Stop the Water Bills

The LA Greens and LA County GP locals have both signed on to the sustainability principles of the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN). Now, C-WIN is asking us to all work together to stop the water bills that are currently in the State Legislature. This is one thing that all Greens should get behind.

If you click Read more! I will provide additional information and tell you how to get started. Key grassroots organizations are taking very firm stands. We need to demonstrate the Greens will buck the flood and stand up for doing what is right, not just what may appear to be politically expedient.



First, you should read the letter that C-WIN sent to State Senator Fran Pavley and Assembly Member Jared Huffman. They head the key committees dealing with Water.

The California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) urges you to recommend that your committees reject SB 1 (Simitian) and AB 1 (Huffman). These bills will only coddle certain agricultural water districts to perpetuate their movement to eliminate California’s system of water rights and make water supplies for the future of California’s major urban economic engines, southern California and the South Bay Area less reliable than they now are. Moreover, these bills represent the legislature’s efforts to enact the Governor’s drive on behalf of his conservative agricultural friends in the San Joaquin Valley for new dams and a peripheral canal, neither of which the California Water Impact Network supports.

These bills will add another layer of governance to an already bloated and ineffective bureaucracy in Sacramento. Things are so bad that the Little Hoover Commission has established a committee to study and make recommendations on water governance in California. It would be idiocy for the Democrats, along with Gov. Schwarzenegger, to try and cram through this legislation before the commission has completed it's work. They are a long way from that and are still soliciting applicable testimony.

At the same time, Restore the Delta has commissioned a public opinion poll regarding attitudes toward a new "water conveyance" (euphemism for a peripheral canal). That poll indicated that there is very little support for such an undertaking, given that the budget is in shambles and the cost is high (lowest estimate is $23 Billion).

This is how they suggest using that data.

Dear Legislator:

Attached you will find a copy of a statewide voter survey on water issues conducted on behalf of Restore the Delta by EMC Research of Oakland, CA. EMC Research conducted 800 telephone interviews among registered voters statewide in California from August 23-27, 2009.

The poll indicates that while voters are concerned about water and ensuring a long-term reliable water supply is a "very high priority," all segments of voters are strongly opposed to a Peripheral Canal and very close to half oppose a bond for new dams, reservoirs or other water infrastructure projects.

It is clear there is very little support among the electorate for many of the elements included in the 2009 legislative water package.

I have a copy of that data, but only in image format. I would like to get it as a pdf and will post that when I do. However, here is the key point.

When first asked about the proposed solution, the distribution between those in support of, in opposition to, or undecided respectively was: 28%, 34%, 39%. However, after further being presented some additional background information, those numbers changed to 26%, 70%, 5%. Finally when given the opportunity to review position statements on the proposed legislation, the numbers again changed to 21%, 76%, 3%. In other words, there was some erosion of the supporters and a significant change of the undecided to the opposition position.

Restore the Delta is also calling for a stop to the idiocy being foisted on the people of California by Pavley, Huffman and State Senate Pro tem, Darrell Steinberg. It would seem that they are pushing this now just to head off any organized opposition. Then, I think it is incumbent on us to give them some opposition. I am working to get a Green's position in front of the Little Hoover Commission and, unless we drop the ball on this, it will happen.

So, what should you do? The easiest is to follow the process set up by C-WIN. You can find that here. They provide sample letters, but do not mention the Little Hoover Commission. If you use that, please indicate that it is irresponsible for the Legislature to craft this before the Little Hoover Commission report comes out.

Climate Change and California Parks

I know that there are many who love going to California's many parks. There is one Green who travels out from LA to Joshua Tree National Park. I am sure that the following climate change prognostication will sadden him.

The emblematic tree of the Mojave Desert is in big trouble. At a February 2009 climate-change symposium in Joshua Tree sponsored by the National Parks Conservation Association, scientists spoke with gallows humor about the eventual need for Joshua Tree National Park to change its name. The way things are going, it looks as if there will be no Joshua trees left in the park before too many more decades go by. Victorville Daily Press.

You many think that Climate Change is something that we can avoid by buying better cars, or CFL's, or turning off the radio when leaving the room. The truth is that it can not be avoided and the effects are already being felt. Tell that to Sen. Boxer.

Cost for fixing the Delta

An August 2009 study by Strategic Economic Applications Company puts the cost to "fix" the Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta at somewhere between 23 and 53 Billion US $. We should be familiar with those numbers if not with the details of the study. Given the current status of the California Budget Process, and the California Economy, there is no way that we can do this.

Everyone wants money that we don't have: Given the choice, I would rather have a high speed rail link running N<->S than this... which only runs South.

