests and occupations have taken place at UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, CSU Fresno, San Francisco State and San Francisco City College. Students have occupied Campbell Hall at UCLA, Kresge Town Hall and Kerr Hall at UC Santa Cruz, Mrak Hall and Dutton Hall at UC Davis, Wheeler Hall at UCB, and the library at CSU Fresno." http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/20/18629379.php Occupations of administration buildings are increasing at various state universities throughout the state. But even here tactics have taken precedence over strategy. Arrests are considerably less then prior actions as university adminitrators are clearly avoiding the polarization of such arrests and may see some advantage to prolonging them in regards to getting the funds back.

Teachers' unions are clearly developing their own strategies. The LA teachers union is backing an action in March. This could catch on given the extent of the cuts. The current tactics of opposing the budget have been weak on issues such as royalties on oil companies. Clearly there is a base of support among teachers and families for a Green alternative for Governor to address the budget issues..

Mass actions are needed and build popular awareness, but from all appearances they have been anticipated consequences of the budget agreement. To date they have not appeared to have a significant impact on the political processes that they are meant to influence. But, more public officials and various groups are beginning to address the budget issues. http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/7148 While the regents have become the target, the lack of funds from the state has clearly presented them with narrowed options. They might even support the actions as leverage for getting the funds back. Support from employee unions have been evident from the beginning but even there the employee turnouts in the recent "strikes" appear minimal. This may be influenced by the fact that 1/3 of university employees are part-timers.

The budget has been locked in place for years as a result of Props 13, 218 and various referenda passed over the years and the 2/3 vote requirement in the legislature. California can anticipate a $21 billion deficit even with the current draconian measures, http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/7143 State revenues are declining because of the economy and the source of new revenues include an additional 10% state extraction of incomes until income taxes are filed.

Greens have seen some impact in votes in Orange County and Fairfax, but internal disorganization remains rampant
within the Green Party throughout the state. If we are to have any influence this needs to change. Greens need to structure county organization in more effective ways and prioritize recruitment of candidates and selecting critical campaigns. K-12 and the entire system of the University of California and Cal State campuses have been impacted. Locally, public education funding need to be incorporated into our campaigns.

How do we avoid trying to run from one issue to another and ground our campaigns in the profound economic and environmental crises confronting our state? One way is for Greens to run for office. The election of Dana Silvernale is proof that we can win and we can build campaigns in school boards that address the fundamental issues confronting public education. Candidates are coming forward but we are still behind in establishing a real alternative in such campaigns throughout the state.

The Governor's race would be a highly visible effort for the party to engage in to make the most significant impact on the Green Party's relevance in the water agreement and the education cuts. Candidates for Governor need to be vetted and recruited to establish our credibility in opposing the water bond and the education budget cutback.

One water wonk and one ex-School official, or former Mayor or city supervisor, and we can establish a presence in the Governor's race with effectiveness. Is anyone out there listening?

Progressive towards what?

California Republicans look back with fond memories of the days when Reagan was Governor. Little do they remember that he actually raised taxes. It is rather President Reagan that they quote, and Nancy Reagan that they follow. Her most famous words were "Just say no." And Republicans have been doing that ever since.

For the life of me, I can not understand why those who consider themselves to be progressives would want to emulate Reagan. Yet so called progressive media: whether hard copy publications or just bloggers, continue to emulate Nancy Reagan, telling us all that they are against and very little about what they are for. It is no wonder that the public trusts Republican Politicians even less than they do Democrats. The public understand that stopping government is not a solution, even though Newt Gingrich thought it would be.

Greens who think of themselves as progressives need to think about what we are progressing towards. They should be telling the world how good it good be rather than how bad it is. A recent tweet from the GPCA id said that our candidates should be dream catchers. If we could turn the corner on this, if we could remember the words of John Lennon and allow voters to Imagine what the future might bring, Greens would attract more voters.

I quote from William Ford's Keynote speech at the 2000 Democratic Convention. It embodies the type of vision that too many Green Candidates fail to deliver.

Imagine a debt-free economy so strong that everyone shares in the American Dream.

Imagine a healthcare system where every American receives the medicine they need, and where no senior is forced to choose between buying food and filling a prescription.

Imagine a society that treats seniors with the respect and dignity they deserve, and where Social Security and Medicare are strengthened, not only for our parents and grandparents, but for our children and grandchildren.

Imagine a nation of clean coastlines, safe drinking water, pristine parks, and air our kids can breathe as they play in those parks.

We all recognize that no issue is more critical to our nation's continued success than how we educate our kids.

If we can find the will and resources to build prison after prison, then we can build new schools, reduce class sizes, connect every classroom up to the Internet.

Surely we can pay teachers what they are worth- surely we must hold schools accountable for results.

Imagine giving all our kids the world-class education they deserve.

Well, it is time to stop imagining.

We know what happened to Gore. We are thankful the Lieberman never became the VP. We know that Ford's career was trashed and he was relegated to an occasional NewsHour appearance, much of it attributed to the lack of a progressive imagination or the fact that the moneyed interest saw this as a threat.

The times have changed, some issues remain: education, health care. Ignored issues like climate change can no longer be ignored. But we still lack those visionary leaders who can show us what we could be. Will we be left with the remorse of might have been?

De-addnex Oklahoma?

