Global Warming: Why it all matters

Let me call attention to a couple of different stories today.

The first came to me when I looked at Dave Roberts' Gristmill blog this AM. Dave makes it a Friday Night practice of blogging a particular piece of music that caught his attention. This week, it touches on global warming, Mountain Top Removal in West Virginia and the connection is Coal. In fact, that is the name of the album from which this selection is taken. Coal, by country singer Kathy Mattea.

One might be tempted to take all of this as an intellectual exercise. After all, how many of us have really had much to do with coal mining. I know that my late sister-in-law, Mary Barnes Rolley, had her MS in Coal Geology from the Univ. of Illinois. That is about as close as I got and I am drawing Social Security.

It is often frustrating when we deal with issues like climate change that are so easily abstracted. I remember with some nostalgia my college days when Dylan was just a rumor of some young guy singing great stuff around the coffee houses and The Times They Are A-Changin' had not yet been recorded. There is no coffee house circuit anymore and potential young Dylans want to jump right to the top as an American Idol. But let me call your attention to the way that Mattea's Bend, OR concert was hyped by the local paper, the Bend Bulletin. The story begins this way...

Here’s a depressing little exercise for you to try: Hop on the Internet, visit Google Maps, and search for “Danville, W.Va.” Once you’re in Danville, click over to “Satellite” view and zoom out a little bit.

See that giant, grayish area west of town? That’s where a coal-extraction company has blown off the top of a mountain to make its job easier.

Now, zoom out more, and follow the trail of grayish spots that pockmark the rolling, green hills of the Appalachian Mountains to the southwest of Danville, extending across West Virginia and into eastern Kentucky.

Every one of those spots represents what used to be a mountain. The mountains are now flat, thanks to the extraction method known as mountaintop removal.

I challenge you do do that exercise.

Here is another challenge. Make a contribution to the West Virginia Mountain Party. They are the Green Party affiliate and they have been fighting this battle since the beginning. Anthing helps, even $10.

The wolutions for world hunger? Not GMO.

We all look for affirmation of our own notions of how the world works. I was rather pleased to find such an affirmation this week, though I didn't get it from the US Press, obsessed as it is with Hillary, Barack and Rob Lowe's nanny.

In a comment to an earlier post, Richard indicated that the solutions for world hunger were to be found in the technology of Genetic Engineering.

Genetically modified foods promise improved agricultural production and food value.

We know that this is what they promise, but it is not what they deliver. Case in point is the article that appeared in a UK newspaper, The Independent, about studies of Roundup Ready Soybeans from Monsanto.

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Now the Independent got the story if not the details. Professor Barney Gordon is an agronomist at Kansas State University, not the University of Kansas. However, do not let that cast doubt on the message, because a similar finding came from a more carefully controlled study at the University of Nebraska.

Most soy grown in the United States has genetic modifications. Brazil is a major producer and there it is nearly 100%.

Tofu anyone?

Farming the front yard.

My Earth Day Messages post generated a bit of discussion, most of it good. Steve mentioned the manner in which some are taking the step of re-introducing self sufficiency in food production. I would like to note two great examples of this sort of thinking. They are from those famous neo-Luddite publications, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

As I referenced before, Michael Pollan's New York Times article suggests that planting a garden, rather than installing CFL's, is the perfect response for someone who is concerned about global warming. With a CFL, you buy it, you replace the old bulb and they you walk away, forget about it but you feel like you have done something. If you plant a garden like Pollan suggests, it has a more lasting affect. You may even begin to notice the cycles of the weather, to think about where the water will come from in a dry month, year, decade. It will substantially change you, even to allow yourself to shed the "cheap-energy mind".

The Wall Street Journal gives you an example of a man who did just that, and in his own front yard yet...they call it Green Acres II. Like the original, you can watch it.

Individuals acting for the collective good.

Why bother?

Faced with the overwhelming scope of the problems that face us because the world is getting warmer and the seeming futility of small actions, some would ask "Why bother?" In a recent Green Issue of the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan tries to answer that question. He starts from a bleak point of view.

I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs.

Pollan ends up asking you to do something just as simple, but philosophically more profound... go plant a garden.

You may not believe the "go plant a garden" bit, but read it. Pollan is very convincing.

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.

Perpetual Campaigns

One of the realities of contemporary political life is that the campaign for the next election cycle begins even before the last one completed. We are in a time of perpetual campaigns and, along with that, of perpetual fund raising. Case in point: When Jerry McNerney defeated Richard Pombo in 2006, his series of "thank you" meetings in communities across the 11th CD was really a series of fund raisers for 2008.

I don't think that most Greens are really comfortable in this mode. Long range planning rarely gets beyond next month, let alone the next year. There is something about the culture of the Green Party where perpetual fund raising must be unseemly. Maybe we would rather keep picking at the wounds of the 2004 election cycle than to plan for the next one, an exercise that I would rather see carried out as a personal mental process.

Given that, I was excited on seeing the suggestions for a 2010 election that Mike Feinstein posted to an internal Green Party email list (California Green Forum). Mike is saying that we need to start paying attention to the election of 2010 now, not in 2010. That we need to begin to study the causes of our problems now, not like a college student trying to cram for a mid-term and stuffing it all in at the last moment.

I believe that in addition to running and winning more municipal races, we need to focus upon becoming more relevant in partisan races in 2010, which I believe is more likely if we are committed to running primarily for state legislature (Assembly and Senate) instead of Congress, combined with a coordinated message with our statewide constitutional office candidates

Towards this end, I believe we need to demonstrate that we understand how land use and tax policy coincide in this state.

I fully agree with this.

Some observations on political behavior. The American voter responds well to those who provide a vision of a new future and not so well to those who dwell on the past. This country was settled by people who were looking for a new beginning. The is still part of the mythology of America and we ignore that at our peril.

The current election cycle started out to be about Iraq. It is now about paying the mortgage and keeping your job. To quote James Carville's scrawled message from 1992, "It's the economy, stupid." So why do we make a big deal about the ultimate truth of 9/11? That is never about the future. It will never win voters.

In California, we have an education system that does not meet our expectations, yet takes 50% of the state budget. We have an escalating cost of living and a declining tax base. We want to attract and keep good teachers and are cutting school budget by 10%. It does not make sense.

We are not going to become a player at any level until we start dealing with what is relevant to voters now. I think that we would all do well to follow Feinstein's advice and prepare ourselves for the battles ahead. It starts understanding just how Proposition 13 has worked (for some) but has basically failed as the guiding principle for tax policy in California.

Feinstein suggested reading the following series of articles from the LA CityBeat web site. I second the suggestion and post the same links here. Each could be the subject of a thread from which to weave a tapestry of victories in 2010.

http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/the_crushing_blow_of_howard_jarvis/6623/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/the_anti_tax_psychosis/6624/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/jiveass_jarvis/6620/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/tragedy_of_the_commons/6619/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/the_biggest_loser_schools/6618/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/wal_mart_vs_the_poor/6621/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/michael_gorder/6625/

Earth Day Messages

With all of the coverage of Earth Day, in a time when even local governments may quote from Tom Friedman and proclaim that "Green in the new Red White and Blue", I find it useful to contrast two Earth Day OpEds, one that ran in my local paper (Morgan Hill Times) and one that did not.

The one that ran is by Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute. You can, if you have a strong BS filter, read it from the ARI web site.

Berliner pulls not punches in his attack on environmentalism, deeming deeming the goal of environmentalism as a 'subhuman world where "nature" is worshiped like the totem of some primitive religion.'

While I don't think that many pay a lot of attention to the Ayn Rand Institute any more, there are aspects of this that are picked up, distorted and used, maybe subconsciously, in order to justify the continued robber baron attitude about world resources that was the foundation of American prosperity in the 20th Century and could well be the down fall of it all in the 21st.

At the other extreme, is the challenge today from Wallace J. Nichols* to become an EcoDareDevil.