A Green Opportunigy - Adaptive Governance

Thanks to Alex for posting the link to Timothy Brink's OpEd in the LA Times. Unfortunately by the time I went there, the note indicated that comments were closed... and there were none to read.

I found one problem with Brink's OpEd. The call to action could be applied to any of the various bills in the California state legislature dealing with Water. The objectives are OK but there are no specifics. So, if you follow the jump, I will give a hint of something that is going on regarding water, the Delta and how it is governed.


To start with, the question of governance is critical to sensible action. The last time we tried to deal with governance, the result was a Cal-FED bureaucracy that lacked the authority, moral or legal, to do anything but it was yet another "compromise" crafted by Sen. Feinstein and so people gave way while it failed.

Right now, the Little Hoover Commission has a committee working on Water Governance. The most recent session was on August 18 and I quote from the meeting notice:

Water rights experts representing state agencies, water conveyors and users, environmental organizations and other areas will discuss the history and current issues within California water rights permitting processes.

They have looked at more than just what has historically been done in California. Presenters to the commission have presented the Utah Model and the Arizona Model. I am not sure what they are, since the presentations are not posted to the public.

So, today, I sent a note to Stuart Drown, the Exec. Dir. of the Commission. In it, I suggested the California Green, Martin Zehr had experience in helping to develop a new model of water governance in New Mexico and asked how we could get that before the commission. (Reminder to self... call the commission on Monday.)

Paul Seeger of the Delta Greens has been looking for a speaker at a meeting on the Delta that he is organizing for Aug. 30. We have tried a number of different tacks, but I think that Martin will be giving a talk on his experience and the idea of Adaptive Governance for water.

Martin cites Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict by John T. Scholz as a source. That should be well worth reading, because the outline of Martin's proposed talk is dynamite. (A comment both on quality and hoped for effect.)

After Martin finalizes the presentation, I will get it posted. I would hope that Paul gets the word out to a wider audience. We need to have more Greens show up and support Paul, and Martin.

Read & Comment on Timothy Brick's Op-Ed about the Delta

The Los Angeles Times published an Op-Ed by Timothy Brick, chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, claiming that "plans to manage the San Joaquin delta --the hub of the state's water system -- have finally got it right."

That is an extraordinary claim.

The Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, August 26, 2009
OP-ED: WINNING THE WATER WAR
by Timothy F. Brick

A generation ago, Southern California water managers thought they had the solution for dealing with the hub of the state's water system -- the magnificent Northern California estuary known as the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. They wanted to build a canal from the delta to the existing aqueduct system that sustains San Joaquin Valley agriculture and Southern California.

They were wrong. And now we finally have the chance to do it right.
. . .
For the delta, chances like this don't come along very often. We've never seen an entire package like this that advances water policy and makes the responsible plumbing changes. We're at the brink of a sustainable water future for California -- if we seize the moment.

Will those of you who know much more about this issue than me please follow the link, read the full text, and leave a comment. Is Mr. Brick right? If not, why not? How should Green activists respond to this challenge?

A legacy for Ted Kennedy

We are always saddened by the passing of a leader. Now, we will hear about how great was Kennedy, the Senator. Politicians will line up to express their admiration for his gumption and his civility.

If they really want there to be a lasting memory for him, the way to do it is not with words, but rather to pass the legislation that he wanted so very much: Single Payer Health Care for all.

CA Dept. of Dept. of Natural Resoures Fails Again

Alex's post earlier today makes the distinction between Greens and the other parties quite clear. If you need more evidence of just how much our Government in Sacramento publishes propaganda, you need only read the latest blast from Kari Hamerschlag (Sr. Analyst with the Environmental Working Group). Kari refers to the 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy document, a draft now in circulation.

Unfortunately, the action plan for agriculture leaves out one critical proven strategy for coping with extreme weather events: the promotion of organic agricultural practices that will make soils healthier and more productive, while also conserving water and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The draft adaptation strategy points out what most critics of federal and state climate change legislation constantly fail to acknowledge: That taking no action to address climate change now could cost key sectors in the state “tens of billions of dollars per year in direct costs.”

It is good that someone is thinking about the effects of climate change, since we are not doing much about avoiding it. Still, it sounds like the ag plan is in need of some good old manure. It is like almost everything else out of Sacramento. The words sound good, the thoughts are lofty, but the green is just astroturf.

Green vs. Democrats vs. Republicans

Editor's Note: This note was originally posted on the Facebook Page for the Green Party Eco-Action Committee. I think this is so right on that I have reposted it here.

Posted on Green Party Eco-Action Committee Notes
Green vs. Democrats vs. Republicans

Greens have been around long enough to include us in the spectrum of political ideas. All too often Greens are lumped into the "left" end of the spectrum. It's time to evaluate Green perspectives from our base up. To do that we have to address matters such as voter support and electoral strategies and find ways to implement our Platform.

