Green Party Presidential Debate

The 1st Green Party Presidential Debate has come and gone. It did not get much media attention. The only major print media coverage was in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In some ways, this was a refreshing example of what Grassroots activism is all about. The committee that put this together was just a group of Greens who thought this needed to be done and so they did it. Some, but not all, had positions in the party. All were dedicated to making this as good as they could make it. Score on for the Grassroots.

Still, in my opinion, the debate brought to the forefront some of the real problems that we have as a party.

Candidate Status: All political parties have a problem when candidates pull out of the race late in the game. One might ask what will happen to the voters in Iowa who cast a ballot for Richardson, Dodd or Biden are going to do and how any delegates they might have acquired will be voting at the Democratic Nominating Convention.

The Green Party has the same situation with Elaine Brown who pulled out too late to have her name removed from the ballot. But, we confounded that problem by including the name of Ralph Nader on the ballot. There is no indication that Nader is going to run. While I understand his hesitancy to participate in the debate as if he were running, it does the party no good if this continues right down to our own convention. I can see nothing good coming out of a situation where, going into the convention, Nader has not yet declared. That will be a repeat of 2004 and a disaster for the party.

The Green Party has very few primaries. Only a few states (California, Arkansas, Illinois, DC and ???) We depend on the State Parties to deliver delegate votes that represent the real preferences of their members. I hope this happens. Because if it does not, then it leave the door open for a continuation of the intercine warfare that has gone on since Milwaukee.

Only Ralph Nader can control this. It is up to him what happens. But, I personally will not be voting for a candidate on the hope that they run.


Narrow Focus: While we are scrambling for candidates, the question on farm policy opened up a failure for all of them. I don't think that any Green Candidate has a grasp of the range of policy issues that they need in order to win votes all across this land. The solutions are clear. Most are in our platform and those that are not will be in the national platform by the time the convention comes around. It is just not very high on the priority list for anyone, but it had better be if we want to continue growing the party in Illinois, in Iowa, in Minnesota.

I would include in this list the fact that environmental questions: those dealing with global warming and energy, were not very prominent in the debate. The Peak Oil question was not well thought out and combining it with the one of "what would be your first act" allowed McKinney to dodge it entirely.

The only response to the Peak Oil question video at YouTube was decidedly negative. "Looks like nobody here is really prepared...".

If we are to make headway as a party, we need to allow for no excuses in terms of being prepared. We have to be ready every time we open the door, or open our mouths.
At least, you could tell that Jesse Johnson and Kent Mesplay had thought through the issues and had something worth saying.


Celebrity Factor: Greens continually criticize the Republicrats and Democans for choosing candidates who do not represent the people, who do not have the right position on issues. Yet, when we come down to choosing our candidates, we do the same thing. So far, I have seen no sign that Cynthia McKinney has any better grasp on the issues than most of the other candidates do. So, we have to ask on what basis do those who support her candidacy make that decision. The rationale that I hear generally comes down to her national name recognition and her ability to articulate a contrarian message, to "speak the truth to power" as it were. It sounds much like that rational given by Democrats for choosing Obama over Clinton. I guess that we are not so different.

Conclusion: Given the seriousness with which I take the issues around Climate Change and energy, given the fact that Nader has not yet announced if he is running and still does not mention ecology issues in his latest "critique" of the duopoly and their platforms, given that Cynthia McKinney seems to think that buying pollution credits is a Green thing to do, I found not reason to discontinue my support for Kent Mesplay. He is the only candidate who is clearly articulate on the one issue that means the most to me.

Once more wading through the delta quagmire

Unfortunately the quagmire in really in the politics of the Delta. I had missed this NPR program until reminded of it while reading Alex Breitler's blog at the Stockton Record.

[Dr. Jeffrey] Mount says climate change is conspiring against the fragile balance at work in the delta. In order to serve millions of Californians, the salty water of the San Francisco Bay must be kept away from the pumps that bring fresh water to cities and farms. It requires constant management and enough fresh water at all times to push the salt water back.

Dr. Jeffrey Mount is the Director of the Center for Watershed Management at UC Davis. He was, at one time, a member of the California State Reclamation Board. This agency has the following mission.

• To control flooding along the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and their tributaries in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.



• To cooperate with various agencies of the federal, State and local governments in establishing, planning, constructing, operating, and maintaining flood control works.



• To maintain the integrity of the existing flood control system and designated floodways through the Board's regulatory authority by issuing permits for encroachments.

When Dr. Mount, and other members, started to exert their authority to regulate development in flood plains, Green Governor Schwarzenegger fired them all and replaced them with developer friendly members.

Now, Schwarzenegger wants to build more dams that will provide for collection of more water without any concern for what is happening in the delta. The alternative, a Healthy Delta Community Plan, is not getting media attention. The news is always what the Governor says, what the Water Agencies say, what the California Farm Bureau says and rarely what the community says. Maybe we need a new narrative, one that tells the story of the people rather than the agencies.

Aquafornia gives us the media coverage in a nutshell. We have to begin to personalize this, to make people realize just what it will mean to meet this challenge after you strip away all of the hype.

Science Friday

This is a big weekend of important days, all leading up to the Green Party Presidential Debate in San Francisco on Sunday, Jan 13.

It really begins with NPR's Science Friday today. On today's show, Ira Flatow will devote the first hour to the discussion of a Science Debate 2008 (clock logo in right menu). If there were ever a time when it is necessary to have a basic understanding of science at all levels of government, it is now. If you have the opportunity, tune in at 11:00 AM PT. (2 PM ET). The same hour also includes a discussion of what we really need to consider about the environment right now.

I know it is the middle of the work day here, but I can't think of a better way to spend some time.

The second important activity is the GPCA Strategy Session in Palo Alto on Saturday. While the past history of these strategy sessions is that they have devolved into battlegrounds for other conflicts, I have the sense that this time, the absolute need to have a strong showing in this election cycle will make a difference in both the tone and the substance of the session.

As for the Presidential Debate itself, I have collected a number of suggested questions from around the country, questions that Greens would like to see asked, and answered. I hope that one of them, at least will recognize the importance of ecology and other sciences in the years ahead.

We also need questions on the economy as that is the number one issue on most voters minds right now. Three leading banks said that we are heading into a recession. Most voters are afraid of the consequences. Everyone is talking about the increasing disparity of wealth. What do our candidates have to say?

Is the Immigration Debate Over?

The San Francisco Chronicle presented two OpEd columns today that give two very different positions on the issue of Immigration.

In the first, Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, tells us that Supporters of open borders have lost on that issue.

Republican candidates must risk angering their base by ruling out mass deportation. Democrats should support closing the border tightly and quickly - and not cave in to open-borders pressure groups.

Making these tough choices now is what most voters want. The candidates of both parties in the next few months will either adjust accordingly or lose elections.

In the other column, Roberto Lovato of New American Media, believes that the McCain win puts the Latino Vote back in play.

During the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush's Spanish-language appeals and promises of immigration reform won him somewhere between 37 to 44 percent of the Latino vote, a major increase from what he got in 2000.

So, the Latino vote is not something that Democrats can count on if McCain runs. However, McCain is probably the only Republican Candidate about whom that statement could be made.

But when Democrats are evasive - as in Clinton's driver's license flip-flop or when Obama vacillated after being asked by Univision anchors about his vote for the border fence - I see the moral and political opening exploited by Bush in 2004, and McCain before 2008. My father and most Latinos reject the wall as a muro de la muerte (wall of death). That the immigration debate merits neither Clinton's attention nor Obama's abundant rhetorical powers explains Latinos' frustration (documented in the recent Pew Hispanic poll) and leaves many of us outside the wave of Obama-mania.

Our Green candidates need to make it clear that we understand that the solution to these problems lies not in fences and deportation but rather in allowing Mexico and other national economies to grow, to not saddle them with so-called free trade pacts whose effects are so obviously one sided.

The immigration debate is not over. Greens have a unique message. It is not about protecting American jobs or even our fighting the worlds terrorists by building a muro de la muerte. It is about allowing all people to fulfill their own destinies, to build their own economic future without having American consumerism crammed down their throats.

