Politically Incorrect.

Last night, my wife wanted to watch 20/20 on ABC because she enjoys the fact that John Stossel is somewhat of a contrarian, not afraid to take shots at anyone including himself. What we got last night was a broadside of Libertarian views on the ineffectiveness of government and the suggestion that the problems we face are more often caused by over-regulation than under-regulation of the free choice of our population. The term that he used was "self-ordering". Then, I got a surprise when he started to talk about New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina.


Stossel interviewed a number of people with great attention being paid to Mayor Nagin and the bureaucracy that keeps people from doing simple things... form after form, arcane regulations to be followed to the letter. He contrasted that with the volunteer operations that have done much more than all of the expensive public works. His major examples came from Habitat for Humanity, and Malik Rahim. In fact, Rahim got a lot more camera time than Brad Pitt (Make it Right Campaign) and that says a lot. It is unfortunate that the segment did not mentions Rahim's current candidacy.

I don't agree with Stossel's purely Libertarian view that over-regulation by government is what caused the mess. Actually, in his view, Fannie Mae and Fredie Mac should never have existed in the first place. It makes just as much sense to blame the Harvard MBA programs for teaching all of those financial whiz kids that risk is only a mathematical calculation. The problems were not that government over-regulated, but that they did not regulate the right things. The basic idea that you could commodify financial obligations (mortgages) left no room for the type of failure that happened as real estate prices dropped.

The more scary proposition for me is that banks have hugely more debt obligation in terms of credit cards. When people are using credit card debt to last from pay check to pay check, and their costs are continuing to rise, we have another bubble ready to burst and that is one which will make the real estate fiasco look like a parlor game.

Environmental Justice

Why does it seem that every movement seems to have an ethnic / racial aspect to it? There are many who consider the environmental movement just a white person's gripe. When it comes to climate change, I don't see that as the reality. After all, the same climate will affect us all. In fact, it will affect mostly those who can not afford a shining palace on the hill.

That is the theme of a new video published by The New Republic. Go there to view it. There are some interesting non-conversations. I was surprised by several things. First, while the video and the story it tells is excellent, TNR provides the following as the front page link TNR TV: Finding Environmental Activists In the Most Unlikely Place

If the problem is going to affect the South Bronx more than it will Berkeley, then why consider that this is an "unlikely place" for environmental activists? Should not those with the problem be the ones who initiate change, who command attention, who define the solutions?

There is a role for the rest of us, to help, to join, to witness, but not to presume to know best what is good for "them." Such arrogance is what got us into most of the troubles we have. That is the arrogance of the George W. Bush who would rebuild New Orleans but not spend another dime to prevent that environmental catastrophe that will inevitably flood it again... along with a lot of the rest of the country.

Reliance on Washington and the big programs it always defines.. and then porks up... allows arrogance to continue unabated. More than anything, we need more local activism aimed at greening our own cities, our own block.

Here is a good example:

GoSolarMarin:

Early Fall of 2007 neighbors joined together to create GoSolarMarin, a program where communities and homeowners could benefit from a group purchase program to go solar.

Let's find a few more and add them to the list.

Katrina and the Inner-City Challenge for Greens

Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, Louisiana two years ago. And (for about fifteen minutes) Democrats, Republicans, and the So-Called Liberal Media actually had a serious discussion about class and race in America. In the coming days we shall read and hear a lot of self-serving partisan poppycock from liberal Democrats that everything that happened in New Orleans was the fault of Bush Republicans. In point of fact, the New Orleans inner-city Democratic Party Machine was up to its neck in cronyism and incompetence long before it was up to its neck in floodwaters.

The next great challenge for the Green Party of the United States is cracking the monopoly of the Democratic Party Machines within communities of color in the inner-city. Greens will never be able to really challenge the Democrats until we do this and we'll never effectively apply our 10 key values until we can start applying them where it is needed the most.

In a recent interview in Yes Magazine, Green activist, Malik Rahim brilliantly articulated a vision for inner-city New Orleans that goes way beyond the usual Democratic and Republican nostrums:

I think that we can show, not only people in New Orleans, Louisiana, or in America, but globally what happens when people of conscience come together, in spite of their government. If we can rebuild New Orleans in such a way that we break the dependency upon fossil fuels, if we look at alternative energy in our reconstruction and look at new methods, if we could move away from a levee system and start developing a storm protection system that no longer challenges nature, but works with nature. If we break the shackles of racism, and become a truly progressive city. If we could develop the schools and the education system, if we can work to develop health care for everyone. If we could do these things, we’d know that the sacrifice by all the thousands of volunteers from Common Ground and others wasn’t in vain, and I believe that the rest of the world can look at us as a model.

New Orleans as a model? What a revolutionary notion.

Read More and challenges by Cynthia McKinney and Donna Warren at Green Commons:

Katrina and the Inner-City Challenge: Cynthia McKinney, Malik Rahim, Donna Warren

New Orleans Redux

The media this week is going to give everyone an overdose of rehashed information on Hurricane Katrina, it's impact on New Orleans, the failures since. Every politician with enough cash for the plane fare (that may leave out McCain) will be heading there to take advantage of all those reporters and to spin the story.