It is worthwhile to review the current administration's policies with the previous administration's and ask: "What's new about this or that?" We also can ask why are we not making the structural changes that are really needed for ecological democracy or adaptive governance. We don't need to gloss over differences to include them in the decision-making processes and yet, that is what we continue to do. Rather then using a model that proposes central government versus state governments, I would suggest a model that presents autonomous regions (or governing entities) with defined authorities integrated into both state and Federal governments.

My particular point on this matter is for Greens to begin to challenge the bi-polar debate patterns of the duopoly by opening up with our own presentation of governing in the US in the 21st Century. The Green vision needs to be concretized so that Green candidates can deliver victories that benefit supporters, provide structural reforms and address critical energy and resource matters without simply riding the coattails of the Democratic left or pandering to the corporate interests of the Republicans. see http://www.gaianeconomics.org/molly.htm

One example is on the horizon in regards to the reauthorization of the Clean Water Act. The bill appears to be presenting the alternatives of an expanded federal authorization for the control of waters and streams without establishing mechanisms for regional decision-making. What is a real Green position in regards to this? How can we accomplish viable alternatives under new political structures? How do we begin to have a conversation and work with Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Independents in the context of reforms that democratize the political processes? What is bioregionalism and what makes it a distinctly Green perspective ( http://kawcouncil.wordpress.com/ )

Bravo!

This argument is doubly strong for California where we are enduring something like a total breakdown of (small "d") democratic governance on account of a dysfunctional Democratic so-called liberal vs. Republican so-called conservative political system.

Healthcare Town Meeting - Congresswoman Diane Watson (Los Angeles)

Healthcare Reform Town Hall
Thursday, August 27, 2009
6:30 -- 8:30 PM
1177 West 25th Street
(25th ST and Magnolia AVE)
Los Angeles, CA

Hosts: Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church
Featuring: Congresswoman Diane E. Watson (CA 33)

All are invited to come out and Learn the Truth - Tell Your Story - Kill the Rumors on Thursday, August 27th at 6:30pm. Congresswoman Diane E. Watson and Speaker of the House Karen Bass will highlight how the Healthcare Reform will impact you and me and the State of California.





More Info: 323-965-1422

Scott McLarty, GP media coordinator, summarized the view of most Greens on his Facebook page: "On one side, Dems stage bogus town hall meetings to push a complex high-cost plan with mandates to send millions in taxpayer dollars to for-profit health insurance companies. On the other side: Repubs & rampaging troglodytes think they're heirs to the Boston Tea Party but are really stooges for the same insurance industry. The Dems want phony reform, the GOP wants no reform. Either way, insurance CEOs win and we lose"

Jack Lindblad, our Green Party candidate for the California State Assembly, 32nd District, declares one of his legislative top priorities is to: "guarantee quality universal single payer healthcare for all,"

Lisa Green, our Green Party candidate for the California State Assembly, 53rd District, observed: "In May, physicians, nurses, Greens, and other single-payer advocates were arrested after peacefully standing up to protest the exclusion of single-payer experts during Senate Finance Committee roundtables on health care reform. If fearmongering Republican leaders, front groups, and public personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck are urging mobs of their supporters to break up town hall meetings, they should be investigated and prosecuted, just as the nonviolent single-payer protesters were arrested."



The Green Party has released a statement on our position with respect to these so-called Town Hall meetings:

Greens: Democrats' Town Meetings on Health Care Reform Deserve Debate and Civil Protest, Not Disruption and Mob Violence

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org

WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders spoke out today against the violent disruptions taking place throughout the US at town hall meetings on health care reform.

But Greens said that both Democratic and Republican leaders deserve blame for obstructing the public debate on health care reform. Greens pointed to various attempts to silence discussion of single-payer national health care in public forums and the media, as well as spread misinformation about single-payer and the Canadian health-care system.

The Green Party is urging supporters of real universal health care to lobby their US Representatives in advance of a promised vote on the single-payer bill (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/08/05-8). Greens have called for a nationally televised debate on the merits of single-payer and for GAO and Congressional Budget Office studies on single-payer. Analyses from these offices in the 1990s showed that single-payer will reduce health care spending by billions (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=226).

Once again, Green Party activism is sorely needed as an alternative to the cynical, corrupted, dysfunctional Republican "conservative" versus Democratic "liberal" debate.

Unscientific America... ditto California's Governor.

This is my latest column in the very local Morgan Hill Times. I am posting here for the very good reason that I want you to get a copy of Unscientific America and read it. It isn't long (125 pages) and it isn't difficult but it is important. Greens who don't understand science will never find the solution to global warming nor make a Green Economy work.


I have two topics that I want to mention this week and the more I think about them, the stronger the relationship appears to be. I will try to give both their due and still keep this to one column.