Today, we face more serious crises—loss of biodiversity, a warming planet, collapsing fisheries, looming food and water shortages, and pollution in every corner of the globe. Scientists forecast a “2050 Scenario” in which Earth is hotter, dirtier, and overcrowded with nine billion people who are left to wage wars for what little remains.

Using the metaphor of Evil Knievel, Nichols is challenging young people, really all of us who still remember what it was to be young and full of energy, to "jump the chasm" and to act.

Needless to say, this one did not appear in my local newspaper.

For myself, I admire the spirit of Pete McCloskey, who was along with Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a CoChair of the first Earth Day. He has not quit. He never will. In fact, McCloskey is helping with the legal challenges to the remaining shell game that Charles Hurwitz is trying to play with Pacific Lumber Company, the remaining old growth redwoods in California and the livelihood of the citizens of Mendocino and Humboldt Counties.

We have a lot of work to do. We need to make sure that those like Berliner who would put some idealize man, supreme over nature and free to loose his avariciousness on the world unchecked. Nichols has given us the picture of the world where Berliner and his rank and file of takers prevail. We must not allow that to happen.

* Dr. Wallace J. Nichols is a Senior Scientist at Ocean Conservancy and a Research Associate at California Academy of Sciences.

Arizona Republic on Green Party Ballot Access

The Arizona Republic had an article Sunday on the fact that the Green Party has won ballot status in that state. Thank you to everyone who made the trip over to Arizona to help in this effort or who contributed financially to the effort.

The Republic's story included an interview with Arizona Green Party CoChair Angel Torres, one that began with a simple questions...

Question: Why be a Green Party member?

Answer: Look at our platform - go to our Web site, www.gp.org, our national party Web site. No matter what the issue - on the environment, the economy - our platform is far and away better than Republican or Democrat.

We're campaigning for a progressive tax policy, for good government, to eliminate corruption, for renewable energy. Arizona should be leading the world on renewables (resources for energy production). That will provide good jobs for Arizonans and Americans. We should be retooling our factories to build solar panels and solar electricity. We need to put the American people back to work.

There is a real contrast between this and what I see from GPCA. In a time when the major concern of the electorate, when energy costs are rising, when people talk of no longer being able to afford commuting to work, when home prices are plummeting and the equity that people counted on for retirement is disappearing, Torres is talking about "putting the American people back to work."

Where is the economic program from the GPCA?

The Debate that we need to have, but won't.

A wide group of science advocates attempted to stage a presidential debate this week in Philadelphia. The subject would have been science and the manner by which science would be used to inform public policy in the administrations of a President Clinton, a President McCain or a President Obama. Since these three candidates for office would have had to deal with substantive matters, of course the all declined to participate.

One reaction ended up in the Wall Street Journal today, where I really did not expect it. The OpEd, penned by Nobel Laureates and Cal Tech faculty members David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail. Baltimore is President Emeritus of Cal Tech.

Apparently the top contenders for our nation's highest elective office have better things to do than explain to the public their views on securing America's future.

Instead we have had we had Democrat Obama complaining about the lack of substance in the debate that did take place.

Last night we set a new record. It took us 45 minutes . . . before we heard about health care. Forty-five minutes before we heard about Iraq. Forty-five minutes before we heard about jobs. That's how Washington is.

I don't feel any sympathy for Obama. He had a choice. He could have accepted a debate that would have been focused on substance and he chose not to participate. That's how Washington is.

We are still waiting for the change that will happen.

New boss, same as the old boss.

The great hope of The Who was that we "Won't Get Fooled Again." Well, I guess that we did.

I rarely find an editorial in any paper with which I am in complete agreement. However, today's editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Bumper crop of big spending", is one where I have absolutely no disagreement.

This follows a series of well-researched, well-written articles by Carolyn Lochhead in the same paper.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's staff sees the bill as the best possible bargain that could be won. They argue that Pelosi pushed for spending reforms, but southern Democrats prevailed. Now critics should be happy with the increases in food stamps and fruit and nut subsidies Pelosi supported - as the best deal that can be won in a political world. The Environmental Working Group and other reform-minded organizations have argued that it actually would be good politics for Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut off Big Farm's spigot. But Pelosi and Reid are smart politicians. If spending less were good politics, the farm bill would not be a pork sandwich.

The $286 billion farm bill is good politics only because the millions of taxpayers who are paying the bill are not pushing as hard as the relatively few people who benefit. (emphasis mine)

It is interesting that the target here seems to be Pelosi's two-faced lack of courage. How many things will she bargain away in order to get "the best possible bargain"?

I wonder just how many people in San Francisco will break with Pelosi in the coming election? If people actually read the Chronicle that number might be growing.

What should Greens be doing? At the very minimum we should be speaking out, in our forums, through our candidates, directly to our legislators, that enough is enough and we need to stop subsidizing big agriculture just like we need to stop subsidizing big oil. It is all the same game of power.

Recurrent themes

There are a number of themes that will recur, over and over again on this blog until I get tired of beating the same drum, the drum turns into a dead horse, or something finally changes.

One of these is the way that certain corporations, specifically and foremost, Monsanto, work to gain control of the dna of everything. Ever since someone made the one headed decision that a corporation could patent DNA sequences, Monsanto has been working to gain control of the seed supply of every plant that might be useful to humans, especially those that we eat.

Finally, the tide is beginning to turn and, thanks to the hard work of Erica Martenson, the Green Party of California has taken an official stand that makes sense. At the latest plenary a new platform position was approved. You can read the text that was passed by consensus here. It took some time and a learning curve, but this was the last productive thing to make it from the Green Issues Working Group to the Platform Committee and then to be enacted. Thank you Erica.

Another recurring theme involves the fact that I have next to no patience for those who spend so much energy working against something and no energy on building the alternative. The latest case of this involves the war against WalMart and other big-box stores.

I wrote a column for the Morgan Hill Times that focused on the fact that one of the root causes for global warming is the American Consumer. Yet, we are being told by our government that the way to get out of every negative economic situation is for Americans to use more, buy more, exhaust our savings and our planet at an even faster rate that we are doing. This, of course, will only accelerate the expenditures of energy that are causing global warming in the first place. The solution to one problem, accoring to our government, is to make another worse. That does not make sense.

In the middle of this, I made the following statement that has drawn a lot of flack from my green friends.

The largest corporation in the U.S. is no longer a manufacturer but retail giant Wal-Mart stores. There are only three ways that this company can grow in the U.S.: open new stores in areas not yet served, have the population grow, or for us to just consume more.

There are many who fight Wal-Mart on the first issue. I am not one of those hawks. There are times and places where Wal-Mart makes sense.

There are other times and places where it does not. It should be up to each local area to decide.

For these friends of mine, the essence of being Green is to fight everything WalMart and an evil second only to Dick Chaney. At least the editor of the MH Times was able to see that the column was not "pro WalMart" but very much anti-consumerism. She headlined it "Consumerism will permanently damage our planet".

Now, I have no problem with anyone finding good reasons to stop WalMart from coming into their town. What bothers me is that so many progressives seem to be regressive, working to stop something rather than working to creating an alternative.

What is the alternative to WalMart? If we just let things go as the flow along, it might be failing mom and pop stores where you have to drive from store to store, burning gas each time, rather than going to a shopping center where they are all in one place, even if the do all look the same.

Since I have been associated with the GPCA, I have only had discussions with a couple of people on the question of Community Based Sustainable Economics.

The keystone of the Green Party's economic program is community-based economics. As an alternative to an economy owned by either government or gigantic corporations, Greens favor a Jeffersonian model with ownership and control spread as widely as possible among Californians.

That is right from the Platform. But, we get all excited about fighting WalMart and I have yet to see a session held about doing anything positive in regard to furthering our goals.

There is a sense in which the current economic problems in America will shape the presidential choice we make next November. So, what is the Green Solution? How do we move from where we are now to the point where we have something to fight for rather than fighting against?

You might make a case (a weak one, I admit) that the fight against WalMart displays a lack of Green Values in that it does nothing to support our own platform position. But then, proposing things that actually have to get done is so much harder than just going out and fighting the Evil Empire.

