Climate Zombies

Think Progress has a list of the Climate Zombies in the 112th Congress. Not surprisingly, all of the CA list are Republicans.

There are some, like CA-02's Wally "Walleye" Herger who are so ineffective that the Washington Press named him as the Congressman who could disappear and no one would know. That is not the case with a few others.

Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46) was considered for the Chairmanship of the House Committee on Science and Technology. The one selected, R. Holt from Tx. is marginally better in that he is a not a buffoon. We know that Rohrabacher got his political start with money from the Charles Koch of Koch Industries.

Darrell Issa CA-49 will likely be the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. He has stated that he will frequently subpoena members of the Obama Administration to challenge their direction and how they are wasting spending public money.


Brian Bilbray was recently announced as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.  Here, he could easily use hearing after hearing to ask stupid questions in order to re-state long debunked ideas.

This is all the more reason that Green Climate Hawks need to take to the air… even to the airways if we can raise enough money… and make sure that our local communities are ready to transition to the new reality of 21st Century Climate.

There’s no happy ending

There’s no happy ending where we prevent climate change any more. … Now the question is… is it going to be a miserable century or an impossible one and what comes after that. - Bill McKibben in an interview with Revkin(dot earth) in Cancun,

This is where I begin to sound like a broken record. But more and more I am convinced that McKibben is right. You can listen to the full segment below. This is his conclusion some 8 min. in.



I am also convinced that there will be no action from the U.S. Congress for the next two years. That means we have to focus what strength we have on local actions and supporting CA organizations that are doing things. If the Federal Government takes any action, it will be through Carol Browner's pushing the EPA to regulate GHG's. Congressional Republicans will try to defund the EPA. That can not be allowed to happen.

Then, we need to begin now targeting those legislators, State or Federal, who have the worst records and to keep up a relentless attack. It should start with Orange County's idiotic Dana Rohrabacher.
Memo to self: Start a target list.

Too much of what we work for is rather like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It might make life pleasant if we survive. If Greens can not lead on this, we should rename our party.

Unheard No More

For many, many years, decades even, Wendy Doromal has worked on behalf of those who have been, are still are being exploited in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). The CNMI is a US Protectorate and you would think under US laws to some extent. However, the reality has been very different.

Finally, just today, Wendy has been able to announce a victory of sorts as President Bush signed into law S. 2739, putting the immigration policies that fed the sweatshops in Saipan under US Law. The entire story is a bit complicated. Maybe a good way to get a feel for the effort that went into this would be to read her announcement of the signing of this legislation from her own blog, Unheard No More. Wendy give a lot of credit to many other people and claims little for herself though she was the inspiration that kept everyone going.

I have friends who were, no, still are in frequent contact with Wendy. I know the great respect that Dennis Greenia (referenced in her post) has for Wendy.

I mention this because there is a lot of work remaining to be done. While Wendy names those in Congress who worked for the rights of these indentured workers, she did not mention those who are still in Congress and who should be retired. That list begins spans the country: Bob Schaffer (R-CO) now running for the Senate in that state; Dan Young (R-AK) and under fire for a lot of corruption; John Doolittle (R-CA-04) still in Congress but not running for re-election, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA-46) - one of those who held up the CNMI as a crucible of capitalism to be emulated and a supporter of the CNMI's lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.

Doromal is not stopping work.

Now that the bill is signed, I will be carrying the petition from the guest workers to Washington, D.C. that requests green card status for the legal CNMI long-term guest workers. The guest workers have gotten over 5,000 signatures and are still working to get more.

We should not either. Everything that we can do to send Dana Rohrabacher back to the beach, to contemplate surfing, reefs and reefers, the better we will all be.

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.

Dinosaur Flatulence

This week in the Green Room, an environmental section of the BBC web site, there is a provocative quotation in a box on the upper right.

The problem is that most politicians are dinosaurs who don't expect to be around when the stuff really hits the fan.

This reminds me of the often referenced quote from SoCal Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

"We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?"

It makes one tend to agree with the BBC.

I was reading the Green Room because Andrew Revkin had linked it from his new Dot Earth blog at the NY Times. Today, both of them are dealing with a fundamental problem: identifying the motivations for human action on Global Warming? As Revkin asks, the question is an ethical one. What does the present owe the future?