The history of the State of Oklahoma is essentially the story of the marginalization of the Indian population of the United States and then the seizure of those lands to further the expansion of white America and the 19th Century rush to exploit nature for all it could provide: land for farming, ranching and most of all for oil. The Cherokee, moved over the Trail of Tears from Georgia to Oklahoma were only the most well known of many tragic exploitations.

Exploitation is still the goal of Oklahoma, as one can gather from this short clip of Sen. James Inhofe in a session of the Senate Committee Environment and Public Works, Chaired by California's Barbara Boxer.

It seems that the rest of the nation has moved beyond the pompous self-indulgent, might I use the word rapacious, resource exploitation of the 19th Century, but that the State of Oklahoma has not. It continues to elect, and re-elect such as Sen. Inhofe. Perhaps it is time that we consider de-annexing the State of Oklahoma and returning it to the rule of the Indian tribes that still live there.

PS: To my politically correct Green friends, I used the term "Indian" as a number of my "Native American" friend have used that term to describe themselves, as in the name of this important publication: Indian Country Today.

Craftmanship at the union of man and the rest of nature.

I am nearing the end of a year's subscription to Orion magazine. I'm not sure that I will renew. But, the online version of the magazine features an interesting video that I felt worth passing on.

Stone River: The Passion of Jon Piasecki
An Orion original video

Orion contributor Jon Piasecki spends his days moving -- and thinking about -- stones and how he can use them to save the world. An original Orion video production. (Read Piasecki's January/February 2008 article "The Nature of Walls".)

Worth a view if you have the bandwidth and 16 minutes.

Coal's war on America.

We know that one of the major sources of the greenhouse gasses that are driving climate change is the coal the we burn to generate electricity. If nothing is done to change that, the all of the other stuff we might do would not be enough to reign in our warming climate... making 650 ppm CO2 much more likely than 350.

One would think that it might be easy for Democrats to pass some sort of climate change legislation. Well, it would if they didn't need the votes of two Senators from West Virginia, Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, to stop what ever delaying tactics that Oklahoma's Sen. Inhofe has planned... and Inhofe has promised to block any attempt to address climate change.

We all know that Robert Byrd is the last of the old Southern Democrats and maybe the only one not to have changed parties. In fact, Byrd is older than sliced bread or band aids and even voted against the Civil Rights Act in 1964. That is the kind of Democrat he is.

This connection of West Virginia and coal and the political power they have makes a very long story and one that points to a lot that is wrong in this country in these times. Perhaps no one documents this better than Ken Ward Jr., a reporter for the Charleston WV Gazette and the owner of their Coal Tatoo blog. I have been following @kenwardjr on twitter and two tweets today are very interesting, worth everyone's attention even if your previous view of West Virginia ended with John Denver's Country Roads.

Click Read more! below for the real dirt and slag.


The first was a bit of a surprise. WV's coal interests are pretty well protected in the House of Representatives. Nick Rahall (WV-03 Dem.) is currently the Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resource and any mining regulations have to go through his committee. I will admit that Rahall is better than he predecessor, my own ex-Congressman Richard Pombo. But he has still been described as a "whore for coal."

Then I was surprised when one of Ward's tweets pointed me to a story on a primary opponent for Rahall.

Delegate Ralph Rodighiero of Logan filed pre-candidacy papers Friday that allow him to raise money for a possible primary challenge in the state's 3rd Congressional district.

The 46-year-old legislator says coal industry figures approached him several months ago, encouraging him to run. They are upset with the Obama administration's handling of mining permits.

It appears that maybe the "whore for Coal" is taking the votes but not putting out.

The Obama Administration is beginning to challenge mining permits and even appears to be willing to have the EPA go to court over Clean Water Act violations from mining operations and Rahall has not been able to block it. This is what happens when you don't jump through the master's hoop.

We know how much coal, and especially Massey Energy controls WV politics. After all, there was a recent trial where the Chief Justice of the WV Supreme Court had to recuse himself after it was revealed that he had been wined and dined on the French Riviera by Massey Energy's CEO Don Blankenship.

The mention of Blankenship ties to the next item I picked up from Ward. It seems that Blankenship and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are scheduled to debate the future of coal at an energy forum sponsored the University of Charleston. We have seen the way Blankenship operates. This is what Kennedy thinks:

In a column in The Washington Post in March, Kennedy referred to mountaintop removal coal mining(MTR) as "the greatest environmental tragedy ever to befall our nation."

"This radical form of strip mining has already flattened the tops of 500 mountains, buried 2,000 miles of streams, devastated our country's oldest and most diverse temperate forests, and blighted landscapes famous for their history and beauty," he wrote.

It is the ability of Corporations like Massey Energy with CEO's like Blankenship, to manipulate the political process for their own gains... and of course to protect the jobs of all of their workers, as they will tell you... that makes the prospect for meaningful action against climate change so dim. Even the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has called for Byrd and Rockefeller to block health care legislation over actions to clean up the coal industry. Unfortunately, Byrd and Rockefeller are in a position to do just that.

Obama promised us a change. We are beginning to see a little, with the EPA, for the first time, actually going to take a look at Massey Energy's latest MTR operation as Coal River Mountain. This would never have happened in a Bush administration. But, it is far too little and far too late.

We don't think a lot about coal out here in California. We had better start doing it, our children's lives may depend on it.

WAL-MART versus CITY OF MILPITAS

Wal-Mart plans to expand its existing store in Milpitas, California into one of those notorious community-killing Wal-Mart Supercenters. A few years ago a similar plan was turned back, but like the influenza virus, Wal-Mart never completely goes away and in tough economic times Wal-Mart feeds off the need of low-priced goods among the very workers and small businessmen that the predatory superstore helped to put into hard times.