Abramoff is out, but the corruption remins

I want to give everyone a warning and ask a favor. One of the issues that we used to unseat Richard Pombo was his connection to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). It often elicited a shrug, as if to say who cares about what happens half-way around the world. Maybe, if you read all of this, you might understand that we should care and that the corruption has not gone away just because Jack Abramoff has had his career cut short.

This was triggered today by a story in the Denver Post concerning a Colorado Congressman named Bob Schaffer. Shaffer has long been a suporter of all of the corruption in the CNMI.

One of the key elements of the CNMI scheme was that, as a Commonwealth, they were allowed to have their own immigration policy. This allowed the Governor Benigno R. Fitial of the CNMI to set up a program whereby private contractors and companies could sign up foreign workers and import them into the CNMI to work in industry. Most of these were women from China and the Philippines. Many were allowe to work long hours in sweatshops making clothing for the US Market (goods manufactured in the CNMI were allowed to say Made in the USA) and the rest were forced into prostitution. This established a loophole whereby anyone who had been admitted to the CNMI could not travel freely to the US mainland.

NOTE: Governor Fitial was previously an executive with one of the major offending companies.

What the good Mr. Schaffer wants is to use the CNMI as a model for our own "guest worker" program. You know, like the bracero programs of the past. The abuses of that program were bad enough in the US. They are horrible in the CNMI.

Now, I am not asking anyone here to work against Mr. Schaffer. I do, however, want to get all of you to contact their Senators and make sure that the support getting Senate Bill 2739 on to the calendar and passed. It may happen today. If not, then we know that behind the scenes schemes are preventing this bill from comint to a vote. The Marianas Islands issues in this bill are only a small part, but it is a very important part.

Catching up so I can be sustainable.

What a contradiction! I have to catch up so that I can be sustainable? There is just too much happening and too many issues that need to be dealt with. It makes me appreciate more when someone takes just a single GEneric issue and follows it to it's logical conclusion, as Erica Martenson has done with GE crops in California.

Many Californian's love their wine. Some drink California Wine just because it is local, even if it is Two Buck Chuck. This story in the San Diego Reader, is about Erica, and the wine business and why Erica founded Preserving the Integrity of Napa's Agriculture (PINA). , may make you change your mind unless we find out that all the hops available is also GE. So far, I hear it is only the rice used in some beers and we don't drink those, do we?

Then, I find a fairly recent column about Community Supported Agriculture by David Cobb (yes, that David Cobb) in the Eureka Standard. For those who want to help sustain local agriculture, who like to eat fresh, Cobb gives a good introduction and helps you understand that you can help sustainable agriculture without blowing your budget.

Finally, let me add two things that I have written. One, was a column for the Morgan Hill Times last January in which I talked about becoming a locavore. The other is in the most recent copy of Green Focus (p.9) and discusses both my (along with my wife) approach to sustainable eating as well as the experiences of Brian and Sanda Everette in establishing San Mateo Ecovillage.

Unfortunately, it took me so long to write this that I fell behind again.

We havn't got the time.

With the plenary coming up next weekend, I have given some thought to the whole idea of using that time to "fix" the problem with the Coordinating Committee (CC) of the GPCA. I have to put that idea on the level of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Folks, it does not make any difference. There is nothing that will be solved by changing the number of members of the CC. There is nothing that will be solved by changing the manner in which they are selected. There is nothing that will be solved as long as the same leadership, by virtue of their virtue, their focused intent, or even just their longevity, as in a position to influence what we do.

But, power is every addictive, especially when one can rationalize using that power on behalf of some noble cause.

I was not present at the beginning of the GPCA. In fact, at that time I was a registered Republican becoming disillusioned with Reaganomics. However, from reading the comments of that who were, I have the impression that they were drawn together by the sense that something was wrong in the world and that there was a better way to find a solution. Thus, the Green way.

What I see now, is that we have lost the sense that this party can have any affect at all on the problems of the world, so we turn inward to solve the problems of our organization. As a result, we forget about the problems of the world. We spend time at plenary after plenary (Northridge, San Francisco, Riverside and not Alameda) debating who should really represent LA, or the structure of the CC, or how many angels can dance on the had of a pin.

Similarly, we chase after a very few issues, some of which mean a lot and others that do not. While we are doing this, the world is changing around us and we are not reacting.

In the news this week, we are told that in many cities, the number of high school drop outs exceeds 50%. In Detroit, the number of students who graduate was put at 24.9%. On the Early Show (CBS) this morning, they trotted out Harvard Professor Alvin Poussaint and Bill Cosby to repeat their call to action from "Come On People." Thank goodness we have Greens like Mark Sanchez (School Board). John Rizzo and Hilary Bradbury-Huang (Community College Trustees) getting into position to do something about education.

On a local PBS station (KQED-San Francisco) last night, they repeated the September, 2007 program call Dimming the Sun and made the point that we have not more than 10 years to actually do something about Global Warming.

The spectre of gang violence in the street, not unconnected from the problems in education, is no long just an issue for large urban centers. Salinas just had 2 gang related murders in 11 hours this week. The neighboring community of Gilroy had a gang related drive-by shooting last night and the television coverage showed that those who had been injured by shotgun pellets were showing off their injury to television as a badge of honor rather than being treated.

My point here is that if try to fix the problems we seen in the GPCA before we tackle the bigger issues in society, we will run out of time because there will always be problems in the party. And, frankly, most of society does not give a rat's ass about about how many people are on the CC. This internalization of focus is, to my mind, the single biggest reason that we are losing membership.

It is easy to blame it on the Democrats for framing us as spoilers. Does that affect the results? Yes, at the presidential level. But, lets start doing something about what is going on in our communities first. It is my sense that if we do that, the internal conflicts we might have will look trivial.

So, I am calling for a Green Day of action by everyone who does not attend the plenary. Pick one major issue in your community this week and figure out what you think needs to be done. Then, do something. Anything positive. Set up a Neighborhood Watch if the issue is Crime. Find a youth center and volunteer to tutor if the issue is education. Write a letter to the editor of your local, community newspaper. Just do something.

Then, when they finally decide how many angels we need for the head of the pin, keep on doing what you have begun.

Gary Kamiya: Jeremiah Wright Isn't the Problem

Read Gary Kamiya's excellent essay posted on www.salon.com. It is one of the best I've read on the silly Jeremiah Wright "controversy." Kamiya raises the spectre of President John McCain. I have deleted my entire essay on this subject from the Green Commons Web Site and substituted Kamiya because I think this so important. Please note the powerful quote from Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.

Posted on Salon, Tuesday, March 25, 2008.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright Isn't the Problem

The hysteria over Obama's former pastor's attacks on America shows we're still in thrall to knee-jerk patriotism.

by Gary Kamiya

Maybe we really are doomed to elect John McCain, remain in Iraq forever and nuke Iran. Nations that forget history may not be doomed to repeat it, but those that never even recognize reality in the first place definitely are. Last week's ridiculous uproar over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons proves yet again that America has still not come to terms with the most rudimentary facts about race, 9/11 -- or itself.

. . .

We are now five years into a war that may outrank Vietnam as the most pointless and disastrous one in our history. George W. Bush and his neoconservative brain trust conceived that war, but they were only able to push it through because the American people, their political leaders and the mainstream media signed off on it. And they did so because they were in the grip of the fearful, vengeful, patriotic frenzy that swept the nation after 9/11. Without 9/11 and America's fateful reaction to it, there would be no Iraq war. Every day that the war drags on is yet another indictment of that self-righteous, unthinking "patriotism."

. . .

In fact, the same all-American flag-wavers who called loudest for war against Iraq are now denouncing Wright as a hate-monger and a traitor, and attacking Michelle Obama for saying that only recently has she had reason to feel proud of her country. They insist that anyone who is not permanently proud of the United States, whose patriotism isn't plastered on his or her face like the frozen smile of a beauty queen waving from a Fourth of July float, is beyond the pale. Never mind that the glorious results of their debased version of patriotism -- 4,000 American troops dead, a wrecked Iraq, and a greatly trengthened terrorist enemy -- are plain for all to see.