I recommend a new book, “Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future.” It is the collaborative effort of a top journalist, Chris Mooney, and a marine biologist, Sheril Kirshenbaum. Their major point seems to me to be well taken. We live in an age where science has been engineered into the fabric of our lives and still we choose to remain relatively ignorant of the nature and practice of scientific inquiry.

The goal of the book as well as of intersection, a blog that Mooney and Kirshenbaum co-author, is to help bring about a melding of cultures in such a way as to include science. They end the book by quoting C. P. Snow's two culture lecture from 50 years ago. “We require a common culture in which science is an essential component. Otherwise we shall never seen the possibilities either for evil or good.”

That is seems so simple, but with Hollywood sending us one un-scientific story after another and some who would politicize science for reasons known only to themselves, the task of building such a common culture is daunting. The most recent politicization is the accusation by one time Congressman Dick Armey that then entire H1N1 pandemic was manufactured to help push Obama's health care agenda. With that example I need not even mention climate change and the raft of falsehoods that have been used to maintain the status quo.

There was no way that Mooney and Kirshenbaum could have written on this subject without acknowledging the ongoing debates over evolution and religion. I would agree with their position that those who have been labeled as the New Atheists are doing more damage to the cause of science than they are willing to acknowledge. There is no rational for some of the antagonistic actions that have taken place.

I watched physicist, mathematician Freeman Dyson on the Charlie Rose show this week mention new atheist Richard Dawkins and saying that he has done much harm for future science by chasing away young people who might become scientists but who are not ready to give up the religion in which they have been raised... as Dawkins would insist.

We live in Silicon Valley, in a culture that produces much of the science based technology that fills our lives, or will in the near future. From I-Pod to I-Phone, from solar cell power generation to a Tesla Motors roadster or resveritol in a pill. the fabric of our existence is being changed by science. Yet, our media is rarely allows for science stories to make it into print or onto the screen. We have much discussion about a world class center for mathematics being established in Morgan Hill and yet I see little if any influence on our youth.


I hope that all of you who read this will get the book. At a minimum, Mooney and Kirshenbaum are asking questions that should be asked.

My second topic is the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta and California's water problems. There is much more to this story than that which make the news. Too often the demand to boil the story down to short soundbites or a desire to explain it in terms that the un-scientific reader can understand ends up with a he-said / she-said style of reportage in which neither is telling the truth. As one person remarked, solving California's water problems is a likely as winning a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East.

We can not expect the current situation to remain as it is. Our climate is changing. A recent study from UC Davis indicates that the orchards of the Central Valley will all need to be replaced due to global warming. It is quite probable that apple, pear, cherry, pistachio and many stone fruits will no longer set good crops as winters become increasingly mild. We also know that population will continue to increase. Finding the right solutions will require paying more attention to the sciences: climatology, agriculture, ecology... and less attention to the calculus of short range vote margins, something that not even the American Institute of Mathematics can help with.

There are those who posture in public, who claim that drought is costing far job, who would have us build more dams for future supplies because it sounds good now. Unfortunately, the ecological changes that we are undergoing will happen. We seem not willing to try and avoid severe climate disruption. At least, let us use the best of our science knowledge to plan for our future. It is not a time to be scientifically illiterate, even if you are the Governor.

Slate: How Is America Going to End?

Here is an example of the kind of admittedly silly intellectual "mind experiments" that I enjoy during my summer vacation season.



Posted on Slate, August 3, 2009.
by Josh Levin

If and when America expires, we probably won't agree on the cause of death. For proof that autopsies of empires are inconclusive, consider the case of Alexander Demandt, the German historian who set out in the 1980s to collect every theory ever given for why Rome fell. The final tally: 210, including attacks by nomads on horseback, blood poisoning, decline of Nordic character, homosexuality, outflow of gold, and vaingloriousness.

In tribute to Demandt, I've gone looking for every possible reason why America could fall. I've paged through the work of scholars who have studied the characteristics of declining and failed societies. I also collected theories from futurists, doomsayers, separatists, economists, political scientists, national security experts, climatologists, geologists, astronomers, and a few miscellaneous crazy people. The result: a collection of 144 potential causes of America's future death.

In my humble opinion, we are seeing the collapse of (small "d") democratic governance in California right now. I'm surprised Josh Levin's analysis underestimates the evils of our tiresome race-based politics. The current "leaders" of California's non-Hispanic "Whites" will never accept being a "minority" and current "leaders" of California communities of Latinos and Blacks like me will never stop thinking of themselves as oppressed "minorities." Eventually, this means disaster.

The End of America on Slate.
The End of America on Facebook.