The City of Milpitas released the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for Wal-Mart’s Supercenter application. The public has 45-days to comment. Read more to hear what community organizers in and around Milpitas are doing about it.

* * * Attention: Important Community Meeting * * *

Please join like-minded, concerned residents to discuss how we can stop the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter. Please bring your family and friends.

Thursday, November 19 at 6:00 PM
Omega Restaurant, 90 South Park Victoria Drive

Read more to hear what community organizers in and around Milpitas are doing about it.

A Wal-Mart Supercenter comes with risks...

• Displaced local businesses. Milpitas already serves as a regional retail magnet. A 24-hour Supercenter will not generate substantial gains in sales tax revenues, since it will simply displace other existing retail.
• Urban decay. As businesses close as a result of a Supercenter, property values will fall due to urban decay and property tax revenues will be lower than otherwise.
• Traffic congestion. The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) states that the 24-hour Supercenter will have lsquo;significant unavoidable impacts’ on the roadways due to traffic increases.
• 
  Lower wages. Wal-Mart pays lower wages and benefits than most of its competitors, particularly in the grocery arena. These lower wages will impact Milpitas’ economy since many employees are likely to be residents. These new jobs will displace higher paying jobs in the grocery industry.
• Lower quality of life. When a community’s mom-and-pop operations lose to national big-box chains, the community loses as well. And although Wal-Mart is located on the other side of the Interstate, a 24-hour Supercenter will impact the entire city, including your neighborhood stores.

The City of Milpitas should not allow the Supercenter. Let’s maintain our quality of life. Tell the City to reject the Wal-Mart expansion, like many other Bay Area cities.

Send your written comments via email, letter, or fax by 5:00 PM, Friday December 18th. Each letter should address the various impacts in the Draft Environmental Impact Report.

All letters should be sent to: Ms. Cindy Hom, Assistant Planner City of Milpitas Planning and Neighborhood Services Department 455 E. Calaveras Boulevard Milpitas, CA 95035 E-Mail: chom2@ci.milpitas.ca.gov

You may download a .PDF file of a sample letter to council members at: http://alexcathy.com/milpitas_letter.pdf

Is California League of Conservation Voters losing touch?

In a recent post, I accused the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) of practicing Identity theft with their greengov2010 site. After all, there is a Green Party and they should elect the real green governor in 2010.

Now, it seems that others are questioning CLCV's use of the word "Conservation" in their own name. Maybe identity theft is the family business. I had a problem understanding the CLCV's support of the recent water legislation. In the link above, you find that a delegate to the State Democratic Party, Robert Cruikshank, questions the CLCV's focus on State Senator Alan Lowenthal (100% rating by CLCV in 2008) as an environmental leader.

Has Lowenthal stopped trying to gut high speed rail? (0.00 / 0)
For someone who claims to be an environmental advocate he sure hasn't been supportive of one of the key elements of getting our carbon emissions reduced and spurring clean, sustainable forms of intercity transportation.

It would appear that the CLCV, long viewed as an extension of the Democratic Party is losing the more progressive Democrats. It makes me wonder if CLCV is still relevant.

It should be noted that the CLCV gave Assemblyman Jared Huffman the same 100% rating. This is the Huffman who was so influential in passing the recent water legislation sell out.

If Huffman and Lowenthal are the environmental leaders, then California needs Greens in Sacramento more than ever.

Tale of Two Deltas

When I first started to closely follow the water issues surrounding the California Delta, one of the first items I read was by Dr. Jeffrey Mount of U.C. Davis Center for Watershed Studies. (Various stories are around. In this one on MSNBC Dr. Mount makes the point.)

Yesterday, a Federal Judge put a large portion of the blame directly on the Army Corps of Engineers.

"It is the court's opinion that the negligence of the Corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MRGO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and short-sightedness," U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. wrote in his lengthy ruling, referring to the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet canal.

"For over 40 years, the Corps was aware that the Reach II levee protecting Chalmette and the Lower Ninth Ward was going to be compromised by the continued deterioration of the MRGO ... The Corps had an opportunity to take a myriad of actions to alleviate this deterioration or rehabilitate this deterioration and failed to do so. Clearly, the expression 'talk is cheap' applies here."

When I look at the water legislation passed recently by the California Legislature, and signed with great fanfare by our Greenwashed Gov, I have to think that no lessons were learned, no effective actions were taken and the levees are in worse shape today than they were when Dr. Mount was quoted on MSNBC.

It will take years before the Sacramento Bureaucracy admits that this effort, just like the Feinstein crafted CALFED program from the 90's, is another failure. I only hope that the levees in the Delta do not themselves fail before then. If that happens, we know who is culpable. Calfifornia Department of Water Resources, California State Legislature and, lest I forget, the Army Corps of Engineers.

Politicians preen in public, scheme in secret

If Darren Sakmuelsohn is correct in his NY Times Greenwire post, our Senators are now talking about a Climate Plan B that would still implement some sort of cap-and-trade... but only for power plants... everyone else being free to emit all they want.

"A power plant-only cap and trade could be doable on the Hill," Mark Helmke, a senior aide to Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), said today.