. . .

URL: http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/03/25/rev_jeremiah_wright/

One Day in Iraq

The 5th anniversary of the start of Bush's Folly takes place this week. ABC News is giving this a fairly good treatment, but so far there is one aspect of the war that they have not covered; what might we be able to do with all of that money if the Iraq War had never happened.

Thanks to Santa Clara County Green, Andrea Dorey, for forwarding the link to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) video of the many answers to that question. One Day = $720 Million

Now whether we would actually spend the money in that manner is a different discussion. I tend to doubt it. The alternatives offered by AFSC are just too forward looking and offer too little food for our need to have it all now appetite, whatever "it" is.

Why ask a Green to wear Blue on Earth Day?

That is what I thought to myself when I got the following yesterday from Peter Chapman, Marketing Coordinator, 2030, Inc. / Architecture 2030.

Hello Wesley,

I want to thank you for following our work at Architecture 2030 through your posts at Daily Kos, California Greening and Grist last year.

Well, at least Peter did some research, or let Google do it for him, but I think that he missed a couple, like Green Commons and Andrew Nevkin's dot earth blog at the NY Times. The note from Peter was more than a request to wear blue. It was all tied to the rest of Architecture 2030's agenda. So, I followed the link from Peter's note to BYOBlue.org.

At least, it was not Democratic Party Blue, nor even Yves Klein Blue, though the latter is close. It is more like that of the Blue Man Group who did the warm up for the most recent Architecture 2030 webcast: Face It.

The connection is rather obvious: no more coal means a bluer sky. Got that. It also means a future where climate change reverts to normal cycles. Got that too. Actually, they have put together a pretty good campaign. So, what to they really want us to do?

First, wearing blue for an Earth Day event is taking on a tone of protest, not against Earth Day, but rather against the way that we are changing our atmosphere but not changing our energy policies.

Want to stop global warming? Wear BLUE for Earth Day 2008! Join millions of people around the world who will be wearing BLUE to signify their vote for NO COAL

OK, got it. but isn't there more? Well yes there is.

Then, on April 22, make your voice heard. Pick up the phone: Call Congress at 202.224.3121 and demand an immediate ‘Moratorium on Coal’ - a halt to the construction of any new coal-fired power plants. Through this Call for Climate event, Earth Day hopes to generate over a million phone calls to Congress!

Now, I am really getting it. It is obvious that the connection of the Democratic Party, their reliance on votes from key coal producing state (PA, WV, IL) will make it very difficult for either Clinton or Obama to do anything that will substantially solve the problem. Maybe, just maybe, enough call on April 22 will help get someone's attention. Let's hope that Pennsylvanians get the message and make the call, because that is Primary Day for the Democratic Party.

It also follows the proposed Science Debates 2008, to be held at the Franklin Mint in PA on April 18. McCain, Clinton and Barama invited... none have accepted.

The attention that we have given to the subject of coal is already having some effect.

Fifty-nine coal plants were canceled in 2007. That’s over a third of the 151 plannned. That happened before millions of people joined together to say No Coal. Source: Architecture 2030.

So, here is the to do list:

• Wear Blue
• Call in
• Vote Green

Peter forgot the last item there, but if you read what Obama and Clinton are saying, they are not going to "stop coal." Big Business won't let them and we know what big business thinks, or we should after listening to GE CEO James Immelt (not to be confused with James Inhofe) was reported at Grist as referencing Coal this way.

If business doesn't take a seat at the table, regs will be determined by politicians and activists (some of which, he said with evident horror, want to do away with coal entirely!). USCAP may not be perfect, but it replaced a vacuum.

In fact, none of the major party candidate, not McCain nor Clinton nor Obama come close to matching the understanding of what it really means to tackle Global Warming. Instead, you have to look to Kent Mesplay, for whom I voted in the CA Primary, or Jesse Johnson, two Green Party candidates who don't need to coached on this issue.

So Celebrate Earth Day, you all know how now.

One more reason that Pelosi is failing us.

I received the following this AM from the Center for Rural Affairs. I am reproducing the text of this message in it's entirety. It is my view that this is just one more reason that Pelosi is failing not only her district, but then entire country as she triangulates her way through the web of Washington political power.

---

Dear Californians,

Final farm bill funding decisions are being made, and Speaker Pelosi is playing a significant role in the debate. Now is the time for Speaker Pelosi to stand up for $5 billion in new mandatory funding for conservation and environmental priorities in the farm bill.

Will you urge Speaker Pelosi to fight $5 billion in new funding for conservation programs in the farm bill?

The U.S. House and Senate each passed a version of the farm bill that includes $5 billion in new funding for conservation programs. Now conference committee members are negotiating the final bill, and conservation programs are under fire. Speaker Pelosi can step in and ensure that gains made in the House and Senate are not lost in the conference committee.

Programs being targeted for cuts include:

• Conservation Security Program
• Wetlands Reserve Program
• Farmland Protection Program

Speaker Pelosi is playing a critical role in funding decisions for the final bill. Write to her online today and urge her to protect the gains already made.

We are at the last stages of the farm bill debate. Your action today can play an important role in ensuring that the final bill makes conservation and environment a priority.

Thank you!

Speaker Pelosi needs to hear from you today -- she needs to hear that funding conservation programs in the Farm Bill is important to you.

Write Online Today

Or Act by Calling:

Dial (202) 225-4965 and leave this message with the receptionist.

I am a Californian, and I am calling to urge Speaker Pelosi to fight for $5 billion in new mandatory funding for conservation programs in the farm bill.

Drugs in Drinking Water?

Another item from the annals of The Greatest System in the world.

AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Democrats and Republicans are not remotely capable of dealing with this mess.

Have we got the chutzpah?

Ralph Nader's decision not to run for president on the Green Party ticket seems to have paralyzed many of those who should see this as a major opportunity rather than a set back.

First, it is really necessary to keep this all in focus. On this issue, I think that Nader has done this better than his supporters within the Green Party... or his detractors for that matter. His focus is strictly on the problems that Bush and Co have brought to the USA... and the fact that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama offer anything substantially different. Even when confronted by the Audacity of Hope I find only another apologist for the same tired policies that have created this mess. I find myself asking what are these Presidential Qualities?

We have seen, once again, that the presidential race may come down to the nuclear option. I am old enough to remember having seen the famous "daisy" ad that Johnson used against Goldwater in 1964. It worked. So did Walter Mondale in his campaign for the nomination against Gary Hart in 1984. The San Francisco Chronicle seems to think that this is just politics and expects more of the same between now and the Democratic Convention.

As Greens, we need to think about what the current campaigns are telling us about the American Voter. For all the talk about "it is still the economy" it would seem that the ability to be Commander in Chief during a time of crisis is still a requirement for serious consideration by the voting public. It is the paradox of the Bush administration's entering into a perpetual war.

So far, I have not heard any our our Presidential Candidates take on this issue directly. If we really have an alternative, then it should be heard. If we really are the "peace party" then how do we bring it about? How do we move from protest to having policy credibility?

That is no different than trying to deal with our economic conditions (yes, still the economy). Like the Democrats, we chew around the edges of the problems but do not have the chutzpah to deal with them directly. In other words, what alternatives do we really offer?

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie

So is a Green Democrat.

One of the things that really gets me PO'd is the manner in which the Democrats have taken on the mantle of being the "green party". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Assuming that Obama wins the Democratic Nomination, this is one issue that we should high light. Obama has all of the characteristics of a populist demagogue who will say anything to get elected.

Obama is on the record favoring clean coal.

With coalfields nearby, Obama noted that he comes from a coal state and repeated his pitch for clean-coal technology and made clear he believes coal will continue to be a vital part of the nation's energy supply.

"Clean-coal technology should be part of that mix," he said. "We are the Saudi Arabia of coal."

Source: Baltimore Sun.