Meet LeAlan Jones -- Illinois Green Party

LeAlan Jones, the 30-year-old Green Party candidate for Barack Obama’s old Senate seat in Illinois, is as angry at injustice as he is at the African-American intellectual and political class that accommodates it. He does not buy Obama’s "post-racial" ideology or have much patience with African-American leaders who, hungry for prestige, power and money, have, in his eyes, forgotten the people they are supposed to represent. They have confused a personal ability to be heard and earn a comfortable living with justice.






Why should African-Americans join the Green Party?
Isn't the Green Party a "White" party?
Aren't the Democrats the party of "Our People?"

This is the kind of nonsense I get all the time as an active outspoken Black activist in the California Green Party. Want to see what a no-nosense Black Green looks and sounds like? Meet LeAlan Jones, Green Party candidate for Senate from Barack Obama's very on state of Illinois. His passion for speaking truth to power is precisely what is missing from the current "No Drama Obama" regime and a perfect counterpoint to disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's hand-picked Democratic Party hack, Sen. Roland Burris.

See below some highlights of a column by Chris Hedges posted on the TruthDig web site:

Posted on Truthdig, Aug 3, 2009
"So Much for the Promised Land"
By Chris Hedges

LeAlan Jones, the 30-year-old Green Party candidate for Barack Obama’s old Senate seat in Illinois, is as angry at injustice as he is at the African-American intellectual and political class that accommodates it. He does not buy Obama’s "post racial" ideology or have much patience with African American leaders who, hungry for prestige, power and money, have, in his eyes, forgotten the people they are supposed to represent. They have confused a personal ability to be heard and earn a comfortable living with justice.

"The selflessness of leaders like Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Harold Washington and Medgar Evers has produced selfishness within the elite African-American leadership," Jones told me by phone from Chicago.

"This is the only thing I can do to have peace of mind," he said when I asked him why he was running for office. "I am looking at a community that is suffering because of a lack of genuine concern from their leaders. This isn’t about a contract. This isn’t about a grant. This isn’t about who gets to stand behind the political elite at a press conference. This is about who is going to stand behind the people. What these leaders talk about and what needs to happen in the community is disjointed."

Jones began his career as a boy making radio documentaries about life in Chicago’s public housing projects on the South Side, including the acclaimed "Ghetto Life 101." He knows the world of which he speaks. He lives in the troubled Chicago neighborhood of Englewood, where he works as a freelance journalist and a high school football coach. He is the legal guardian of a 16-year-old nephew. And he often echoes the denunciations of black leaders by the historian Houston A. Baker Jr., who wrote "Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era."

Click the link below to view a good television news report on the Illinois Green Party Convention:

ABC News 15 in Champaign

Remember, this is home-turf of President Barack Obama. If Illinois Greens can speak truth to power like this in the "Land of Lincoln", then surely we can do as well in the tarnished "Golden State." My personal opinion is that it's past time for African-American progressives to leave that old 1960s Black Power era rhetoric to the dustbin of history and just go ahead and be the change we want to see. But that is just Alex Walker's eccentric view. The Green Party is and ought to be a big tent and I am delighted that a great young new leader like LeAlan Jones is in it.

HR. 2454 - American Clean Energy and Security Act.

There are many reasons to hate H. R. 2454 the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. For one, it contains ongoing funding for the dream of a clean coal future and totally fails the goal of setting realistic constraints on carbon emissions.

Architecture 2030, a leader in the effort to change our future, finds in one section of the bill enough benefit to call for it's adoption. In E-NEWS Bulletin 16 today, Architecture 2030 identifies the real value.

Buried deep within the 1,428-page Waxman-Markey climate bill (H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) passed by the House and now on the Senate floor, is Section 201, pages 320-348. It is this section that makes H.R. 2454 worth passing.

No matter what else is compromised or changed in the climate bill working its way through the Senate, Section 201 must not be changed or weakened.

This bulletin is not yet on-line, but should be shortly. However, the real analysis in contained in a fact sheet that is currently posted.

According to Architecture 2030 Chairman, Ed Mazria, the entire effort falls apart if this portion of the bill is weakened.

It is clear that the building energy code targets set in Section 201 are not only essential for achieving the energy consumption and GHG emissions reductions needed, but that they also are the most cost effective approach for doing so.

One Party with Two Names: Our Grinning 'Leaders'

Screw the Poor, the Frail, Kids, Students, and the Environment

A month late and several billion dollars short, California's Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Republican Assembly Leader Sam Blakeslee, and Democratic Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg agreed on a budget deal that screws the poor, the frail, the young, the students, and the environment.

So why are these "leaders" grinning?



Maybe because they are "leaders" of California's One-Party-with-Two-Names?

Now comes the predictable, tiresome, hand-wringing "moderate" editorials from California's leading "respectable" corporate daily newspapers. Also, read the anguished cry of oppression and betrayal of our most vulnerable citizens.