Senate Democratic and Republican staffers are studying a package that combines a mandatory limit on power plant emissions with separate programs outside of the cap-and-trade program aimed at cutting greenhouse gases from other sectors of the economy. "It'd be done with efficiency standards for buildings and stronger CAFE [corporate average fuel economy] standards for transport," Helmke said.

OK, it is just an idea being floated for public reaction... but it is a horrible idea. If all our legislator's did was pass the "doable" then I could do the job as well as Barbara Boxer and a hell of a lot better that DiFi. We elect them to apply their brain mass to figuring out solutions to problems, not solutions to electoral calculus.

In fact, I wonder what Boxer is really doing to end the embarrassment of our current climate non-policy. It looks like she has punted the ball over to firm of Kerry, Graham and (shudder) Lieberman. Oh how I wish we had a Green positioned to take on Boxer next year. If you surmise that her opponent would be Carly Fiorina, then it would be a race in which an ecology savvy Green can make a good case. If Nuclear Chuck DeVore pulls enough right wing-nuts to the polls to take the primary, then Boxer is the environmental choice and Greens would be less attractive as an alternative.

The world is flat and very crowded.

Yes, thanks to Joe Romm at Climate Progress, I have been reading Thomas Friedman again. In particular, I want to call attention to this excerpt from his OpEd today at the NY Times.

According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion ... passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.”

The energy, climate, water and pollution implications of adding another 2.5 billion mouths to feed, clothe, house and transport will be staggering. And this is coming, unless, as the deniers apparently believe, a global pandemic or a mass outbreak of abstinence will freeze world population — forever.

People always get anxious about what you are going to say next when you start talking about population, especially when you think that they might all want to have the same consumer that so many Americans buy so much of. Add it up and try to calculate just how much climate change is going on. This can not be sustained and those who deny, doubt, delay action should be held criminally culpable for any and all failures, just as the Army Corps of Engineers has been held responsible for the flooding of the 9th Ward by Katrina.

With all of the other economic crises facing us, we can not afford the price of inaction. The time for civil disobedience is now.

California's Budget: Is anyone doing anything right?

This week's news presents two sides of California's ongoing budget crisis. Teachers, staff and student in the California University System started a major demonstration or strike underscoring there opposition to having jobs cut and student fees increased by 32%. At the same time, most CA newspapers are reporting that the budget deficit continues to grow and there seems no end in site.

The Schwarzenegger administration seems unwilling or incapable of coming up with with either accurate projections of future income, they are already off by $1 Billion in the current cycle. At the same time, they are so locked in to a single ideological solution to the problem that they seem to become gleeful about every piece of bad news as it gives them one more excuse to rail against their prolifigate progressive opponents.

While the State Legislature remains deadlocked in these ideological conflict, the education of our youth is being flushed down the toilet or, at a minimum, rationed to only those rich enough to pay for it privately. The differences between the public UC Berkeley and the private Stanford University may be limited to the sports arena rather than their ability to broadly educate the citizens of this once-great state. I take that back. Stanford has a much better scholarship plan for those who can not afford its tuition and fees.

When the Democratic led legislature does seek to find more funding, they always end up raiding the the funds allocated to our Cities and Counties or to maintaining the infrastructure that ties Californians together. We see that now with every community having to reduce staffing for public safety services, fire and police, or local school board who have an increasingly difficult time managing their own budgets in the face of legislative raiding of their accounts.

Tied between a Republican Party that can only say "No" (to new taxation) and a Democratic Party that can't say "No" (to more spending) the public continues to suffer. Both parties have broken faith with the citizens of this state. They work in a partisan manner that guarantees the votes of their core constituencies and compromise becomes a merely a three card monte came of legislative legerdemain where the real costs are hidden by bonds and other borrowing, passed on to our children so that we don't have to pay the bills today.

The Schwarzenegger administration says that it will be facing a $14.4. Billion deficit and they have been consistently overoptimistic about State Revenues. Some worst case scenarios peg the deficit at $23 Billion. Those are numbers that can not be ignored.

The future offers California no respite from ongoing budget crises. The Legislative power structure would have us continue to borrow money to provide political fixes for our water needs, drowning Californians in more debt while drowning the Delta's economy with the results. The unwillingness of both state and federal legislatures to deal decisively with climate change only increases the final costs that we push on to our children's backs as we contemplate silly plans like the development of a Treasure Island that will be inundated by rising sea levels while we do nothing to address the same problems with our major source of fresh water, the Delta.

We should demand that the legislative leaders, dubbed the "Big Five" for the size of their egos, conduct their business in the open rather than behind closed doors as have become the common practice. Both parties seem to be absolutely paranoid about the public learning what they are willing to trade off for the sake of partisanship.

Budget assumption should be predicated on the achievement of a sustainable economy, one in which the cyclical nature of the economy does not destroy people lives in order to achieve an illusory balance. We will only hurt ourselves when budget depends the funds constitutionally guaranteed to our education system, or those of our cities and counties treating them as just another revenue stream for meeting the state payroll.

The assumption that growth will be being able to cover current account shortfalls is a dream becoming a nightmare. Too many events, from peak oil to climate change to water problems stand in the way of such economic growth and wishing will not make it happen.

All of this is an opportunity for the voters of California to find other choices... Green candidates who will practice the transparency that other only talk about.

CA Governor in 2010

In a previous post, I laid down some criteria that I thought Greens should be using to choose a candidate for POTUS in 2012. I got some good feedback on that. Today, I belatedly tackle the same problem for a Green candidate for Governor of California in 2010.