John Feeney writes this weeks Viewpoint for the Green Room and tries to come to grip with the problem in another way.

We humans face two problems of desperate importance. The first is our global ecological plight. The second is our difficulty acknowledging the first.

Feeney sees the problem as being us and the fact that there are too many of "us". He makes about the best possible case for posing the question in terms of an apocalypse scenario.

Despite increasing climate change coverage, environmental writers remain reluctant to discuss the full scope and severity of the global dilemma we’ve created. Many fear sounding alarmist, but there is an alarm to sound and the time for reticence is over.

The reaction that Feeney generates is predictably gloomy, as in this comment from Euraka, CA resident Jessica Friedlander.

Not only is he correct I think he might be understanding the severity of the problem. The crux of the problem lies in human nature, our tendency to use our rationality to justify our baser instincts. Our baser instincts will rule in this situation as in all others: Consume until nothing remains. Logic cannot prevail even in this life or death scenario. We, and this entire biosphere, are are irrevocably doomed. Jess Friedlander

Which brings me back to Revkin. He concludes his Dot Earth post with the very basic idea that we have choices.

Why bother? Boy, that question gets at the deep roots of the human condition. We’re the first species (on Earth at least) that has become a global-scale influence and is aware of it. (Plants oxygenated the atmosphere but, as far as we know, didn’t know it.)

That makes every action, locally to globally, a choice weighing current and future needs. We can’t plead ignorance any more. Personally, I’ve chosen to focus my reporting, and this blog, on this balance. Chances are we won’t get it quite right, and one can only help we don’t get it too wrong.

Let me phrase the question in another way. What choices do we have for action as a political party? It would seem that we have the most ability to change our future by community action. We need to grow this party in order to operate at a higher political level: State Assembly, Congress, etc. We can achieve that growth by taking meaningful action within our own communities.

Last year, Karen Hurley, writing in Grist, urged us all to "Drop that apocalyptic vision and start imagining a positive future". It is notable that one commenter references the title of Petra Kelly's first book, "Fighting for Hope". Is this not what the GPCA should be doing? Fighting for hope? Can we not change our own communities to act to protect against and to mitigate the effects of our changing climate? Are we going to be satisfied to endure the verbal flatulence of dinosaur politicians? The future is what we would make of it.

CA-37 - "Bipartisan" Meltdown in Compton

It is tragic the candidates presumed to be front-runners for U.S. Congress in the 37th congressional district were arguing on stage Thursday night and almost came to blows over race-baiting personal attacks. Thank God the Green Party candidate Daniel Abraham Brezenoff was on stage to state clear, unambiguous grown-up statements on the war, health care, and the failed "war on drugs."

The presumed front-runners are Democrat Laura Richardson, an African-American member of the state assembly and Democrat Jenny Oropeza, a Latina state senator in a very diverse district.

The confrontation started when Laura Richardson said "No one can take our seat from us without fighting every bit of the way for it." On Friday, Richardson's campaign consultant, John Shallman, told the Long Beach Press Telegram that Richardson had used the term "our community" and not "us.

Well, I attended the event and heard Richardson say "No one can take our seat from us "and Richardson did say "our seat" not once, but twice. But you don't have to take my word for it (memo to John Shallman: this is the 21st century Remember George Allen's "Macacca Moment" last year). An audio recording of the closing arguments has been posted on the web at:

http://www.lbreport.com/news/jun07/37compt.htm.

I have also posted a two-minute mp3 audio file of the offending remarks at:

http://alexcathy.com/richardson-guillory.mp3.

Here is a partial transcrpt of Richardson's closing remarks:

Posted on LBReport.com, June 8, 2007

Congressional Candidates Face-Off in Compton

...This is about someone who says that no one can take our seat from us without us fighting every bit of the way for it. [applause] This is our community. This is our seat. And let me tell you something: why is it that with redistricting, Compton was removed out of the 55th [Carson-LB Assembly district]? We need people who want Compton, who will represent Compton and who will do everything humanly possible to make sure all of the people in our community are represented and taken care of."

Let's cut the bull. I am an African-American and when Black pols, pundits, and cranks slowly and deliberately say "our community" taking an hour to say "our" with emphasis, it's code for "race."

That's not all. After Richardson made her closing remarks it got really weird.