The US Dept. of Energy has recently shut down the Future Gen project for cleaning up coal because it is much more expensive and does not work very well.

Source: C/NET

Bring this back to California... Over a year ago, the Public Utilities Commission all be banned contracting for power from coal fired plants.

Source: San Diego Union Tribune.

I think it is time to take back our brand.

Education is Not an Issue?

Forget ideology. Forget the personalities of individual politicians. I think I could write a whole book arguing for the Green Party simply based on all the important issues that get short shrift simply because the damned Democrats and Republicans don't talk about them. And according to the two-party totalitarian culture of the United States, if "liberal" Democrats and "conservative" Republicans don't talk about a problem, then it's not a problem.

Jeffrey Henig has an interesting op-ed in the Boston Globe on why education is a missing issue in this year's political campaign. "Liberal" Democrats are now divided on the question of charter schools and "Conservative" Republicans are now divided on Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. And so, the gutless politician's are doing what gutless Demopublicans always do -- playing it safe.

Published by the Boston Globe, March 1, 2008
The Debate on Education
by Jeffrey R. Henig

. . . Democrats, who used to argue against charter schools (casting them as vouchers in sheep's clothing), increasingly see charters as a benign and promising form of public school reform. Republicans, who once could rally around the get-tough aspects of No Child Left Behind, are growing irritated about the negative impact of high-stakes testing.

This internal ambivalence is making it risky for the candidates to use the tried-and-true formulations that have worked in the past. . .

This is an issue that is close to me. My wife, Cathy Deppe and my daughter have taught in the public schools in San Jose. Cathy has also taught in Los Angeles where the Los Angeles Unified School District, presided over by the Los Angeles Democratic Party Machine is an absolute disgrace. We have grandchildren attending public schools in California where our sacrosanct racist 2-Party System has all but destroyed what was once one of the finest systems of public education in the world.

Read More on at Green Commons: http://www.greencommons.org/node/980

Nader and the Greens

I have read a ton of email in the last two days concerning Ralph Nader's decision not to run for President of the US as a Green. The internal email lists of the Green Party have exhibited just about every emotional reaction that you can think of and a wide range of commentary about what should be done including some who want to change the party convention rules and give the nomination to Nader anyway.

In general, however, there are two concepts emerging that should be considered. One is that we need to run synergistic campaigns, Nader and the Greens against the duopoly. This seems to be playing off the comments that Nader made on C-SPAN: (emphasis mine)

Q: The caller said you ran on the Green party ticket. Why not run on the Green party ticket again?

NADER: Well, because I think Cynthia McKinney is running, and I think it would be wonderful for the Green Party to have an African-American woman. She was elected numerous times to the House of Representatives, and I think we need several progressive initiatives in this country.

Q: And that was the decision, to not run on the Green Party ticket because she announced?

NADER: Well, there are others as well. You know, the Green Party is only on twenty-one ballots, and we don't want to be distracted. We have to get on fifty - try to get on fifty state ballots. And the
Greens have their way of doing things, and we have our way of doing things.

The other manner of approaching this is to just go our separate ways. Paul Krumm, Green Party National Committee member from Kansas has argued that Greens are better off without Nader because his style of leadership is not compatible with GP values of Grassroots Democracy. His discussion is right out of Eric Hoffer.

Here is the problem as I see it.

1. Ralph has his own agenda. If anybody wants to join his agenda, that is ok with him. If not, he is not interested in working with them.
2. When you look at the kind of relationship this involves between leader and followers, it requires that followers follow the agenda of the leader, in this case Ralph.
3. Upon analysis, this shows Ralph to be a dictator, a benevolent dictator in this case, however a dictator in form and fact.
4. This kind of relationship is inimical to the ten key values of the Green party.
5. This leaves both us, and Ralph between a rock and a hard place. He is unwilling to join a democratic process, and we are left with joining with an actor who has a number of beliefs that agree with ours, but whose process sucks us into the same kind of relationship between leadership and the rest of society as the major parties.
6. Greens who have not grokked the difference in process in their own lives, have no clue as to the existence of this problem. but for those who have, it stands out like a sore thumb.
7. Nader supporters who do not see the difference in process, and see him as a potential leader for our movement are very impatient with those who see differently than they do. They want a leader, and to be followers in a movement. They don't see that what is needed is a movement where a charismatic fuhrer is not necessary, but where leadership comes in little bits from many sides.

my (Krumm's) conclusion: Those who want to support Ralph should join his movement, leave the Green Party, and do so. He is working for good ends, and needs your support. Those who see the inconsistency between Ralph's means and ends should go their way and continue working with and for the Green Party and its ten key values.

This is not an ideal solution, however it is the best that can be done under the present circumstances.

I don't fully agree with Paul. I don't see Nader's intent in the same light, though I see quite a bit of Hoffer's True Believer in those of his followers who refer to "Saint Ralph".
But, I do agree that we are best off putting all of our resources into being the best Green Party that there is. We need to become as adept at organizing as the major parties, especially the Obama campaign this year. To date we have put too much faith in our message and too little work into the organization.

Bill Moyers Campaign Analysis

I watched Bill Moyers Journal last night on PBS. While Moyers is always interesting, and in his recitation of viewer email comments,I did seen one referencing the Green Party;

It's disingenuous to discuss candidates that are ignored in our corporate duopoly election system without mentioning or actually interviewing Green Party candidates... For all the indifference shown to the Green Party by the corporate press and derision by the so-called progressive press, the fact is the Greens have 234 elected officials in 28 states...The Greens are growing, whether you know it or not; whether you like it or not. Carl Lundgren

the most interesting segment was his campaign analysis discussion with Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. She makes a very good case for the fact that Obama's wins have as much to do with superior organization and advertising as it does with the image that he has created of being the agent of change as opposed to the baggage that Clinton (e.g. NAFTA) from the first Clinton presidency.

BILL MOYERS: Aren't these text messages going to kids who aren't old enough to vote?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: They may be. But they're not going to people who aren't old enough to volunteer. There's no age barrier to volunteering. And what's important also, in the advertising stream this year, is that there is advertising to the young about issues of concern to the young. The Obama campaign has pioneered this. There is one Hispanic language ad for Senator Obama, in which a young person basically explains why it's important to get your parents involved for Obama. We know there's a generational divide. Older voters, more likely, particularly older women will be with Senator Clinton, younger, with Senator Obama. This is a trickle up theory. Get the young to influence their parents.

In most caucus states, Obama has done better than Clinton and amassed a large number of delegates... again a sign of having a superior organization in place, everywhere.

If we are to learn how to compete in major races, then we need to learn how to make superior organization happen on a similar level. By the time time the current electoral campaign is over, the Clinton legacy may be a text book case in how to lose an election in an age of electronic campaigning.

Nader not running as a Green

Well, I guess I had better learn to read all of the stories and not just a few of them. I read the votenader.org report and stopped looking.
I have since see the evidence all over the place.

AP Story at nola.com said:

On Thursday, he said he would not be seeking the Green Party nomination, noting that the party has four announced candidates.

"We think that there is plenty of room in this country for parallel progressive candidates," he said.

Then thehill.com noted that

Nader said he would not seek the Green Party’s nomination this year.

Then, USA Today ran the same AP story as nola.com.

On Thursday, he said he would not be seeking the Green Party nomination, noting that the party has four announced candidates.

"We think that there is plenty of room in this country for parallel progressive candidates," he said.

It is going to be 2004 all over again.

Matt Gonzalez for VP?

Greens now have a real challenge. Ralph Nader has picked Matt Gonzalez to be his VP running mate. There are many who would like to see Ralph Nader as the nominee for the party. There are many others who are working just as hard to make that nominee be Cynthia McKinney. That battle is still being played out and many states have not made up their minds.

Having a recognized Green as a running mate might shut down the talk about whether Ralph truly wants the Green Party nomination, but I doubt it. Though you won't hear the words from McKinney's mouth, some of her supporters will surely play this off as just a political trick, just as Nader supporters rant on and on about McKinney's support of the Reconstruction Party in New Orleans and evidence of her trickery... even though McKinney is a registered to vote as a Green and Nader is not.