Click Read more! for my rant and recommendation.


I think that we have to put forward a candidate who is clearly adept at talking on financial matters. On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the legislative analyst's office will issue a report on the 2010 budget and media reports say that the deficit could be pegged at $25 Billion rather than the $12 Billion that Schwarzenegger has been citing.

We already know what the most likely mainstream candidate will be running on. Meg Whitman is all over the airways and the internet talking creating jobs, cutting spending and fixing education. That, more or less, will define the Republican pitch. It is even put forward as a platform.

Well, Greens already have a platform, we just need to start using it. It clearly outlines that direction we would like to see society move. It does not, however, give a very good view of how you take the current government of California and apply sound fiscal policies to create the a sustainable future for this state and all who live here, not just for the ultra-wealthy like Madame Meg.

This is not an aside. It underscores the need for a candidate who does more than mouth progressive platitudes, someone who could take a Ross Perot chart and make the rest of us understand it, understand where they want to take us. We had this for a while when Peter Camejo was mixing it up in the debates associated with the recall of Gray Davis. I have not heard that since.

While there are many inspirational people associated with the peace movement, or other social justice efforts, that is not who we need leading this part in this state at this critical time.

There are a number of other Green Issues on which we need to give our candidate all the help they can use. I know that we are in the middle of the next battle in the water wars. There are Greens ready and willing to help define a Green Party water policy and how we should react with a highly controversial water bond to be on the 2010 ballot, the Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2010.

There is an opportunity, in the 2010 election, to redefine the social contract between Government and the citizens of California. The current one has been fractured like Humpty Dumpty. We have forgotten the duty we owe each other. This election is an opportunity not to be wasted.

Meg Whitman is trying to do just that, offering a Contract with American style vision of a return to California's Golden Years. (Typical of a Republican to want to return to something that never was. We should allow Meg to enjoy her golden years.) The Democrats think that they own the social contract, but for them is only a way to slice and dice the populace, playing to every interest group and, in the end, disappointing them all.

I am concerned about having a candidate who is articulate across a broad range of issues, but they have to be able to explain what they will do about California's budget mess.

So far, of all the names that I have heard tossed around for Governor, only Laura Wells has demonstrated the chops to play this gig.

Offshore drilling wins another round

Thanks to an alert from Sacramento Progressive Activist, Dan Bacher, I learned just how far the drill-baby-drill oil lobby will go to advance their cause, especially as it relates to offshore drilling along California's coast.

The Board of Directors of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) on October 16 announced that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, chair of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force, will assume the role of President of the oil and natural gas industry trade association January 1, 2010.

That is just what we don't need, an oil industry lobbyist developing marine life protection guidelines. And the tone-deaf, NY based national media continue to refer to Schwarzenegger as a "green governor." He is about as green as the Austrian flag.

It is time that we find some creative ways of expressing our opinion. My co-blogger Alex has long been asking asking "Where is the outrage?." It seems that the progressives have quietly swallowed the hemlock and the outrage has moved to the teabaggers. How have we allowed this to happen? Perhaps we have forgotten the principles that Charlenet Spretnak and Fritjof Capra outline in Green Politics.

There is only one world and one nature. It is all we have to live in. We destroy it searching for some golden fleece, or the Ponzi dream of perpetual growth. If the time for change has come, the make sure it is really change. Challenge Schwarzenegger and his oil industry friends. Point out that it makes no good sense to try and control fossil fuel driven climate change while helping the oil industry spoil what good we have left in our natural ecology.

Identity Theft

The California League of Conservation Voters, long recognized as the environmental arm of the California Democratic Party, has now put up a new web site that exhorts everyone to "Help make California’s next Governor a Greener Governor in 353 days." They even label the web site "Green Gov". Of course, it is just an outreach for the Democrats and appears to have only a Democratic following.

I mean, it is easy to contrast Jerry Brown, who is not yet an official candidate, with Tom Campbell, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner. However, they ignore the fact that there might be an even Greener option. I doubt that they will even list a Green Party candidate when we have an official candidate. I certainly encourage Laura Wells to jump into the fray and let's start spreading the truth to the people of California.

If unchallenged, actions like the CLCV has taken will erode even more of our identity. We must protect what we have. I encourage all of you to go to the GreenGov web site and take their poll, but make sure to click "other" for the choice. Of course, they don't give you the option of filling in a name like Laura's. But we will make a point that none of that list of greenwashed corporate apologists is truly Green.

Why you Run races you "can't win".

Everyone in the Green Party is subject to questions about why they would run races that they can not possibly win. When we do reach the level where our presence becomes a factor in a race, then the charges of being a spoiler roll out from the Democrats, especially of the yellow dog breed, as if it were a Pavlovian reaction.

Let me recount a story. Sometime in late 2003 or early 2004, Jerry McNerney was talking to his son and complaining about his Congressman, Richard Pombo, a man who was so far from McNerney's own values as to bring a shudder when his name was spoken. McNerney's son asked who was running against Pombo and, when Jerry answered that no one was, his son said "The why don't you run, Dad."

From that point, Jerry started to work toward making sure that there was opposition. First, he had to build an organization that would allow him to get on the ballot as a primary election write-in for the Democratic nomination, since there were no official Democratic candidates in this safe district for Pombo, then Chairman of the House Committee on Resources. Even as the sole candidate, McNerney needed a recount of votes to qualify for the general election. He borrowed additional money against his own home as a guarantee of the cost of the recount and ended up qualifying by less than 5 votes.