Green Party Presidential Candidates Debate

A PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE THAT MATTERS

SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 2008 AT 2:00 PM

HERBST THEATRE

VETERANS MEMORIAL BUILDING

401 VAN NESS (Opposite City Hall)

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

(Public Transit: 3 blocks from Civic Center BART station, or by MUNI streetcar or bus)

(Parking available at Performing Arts Center Garage, 360 Grove St., 11 am to 7 pm, $12)

For More Details See Alameda County Greens Web Site At:
http://www.acgreens.org/debate

Climate Change and the Presidential Election

I think that the Green Party has a problem with Climate Change. I don't think that very many in the party would disagree with the fact that this is probably the single most important issue for the 21st Century. It truly is the "Inconvenient Truth." It is inconvenient because to address the issue in realistic terms may well be detrimental to our achieving the role that some see for the Green Party.

The emotional allegiance of many Greens is to the Peace Movement. Whether this manifests itself in terms of peace activism, or in terms of the effort to impeach Bush and Cheney, Greens are very much invested in action, driven by the immediacy of event. The Iraq War continues month after agonizing month. The Defense Department is now talking about a "surge" in Afghanistan. It is now and demands action now.

The climate crisis that we face has yet to achieve that level of urgency among the general public, and Greens are a part of that general public. As CoChair of the EcoAction Committee, I only hear from one activist who expresses this urgency, 2004 Green Presidential Candidate Lorna Salzman.

That sense of urgency is coming from the scientific community. Richard C. J. Somerville(Climatologist: Scripps Institution for Oceanography - La Jolla) was a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and participated in the Bali Conference last December. He reflected on that Conference in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists this week.

At subsequent climate negotiations, the important question will be whether governments are willing to implement and enforce an effective agreement to halt the rapid rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other pollutants that cause global warming. My personal view is that governments, especially democratically elected ones, will respond to the will of their people. And what will it take to make large numbers of people increase the priority that they now give to this issue? Perhaps it will take some sudden, shocking, and unambiguous climate event such as the destabilization of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet and a sharp increase in sea level. The ozone hole would be a parallel case historically. It would be a pity if we needed to wait for that, which is like waiting to have a heart attack rather than heeding a physician's warnings about cholesterol and weight. In climate science as in medical science, prevention is better than a cure, but not everybody is wise enough to act early.

The analogy to having a global heart attack is apt. It may be the metaphor that makes clear the seriousness of the situation for all. Even Governor Huckabee heeded the advice of his doctor to lose weight and exercise more.

Yet, if Green push this issue too hard, we may perpetuate the image that we are a group of "limousine liberals hugging trees." as Mother Jones writer Debra Dickerson commented on NPR this morning. This is all the more disconcerting in that the entire discussion on NPR revolved around the candidacy of Cynthia McKinney and this was the impression that influential black bloggers have of us.

This is overwhelming (to me)evidence that we need a new narrative.

The ecological view of the world is one where all things are linked together, complex perhaps beyond casual understanding, networks of relationship rather than hierarchies, dominated by feedback loops that can bring unintended consequences when we don't understand what we are doing. If that is the Green world view, then it isn't just about being tree huggers. It is about national security, as Kent Mesplay reminds us. It is about the economy, as in this question offered by EcoAction CoChair Frank Jeffers (GA) for the Presidential Debate.

If already existing houses were made more energy efficient to reduce electricity consumption it would have many benefits. These include increasing the true value of the house, not the speculative value. The true property value of a community would increase. The net worth of the owners would increase. The size of the estate they could pass on to the next generation would increase. Their effective income would increase. Jobs in the community would increase to get the work done, circulating money within the community.

The consumption of coal in power plants would decrease. This would decrease coal combustion wastes which are carcinogenic. This would decrease air pollution, that keeps kids from learning. This would decrease carbon dioxide production, helping the global warming problem. This would decrease mountaintop removal to mine coal.

The problem is how to finance the upfront cost of making existing houses more energy efficient.

What would you suggest to get this job done?

We must, in all of our dealings, begin to recognize that the solutions to may problems surface when you begin to think like an ecologist. We must begin to address the real problems of real people with Green solutions. Art Goodtimes has been elected to three terms as a County Supervisor in Colorado by first listening to the people's needs and then offering Green solutions. Hillary Clinton turned her New Hampshire campaign around when she stopped lecturing and started to listen.

While Al Gore's doomsday scenario may be the one to get press coverage, it may not be the one that gets everyone on board the train. As Jeffers explains (above) there are many problems that have one cure and that is to get better housing for those who can not afford it.

I think that we understand the problem. We need candidates who challenge us to be better than we have been, who call us to work together, who use the rhetoric of a Barack Obama but have put it in the service of a Green Future.

100% Renewable Energy

I have had my disagreements with Gristmill's Dave Roberts from time to time, primarily over his unabashed promotion of everything labeled Democratic Party. However, his blog at Gristmill is a very good source of the latest information / discussion topics on the issues surrounding energy and Global Warming. It is one of three that I read daily. (The others are Chris Mooney's Intersection and Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth.)

Today, Roberts points us all to the University of Kassel in Germany and their discussion of the combined power plant. This is viewed as the first step in being able to deliver 100% if Germany's power from renewables by 2050.

Where the hell is the US?

The State of Massachusetts has just approved a major upgrade to the Coal Fired Somerset plant that will dump even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than it currently does. This prompted N.A.S.A.'s Dr. James Hansen to express his opposition in the Boston Globe.

California's Kalmran Alavi has talked about widely distributed power generation. However, the University of Kassel has essentially solved the problem at a much higher level, that of a fully operational power plant system. They even provided a short (7.24 min) film that gives a very clear explanation of how this can work.

Still, if you listened to ABC's Debate Night, every one of the Republicans talked about "clean coal" and "nuclear" solutions. Where is the vaunted American technology that we hear so much about? If the University of Kassel can do it, why can't MIT and Cal Tech? Have we fallen so far behind? Or have we become so inured to the blatherings of free-market ideologues who are afraid to challege the utility industry and the powerful coal state Senators like Byrd of W. VA, that we have just given up trying?

Here is yet another challenge to Green Presidential candidates. Build a new scenario for America's future. Clean, not dirty; growing corn for food, not for transportation; challenging us to be our best, not servile. We can do this. It is only a matter of want to.

Do we need a new narrative?

Maybe I am trying to hard and so finding connections that are not really there. This is one of those times where the book I read seems to connect to the blogs I read.

The book, in this case, is Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter. (short, early? version here). I have been doing some reading in Green Economics and Caplan's discussion of voting behavior in economic terms seemed to fit. His conclusions were that voting behavior is rationally unrational. In other word, it can better be explained after we stop expecting it to be rational as we vote against our self interest time and time again in very predictable ways. Just consider the way that illegal immigration will emerge as having a far greater role in the upcoming presidential election than it deserves.

Caplan uses the term preferences over beliefs to describe the fact that often we prefer to believe one thing about the way that the world works than the opposite, even when the facts say that we are wrong. The easiest example, in fact the one that he uses to describe how much this influences voting behavior, is that of the amount of foreign aid given by the US Government. Most people think that this is a huge problem when, in fact, it is less than 1% of government spending. Clearly, we should not give much credence to a Rush Limbaugh rant against foreign aide.

Having just finished this, I stumbled across Stephen Smoliar at The Rehearsal Studio where he comments on the media and the stories it tells: Hate Makes the World Go Round.

...the social system itself keeps going with the persistence of that pink bunny that commercialism has now embedded in our consciousness. I suspect the reason it prevails is that, while those who make it are always making messes, our culture seems to have been endowed with a talent for compensating for those messes. In other words, if we have any common goal at all, it is to apply our lives and fortunes to get out of a mess once we wake up to the fact that the mess is biting our collective asses.

I wonder if this talent is recognized by all and leads back to Caplan's problem. According to Caplan, the reason that we do not make wise choices is because the "cost" to an individual of a bad choice is very small, often orders of magnitude less than the "cost" to make a more informed decision. The personal cost to drive a gas guzzling SUV might be minimal but the social cost when a 1 million do is very high. So, the individual does not react "rationally" and prefers to believe that global warming is not real for any number of reasons.

All this, of course, is anathema to not just [journalist Bob} Franken but the whole culture of the mainstream media; and the problem has nothing to do with whether or not those media are being run by a handful of conglomerates more concerned with quarterly reports than with the concept of a "public trust." Rather, the problem is a narratological one: the need to deliver a "story" that not only addresses the classic 5WH formula of journalism (who, where, when, what, why, how) but brings the ingredients of that formula to some form of closure. Closure requires that any mess be "cleaned up" and delivered in a "neater package," under the assumption that readers do not want to be left feeling that the mess is still there.

If we indeed want to bring a larger electorate to a Green understanding, we may not be able to accomplish this only with facts and doomsday scenarios. We need a new narrative, one of challenge and triumph. It does not lead to utopia, but gives us a fighting chance to go on and meet new challenges. In any case, there are those who consider Utopia's boring.