The biggest question about Nader has always been whether he is really running as a "Green" or if he is just trying to use the Green Party ballot access as an easy path toward expanding his coalition. Even in some states with an active Green Party, Nader appears to suggest using other methods to get on the ballot. The best example being up in Oregon. Nader's campaign site, votenader.org links to this blogged story in the Eugene Oregon Register Guard which suggests that he will use the Independent Party of Oregon (IPO) for ballot access.

I am told that the IPO was started by Nader supporters and that it very well could be that he appears on the ballot in Oregon with both parties, assuming that he wins the GP nomination. However, calling attention to one party without mention of the other could (and probably will) be construed as a put down of the one ignored.

Having Gonzalez as a running mate does other good things for Ralph. He should be having a full backing from the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee, that might pick up some votes for Nader. I don't have any solid demographic information as to how important that might be. At least, MAPA has been showing Nader's photo on it's home page for several months.

Since the convention is not until late July, and with a many states not yet having their primaries, the Nader / McKinney competition for this nomination, especially with Nader's primary win in delegate rich California, may begin to be as contested as Clinton / Obama.

It is not what you say...

The Nader campaign is describing their launch Sunday in glowing terms.

We had a great launch yesterday.

Ralph Nader appeared on Meet the Press with Tim Russert.

Major media outlets throughout the world ran headlines about Ralph’s historic challenge to the corporations that dominate our society.

And the names, the volunteers, the money started to flow.

Now, we’re starting to build a national organization to get Ralph on the ballot so that together we can challenge the corporate political parties in this momentous election year.

There are 2 ways to view this. The Nader Team put the best spin that the can on it However, I have a feeling that these comments by Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World are accurate.

Nader’s critique of corporate power and its corrosive effect on American democracy is spot-on. But if the point of these third-party runs is to inject that critique into mainstream discourse — well, we’re way past the point of diminishing returns, and actually deep into some sort of anti-matter universe, in which information is literally sucked out of people’s brains at the first mention of his name. In the way that Dan Rather’s report on George Bush going AWOL turned into a discussion about Dan Rather, the only debate another Nader candidacy is going to inspire is a debate about Nader himself, and I just don’t see the point.

It is clearly evident that the print media is not paying much attention to what he is saying and doing. I could have written most of their stories before the announcement, they only had to get the right quotes from his talk because they had already made up their minds what the "story" would be before it happened.

In fact, the words used by the Nader Team just underscore that the media assumption was the correct characterization.

Major media outlets throughout the world ran headlines about Ralph’s historic challenge to the corporations that dominate our society.

As long as this is the sole basis for his candidacy, then the prognostication of so-called pundits like ABC's George Stephanopoulos, who characterized the day of announcement as the high point of Nader's campaign, will become the reality.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz subtitled his most recent book. "It's not what you say, it's what people hear." This is not a message that the American Public will hear in this election cycle. A Green Party candidate, or an Independent candidate running with this as their primary message, will not do well. Nader seems to understand that. He opened his comments on Meet the Press with the Health Care issue, arguing for Single Payer. Not a word was heard. A different story had already been written in everyone's minds.

If Nader is going to be successful, he has to find a way change the dynamics of the debate. It is rather like Clinton trying to deal with Obama. If she just goes along, Obama can just move along. If she goes really negative, then it makes her look bad and it legitimizes his stature as front runner. The situation is out of her control because Obama is a phenomenon

The same is true in Nader's campaign. The situation is out of Nader's control, or at least has been so far.

Welcome to the fray, Ralph.

Since I was so direct about Nader's potential campaign before, I need to update that right now.

To begin with, anyone reading the print stories of Nader's announcement who did not watch him with Tim Russert on Meet the Press this morning would not understand what he really said.

I had been worried that his campaign would be based solely on hist long held antagonism toward the excesses of Corporate American and the corporate influence in Washington. His announcement was really focused on a broader range of issues, like Health Care and Waste in the Pentagon and that pretty much persuaded me that he was not going to repeat the 2000 campaign.

Unfortunately what I heard was not what got reported. Most media, print or television, picked only those words that fit the two themes that already defined Nader in their minds: anti-corporate and spoiler. That is what got written about. Donna Smith of Reuters put it this way.

Nader called Washington "corporate occupied territory" that turns the government against the interests of the people. "In that context, I have decided to run for president," he said.

Some will blame the media for their overt prejudice. I think it is just lazy journalism and writing the story before listening to the speech.

There is still a lot of concern about whether or not he is running as Green. Note: he said that he is running for President, not running for the Green Party nomination for president. However, those who have supported he candidacy to date, especially here in California where he won over 60% of the vote in the Feb. 5 primary, are putting out the word that he would run as a Green in states where the Green Party has ballot access and work to get on the ballot in others.

What he failed to say was what he would do if Cynthia McKinney were to win the nomination and she has a big advantage in early campaigning. Would he continue his quest knowing that they would split the Green Party vote? We will probably have to wait until after the national convention to know the answer to that one.

Let's throw a Mountain Party.

There is a time for thinking and a time for doing. Thankfully, Jesse Johnson and the Mountain Party of West Virginia have been doing. The following is a press release that came out this weekend to announce the fact that the courts of West Virginia have allowed the Mountain Party affiliation with the Green Party to stand and that the national Green Party Presidential Nominee will appear on the ballot in that state. I copied the entire release.

The Green Party of the United States is having a Mountain Party

Forwarded by the Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org

West Virginia Mountain Party
http://www.mtparty.org/

For Immediate Release
22 February 2008

Contact: Joel Brown, 703 864 5199

West Virginia Law Upholds Green Party Ballot Line

"It's taken more than half a year to get where we are today, but the fight was worth it. No political party should be denied access to ballot lines based on arbitrary rulings of civil servants or elected officials," commented former West Virginia Mountain Party Chair Jesse Johnson.

Johnson who with Mountain Party Treasurer Frank Young led the fight for ballot status for the Green Party in their home state began the battle after the Mountain Party affiliated with the national organization.

"It's far too common all across this country that states deny access to bone fide candidates that run for lesser known political parties thereby stunting and in some cases effectively eliminating growth among those parties," continued Johnson. "It's often our toughest battle to secure and keep these ballot lines. Our candidates have much to contribute and our country has even more to gain by having viable choices to the current reigning parties and it's anti-democratic and unconstitutional to keep us off the ballot."

Because of the perseverance of Johnson and Young, West Virginia 2008 general election ballot will bear the name of whomever the national Green Party selects for their presidential and vice presidential nominees at their national convention this July in Chicago.

Since his victory in the ballot access issue, Mr. Johnson has resigned from his post as West Virginia Mountain Party chair and is free now to pursue his prior intention to run for president of the United States for the Green Party.

The Green Party's 2004 nominee for Vice President, Pat LaMarche commented on the addition of another ballot line to the Green Party's rapidly expanding slate of ballot access, saying, "We are so very grateful to Mr. Johnson for his vigorous loyalty to our party. We are extremely excited about his intention to run for president. If every candidate for every political party had the experience that Mr. Johnson has fighting for democracy; we would have better leaders who are far more respectful of the democratic process at every level of government."

BREAKING NEWS: Ralph Nader is In!

On Meet the Press this morning, Ralph Nader declared his candidacy.

If Ralph Nader is the nominee of the Green Party, I intend to support him 100% regardless of what slogans and hacks are being advertised and sold in million-dollar TV ads by the One-Corporate-Party-With-Two-Names.

Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens

Ralph Nader On Meet the Press



Posted on America Online, February 24, 2008.
Ralph Nader Enters Presidential Race

WASHINGTON (Feb. 24) - Ralph Nader said Sunday he will run for president as a third-party candidate, criticizing the top White House contenders as too close to big business and pledging to repeat a bid that will "shift the power from the few to the many."