Predictably, McNerney, a neophyte politician, lost in 2004. But, he came back in 2006, fought against Steve Filson, the candidate hand picked by then Representative Ellen Tauscher and backed by Rahm Emanuel and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Once again, he pulled out a victory with the odds stacked against him. As one close to all of this, I listened to the frustrations of all of the progressives who complained that Jerry spent too much time fund raising and too little time out in the district. But politicians evaluate each other based not one what they believe or what they say, but rather on how much money they can raise and the media follows along.

Aided by an arrogant and uninspired campaign by Pombo, McNerney won the seat in a Republican weighted district.

So, why might I write this on a Green blog? There are two points. First, Greens seem to be not so adept at fund raising. Having taken the pledge to not accept corporate donations, we have to work twice as hard as anyone else to raise the money from other sources, but we don't. The other is that a continuity of effort based on solid grassroots organizing will pay off in the end. The people that gave McNerney a financial boost were the denizens of DailyKos, but with the number of small donations that he was able to amass, he could then go to other donors and say... look at that track record. It was the work of an army of volunteers who helped turn the tide.

I live in an unlikely neighborhood for precinct canvassing. The terrain is hilly, the streets are winding and the lots are about half an acre. The only campaign that has ever come to my home to canvass was for McNerney. When the Pombo campaign announced its own major canvass action leaving from a rail station, the volunteers were there with a video camera to record the non-appearance of even a single Pombo volunteer and within 30 minutes, it was on the blogs and the video on YouTube.

We have an opportunity in 2010 to make major gains. The really progressive Democrats have had an opportunity to become disenchanted. The Republicans are rather in disarray as it appears that the tea baggers are controlling its direction. But we need to be executing now on those very important basic tasks that got Jerry McNerney his Congressional seat: fund raising and building the volunteer organization. Meg Whitman raised $70,000 yesterday. (Source: ElectionTrack) What are we doing?

An Inside Job part II. The Water Wheel.

In every political campaign that I have observed since going to a neighbor's house to watch the 1956 re-nomination of Adlai Stevenson on a grainy black and white television, I have noted the manner in which every candidate exploits their experience as the major criteria for selection. We all recently recently listened to Hillary Clinton and John McCain as they tried to use the experience argument against Barack Obama in 2008.

I can think of no local example where the value of experience is more clearly used, and abused, than with the battles to control California's water. In my own community, where the water wholesaler is the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD), there is continual movement of personnel from working for the water district to serving as a member of the board. There is even a case where the board hired one of their own members to be a senior manager for the SCVWD. It is alike a water wheel, continuously turning, but only moving members from one role to another.

Sometimes, being so much on the inside helps as one gains knowledge. More often the confidence that an elected official has in their own knowledge and the hard work of their long time associates leads to an arrogance, or maybe just a misplaced sense of trust, and when oversight is involved, blindness to what is really going on.

Such blindness, or laziness, is surely behind the fact that the SCVWD board approved a budget that allowed the water district to double dip into tax payer's pocket books. They levied a groundwater fee against well owners and also collected a charge against property taxes.

Such blindness surely affected Marin Assemblyman Jared Huffman as he guided the package of water legislation through the Assembly during the recent Special Session.. Special Session 7, since the legislature can't seem to get things done any other way.

Huffman surely has some experience with the issues involved as a quick read of his web autobiographical statement tell you. He served on the Board of Director of the Marin Water District for 12 years before running for the Assembly. Of course, one wonders whether that was a time when he practiced sound oversight, or like his counterparts in SCVWD, just learned to go along. One interesting speculation would be to know if

This is another case where I think that we have to examine whether his close relationship with a water supplier might have blinded him to the needs of water users, a sort of insider arrogance that help pass California's term limits legislation.

In a previous post, I wondered how Barry Nelson and the NRDC was able to gain an insider position in the development of this water legislation. It all became clear when I read Huffman's bio. He was a Senior Attorney for the NRDC. Bingo. Connection made.
It isn't citizen involved regional planning, but personal connections that count. Is there such a thing as corporate nepotism?

The fact that Huffman backed out on his promise to NOT support the bond measure, a promise given to many of the organizations who sponsored the reasonable, alternative plan for water management. It would seem that he is still too close to the water suppliers that were his support for far to long. He betrayed his friends, he sponsored legislation that betrayed the residents of the Delta and voted for a bond measure the seems to betray the tax paying people of California.

I wonder what Huffman will do next. Speculation on that belongs in another post. We might find someone else pulling an inside job.

Coal runs America... into the ground.

If you know much at all about the political strength of the coal industry, this article in the Phoenix Sun will not surprise you, but is till worth the read to reinforce the knowledge that a blatant 19th Century Robber Baron mentality that is still at work in the US, wrapped in the American Flag.

If you have not paid any attention to this, then it is all the more reason for your to spend some time thinking about the ramifications of Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship addressing a rally in his red, white and blue shirt and introducing pro-coal coloring books into the curriculum for West Virginia's elementary school children.

Several years ago, David Cobb wrote an OpEd for the Eureka Times Standard, commenting on a right wingnut speaker named Holly Swanson whose day job was going around the country railing at all things good and Green. I quote:

Approximately 60 folks attended to hear a diatribe that included an allegation that the Green Party was engaged in a concerted effort to “brainwash” children to respect the earth. Swanson went so far as to accuse the Greens of being just like the Nazi Party of fascist Germany.