Nixon was Bad. These Guys are Worse.

The title I used was the sub-title to George McGovern's OpEd in today's (January 6) Washington Post. I won't quote a lot of this. It is much better that you read the whole thing in his words, not mine. Still, for me, this was the heart of his message.

Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising.

But what are the facts?

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

Impeachment has not even been very high on my list of things to write about. I have been concerned that with so much focus being put on this one issue in terms of protest, that we were losing out ability to accomplish anything else. There were other Greens, especially Peter Thottham, who have done this well. It looks as if Peter has some good company in this effort.

Energy Policy

At the end of his 2006 primary battle with Richard Pombo (CA-11), Pete McCloskey wrote an OpEd that I printed here in its entirety. Pete is a man who fervently believes in the potential of this United States and has, throughout his long career, always upheld the Constitution and challenged those who would besmirch the honor of either. He was not prepared for the degree of voter apathy that he found.

The recent poll showing that less than a third of the people respect what Congress has been doing is not as disappointing as the fact that half of the electorate doesn't seem to care enough to try to change it.

McCloskey's observation is only a year old, but there seems to be an energy for change that has flowed into this year's presidential election. Barack Obama has built his entire campaign around the idea of change. In many ways he has created the impression that he is the embodiment of change. So strong is this impression that some media have begun to use the term "cult of personality" to describe the phenomenon.

Among the Democrats, the momentum belongs to Barack Obama, who came out of Iowa like a freight train with his win. On his whistle-stop tour of New Hampshire, every event is a mob scene and his campaign for the presidency is fast becoming a cult of personality. - Charlie Gibson

It would seem that the Green Party lacks the charismatic leadership to challenge this aspect of an Obama campaign, should he win. However, I am more concerned about my growing suspicion that McCloskey has made an astute observation about our party, the people are no longer fired up about what our party can do, that apathy has replaced energy, not on the issue, but regarding the belief that this party, lacking the charisma of an Obama, can do anything to affect those issues. The most telling recent example is the fact that very few of our county councils have been able to respond to an internal poll regarding Green Party positions on the ballot measure in the upcoming election. The list of non-responding counties contains some of those counties on which we count for leadership: Humboldt, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara.

Yes, I know that some of this is a problem of timing, the county council's not having a meeting scheduled in order to take a formal position. I consider that an excuse for non-action, or rather a sign that developing formal positions on ballot measures is not a priority for the activists in these counties. If it were, they would have found a way to get it done.

This is particularly galling since Proposition 93 concerns Limits on Legislators’ Terms in Office. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. Those counties that did respond to the polling were overwhelmingly opposed to this measure. These was not a single indication that even one individual supported it. But, according to our bylaws, we will not take a position because we could not get a quorum of interest.

My real concern is not with the results of this polling, but rather my fear that is demonstrates a lack of concern for state and local issues as a complement to the energy that goes into such national, emotional, "progressive movement" concerns such as impeachment and the Iraq War.

Note, I did not place these as a either / or proposition. If we are going to be a party that is ready to practice governance, we need to be able to provide leadership and direction on a broad range of topics at all levels. In the terminology that I have used before, we need to move beyond protest to provide Green solutions to the problems that face our local communities, our counties and our state as well as being the voice of protest at the national level.

In my mind, this is a failure of local leadership to keep the focus on local concerns equal to the major protest issue. Remember the words of Tip O'Neil. "All politics is local." If we are not growing this party, it just may be because we are not fully engaged at the local level.

So, back to McCloskey's warning of the danger of apathy. Enough of the votes got the message to turn Richard Pombo our of office. There were a few, very local, media outlets that had the integrity to lay things out the way that they really were, without spin. Such was, and continues to be, the Tracy Press, whose editorial policy is to put the real welfare of the entire community above everything else.

I know that Lisa Taylor will remind me of all the good work that Greens are doing outside the party. That is wonderful, energy well directed. I only want to make sure that there is a little energy left to actually operate this party because that is the only way that real change will happen.

Support Winnemem-Wintu Tribal Petition

Until I started delving into the issue of California Water and particularly, the Delta, I had never heard of the Winnemem-Wintu tribe. However, members of this tribe have been at the forefront of the effort to Restore the Delta, to return salmon fishing to the Klamath and other water related fights that are vital to all California.

This tribe has a long history of recognition by the Federal Government until the early 1980's when they were suddenly dropped from the list of Federally recognized tribes. At issue is compensation for Winnemem-Wintu lands which now lie under water behind Shasta Dam. At risk is the further loss of their lands and sacred sites if Shasta Dam were to be raised, as has been proposed.

The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water provides a good short history of the issues surrounding the Winneman-Wintu and the Central Valley Indian Lands Acquisition Act. It is one more example of a governmental bureaucracy solving it's problems running roughshod over the rights of our citizens.

Recently, Marin County Assembly member, Jared Huffman, introduced AJR 39 which merely asks the Federal Government to restore the rights that have been denied, including the right for just compensation for lands lost to the Central Valley Project's Lake Shasta.

On Jan. 9, the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee will consider AJR 39.
In my mind, standing up for the Winnemem-Wintu in this effort is much more important than what we decide to do about the various Indian Gaming initiative measures. This is not about gaming. It is about basic rights and having a government that can live up to its treaty obligations and follow its own laws.

The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water has provided a sample letter that can be sent, or turned into an email and sent to the Committee. I provide that letter below. If you chose to email the Committee Chairman, Alberto Torrico, please cc Barry Nelson at the Natural Resources Defense Council. If you can fax a letter to the Committee at (916)319-3979, please also fax a copy to the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water as (510)251-2203 and they will hand deliver a copy. Another option is to call the Committee at (916)319-2020 to express your support for AJR 39.

Sample Letter:

Honorable Alberto Torrico
Chair, Assembly Governmental Organization
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 94249-0020
RE: Support for AJR 39 (Huffman)

Dear Assembly Member Torrico:

I write this letter in support of AJR 39 introduced by Assembly Member Jared Huffman, of the 6th assembly district, which would codify California’s existing recognition of the Tribe as a legitimate California Tribe and urge the Federal Government to restore the Winnemem Wintu Tribe’s status as a federally recognized tribe.

The Winnemem Wintu, a Northern California Tribe whose home lies along the McCloud River in Shasta County, has a long history of promises broken by the federal government, the most recent being the unexplained loss of their Federal Recognition in the mid-1980s. In 1941, Congress passed the “Central Valley Project Indian Lands Acquisition Act” (CVPILAA) to secure the land necessary to complete the construction of Shasta Dam. Despite the requirements of the CVPILAA, the tribe has not been compensated for the loss of their lands, nor have they received replacement lands. The failure to fulfill the basic requirements of the CVPILAA has left the Tribe to struggle for its very existence.

While the federal government continues to create roadblocks to prevent the Tribe from regaining its recognized status, California state agencies and even federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service recognize the Winnemem as a legitimate tribe. The Winnemem are included on the list of California Tribes held by the Native American Heritage Commission, and the Tribe has been issued state and federal permits reserved for federally recognized tribes.

The federal government has never terminated the tribe. The tribe believes that their status is the result of an error on the part of the BIA – an error made possible by the failure of the Department of the Interior to comply with the CVPILAA by replacing tribal lands lost when Shasta Dam was constructed and by holding a cemetery in trust by the appropriate Indian Services Agency. The cemetery was created to relocate the remains of tribal dead to make way for Shasta Dam. Because no “like-land” was ever provided and because the cemetery was incorrectly transferred to a federal agency not capable of holding land in trust, the tribe has a reduced role in federal decisions that affect them, and they are denied the basic health, education and housing benefits received by recognized tribes.

AJR 39 will help the Winnemem in their struggle to regain recognition by reinforcing the State’s de facto recognition of the Winnemem Wintu as a legitimate California tribe, and urging the Federal Government to restore the tribe’s Federal recognition. As a California State leader, you have the opportunity to help rectify an injustice long overdue, and we hope that you do.

We urge your aye vote on AJR 39.

Thank you very much,

Health Hazards of Global Warming

With attention focused on Iowa, with even Jay Leno entertaining us with Mike Huckabee when he ran out of jokes, little attention is being paid to stories that will have much more far reaching consequences.

One of those stories is the report in the Sacramento Bee concerning a new study of the Health Consequences of Global Warming released by Stanford Univ.