Hand-Wringing MSM Editorials

Los Angeles Times --

"In dragging out the dickering and pushing California dangerously close to insolvency, Democratic legislative leaders insisted that they were protecting the safety net, knowing all the while that they were fraying it at the local end. They had few options, and it would be foolish for rank-and-file legislative Democrats to reject this budget based on the depth of the cuts. It's just that a little more candor about the limited nature of Californians' choices is in order.

That goes tenfold for Schwarzenegger, who insisted that the additional three weeks of parrying was an attempt to fix the state's structural problems once and for all. Nonsense. No once-and-for-all resolution was available. Despite the fantasies of would-be reformers, government cannot be remade in a few weeks during the middle of an economic disaster, a fact proved by the kick-the-can budget just announced. The real work comes over a period of months and perhaps years, as Californians turn their attention -- as they must -- to remaking our tax structure and reinventing our government."

San Jose Mercury News --

"Using veto power to rule out any tax increase, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republicans guaranteed that the budget would be balanced by deceit and billion-dollar accounting gimmicks, like shifting the final payday for state workers to the next fiscal year. Like the Democrats, most Republicans didn't want to suspend Proposition 98 on school funding; they just didn't want to honestly fund it.

Instead of passing an oil production tax that many states already levy, California will grant new leases for drilling off Santa Barbara — if Schwarzenegger has his way."

Sacramento Bee --

"It is built on a base of billions of dollars in temporary tax increases approved in February and scheduled to expire in 2011, and temporary federal aid that is due to disappear even sooner. On top of that shaky foundation, legislative leaders and the governor have built a rickety house of borrowed money, shifted funds and old-fashioned gimmicks."

Finally, from One-Party Republican San Diego...

San Diego Union-Tribune --

"But whether the budget is approved tomorrow or in two weeks, it is essential that Schwarzenegger keep demanding reform in his final 17 months in office. His initial focus should be pushing hard for a two-tiered government pension system to reduce obligations to new hires. He should also continue to seek fixes to CalWORKS so that welfare reform can finally arrive in California.

But his broader focus should be on making the case as forcefully as possible that it's time for a new mind-set in Sacramento. For too long, the state has been run as if it were a jobs program, not a provider of essential services. This is why from 1997 to 2007, the number of jobs paid for entirely or largely by the state increased by nearly one-quarter, to 895,000.

It's time to roll back this huge growth. The idea that this will result in severe problems is a union-promulgated myth. All one has to do is look at the productivity revolution in the private sector in job areas that are essentially the same as in government: procurement, record-keeping, claims and payroll processing, inventory management and housing."

Cry of the Oppressed and Betrayed

Posted on L.A. Progressive, July 21, 2009.
The Republicans Win Big in California!
By Joseph Palermo

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his horde of retrograde Republican lawmakers got everything they wanted in a horrific bargain with Democratic legislative leaders that has ended (for the time being) California’s budget impasse. Not only will there not be a single cent raised for the state by taxing oil or tobacco, Schwarzenegger and the Republicans privatized $1 billion from the workman’s compensation insurance system, gutted all levels of the education budget, pauperized state workers with a third "furlough" day each month, raided the coffers of local governments, and even gave away the first new oil-drilling leases off the Santa Barbara coast in 40 years...

Posted on California Progress Report, July 23, 2009
New Budget Plan Takes California Backwards
By Willie L. Pelote, Sr.
Assistant Director ASFCME

Perhaps the most irresponsible aspect of the latest budget deal between Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Republicans and State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), is that it utterly fails to deal with the structural nature of California's budget deficit, relying instead on one-time accounting maneuvers and the preservation of unnecessary tax breaks for multinational corporations that virtually guarantee the reemergence of future deficits.

The latest plan jettisons $2 billion of taxes on oil companies and alcohol producers supported by voters in favor of almost $16 billion worth of new cuts to education, health care, and social programs...
. . .
Schwarzenegger, the Republicans, Bass, Steinberg, and any other Democrat who votes for this budget plan will claim that they had no choice, that circumstances forced them to make these cuts to balance California’s budget.

This is untrue.

The decision to impose the lowest costs on the wealthiest among us and, thus, the highest costs on the least among us is and always will be a political decision.