Doesn't that sound just like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck today, or the tea bagger venting their wrath on Obama as their target of opportunity.

So, here is a big cheer to Dana Silvernail who actually may be Holly Swanson's worst nightmare, a Green who actually won a seat the board of the Northern Humboldt Union High School District. As I wrote in a congratulatory note to Dana, "All you need to do is have students who respect the truth."

The Phoenix Sun article concludes:
> If you want to stay up-to-date with news on the coal front, you’re in luck. Ken Ward, Jr., the dean of American coal reporters, writes a blog for the Charleston (WV) Gazette called The Coal Tattoo. Read it and weep. And then organize.
I keep up to date by following @Jenwardjr on Twitter.

We don't think much about coal in California. The mines we once had (Parkfield, for example) have long since been abandoned. But we do need to think about where this country is headed and how very effective Coal is at controlling what we do. For example, did you know the the Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Nick Rahall, represents the 3rd District of West Virgina which is truly ground zero for mountain top removal mining. You wonder why we can't get anything done?

You may also wonder why the Democrats are so hesitant to push for a climate change bill, or that the bill currently under consideration in the Senate - known as Kerry-Boxer - has so much provision for the future use of coal? Well, both of the Senators from WV, Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, are Dems and taking away their votes would make sure that an Republican filibuster, already promised by Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, would be sustained.

I agree with the Phoenix Sun, Read this and weep. Weep for the mountains that will never be again. Weep for the citizens of Rahall's district who have no other options, whose one last public opportunity to change Coal River Mountain from a toxic cleanup site into a jobs and energy producing windcatcher has been blasted away. Then organize. If you can do nothing else, the next time you feel like a cup of coffee or a soft drink, take the money you would have spent and donate it to the West Virginia Mountain Party.

An inside job

It is very difficult to work on a project, especially a legislative effort, from the outside. Many hours and much more money are required to get enough people to become passionate enough about any issue to indirectly influence that legislation. It is even more difficult when the issue is California Water with a history of confrontation, a Water Code filled with arcane references to events long past and a bureaucracy in Sacramento that seems good only at drafting opinions.

We watch while lobbyists march in and out of legislative offices, offering advice and even suggesting the wording of bills. It all seems so slimy that it is no wonder the vast majority of the American public view lobbyists as a special kind of agent of evil.

When you have a policy position contrary to that of the big money corporate lobbyists, you might jump at a chance to go inside, help craft the legislation that is going to emerge and hope to include your own goals and projects. The danger is that some of the slime might rub off on you, but never mind, since your goals are above reproach.



The Natural Resources Defense Council has become particularly adept at this inside play and it is truly hard to find fault with their professed goals, every one of which they list in their appeals for more money to do more good work. But some times the final results make about as much ecological sense as mountain removal mining.

It is like their many letters I have received, raising money with an appeal to protect the polar bear. It might work for some, but the species that needs protecting from extinction is homo sapiens and they need protection from themselves.

I really must commend NRDC water analyst Barry Nelson for having finally become a real insider. He will list NRDC's his accomplishments on his switchboard blog and try to get us all plugged in. Nelson links us to a summary of the water legislation from another insider, the Conservation Strategy Group. Ok, they are paid lobbyists so maybe it doesn't count. They include the Metropolitan and Marin County Water Districts as their clients… and we know that the Metropolitan Water District is very concerned about how and when that are required to do anything. Maybe the synopsis from Kronick Moskovitz Tiedemann & Girard would have been more objective or at least more inclusive.

If Conservation is really what the NRDC was trying to make happen, how then can we believe that they can accept a 20% reduction in per capita water use by 2020 for all of California and then allow the legislation to not require specific quantitative reductions. It is all about plans and even the slaps on the wrist are about whether or not someone submitted a plan, not about whether that plan would achieve the stated goals.

It appears that the NRDC and the Conservation Stragegy Group have "strategized" a game in which one side (Urban) has measurements and the other side (Ag) only has goals. Even the goals have yet to be defined, definition takes hearings, appeals, challenges. I don't think we need to play that game to know who wins. Big corporate farms and their cooperative water districts.

What I want to know is just what NRDC gets out of this... we know that Conservation Strategy Group always gets more contracts. How much did they have to compromise away to get even a token bill passed? We really want to know because we are the ones who will eventually have to pay.

California could have had a much better plan, but water flows to money and when money is in play, it is better to be inside. When we ask how did all of this get out of control, the answer will be... it was an inside job.

Hope on global warming? Not likely.

It has always been easy for Greens and others who consider themselves progressives to find reasons for the easy reception of the climate change denial message. We blame it all on the power of corporate advertising, on lobbyists, on the evil nature of a pair of ex-junkies (Beck and Limbaugh) on talk radio, on our own failures to adequately frame our own messages.

This morning I read a very different view that Dr. Genevieve Marcus forwarded to the Green California Forum. It was an LA times OpEd (now available only in archives for a fee) by Ted Kennedy biographer, Neal Gabler, in which Gabler asserted that conservatism had been transformed from a political movement into a religious one, where the certainty that one is right is much more powerful than rational discourse.