Vehicle and power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, the predominant climate-altering gas, are estimated to cause 1,000 additional deaths and many more cases of respiratory disease every year in the United States for each degree Celsius of temperature rise in the Earth's atmosphere, according to the Stanford study.

The bulk of those deaths - an estimated 300 - are occurring in California cities already socked with smog, said Mark Jacobson, a Stanford environmental engineering professor who led the study.

This is really a major issue for many. It does not fall on the urban power centers of this state: Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego. Rather, its effect are more strongly felt in the Central Valley where we have 5 of the worst cities in the country in terms of air quality: Bakersfield, Visalia, Fresno, Merced and Sacramento, according to the SacBee report.

What that report does not say is that politics plays a very important role in how we deal with these facts. I received a recent email from Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla concerning those very differences. Barbara is the Campaign Director for Restore the Delta and the force behind their "Health Delta Communities" programs. Barbara wrote

"Kate, my five-year-old, developed walking pneumonia, then full-blown pneumonia, and severe asthma problems starting all on the 19th."

That is only a reference point for how serious this situation is for her family. The politics behind this is very much a power game, as Barbara made clear later in her note:

...why does the SJ Valley Air Pollution Control Board permit wood burning on moderate air quality days, when the Sacramento Valley restricts burning on those days? It seems that wood burning in our neighborhood is a major trigger for Kate, even though I am keeping her indoors. Her pediatrician at Kaiser says this is a major problem for asthma kids in Stockton.

This personalizes the facts. A 2006 study by California State University - Fullerton let us know just how gargantuan this problem really is. It costs California $3 Billion per year. There are thousands of families like Barbara's in the San Joaquin Valley and thousands of children like Kate.

The San Joaquin Valley would love for you to think that the primary cause of their ail pollution is from automobiles. That simply is not true. A much greater amount comes from agriculture. Methane from dairy operations is significant. So is the dust from discing; so are the pesticides from aerial spraying. No single source accounts for more than 35% of the air pollution. Yet, any attempt to increase regulation in the valley meets with stiff opposition from all levels of the body politic, right up to Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Visalia, CA-21).

His August, 2007 press release, New domestic energy production and air quality improvements the focus of Nunes legislation, is an example of his absolutely delusional propaganda. Other than this title, then entire release is about Coal Liquefaction, one of the worst technology solutions that gullible, scientifically challenged Congress Critters are talking about, but Nunes has no qualms in telling his constituents that this dirty technology will solve their air quality problems.

"Coal liquefaction has been proven as a viable fuel for decades. With today’s improvements in technology, we can produce domestic energy and improve environmental outcomes at the same time. This fuel would be particularly beneficial in the Central Valley of California, as we seek to address ongoing air quality challenges," said Rep. Nunes.

The counter argument comes from David Hawkins, Director of the Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, April 2006, Hawkins gave a very different picture of the processes.

The impacts that a large coal-to-liquids program could have on global warming pollution,
conventional air pollution and damage from expanded coal production are substantial.
Before deciding whether to invest scores, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars in a new industry like coal-to-liquids, we need a much more serious assessment of whether this is an industry that should proceed at all.

I would give Nunes a Climate Change Cretin award, except Oklahoma Senator Inhofe seems to win that every year.

More importantly, is we are are to truly reduce the costs of Health Care, especially for those least able to afford it, we have to address Air Quality. Some can keep their children indoors when air quality is bad. Those who can't afford health care may not be able to afford air conditioning in the summer either. Maybe they have to use wood for fuel because they can no longer deal with the rising cost to heat their homes in the winter We can not separate all of these problems into neat compartments and decide what solutions we need in a vacuum. We can not solve our health care crises now without addressing air quality. We won't be able to so do in the future unless we address climate change. We can not separate issues of social justice from the environment is we are going to have a future.

Five year old Kate Parrilla needs all of us to go to work for her. We need to get rid of bloviating demagogues like Devin Nunes. We need to make Schwarzenegger's new Queen of Air Quality do her job and forget about trading carbon credits. It there were ever a situation that cries out for the values of this Green Party to be implemented as policy, this is it. If we want to prove our abilities to practice governance, we need to be challenging the power structure of the San Joaquin Valley, to be "speaking truth to power", to become the agents of change that the Obama's of this world promise to be, but never will while still supporting environmentally destructive, unhealthy, unClean Coal and Ethanol from Corn for the sake of a few additional votes.

With hope for the new year.

Reading Bryan Caplan's new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter. Since you can not escape the campaign news about the upcoming primary events, the follow quote is a very sobering thought.

When a consumer has mistaken beliefs about what to buy, he foots the bill. When a voter has mistaken beliefs about government policy, the whole population picks up the tab.

What is the probability of such mistaken beliefs? I would guess that even a failing student in Econ. 101 has a significant knowledge advantage over the average voter.

Green Governance in 2008

Because Roger Gray had not updated his One SoCal Green blog in months, I had dropped it from the blogroll here. Now, today, thanks to wifi and some time to sit and think, Roger has updated it with a new post worth reading.

Roger is one of those Green who has stepped across the threshold into the realm of governance in Pasadena, CA where is he is a member of the Environmental Advisory Commission. There are two additional things you should know about Pasadena. One, is that it recently had a Green Party Mayor, Bill Paparian. The other is that Roger has been on a number of different city commissions, always trying to recruit other Greens and mentoring them on to the commission before he moves on.

I am in full agreement with Roger on the idea that we need to be for something and not always against everything. Protest will only take you so far. It may, in fact, win an election for you but then you have to learn how to govern, to transform protest into policy.

I guess that Roger would call me a Generation 3 Green.

Green Aesthetics

Two serendipitous events caused me to ask the question of whether their could be such a thing as a Green Aesthetic, or a Green Art. First, my wife and I visited the San Jose Museum of Art yesterday to view two small exhibits. One was a collection of lithograph's by the Spanish artist Joan Miró and selected works by Richard Diebenkorn, created in New Mexico between 1950-1952.

The second event was the fact that I spent more time looking at the Green Change web site. Actually I was prodded into doing this by Sanda Everette who thought I had missed putting a link into the right side menu here. (I had, but consciously... it is there now.)

The words that I am reacting to come on the "About us" page.

Green Change is a community of people with Green values: Justice, democracy, sustainability and non-violence. We work together to share Green art, politics and culture.

What would be the characteristics of a Green Art? I think foremost that is is not defined solely by the politics of it's content, though content is always a concern. There is a lot of so called art that people make that would never be called "green". In fact, most of it does not cross the threshold from being only propaganda to being art.

Art has the power to move us by its unique combination of aesthetics and concepts. Take away either one and it loses power. Take away all of the aesthetic communication involved and I no longer call it art, only propaganda.

I am not going to try to take readers from Aristotle through Kant to Clement Greenberg. Rather, I would like to suggest that the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi embodies the characteristic of a Green Aesthetics. I referenced the wikipedia article on wabi-sabi because it probably is better than more "arty" books at communicating the sense of wabi-sabi.

I recently picked up a book on wabi-sabi in Kinokunya book store. They made it all sound so easy with quick quotes from the likes of John Coltrane. "You can play a shoestring if you are sincere." While sincere expression is a part of wabi-sabi, they left unstated that Coltrane was a tireless worker at what he did.

I've been reading a Jerry Coker book on how to practice jazz and in it he describes that someone (Dave Baker?) observed John Coltrane practice during one of his 11 hour practice sessions and remarked that Trane, who by this time was already a colossal player, intensely practiced in C major the whole time.

Sincerity by itself is not enough. There is much art that is sincerely bad.

In a similar fashion, may American text emphasize the idea of being unfinished and imperfect and use that as an excuse for a total lack of craft. In terms of the pottery that was so highly valued by the tea masters of Japan, the imperfections resulting from the the firing, the accidental but aesthetically correct markings of that process were highly valued.

"It (wabi-sabi) nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect." (Richard R. Powell, Wabi-Sabi Simple

Still missing from the wikipedia article is the sense that there was a value in being old, of having survived, of carrying a patina of regular use. It is not a degrading of art by use but rather an elevation of the useful to the status of "art". Maybe this is the one concept that seems the most foreign to Western artists and the reasons why so many are so wide of the mark when they try so hard to follow this aesthetic.

The O'Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Vally, CA has an annual show entitled Wabi-Sabi. From what I have seen, it rarely achieves its goal.