Posted on the Web Site for the Western Center on Law & Poverty, July 24, 2009.
Legislature Guts The Safety Net
by Mike Herald

18 Democrats Vote for the Cuts That Start July 2011.

The Assembly just passed AB 8 4X by a vote of 44-21 to concur in Senate amendments that make historic changes in the state's CalWORKs program. The bill was supported by 18 Democrats and 26 Republicans. 20 Democrats and 1 Republican (Tran) voted no. The bill now goes to the Governor where he is expected to sign the bill.
. . .
But the damage done by AB 8 4X is extreme. The bill guts the safety net for the most vulnerable families by reducing children's grants for the first time in the history of the CalWORKs program. Grants will be reduced by 25% from a maximum of $566 a month for two children down to $420 a month if the parent can not comply with federal work requirements. These are parents who are either can not work legally or who have used up the 60 month time clock but are still so poor their children qualify for assistance. In reality, for most of these families they will see their grants reduced. Advocates implored Democratic legislators to not accept these cuts, particularly to immigrant families because politically it is nearly impossible to ever restore these benefits.
. . .
It is shameful, disgraceful and one of the lowest moments in the history of social welfare in California. It is deeply offensive to hear Democratic leadership claim to have "saved the safety net" or that they will undo this in the future. They will never have the votes to restore CalWORKs and they should stop trying to deceive the public about the harm they have done.

What is To Be Done? Reboot California Politics


Do you sincerely want to fix California's broken politics? How do you tell if somebody does? Fellow Americans, here's a simple rule: look to see if the thundering writer of editorials and commentary mentions a role for independents and third-parties. If the editorial or commentary stubbornly insists that in politics all is within Democrats and Republicans; nothing outside Democrats and Republicans; and nothing against Democrats and Republicans, and especially is they suggest that somehow this problem can be "fixed" by electing more Democrats or Republicans, then you know the guy is just a pompous blowhard and not to be taken seriously.

Battling intellectual smog

California's AB 32 was intended (so they say) to help this state battle global warming by controlling greenhouse gases. That would alleviate problems that we have with physical world smog.

Unfortunately, there a those who still believe Any Rand and that regulation is evil and they produce an even more insidious intellectual smog. It is reported that a CSU-Sacramento Report estimates the "cost" to small businesses from California's AB 32 at $50,000 per year.

UCLA Economics professor, Matthew I Kahn, provide a good analysis of why they get it wrong.

What if it really is broken?

The saying that, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" can not be used in California, except it might be revived by Jay Leno when his new show comes on. I would hope that he takes his shots at the sorry mess we are in.

To begin with, the budgeting system is broken, a pawn to special interests and partisan wrangling from both sides of the imaginary divide in Sacramento. Add to that the fact that the system by which California allocates and manages it's water resources is also broken and you have the outlines of a dysfunctional government heading into a drought that it did not ask for but for which it has not answers.

In the meantime the Green Party bemoans the fact that the electoral process is stacked against it (as well as Libertarians, etc.) We need to find a way to get at all of these problems before time runs out. Mike Feinstein has written a piece now online in the Santa Monica Mirror in which he describes how the public might participate in a Constitutional Convention for California. I would hope that all the readers of California Greening figure out how to do the same.

I can not think of any better way to address the failure of governance of this large state than to start with the basic structure of government itself. My one requirement is that anything stipulated in the new constitution would bear consequences if it were not adhered to... for example the fact that the Constitutional requirement for having a budget by a fixed time is routinely ignored without consequence.

The longer I consider this subject, the better it looks. I will start a series on the Constitutional Convention and hope to make it clear to all.

July 1979 -- Jimmy Carter's 'Crisis of Confidence Speech'

SUMMER 1979: The Islamic Revolution in Iran creates an "oil shock" in the United States with long lines at gasoline stations. Democratic President Jimmy Carter is scheduled to address the nation, but cancels at the last minute. 10 days, Carter reemerges with a speech.



Carter addresses the energy crisis, unemployment, inflation and our "Crisis of Confidence."

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

Ronald Reagan and the Republicans eventually triumph by, among other things, ridiculing Carter for his "malaise speech" and blasting him for "weakness" in Iran and Afghanistan. Thirty long years later the Republican so-called conservative clique, despite presiding over the worst administration in U.S. history and the election of a popular young Democratic president, still dominates the political debate in California and the nation while the weak, divided, pitiful, U.S. "left" struggles to find its voice.



Posted on NPR Web Site, Sunday, July 12, 2009.

Examining Carter's 'Malaise Speech,' 30 Years Later

"Jimmy Carter had grown increasingly convinced that Americans had to face up to the energy crisis, but they only could do this if they faced up to the crisis in their own values," says Kevin Mattson, author of "What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?", which examines the underlying themes of Carter's speech. "He tried to push the energy crisis on to a kind of moral and civic plane, and the speech was used to unify around a sense of civic sacrifice."

Mattson tells NPR's Liane Hansen that Carter did some serious soul-searching before giving the speech, and he hoped to entice Americans to do the same.

"He wanted the country to become much more self-inquisitive," he says.