It's understandable that liberals prefer to think of their subordination as a matter of their own inadequacies or of conservative wiles. Theoretically, you can learn how to improve your message or how to match wits with adversaries, and a lot of liberal hand-wringing has been dedicated to doing just that. But it is becoming increasingly clear that liberals haven't just been succumbing to superior message control, or
even to a superior political narrative (conservatives' frontier individualism versus liberals' communitarianism). They are up against something far more intractable and far more difficult to defeat. They are up against religion.

It reminds me of book I had read long ago, The True Believer by Eric Hoffer or The Captive Mind by Cseslaw Milosz. The word of Milosz seems most to come to mind: "The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history."


Even highly respected figures like Joe Romm (Climate Progress) mix it up in the media ring in order to get the story told rationally. Today, he went after the NewsHour program on PBS for it's failure to admit that CO2 is a primary cause of our current climate change.

Greens want to arrive at a solution to our climate, energy and water problems that will provide a sustainable future for all. In order to do so, we have to provide sensible policy options in the current, highly charged political environment and then champion them with just as much passion as Gabler recognizes in the political fundamentalism that currently unites what is left of the Republican Party.

We seem not to be able to do both a the same time. Bill McKibben can raise our passions with 350.org, but he absolutely refuses to deal with policy. The writers at any number of sites can discuss policy until sunrise but often with a passion for action. Those who have both, Dr. James Hansen for example, have become the enemy of the climate deniers. But this weekend, Hansen, who has just recovered from surgery and treatment for cancer, joined students outside the Massachusetts Statehouse who refuse to sleep in dorms/apartments powered by coal-fired electricity.

I closely follow the machinations of the US Senate where our own Sen Boxer chairs the Committee on Environment and Public Works. There is where the search for votes has backed her into the corner of allowing Joe Liebermann and Lindsey Graham rewrite a bill that was only marginally successful.

Unless we offer alternatives we will never be the alternative. It is time that we push forward our policies with a passion, a passion for action rather than rhetoric, offering policies that point to a future of sustainable living instead of joining the Republicans to "just say no."

Green for 2012

It is not too early to start thinking about who might be the best choice for a Green Party presidential candidate in 2012. You know that both the Democratic and Republican Parties are doing just that… some like Minnesota Gov. Pawlenty are already spending a lot of time in other states.

It is with that in mind that I think it a valuable exercise to describe the characteristics I would want to see in a Green Party candidate. Click Read more! to pursue that idea.


Economy: If Greens are to have a real impact in the next presidential election cycle, we must have a candidate who can articulate what being Green means to the typical voter. Whether you view that voter as Joe the Plumber, or just as you next door neighbor, we do know that there is a diverse population of voters whose needs must be met in order to secure their vote. Aiming a campaign only at some imagined progressive block will only further marginalize this party and, in my opinion, increase the likelihood of having to travel The Road of Cormac McCarthy.

James Carville coined the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" in the 1992 Clinton campaign. If Greens try to turn that into "It's the stupid economy" and run from the issue rather than embracing it, then it would be better not to run at all. Significant (over 80%) majorities of voters in the recent NJ/VA gubernatorial elections said that they were most concerned about the economy. This is not likely to change by 2012. Republicans will surely exploit this in every way that they can, linking every weakness to Obama's liberal big government spending.

It takes some 18 months before employment numbers turn positive after the economists say that a recession is over. We will still be recovering as candidates truly engage in the POTUS dance. Greens will only make inroads if they make economic sense.

Ecology: The only way to truly expound the Green way of thinking is to forget about the environment and start talking about ecology. Words have meaning. The terminology we use is important. As Dr. Frank Luntz wrote, "It's not what you say, but what people hear." The environment carries the connotation of a place that is far away. People go out into the environment. The Glenn Beck's and Rush Limbaugh's use "enviros" as a term of derision. Let them try that with "ecologists".

By 2012, we will not have resolved the climate change issues. This battle will still be fought and right now. It is a battle of people against the universe and, sad to say, we are winning. The ecological truth is that we need to view it all as a system and find ways to make the system work together like a well tuned engine. The fundamental change in thinking is that ecology means we consider how decisions that we make over agricultural practices in Iowa will have an effect on shrimp fishing in the Gulf of Mexico or the probability of another Katrina-like strike at New Orleans. It is all that interdependent.

It means that the measures we take to control climate change must be explained in terms of their economic impact. If the Republicans, who have long waged a war on science, are allowed to define this in Sarah Palin terms, millions will die.

Social Contract: Most of the truly revolutionary changes in American politics, especially those that came out of a time of crisis, have defined a new social contract for Americans. Whether it came with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, LBJ's Guns and Butter or the Newt Gingrich's (really Frank Luntz's) Contract with America, leaders were able to articulate a vision of how government should work for all of the citizens of this country.

We should not make the mistake of blurring the enemies lines of demarcation. There are real difference in this area between Democrats and Republicans though both buy in to the concept that all good comes from growth. Their difference lie in how to achieve that goal and those differences can be exploited.

The real difference is with the Green view of the social contract, one expressed in terms of social ecology, where free individual choices need to be seen in terms of the entire system in which they are made. It is extremely difficult to do this, but it must be done.

Past Green Party presidential campaigns have failed to ignite enthusiasm because they accomplished none of the above goals. They talked to Greens rather than to all Americans. One might be able to speak to a hip-hop audience in their own terms, but may have to deal with the fact that hip-hop listeners want their President to rise to a different level, to be, in fact, presidential.

The Green Party has to do a lot of soul searching and candidate searching between now and the next election. We better get it right because the fate of mankind may just depend on what kind of president we have in 2012.