Why I think this is a Green Aesthetic

The emotional base of wabi-sabi comes from our relationship to nature.
Wabi-sabi values that which has a history of being useful.
Objects which are described as wabi-sabi are generally subdued rather than loud, simple if form rather than ornate.
Wabi-sabi recognizes the process of creation and the interconnectedness of

One of my vivid memories from five years of living in Japan was the experience of spending a dreary Autumn afternoon in the Nezu Art Museum which had a show of 16th / 17th Century ceramics. I don't remember any specifics. I only remember leaving the Nezu and walking through their garden. One shaft of sun broke the clouds, striking a small maple tree. One red leaf dropped, coming to rest on viewing bench in the garden. Simple, quiet, unforgettable.

Another Debate

While I am on the subject of debates, I want to call everyone's attention to the effort to establish a Science Debate 2008. What started as an idea between two writers has blossomed into a full fledged, well-organized effort. One of them is Michael Chapman, Great Grandson of Charles Darwin.

The list of signatories to this effort now includes:

• 14 Nobel Laureates
• 10 University Presidents (Duke, Princeton, Stanford, Cal-Poly SLO, Cal State Monterey Bay, Carnegie Mellon, Washington, Humboldt State, San Jose State, Cal State San Bernardino)
• 8 Members of Congress (CA's Sam Farr (D-CA 17) included)
  

The CoChairs of this effort are now Congressmen Vern Ehlers (R- MI) and Rush Holt (D-NJ). Both are trained scientists. The press release that announced the new CoChairs made clear the rationale.

“When you think about it, nearly every major challenge the next President will face has a science or technological component,” said Lawrence M. Krauss, an astrophysicist at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the ScienceDebate2008 steering committee. “We owe it to the next generation to address these challenges responsibly.”

As we sit though our own Presidential Debates, maybe we should ask ourselves how our candidate would represent this party were they invited to be part of Science Debate 2008. I am challenging the committee to include the Green Candidate just as I am challenging our candidates to be prepared.

The feedback that I have from Science Debate 2008 is:

We have not as yet made a determination about venue or who will or will not be invited to any debate; however FEC guidelines suggest we base the invitation on objective, published criteria.

At this point in time, we are working to broaden support for the concept. Naming the two physicists in congress, who also happen to be respective members of the two major parties, signals a non-partisan approach, not an attempt to be exclusive of other voices.

In that response, it is easy to construe that the criteria will be set to preclude other parties. I emphasized their choice of the word "non-partisan" to indicate that it was not "bi-partisan." We can always hope.

Debate Questions

With the Green Party Presidential Debate now scheduled for Jan 13 in San Francisco, I am interested in giving the organizing committee some input on the questions that we, the grassroots of this party, would like to have answered by our candidates.

This is not a time for cheap shots, trick questions that might have come from the mind of an Ann Coulter or a even of a nice guy like James Carville. These should be serious questions that I would want to see any Green Party candidate answering so that I know, when I vote, that they will be representing me.

I will start this off with three question of my own. They represent several of the top concerns from a recent poll of likely voters. I would really like to have them all but I am limiting myself to only 3 for now. I have already solicited some questions from a few others and had a response from a 2004 Green Party candidate, Lorna Salzman. So, I will also list her's here.

After that, I hope that you all will use the comment capability on this blog to register your own.

My Questions:

• There is no longer any doubt that the world is warming and the we are the cause. As Pogo said, We have met the enemy and they is us. As President, what steps would you take, what changes would you make in energy policy to reduce our contributions to Global Warming.
• Immigration, trade policies and agricultural are all linked together. Changing one affect the others. Is there a way to achieve a satisfactory solution to all three? If so, what is it?
• The effect of the Iraq war and the way that the current administration has pursued it's reckless war on terror, has lost America the moral standing that it once had. How would you restore this country's soul?

Lorna Salzman's questions:

• Will you work for a universal single payer health care system?
• Will you work for a carbon tax on fossil fuels?
• Will you work for a revival and expansion of a government-run, national passenger rail system, including a high-speed passenger rail line on the east coast?

That is two takes on the debate. What do you want to hear about?

Green Party Presidential Debate

The first, and so far only, Green Party Presidential Debate will take place in San Francisco on Sunday, January 13. The announcement has not yet, as far as I know, gone out to press but it has shown up on the Alameda County Green Party web site and has been posted (by someone) to the Third Party Watch site as of very early this AM.

Time: 2 PM

Venue: Herbst Theater/Veterans Memorial Bldg
401 Van Ness (opposite City Hall)
San Francisco

If this announcement is correct, it is mostly good news.

I knew that the effort to organize this debate was underway. The last I had heard was the Nader's participation had not yet been confirmed. I hope that the inclusion of his name on the Alameda County announcement means that he has agreed to participate. His name is on the ballot for the California Primary. It is my understanding that he will be in attendance. What he does here will tell us a lot about what his intentions are.

This debate will take place on Jan 13. Absentee ballots will already be in the mail. Some may already have voted. Personally, I will not vote until after this debate and, if Nader wants me to vote for him, he will have to participate in this debate on an equal bass with other candidates. The risk that one would run is that Nader might choose NOT to actively seek the nomination as a Green and then my vote would have been wasted.

You may note that there are two candidates on the national GP web site whose names are not included in this list. I am assured by the organizers that they were invited and either had conflicts (Kat) or have not yet responded (Jesse).

I cross posted this at Green Commons. Some of the emphasis might change as these posts will be geared toward questions surrounding the California Primary. The one thing that will not change is my belief that a credible Green Party candidate needs to be able to respond to questions on a wide range of issues: Global Warming, Health Care, Economics including tax policies, Iraq War and other foreign policy questions, immigration and trade policy. This must not become only a matter of "electability" or in Green Party terms, of how many new voters they can bring in to the party. We need to recognize that we can only build this party based on what our candidates stand for now, today and what they will do to make this a better America, continent, world.

To that end, I will later today be posting at California Greening, a list of questions that I would like to see be answered by our candidates as well as soliciting questions from others.

Dam facts, dam lies

We should all admit that blogging is not journalism. To begin with, journalists often do a lousy job of fact checking... but they do it. They even love to do it regarding political campaign statements. But too often it stops there.

Bloggers, on the other hand, love to fact check politicians, journalists (ask Dan Rather), each other so they can gloat, but rarely themselves. Blogging is normally just a collection of disjointed, out of contest statements and factoids that the blogger tries to spin into a real narrative.

This time, I will give you the statements and let you play be the blogger. I read the following in a recent newsletter from Friends of the River.

Do you know that for 20 years, well, actually since the late '70s, they have not built a dam? I mean, think about that. They have not built a dam. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, July 14, 2007

California's population is growing rapidly, but our statewide water storage and delivery system has not been significantly improved in 30 years. Association of California Water Agencies, September 2007

According to Friends of the River:

In fact more that 6.2 million acre feet of water storage has been developed in California since 1990. This includes 5.3 million acre feet of groundwater storage in the San Joaquin Valley as well as 924,000 acre feet of surface storage behind the Los Vaqueros, Diamond Valley and Olivenhain Dams (all completed in the last 10 years).

What will it take to get someone to tells us what is really happening rather than just reporting what the Governor said.

Fact or not? You figure it out for the following:

About 500 farmers in the Westlands Water District in the Tulare Basin receive more water every year from the Delta than the Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco Bay metropolitan area combined.

Bill Moyers on Steroids

The writings of Bill Moyers is a great source. full of things to think about, mull over, and then repeat... repeat often because they seem to fit so many situations. So it is with his recent essay on the Mitchel Report on the use of steroids in baseball.

There was a lesson in George Mitchell's report that I'm not sure even he recognized. The day Americans don't feel strongly enough about the need for level playing fields to fight for them -- the day when cutting corners and seeking an edge become the national pastime -- is the day democracy will be lucky even to find a seat in the bleachers.

I think that the term "level playing field" was chosen with great care. You find it often in the rhetoric of George W. Bush. It forms the basis of almost all discussions of Thomas Friedman's book, "The World if Flat". In the linked Harvard Business Review article, James Heskett asks a number of questions that we need to answer.

Who benefits most from a level playing field? A developing economy achieving productivity gains with volume increases achieved through low factor costs of production? Or a developed economy realizing productivity gains in totally different ways, for example, by leveraging already high factor costs through technology and the education and communication required to use the technology more effectively? Are these two types of economies even competing on the same playing field?

This goes beyond just an knee jerk anti-corporate reaction that I sometimes hear from Greens. I am not sure if that comes from a Marxist or an anarchist perspective and I doubt whether the protesters even know themselves.