Nader, 73, said most people are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties due to a prolonged Iraq war and a shaky economy. The consumer advocate also blamed tax and other corporate-friendly policies under the Bush administration that he said have left many lower- and middle-class people in debt.

"You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized and disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine to Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bumbling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts."

"In that context, I have decided to run for president," Nader told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Nader also criticized Republican candidate John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton for failing to support full Medicare for all or cracking down on Pentagon waste and a "bloated military budget. He blamed that on corporate lobbyists and special interests, which he said dominate Washington, D.C., and pledged in his third-party campaign to accept donations only from individuals.

"The issue is do they have the moral courage, do they have the fortitude to stand up to corporate powers and get things done for the American people," Nader said. "We have to shift the power from the few to the many."

Institutionalize obstructionism

In my previous comment today, I mentioned that the American Public has little stomach for the institutionalized obstructionism as is commonly practiced in the Senate. When some fear that they would lose a vote, especially one that has major ideological implications, they turn to obstructionist tactics. In the Senate, the ultimate obstruction is the filibuster, which takes a 2/3 majority to force to an end.

With the Senate, it happens pretty much in public. In the House of Representative, it happens pretty much behind closed doors. The major event in the House is to introduce legislation that everyone know will not pass, have it assigned to a committee that will not consider it, and then allow the Congress Critter to brag to their district that they had been fighting the good fight. BS.

The GPCA is no different. The tool here are the strict rules that we have on quorums for any action. At present the State Coordinating Committee is frequently prevented from taking effective action by the simple act of hanging up on a teleconference and then claiming that any further discussion or decisions were not valid due to the lack of a quorum.

In 1995, Newt Gingrich was prepared to allow the government to run out of funds in order to win a fight with President Clinton. The tactic appealed to his Contract with American base, but backfired when he actually tried to do it. It lead to to Democratic election gains in 1996. The American People have no stomach for this, and neither should members of the GPCA.

I am not so naive as to think that anybody is above gaming the system that we have in place. Some do it more than others. Others will cry foul whenever it suits their tactical objective to do so.

Is this all a sign that the GPCA has finally arrived as a political party, that we can play the same political games as the big boys... or is it a sign that we have not grown up yet and are still acting like kindergarteners.

What about Obama?

Sam Smith had a recent Progressive Review column that was essentially speculation about an Obama Presidency. While I think that he was essentially correct to anticipate that the results will sound a bit hollow after all of the rhetoric of change.

We need a movement in which Obama is a key target, a healthy ally or a major opponent based not on warm and cuddly feelings but on the reality of his reaction to, and participation in, progressive change.

In short, the Obamania needs to die on Inauguration Day, replaced by a movement to end American imperialism, restore the Constitution, unravel the evils of neo-capitalism and instill some eco-sanity. It will be the strength of such a movement, and not the new president's virtues, that will largely determine whether he does the right thing and whether the right things happens.

If, on the other hand, we just wait for Obama, we will wake up one morning and the words on our lips will not be "Yes, we can" but "Why the hell didn't we?"

If you take the tone of Smith's talk of the "strength of such a movement" and translate that into the rhetoric of dailykos, you will understand exactly what I am talking about. As kossak kerplunk says about McCain...

The More Sleeze John McCain Has Around Him (0 / 0)
the more Americans are apt to vote for him.
Americans relate to abusers
Americans are trying to resolve their bad childhoods and hate is their medicine.
Gramps McCain will make it better for them.

And that is a mild reaction to the top "repug" as kossaks like to say.

If you look at the way that John Boehner (House Minority Leader) has been treating every situation as a skirmish in the greater tactical battle between right and left, you begin to understand. What other excuse would there be to try and force a procedural vote on the floor of the house at the exact time of the Memorial for Tom Lantos.

I fully expect this sort of tit for tat maneuvering to be the order of the day. It appears that Republican learned nothing from the reaction to Newt Gingrich's shut down of government over the budget. The American People want their representatives to work together for the good of the country. While Bush's approval ratings are low, they are almost twice as good as those for Congress.

There is a way the Greens can use this as an opportunity to gain respect. We need to be the party that actually practices what Obama is preaching. Greens have to point out the obstructionism whenever it happens and promise not to do it ourselves. Greens need to focus on solutions to the problems that people are experiencing and not merely rant about some ideological goal that is not being met.

It does not look as if the Democrats will have a filibuster proof senate in 2009. Much will be broken if Obama and the Republicans of the 111th Congress square off. We need to be ready to take advantage of this opportunity.

CA 46 Ripe for picking?

I am adding to my blogging over the next several weeks. I want to spend some time concentrating on Crazy Dana, a blog that was set up last year to document some of the worst foibles of that ho-dad from Huntington Beach, Dana Rohrabacher.

Over the next several weeks, with the help from a few friends, veterans of the wars against Abramoff, Pombo and Doolittle, we will start building a much more picturesque, vid-aware site that chronicles just why Dana has to go.

There are now three individuals running against Rohrabacher. Green Tom Lash, Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook (an environmental activist backed by the DFA) and a guy named Dan Kalmick from Seal Beach, whom I am told is a "good guy" but over his head in this race.

However, my effort for now is going to be strictly Dana-bad. That should help both Tom and whomever survives the Democratic primary, presumably Cook.

Along that line, I note that Act Blue currently lists 51 donations to Debbie Cook for $11,294. Now Act Blue is generally just an illustration that one Democrat can raise more grassroots money that another. But, it does add up and I know Tom would be ecstatic if he had 51 donations to match that. I have the feeling a more money will flow in to this race than people expect and Tom will need all the help he can get.

The Great Imposters

If there is one issue that has had surprising effects on the national Republican races, it is Immigration. Still you have to wonder.

Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo was one of the first to drop out of the presidential race even though immigration was his ONLY issue.

John McCain had to have a near death experience in his campaign before he "got it" that Republicans want a secure border.

But, some of the base of the current anti-immigrant activity is falling apart. There is no longer a united front. The Minutemen organization is in disarray, or at least it's found Jim Gilchrist seems to think so. Local OC newspaper, the Daily Pilot, calles it the Minuteman Meltdown.

Struggles for power and finances have led leaders in the movement to split ties with Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project.

Bickering continues over who has control of the original Minuteman organization and once faithful members are now deserting the group. Barbed e-mails and accusations fly among the former Minuteman loyalists.

It seems to me that this would be a time for OC and LA Greens to ratchet up our support for a rational immigration policy.

At least, the following comment was posted to the story by a very Green sounding "redwoodsforever". "

Minuteman Meltdown? outlines the internal fighting rampant within all the anti-immigrant groups. How are these groups different than the KKK? They all have racism at their core. America has immigration as its foundation; we're all immigrants.

Our 20-year Congressman Rohrabacher is obsessed by the illegal immigration issue. I wish he was as concerned about affordable health care or funding solar & wind power (get off foreign oil). Rohrabacher voted for offshore drilling & in ANWR. He doesn't believe we have a global warming problem & jokes about dinosaur farts. Vote him out in 2008! "

And they found a way to turn that into a tirade against Congressman Taliban... er... Rohrabacher.

Now, let's add to this the fact that long time Republican Strategist and campaign financer, Grover Norquist, is now on the hook for hiring an "illegal" just as was the California Republican party. I am sure glad that the SF Chronicle's Carla Marinucci is on this story, because you know the OC Register will never print it.

Where to grow the Green Party

In my previous post today, I called attention to a report on political partisanship in California that had been prepared to by the Public Policy Institute of California. It is clear that there is a perception that a third party is needed in California. If this "need" is true, then we have to ask why we are not meeting that need.

I think that we have to look at where we expend our time and energy. The PPIC report begins with some charts on the demographics of the major parties in California. For example:

There is a big difference in party affiliation by gender.

• Republicans: Men comprise 54% of registered voters while women are 46%.
• Democrats: The opposite is true. Women make up 57% and men are 43%.

There are major differences based on ethnicity:

• Republicans: 84% White, 8% Latino, 5% Asian, 1% Black.
• Democrats: 63% White, 20% Latino, 10% Black, 5% Asian.