There are many lessons to be learning from New Orleans. Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirschenbaum are laying out the lessons from Katrina that most of the rest won't be telling us. They do so in a series of posts today at Intersection, some of which are only summaries of similar material that Mooney has posted to Huffington Post or as "Storm Pundit" at The Daily Green.

In summary, what he has given us so far today is this:

• "the central lesson that I think we can take away after two years of the post-Katrina hurricane-global warming debate: science doesn't confer certainty; but scientific uncertainty doesn't justify inaction, either."
• We're not ready for any of these [major hurricanes striking big cities..Tampa, Houston, Miami]. Not by a long shot.
• We don't know precisely what global warming is doing to hurricanes; it would be foolhardy to claim otherwise. But we do know that we have scores of population centers that are highly exposed to to these storms. And if only due to sea level rise and nothing else, the risks to these population centers are changing--probably worsening.

  In this context, here's what's truly amazing to me: There is no national project to study changing hurricane risks to U.S. cities in light of the future scenarios that global warming may bring.

Just more political gamesmanship from those whose need for power exceeds their need to really help those in need. If I were as Christian as most of these presidential candidates claim to be, I would heed the words of the savior they profess to follow. "Even as you had done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me."

Hypocrisy abounds.

Of all the journalists covering this anniversary, I would guess that Tavis Smiley may be the only one who knows Malik Rahim. The others just don't get it.

As Mooney says at the close of his Storm Pundit post "Some times you just have to act."

Another New Orleans Democratic Hack in Disgrace

Oliver Thomas, New Orleans Democratic Hack, Opposed by Green Malik Rahim, Resigns in Disgrace

Oliver M. Thomas, New Orleans City Council President, pleaded guilty to a federal

bribery charge on Monday. Thomas admitted to taking $19,000 in bribes and kickbacks in 2002 from local businessman, Stanford Barré,
an intimate of former New Orleans Mayor Marc H. Morial.

New Orleans, still reeling from the horror of Hurricane Katrina, has been rocked by an incredible series of

corruption scandals involving: Congressman William J. Jefferson; the former president of the school board; a top aide to former Mayor Morial; indictments of 30 school system employees; and 16 City Hall corruption convictions.

Nobody in the mainstream media remembers this, of course, but in 2001, Green Party candidate,Malik Rahim,ran against Oliver Thomas and others for New Orleans City Council.

In words that would prove prophetic Rahim declared:

"When I look at the economic and social conditions that exist in New Orleans, and I see the failed policies of our elected officials, the dismal conditions of housing, the low wages our people work for and the carcinogenic levels of toxicity in our air and water,I see that the wealth, opportunity and resources in our community are controlled by the rich at the expense of the many,"

The awful truth is that the catastrophic failure of the system in New Orleans is indeed a bipartisan failure. Read More ...

Now is the Time

I have not posted for quite a while, so I have a buildup of frustration and will post several things this AM. It only took a magazine cover to wake me from my slumber.

You should all pick up a copy of Time Magazine this week. I call your attention to the cover where photo of the new storm floodwall in New Orleans carries this caption.

Two years after Katrina, this floodwall is all that stands between New Orleans and the next hurricane. It's pathetic. How a perfect storm of big money politics, shoddy engineering and environmental ignorance is setting up the city for another catastrophe.

The author, Michael Grunwald, pulls no punches and blows away a number of myths, not the least of which was that Katrina was a horrendous Cat 5 storm at New Orleans.

The most important thing to remember about the drowning of New Orleans is that it wasn't a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, created by lousy engineering, misplaced priorities and pork-barrel politics. Katrina was not the Category 5 killer the Big Easy had always feared; it was a Category 3 storm that missed New Orleans, where it was at worst a weak 2.

You can read the entire story here.

When I think of the amount of effort that people like Susan King put into the recovery effort I just get sick. When I contrast the on the ground leadership of Malik Rahim to the mess described by Grunwald, I feel like crying. Such a missed opportunity and such empty promises where Bush's promise to rebuild was just another declaration of the end to major combat. It is worse than pathetic, the word Time used on their cover. It is criminal.

This is particularly important for us in this state and at this time. We are dealing with many of the same issues: failing levees that need major repair if not replacement, big money politics at every turn, politicians who care more for their own image or career than the welfare of the people that they represent. There is not a single plan for the future of the Sacramento / San Joaquin Delta that meets the smell test. Sure, Núñez, Perata and Schwarzenegger promise to get things done. But they won't. Follow the money. When it comes time to do something, the money will be less than needed. It will get used on some legislator's pet project. There will be no accountability.

When the Green Party of California convenes it's general assembly in Riverside, perhaps there should be a moment of silence during which we can all think about the money that could have helped repair the levees in New Orleans but went instead to build a highway off-ramp to a riverboat casino. Then think about what we can be doing to make sure that it does not happen again, here, in this state, on our watch.

This is one issue that I will not let drop and I ask all of you to do the same.