If we want to make a serious run for national political prominence, we have start taking the answer to Heskett's question and translate that into specific policies. What do we do about NAFTA? Renegotiate, unilaterally withdraw from the agreement? Gleaned from the comments of those who responded to Heskett on the HBR web site:

Radhika Unni: That doesn't mean I feel that governments should stop the natural market dynamics, but at the same time it doesn't mean that countries should use the term "level playing field" as an excuse for exploitation.

Maybe it is time to re-examine the Platform of the Green Party, especially those section which deal with economic realities.

The Green world view, growing out of the vision of people grounded in the Deep Ecology of Arne Naess, recognizes the interconnectedness of things in the world of social / economic interactions just as much as we do in the world of nature. Not all Greens do. We can not deal with immigration and trade as separate issues. The roots are so intertwined that separation could be fatal to both causes. Does our platform call for a 30 hr. work week when most middle class families have to hold down three jobs just to maintain their standard of living and all the consumerism that this implies.

Moyers has a unique ability to cut through to the soul of this country, to understand and communicate those elements of our makeup that have mythic connotation. The American sense of fair play that Moyers fears we are losing has no better expression than the 10 key values of this party. If we want to move not to the right, nor the left, but forward to a new future, we had better figure out how to tap into these sensibilities.

Birthdays

This is a season for birthday celebrations. Mine is today. It will be very quiet, rather like the mood set by my daughter's email this morning.

Hope that you don't have to do too much yardwork or drying of fruit and get to relax today, perhaps kicking back and listening to some music with Mimi resting on your lap and Mom making your favorite dinner (what would that be?).

I'll be celebrating your birthday at the barn.

I don't know if the reference to the barn was a comment on the nature of getting older or just recognition that she has the responsibility for two horses on Long Island.

Tomorrow is a much more important birthday celebration, one that has a centuries long history of celebration. I am always reminded of a particular celebration of Chistmas, that which I experienced in Salzburg in 1960 while there on one of the "semester abroad" programs with the University of Redlands.

The evening of my birthday was one of those nights when the temperature hovered just above freezing. The sky was overcast, it was foggy and the chill went through to your bones. Two of us went to the late Mass at the Salzburger Dom. I remember that the Mass performed was the music of Michael Hayden.

I remember more explicitly the transformation I felt on walking out of the Church. The ground was covered with an inch or two of new fallen snow, the sky was clear and the stars shown brightly. A few large flakes of snow still fell silently to the ground and little other than a few wishes for joy and health between friends broke the silence.

Such wishes I have for you.

Indian Country Today Interview: Kent Mesplay

Since I gave my rationale for supporting Kent Mesplay for President, I should really follow up by calling your attention to an interview that was published today on the Front Page of Indian Country Today.

This will give everyone a very different look at this candidate. His life story is, to say the lease, unique.

'I didn't grow up on the reservation. I grew up in an environment that in many respects is even more primitive than some of our more isolated reservations. My dad picked the least hospitable place on the planet that you could think of: he chose Papua, New Guinea,'' Mesplay said with a laugh.

''So I grew up with Stone Age people in the middle of the rain forest. We didn't have television or even telephones. We captured rainwater for drinking and had a garden. There was a small air strip where we had provisions flown in, but we were largely self-reliant and that's part of who I am as a person.''

Sustainability and self reliance are crucial to security, Mesplay said.

There is much more in the interview that I would like to post, but that would violate their copyright. So, follow the link above and read it there.

This time, it really is....

I find myself spending more time watching what the Green Party Candidates are doing, listening to what they say, reading their press releases. I spend too much time reading the sometimes brilliant writing, oft time petty pickering that takes place on internal email lists.

Some observations:
Progressive Greens may not even begin to have a finger on the pulse of what will motivate voters this year. The number 1 issue is coming as a surprise to many: Here is a list of issues that are NOT number One.

Iraq War: For all the duplicity of Cheney / Rumsfeld, this misguided, arrogant attempt at changing the nature of politics in the Middle East has failed in every way except militarily, and that was pretty much a shambles too.

Health Care: Any race with Hillary Clinton in it will always be, to some extent about Health Care and whether she can really get it right this time.

Immigration: The Republicans make sure that we hear a lot about this one. We even have Republican Tom Tancredo getting riled at Mike Huckabee because Huckabee has "stolen" the endorsement of the Minutemen.

The Tarrance Group released the bi-partisan Battleground Poll today and the conclusion is "This time, it really is the economy." Funny thing about that, this is exactly what Steve Loebs was saying in his post at Green Commons earlier this week.

BTW: Iraq War was #2,. Health Care #3 (Cost + Insurance + Medicare) , Immigration #4.

I believe that all our candidates need to start factoring in the effects of the credit crisis, the sub-prime loan scandal, and more importantly, what are the impacts of being a consumer driven economy. What are the ramifications of the fact that this country is "capital poor" and needs in a daily major influx of foreign capital just to sustain what we do. Such was the action today as a Chinese Government owned investment fund poured $5 Billion into Morgan-Stanley.

My real question is this: What is this party doing to talk to the number one issue on voters minds right. now? What message do we have? It is not even on the long range radar in most discussion. And we wonder why people are not listening. Maybe we need to ask our candidates to sign up for a seminar with Steve.

League of Conservation Voters

When someone forwarded me the press release through which the League of Conservation Voters announced the availability of their "Primaries Voter's Guide", I was not surprised to see it did not include any but Republicans to find fault with and Democrats to praise.

The Voter Guide, which takes a critical look at candidates’ plans for dealing with global climate change, makes clear that collectively, the Democratic candidates have outlined more comprehensive and aggressive plans than any presidential candidates in history and have made a point of telling primary voters that combating global warming is a top priority. Among Republicans running for president, the guide says, “Sen. McCain holds the distinction of being the only candidate to make global warming a part of his campaign agenda and to regularly address it on the campaign trail.”

There was a missing column on the site... the one headed Green Candidates. That is the one most frequently missing from LCV activity, even though many Greens are members of that organization.

My reaction was to write a response, sent first to the LCV's campaign manager, Kerry Dugan, and then posted at Op Ed News as an Open Letter to the League of Conservation Votes. I challenged them to live up to the words of their own press release, that "No matter who is nominated by each political party, LCV plans to work to elect the candidate best qualified to take on the issue of global warming as president."

There are many reasons that the candidate they seek would be the Green Party Candidate, especially as that candidate would not be beholden to corporate special lobbies.

I also challenged them to support Science Debate 2008, an effort that now has support from thirteen Nobel Laureates and at least two University Presidents (Princeton, Duke). With the challenges of Global Warming as primary, and with many other issues such as stem cell research going to be a factor, we need to have a true debate over questions of science. It would underscore that it is no longer possible to override scientific considerations to achieve partisan political ends in the manner of the Bush / Cheney Administration, as illustrated by this recent report from Rep. Waxman's Government Oversight Committee.

We have to learn better how to win before the LCV and other organizations will begin to even give us a courtesy call. We have to continue challenging these organizations to give full consideration to our policy positions.

The Third Party Argument

The PBS showing of "An Unreasonable Man" kept Ralph Nader and the discussion of the "spoiler" issue in the spotlight. The opinion expressed by many in the film is that the Democratic Party tries everything it can to stifle dissent once they choose a candidate.

“When people say, ‘Why’d you do this in 2000?’ and so on,” Nader explains in AN UNREASONABLE MAN, “I’d say, ‘I’m a 20-year veteran of pursuing the folly of the least worst between the two parties.’ Because when you do that, you end up allowing them to both get worse every four years.”

(Note: PBS has an online poll on with the following question: "Ralph Nader's candidacy in 2000 is the reason that George W. Bush won the presidential election." As I write this, the poll responses are running 92% "No.")

Last week, Op Ed News specifically requested articles, Op Eds on the issue of ""progressive" Democrats not running in the primaries and taking on the "corporate" Democrats that they frequently castigate in other media... e.g. DailyKos, Calitics, etc.

California (now) Green, Martin Zehr responded Monday with something that was the same argument that Nader made in 2000 and which was repeated in An Unreasonable Man. This is that you can never pull the Democratic Party to the left unless they perceive that there will be a penalty (like losing a constituency) if they do not act. Zehr changes the question.

Why are progressives so marginalized in campaigns and fail to come forward with significant constituencies capable of making an impact?