Still, the total registrations for both major parties have been in decline and the growth has been in voters who decline to state a party preference. According to the PPIC, "If current registration trends continue, we expect that there will be more independents than either Republican or Democratic voters by 2025."

If we are to grow this party, we have some choices in where we begin to look for those new voters, especially since we see that there is an overall rejection of the extremes of partisanship among many voters.

One option might be to try to woo Progressive Democrats (PDA) to join us, after they are inevitably disappointed by their own candidates performance once elected. This viewpoint is the position of those who see the Green Party as the logical electoral arm of the progressive movement. It seems to be the opinion expressed by Peter Camejo and his associates. However, in light of the PPIC data on voters turning away from extreme partisanship, I wonder if this is an effective strategy.

Another option might be to concentrate on the Hispanic / Latino voter. This is the fastest growing segment of the electorate. The are involved in both major parties and have been voting in record numbers, as explained by KNBC - Los Angeles.

The outpouring was especially strong on the Democratic side, with Latino voters accounting for 30 percent of Tuesday's presidential primary vote.

That is, in itself, an astounding statistic since it nearly doubles Latino participation from the 2004 election. It was also a part of the strong showing by John McCain. On the Republican side, Latino voters made up 13 percent of the vote, which also was a record. The very fact that so many Latinos voted Republican shows that this segment can not be taken for granted by any party. That is especially the case for the Hispanic Evangelical movement, more aligned with Republicans on social issue, with Democrats on other issues, but with some 15 million members nationally. Still, I think believe that ignoring Hispanic voters, or just relying on MAPA and Nativo Lopez to deliver some vote, is being either blind or lazy.

At least the other parties are working on this, as noted in the following statement from the same KNBC article.

"You can almost say this was the first major effort to bring the Latino voter to the polls in the same way that they attempt to bring all the other voters to the polls," said Mark DiCamillo, who directs the Field Poll. "I think the whole segment got aroused and turned out."

A third option is to focus primarily on the independent voter, those who are registered DTS in California. Their numbers are growing more rapidly than any of the parties. However, according to a study of attitudes of independent voters from the PPIC, these voters are much more likely to be centrists than the members of Democratic or Republican parties. That would seem to indicate that you can not attract both PDA Democrats and Independents with the same message, the same policies.

There is an implication in all of this that one way forward is to convince the public that the Green Party is in some manner different from all the others; That the solutions we provide have a different foundation, principles rather than campaign donations; that you can not put the Greens on a left<->right continuum; that we will always speak to the needs of the public.

Where are we going? I don't know. I do know we need to shake up things a bit.

Post-Partisanship? Not likely

The media focus on the presidential election circus just about drowns out any other thought. Normally, new political studies from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) will get at least a passing mention, but not the January 2008 At Issue publication that took a look at California's Post-Partisan Future. That term, Post-Partisan came right from the Governor.

Is the partisan divide in California so deep that it precludes such accord? Does the growing trend toward “decline-to-state” voter registration portend, instead, a reshaping of the two-party system?

PPIC CEO Mark Baldasarre presents a lot of demographic statistics that drive home the point that accommodation is not likely between Republicans and Democrats. They are just too different. You can dig that out yourself. I would recommend that anyone interested in electoral success do this.

What I want to call everyone's attention to is his (and the voters) assessment of the role and prospects for a third party in California.

Majorities of Californians say the two parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third party is needed. PPIC Statewide Surveys find that four in 10 independents were former major-party members and seven in 10 prefer to be
unaffiliated with any party

We have to ask ourselves then why we have not been more successful. While the demand for something other than Democrat or Republican is growing, our registration numbers are falling. That should not be, but it is true.

That being the case, what do we do to change the situation? It is obvious that what we are doing now is not working. Baldassare makes some suggestions, and I quote the liberally from the report.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND OPTIONS
With no signs that the deep rifts between Democratic and Republican voters are shrinking, Californians can expect to have state and federal legislators who largely reflect the liberal-conservative split of major-party voters in the party primaries. The two-party system will continue to reflect the will of fewer and fewer people in the future, unless the parties focus on expanding their base, on inclusiveness instead of ideological purity and exclusivity.

If you agree with Baldassare, then this represents a real opportunity for Greens, but only if we can show that we are substantially different from the duopoly, that we bring a new vision of what politics can be, of what California can be, of what this nation can be.

Since this relates to electoral politics, we have one clue as to what can be accomplished if we look at the impact of the independent voters on the Democratic primary. The Democratic Party is rather unique in California in that it allows those who are registered as decline to state to vote in the Democratic Primary. Neither the Republican nor the Greens do so.

Writing just before the Feb 5 presidential primaries in CA, Baldassare found that the independent voters had little effect on the choice of candidates by the Democratic Party. I have not found any analysis of these independent votes that is meaningful. Note here that some of the PPIC suggestions for reducing partisanship are very much in line with what Greens have been working for: Instant Runoff and Proportional Representation. Others, are not so attractive, especially the first suggestion of a completely open primary with the top two candidates staging a runoff regardless of party. This would almost assuredly eliminate third parties from most contests, even if coupled with a new districting formula that creates more evenly distributed contests.

We can suggest six proposals to involve more independent voters and increase the numbers of moderate voices involved in choosing elected representatives:
(1) State-level primaries could permit voters to vote for candidates regardless of the voter’s and the candidate’s party. Then, the two top vote-getters could have a runoff in the general election.
(2) State-level primaries could be eliminated and replaced with instant runoff s in general elections. In such a system, candidate victories are decided by general election voters selecting both their first and second choices.
(3) General elections could use a proportional representation formula. As a result, the numbers of Democratic, Republican, independent, and third-party seats in the legislature would be based on the percentage of the vote each receives, rather than
winner-take-all in local districts.
(4) Legislative races in general elections could be nonpartisan. In such a system, ballots would list candidates without party labels, as in mayoral, city council, and county board of supervisor races in California.
(5) Campaign finance reforms, such as public financing, could be implemented in elections. In this way, nonpartisans and moderates could become financially competitive against partisan candidates who can attract support from ideological and
interest groups.
(6) Future legislative redistricting could focus on party competition rather than incumbent advantages. In line with state trends, local elections with partisan parity would be decided by centrist and independent voters.

We have a lot of work to do.

Mark Sanchez for Supervisor

Let me introduce the second in the list of GP Candidates that I consider worthy of supporting with your time and your donations. This is Mark Sanchez, candidate for Supervisor, City and County of San Francisco, California. If elected he would join Ross Mirkarimi as the 2nd GP Supervisor in this very "progressive" city.

Once again, this is where Greens get the experience at governance. It is building a solid local constituency for the Green Party. If we want Greens to win, this is where it starts.

The following is a press release from the San Francisco Greep Party dated yesterday.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, February 15, 2008

Contact:
Erika McDonald, 415-337-1499; erikasf@aol.com
To schedule an interview with Mark Sanchez, contact Vicki Leidner, 415-648-5050; vleidner@astound.net

District 9 Candidate Mark Sanchez is the First to Qualify for Public Financing

SAN FRANCISCO—The Mark Sanchez campaign has received confirmation from the Ethics Commission that Sanchez – currently President of the San Francisco Board of Education and candidate for District 9 Supervisor – is eligible to receive public financing.

"I'm grateful to all the folks who have contributed to my candidacy for supervisor and to the great team working on this campaign," said Sanchez, a Green Party member and school teacher.

Sanchez is the first candidate for supervisor to qualify for public funds in 2008. Read the Ethics Commission press release announcing his eligibility for public financing here:

Water Crisis Impacts Power Crisis

One of the defining characteristics of a good Green, is being able to connect the dots between seeming unrelated phenomenon.

CNN Money takes a look at the connection between water shortages and power production:

Power generation takes water. Pumping water takes power. As the nation struggles to meet electricity demand - expected to surge 50% in the next 30 years - big sections of the country are suffering from drought conditions.

The article begins with an old Western saying: "Whisky is for drinkin' and water is for fightin' ."