Republican L.J. "Bishop" Guillory, also African-American, seated next to Richardson on the dais, jumped into the fray. Guillory asked Richardson to "Stand up! Stand up!" When she stood Guillory put his hand on her shoulder and said "I am the Republican candidate. I don't care what Democrat Party endorsed who... this is our choice... if we lose this seat you will have no more connection..." whereupon the moderator ruled that Guillory had violated the rules.

Here is the Press Telegram's account of what happened next:

Published in the Long Beach Press Telegram, Saturday, June 8, 2007

Who's Going to Washington?
by Gene Maddeus

Oropeza rushed over to confront Guillory and denied his accusation. Compton Councilman Isadore Hall, a Richardson supporter, then inserted himself between the two and told Oropeza, "Not in my city, Senator, not in my city."

Why would a labor-endorsed Democratic assembly member accept the endorsement of a rich Republican wingnut like "Bishop" Guillory? Is this what Gov. Schwarzenegger means by "post-partisanship?"

This is one African-American who is sick and tired of Democratic and Republican politicians acting like a bunch of rowdy high school kids about "race" issues in America.

Redistricting: Democrat-Republican Gerrymander

What about Ms. Richardson's rhetorical question "why is it that with redistricting, Compton was removed out of the 55th?"

I do not know about Assembly District 55, but we do know that the City of Long Beach was chopped into three congressional districts as part of the general Democrat-Republican "bipartisan" gerrymander to guarantee "safe seats" for incumbents.

An article was posted on this subject:

Posted on The District Weekly, June 7, 2007
In The Not Seat
by Dave Wielenga

Long Beach hasn’t had a congressional district to call its own since 2001, when state legislators chopped up the city and parceled it out to districts based in Huntington Beach, Carson and Lakewood. The electoral surgery was self-serving, a bipartisan deal cut so incumbents would be re-elected. They were.

Orange County right wingnut Republican Dana Rohrabacher is serving his 10th term, his third since the 46th district was contorted through a Long Beach coastal corridor that includes about 20 percent of the city—significantly, the parts that pass through Long Beach State, the Los Cerritos Wetlands, Belmont Shore and the Port of Long Beach. Almost everywhere else was lumped in the 37th district of the late Juanita Millender-McDonald, a liberal Democrat from south-central Los Angeles who never faced serious opposition after taking office in a 1996 special election when predecessor Walter Tucker of Compton went to prison for corruption.

Nowadays, with all the loose talk about "Our Seat" everyone conveniently forgets that just a dozen years ago "Our Seat" was held by "Our Crook" Walter Tucker. And thanks to Democrat-Republican "bipartisanship" part of the extremely diverse city of Long Beach, California, with it's uniquely sensitive environment, is represented by rightwing openly racist Republican Dana Rohrabacher who has said that global warming could have been caused by "dinosaur flatulence" and that prisoners can do the work of immigrant farmworkers.

Daniel Brazenoff's Unforgettable Line:

The most unforgettable line the night of the Compton Meltdown was from Green Party Candidate Daniel Abraham Brazenoff:

I'm going to go rock the boat. OK? I'm going to raise the roof too. I'm tireless, I'm fearless and I know the issues. Look. I have the best preparation you could want for going to the United States Congress: I work in a psychiatric hospital.

Amen, brother.

Tax Day Potpourri

Having taken care of my tax obligations, sent of an invoice for some additional work that I have done and cleaned up part of the garage, I have a little time to post a potpourri of items that I think are worth a comment.

I ran across a new (to me) blog called Healing Iraq. The owner is an Iraqi dentist. The images are not pleasant to see, but should be.

I have joined another new blog, Ditch Crazy Dana, which is trying to do to Rohrabacher (CA-46) what we did to Pombo. It is still in it's infancy, but there are a few interesting posts.

That fact tells me that we Greens need to pay attention to the manner in which we can affect specific districts. This is one where all of the pundits are saying the same things that they said about Pombo's 11th district in 2006. But Pombo and Rohrabacher have a lot in common besides being in "safe Republican districts." They both have been ineffectual as legislators. They both have made a career out of being a character. They both are out of step with common sense on environmental questions. Does that mean that Rohrabacher can be beaten?

At the present time, the most popular progressive candidate, Debbie Cook (I think a Dem.) is saying that she is not interested. Might Tom Lash run again?