Maybe because it fails to examine the unstated premises of the resolution: that the Democratic Party is capable of being the agent for change in America and that the progressive agenda is a vibrant trend that is capable of exercising influence in the political arena in the electoral process. Does this make me on the negative side of the resolution? I would have to say so. No debate can proceed without agreement on the definitions and I for one cannot agree either that the Democratic Party is capable of presenting significant policy changes and structural reforms before the American people or that the Democratic primary system and candidates lie at the root of the failure to redefine the opposition in a manner to make it more relevant to the American people. [my bold emphasis]

Zehr took a lot of words to say the obvious. Nader would have been more direct. The result would have been the same.

What gets me mad?

Since yesterday, I have engaged in a bit of dialog with Ben Malkin, Publisher, Southern California Life After 50 It all started when Lisa Taylor picked up the print version of his magazine with a picture of Al Gore on the cover. However, one part of what she read in Malkin's comments on Gore and Climate Change got her so upset that she emailed her comments to a few of us.

I wrote an answer to Mr. Malkin, he replied, I replied again. Then, we agreed that it made sense to run those comments on the magazine site and this blog. I hope that it creates some discussion on several levels.

First, there is the question of how we frame our positions, and our responses, as we engage with other media. If we get it wrong, we run the risk of doing more damage than good. If we get it right, then it should be good for the Green Party, good for this country if we have the right message. In fact, good for all.

Second. there is the fact that Climate Change is surely the number one ecological issue for decades to come. Most Republicans are a no show when it is time to provide solutions. Too many Democrats are corporate sponsored hypocrites. Thus, we need to keep this discussion in front of everyone.

The discussion began with a story that you can read in it's entirety on the magazine's web site. I want to extract two sections. I fully agree with the first. I chose to respond after reading the second.

Basically, we have to come to grips with how we as humans view our relationship with all other living things—animal, vegetable, earth, air and water. Our Western culture places humans above all else. As a result we are not in harmony with our environment. There are lessons to be learned from Native American cultures about balance and harmony. Luckily, it’s not too late to learn them.

Then, he added this bit of sharply worded opinion.

Let’s make sure that the idiots who populate the Green Party never get another chance to help elect someone like “Dubya” who stands for everything they supposedly oppose. Let’s use less energy (fossil fuel) in our daily lives. It will not only save some money, it will help us as individuals pollute less.

I don't accept the blame for Gore's loss. But, that is the past and there is a future to think about. Thus, this response.

[Rolley]
I fully agree with the position you take concerning the need to do more regarding global warming. That should be obvious to all.

I don't agree with your assessment of the Green Party and what it might be able to accomplish if only people like yourself quit fighting the battles of the past and took at hard look at the current battle that you ask us all to join.

Do you really think that the current energy bill is going to fulfill all of the hype that the Democrats put around it? Do you really think that mandating a three fold increase in the use of ethanol is going to help? If you do, then perhaps you need to read this from Energy Justice. It is these very triangulated, overly hyped non-solutions from both sides of the political divide that has driven me away from both major parties and turned me into a Green Activist. There are only two good things that I can say about the energy bill. The first is that is is better than any that would have come out of a Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) run committee. Second, the CAFE fuel economy standards are good, even though a Democratic Sen. from Michicagan still voted against this energy bill.

Fundamental change will only be possible when there is a third way, an alternative that does not kow-tow to corporate special interests, an alternative that looks neither right nor left but to the future, an alternative that can say Yes to the Democrats when they get it right and Yes to the Republicans when they get it right. That alternative at the present time is only found in the Green Party. If only you can get over the battles of 2000 and start thinking about the America you want to see in 2020.

We have the energy plan that needs to be implemented. It is documented in the GP press release on the Bali Conference. "US Greens have called for an end to subsidies and tax breaks to fossil and nuclear energy industries; enactment of socially equitable carbon taxes; incentives, legislation, and reforms to provide renewable energy technologies; rejection of environmentally destructive 'alternative' fuels produced from unsustainable or toxic feedstocks; rejection of 'clean coal'; an absolute limit on CO2 emissions; reduced fossil fuel use and an 80% cutback within ten years (condensed from the Green Party platform and the EcoAction Committee's statement of goals, 2006 Earth Day Statement)."

Mr. Malkin replied this afternoon. This is why I suggested that we need to think more carefully about how we frame our messages whenever we write or respond.

[Malkin]
Thank you for reading our magazine or visiting our website.

Today I have received a blizzard or Green Party emails. That must mean someone from your group must have spotted my article and email blasted your members. Good for our web traffic, so keep ‘em coming.

While I may agree in good part with your environmental agenda, the net, net of working on the fringes politically (at least the “left” in this country) is that all you ever seem to accomplish is the election of those who stand opposed to everything you believe in. Your members seem to hate Al Gore (based on all of the emails I received) as much as the mindless extreme conservatives who attacked my article in large numbers with great and acidic gusto. The facts are that by working within the system he has accomplished considerably more than the Green Party ever has. If his “sin” has been to work within the “system”, then so be it.

In addition, what all of you seem to have overlooked is that I called the liberals (Democrats), hypocrites. They are. The new energy bill is a gutted compromise that needed Democratic leadership that was missing when push came to shove. They seem to be biding their time until the 2008 elections. Well then, I guess we’ll see then. Unless the Green Party manages to help elect another version of George Bush. You would be better served to pressure (where your #’s can make a difference in a close election) the Democrats to do more than pay lip service to reforms. Political debts do get paid if they are negotiated with skill.

Thank you again for the first clear headed and logical response I received from members of your party.

That gave me a chance to explain who really won the 2000 election.

[Rolley]
f someone sent a note that Gore did not get it, then they are not
thinking clearly. Most people in the Green Party believe three things
about the election of 2000.

• Gore won but had it stolen.
• The effect of Nader being in the race was to pull in a large number of voters, e.g. students, that would normally not have voted.
• The Democrats lost because more of them voted for Bush than anybody voted for Nader. They could not deliver their own party members.

You encourage Greens to work together with other "Progressives" to achieve our goals, but there is a history that says we do. In fact, I worked very, very hard supporting Pete McCloskey in 2006, both as a Republican Congressional Candidate running against Richard Pombo and then continuing as he threw his support to Jerry McNerney, who eventually won.

I would like to see the next target be Dana Rohrabacher, a good old So Cal snakeoil salesman, much like Pombo. He also is an embarrassment. He has been quoted as saying that Global Warming might have come from dinosaur flatulence. There are not yet any announced Democratic candidates running against him. If things stay that way, would you then support the Green who is?

I will be trying to get an answer to that question again, and again, and again.

Being Green in the Inland Empire.

When I first joined the Green Party, I was confused by the fact that everything seemed to center on Los Angeles and San Francisco. In other words, the current population centers.

I argued that Greens should be focusing energy on those areas where there was congruence of forces that we could exploit.

• a growing shifting population where movement had cut people off from old political allegiances.
• a real need for Green solutions to local environmental and social justice concerns.
• a real need for Green alternatives to the corporate growth myth that seems to be all we hear.

That all seems to play out in the Central Valley and Inland Empire sections of California, in Riverside, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton. I was told that this was wasting our energy, energy that could best be spent in building on the based that we had in the big cities.

In retrospect, I should have spoken up louder and longer. The party is not growing and many opportunities have been lost. But, then I find evidence that we are making progress. We have gotten into the local media in just those areas that I had called out for action. While the linked reference is from last year, it shows that we can make inroads where there is a real need.

We need a change in the political map of America: Red State, Blue State, Green State.

A Green Year

I have just finished reading, and commenting on, an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle. They editorialize that we going to have a "very green year."

Trimmed from Washington's deliberations on mileage rules were tax credits for solar and wind power, a reduction in fossil fuels used by electric utilities, and an end to $13 billion in tax breaks for oil companies. All should be taken up again, as this state's senator, Barbara Boxer, indicates she will do. (California, no surprise, is on track to require 20 percent renewable energy from its power plants.)

While there is some goodness, every time there comes a point where doing the right thing runs up against a corporation with money or a narrow constituency with votes, doing the right thing loses. My comments were:

The assessment of what has happened is far too optimistic. The recently passed energy bill demonstrates that Democrats will accomplish very little. It is still filled corporate pork and a renewable fuel standard that Agribusiness loves. We need to learn how to differentiate the truly Green from mere greenwashing. My complaints against Washington can be echoed if you change the focus to Sacramento. Schwarzenegger is like the Hulk, only Green when he needs to be. Voting for real change will end up meaning voting Green and that will be voting for the Green Party. Unless we provide a third way, a real alternative stripped of the influences of corporate contributions, we will continue to get a green future through rose colored glasses.

Until we start getting Greens elected this will continue. We challenge the old ideas of political pandering with a new vision of a future, ecologically sound, sustainable, just.

Bromade - New Los Angeles Water Problem

Another day, another hassle in Los Angeles.

Published in the Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2007
L.A. Must Dump Water from Two Reservoirs
by Duke Helfand

In the midst of a drought, Los Angeles officials announced Friday that 600 million gallons of water must be dumped from two reservoirs that supply a swath of the city because an unexpected chemical reaction rendered it undrinkable.

Silver Lake and Elysian reservoirs registered elevated levels of the suspected carcinogen bromate between June and October, the result of an unusual combination of intense sunlight, bromide naturally present in groundwater and chlorine used to kill bacteria.

The reservoirs delivered water to an estimated 600,000 consumers, but state public health officials say the dangers were minimal. Bromate, they said, poses a small cancer risk only after being consumed daily over a lifetime. . .

We can all sleep better knowing "state public health officials" are on the case.

Green Change

The new Green Change organization announced its web presence yesterday over on Green Commons. For those of you who are not aware of Green Change, it is a new committee organized under the FEC Rule 527. That is an interesting choice, since 527's are somewhat controversial.

GPCA member Steve Loebs found reason to question that choice in his comment (#1) to Green Change's announcement.

For those of you who do not know about Green Change, there is a real California connection as Matt Gonzalez is on the Board.

Take a look at the site, think about what they are trying to do and weigh in. It is only the future direction of the party that we are talking about.

Green Debate

I won't copy the entire post here, but I used Green Commons to call for a debate among the Green Party Candidates for President. I mean a real, official debate, with a real moderator like Bill Moyers or Amy Goodman.

I would love to have people weigh in, especially over on Green Commons so that we can possible influence the National Party to do just that.

Climate Change Exchange

I received the following email from a GPCA associate today, posted to a Santa Clara County list.

According to the site in the URL at the end of that video, they did
reach some sort of agreement in the end:

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

This UN release casts the result is about as positive light as is possible. There are many other opinions, and the criticism of nations is spread equitably. My reaction was to send the following reply:
__
Everyone will call this a victory, but if it is, it is a very hollow one. It was an agreement to continue talking for another two year and to reach some sort of actionable plan before 2010,.

• That is two years in which we will have continued to build up the surplus of Green House Gases.
• That is two years in which US Government can swathe it's inaction and play Alphonse / Gaston with China.
• That is two years in which the lack of American Action will increase the enmity that we have engendered throughout the world.
• That is two years in which even a change in Administration, e.g. to a Clinton Compromiser or an Obama Dreamer, will continue to tringulate deals that allow multi-national corporations to continue screwing the planet or to move their operations to countries whose government regulators are more easily bribed.

I would suggest that everyone browse through the blog entries that Andrew Revikin has called for on his Dot Earth blog at the NY Times. Voices on Bali and Beyond is a collection of comments from people who were actually there. Here is a quote from the first responder, Dr. Thomas J. Goreau, the delegate from Jamaica, and representative of a Coalition of Caribbean nations: His target was the EU for its failure to stand up to the US stalling tactics. (Bold emphasis by me.)

This amounts to a real betrayal of all those who counted on the EU to do the right thing, and amounts to a capital crime against the environment, because millions will die as the result of unchecked global warming.

If there is a single issue that the Green Party needs to be very clear about, it is the one of Climate Change. What we do now, not what we begin to do in 2010 will have an effect on:

• agricultural policy a swarming weather makes major changes to what can be grown where and how much food might each country have to import or be able to export as a result.
• trade policies as competition for declining reserves of food and water, the basic essentials of life, make countries increasingly protectionist.
• energy policy unless we take aggressive steps to get off of fossil fuels.
• security as increased frustration with US arrogance sends an increasing flow of people towards Al Qaeda or other organizations.
• health care as diseases once considered tropical become increasingly prevalent in the more highly populated, currently temperate zones.

Have we come so far from our roots as a party that we are not the leaders in speaking out?

UN Climate Change Conference

Feinstein on final negotiations
Cross posted from Green Commons

Mike Feinstein has given us another update from Bali. The results that he describes do not sound like this conference will produce anywhere near the results that were anticipated after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon raised our expectation with such a strong release on the day before.

Tie this to the inadequate provisions in the Energy Bill passed today and you have a thousand reasons to vote Green.

Bush Inc. will not bend its stubborn will and open its eyes to the reality all around it. While they leak speculations of premptive strikes against Iran, they squander the chances to show real leadership on the most important issue that we face. As Green Partry Presidential Candidate Kent Mesply pointed out today, Global Warming IS as security issue, much more so that whether Iraq gains a nuclear capability that they are not even working on.

While writing this short post tonight, lines from Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar flashed into my head.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

I feel that this is such a time for the Green Party. There is much work to be done. The question is whether we have the right pilot at the wheel and can all work together. Never have I seen an administration of one party fall on it face as Bush Inc. has done and the other control Congress but not be able to take advantage of it.

The only party that has the right message, that has cast off all ties to the corporations that have put a strangle hold on both Congress and the Bush Administration. If we can not carry forward with this message now, then the failure is our own.

Greening the White House

The Other Race: Greening the White House

“I’m tired of living in an Orwellian novel,” said Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Kent Mesplay, in response to the “Birthright Stripping Act” (aka the proposed AZ "Birthright Citizenship Alignment Act" initiative) requiring that happy parents and hospitals alike wade through yet more levels of bureaucratic muck to prove their patriotism. “Oppressive regimes scapegoat the dispossessed almost on cue,” continues Mesplay, who was himself born in a foreign land while his parents were stationed overseas.

In order to make the 14th Amendment effective in protecting our newest citizens, born on U.S. soil to parents from any nation, Mesplay proposes granting immediate, expedited duo citizenship to the parents thus strengthening the family unit and supporting the child in claiming allegiance to the United States. “It is best that we not continue to have a class of dispossessed, but rather that we do what we can to reunite all families struggling with the governments of the world and bring them into the same regulated, taxed, conscription-ready, documented system that the rest of us enjoy,” Mesplay adds.

Going further, the Green Party U.S. presidential candidate prefers that duo Mexican, U.S. citizenship would allow U.S. citizens to safely invest in Mexico, even as such a program would permit safe, fair, regulated labor to migrate north.

Mesplay, an advocate of decentralization and a limited Federal government, just days ago announced running as a Republican in Arizona in order to be on the ballot. “Our national party deserves national access to ballot lines” Mesplay added, runner-up to Nader at the 2004 Green national convention.

www.mesplay.org

rez@mesplay.org

Healthy Delta Communities

I can only go so long without posting another comment on the Delta and the need for a sustainable water policy for California. So, once again, let me call attention to the work of Restore the Delta, especially their Healthy Delta Communities project.

This is a great example of the grassroots action that I hear talked about in Green circles but not so frequently practiced.

The most recent release from Restore the Delta is not yet posted to the site. It consists of a series of interview conducted with delta residents and business owners. I quote from one cited it that release: interviewee: Jeff Hart – Delta Nursery Owner.

Barbara Bowers: What would you like to see for the future of the Delta?

Jeff Hart: I would like to see the future of the Delta have sustainable practices. There would be no loss of soil in farming. Carbon would be sequestered with native plants on Delta levees. This could be a carbon offset so it could also be run for profit. Currently, grass on the levees is burned and soil erodes. Levees need “green engineering”.

Barbara Bowers: What is your greatest concern for the Delta?

Jeff Hart: Political stupidity is what scares me the most. My greatest concern is that people will remain wedded to an ideology and not be open to new ideas. Whether we retain the pumps or go around the Delta with a canal, there needs to be a quantity and quality of water that will sustain life in the Delta.

I could not have said it better myself. That interview was conducted in late June, 2007 and based on the failure of the Special Session of the legislature to accomplish anything, it appears that his fears were well founded.

Bali Low

I want to give everyone a change to view this report from California Green, Mike Feinstein. He is in Bali for the UN Framework Negotiaion on Climate Change. This is not what I am hearing regarding the meetings after it is filtered by some mainstream media producer.



At the same time, we need to be prepared to absorb a wave of triumphal press releases from a Congress that has just passed (86-8) a seriously flawed energy bill, one that we will pay for in the grocery store as well as at the gas pump. You know that any bill which gathers such a sizable margin on such an important issue is the product of significant compromise in search of election year votes.

Taken together, this is one more reason to that we need our Green Party candidates speaking out. Abject failure of a Republican presidency and an Democratic Congress and why are we not saying more?