The reception to Carter's speech was overwhelmingly positive: Approving phone calls poured into the White House — more calls than when President Richard Nixon had announced the invasion of Cambodia — along with many letters of support. But the goodwill was short lived. Within days of the speech, Carter fired several members of his cabinet, closing what Mattson calls "a window of opportunity."

"It's from then on that Carter had a really difficult time at bouncing back and being seen on the part of the American people as a strong and significant leader — especially a leader that could take America through solving the energy crisis," Mattson says.

"Carter goes out there and he essentially condemns the American way of life," he says. "He says our consumerism, our materialism have really gotten in the way of this problem."

Mattson says the fact that Americans responded positively to a speech that berated their way of life suggests that they don't mind having their values called into question. In that way, he says, the malaise speech had the potential to effect a significant cultural change.

"[Carter] did blow the opportunity," Mattson says. "But I think the original success that the speech had symbolizes the fact that Americans will listen when they're being criticized and when they're being called out to their better selves."

Do America's marginalized and ridiculed green progressives have the right stuff to call out our countrymen to "their better selves" today?

For and Against

Reading the current (July / August) issue of Orion Magazine, I found an opinion piece by Derrick Jensen headlined Forget Shorter Showers. It is really about the need to do more than change your lifestyle in order to combat corporatism, capitalism, global warming, etc. His closing call is to become an activist.

We can follow the examples of brave activists who lived through the difficult times I mentioned—Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, antebellum United States—who did far more than manifest a form of moral purity; they actively opposed the injustices that surrounded them. We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems.

I was more than a little disappointed in Orion for publishing it, though Jensen has far more supporters than critics if you go by the comments on this article. My concern is that Jensen is calling for actions in opposition to all of those things I listed but gives not even a glimpse of what he want to see take the place of all that he would tear down. While citing the power of activism against Tsarist Russia, he fails to note that such activism gave us the Stalinist Soviet Union.

Pollster Frank Luntz warns us that Americans react best when politicians are "aspirational" rather than merely critical... no matter how valid the criticism's might be. The message for Greens is that we had better start explaining how our path will take us to a far better place. Until we do that, we will remain a footnote to history. Until Jensen does that, he will remain on the sidelines of the debate.

Why We Need 'Media Matters' for California

Media Matters for America is one of my favorite progressive web sites. If the Mainstream Media (MSM) publishes a smear of President Obama or congressional Democrats, Media Matters will fact-check the story and post a rebuttal within hours. Unfortunately, these days there are so many smears and so little time. And so, to paraphrase Mark Twain, a lie about the world outside Washington is beamed around the world at the speed of light before truth can get its browser open.

THE NEW YORK TIMES has been called the "best newspaper in America." My wife, Cathy Deppe, and I used to live in New York and reading the Sunday Times is bad habit I haven't broken. Alas, Sunday's magazine cover story on California was s-o-o-o bad.

Published in The New York Times Magazine, July 5, 2009.
Who Can Possibly Govern California?
by Mark Leibovich



It's like celebrity fluff in People Magazine. Newsom's note-taking? Schwarzenegger's cigars? Brown's love for arugula? Whitman NOT owning a horse? My elementary school grandchildren could write a deeper analysis!

...the last time real life overwhelmed the state’s ability to govern itself — that’s when voters recalled their governor, Gray Davis, and once again looked beyond "reality," to Hollywood, for their next savior, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Further down, Leibovich describes our budget problems in this way:

When the economy is booming, the stock market soaring and jobs abundant, relying on income taxes is not a problem. That was the case in the years after Schwarzenegger first became governor in 2003, and he was hailed as a “postpartisan” leader who cut taxes and appealed to Democrats by aggressively tackling issues like global warming. But in today’s cratering economy — in which California faces a decline in personal income for the first time since 1938 and unemployment sits at 11.5 percent — the state’s coffers have shriveled up quickly, along with the governor’s popularity.

The California economy was never "booming" and the stock market was never "soaring" at any time during the Schwarzenegger regime. California was in crisis throughout 2003, which is why Democratic Gov. Gray Davis faced a recall in the first place.

Leibovich parrots the conventional wisdom that California politics is hopelessly deadlocked between fanatical partisan ideologues "on both sides." And yet, he can write:

There is some consensus among people in both parties that Schwarzenegger has been genuine in his commitment to changing the system, particularly as it relates to fiscal policy. "He has done a very good job of getting the reform movement started," Poizner told me. Likewise, many Democrats say the governor has been more than sincere in his attempts to work with them (even hiring one of their own as his chief of staff). For the most part, though, Schwarzenegger is held up as the emblem of how impossible the job has become. He seemed to come in with every advantage — no debts to special interests, a nonideological orientation and a big, charismatic personality. "To see that he’s incapable of pulling this thing off suggests that you have a systemic problem, a governance problem," Newsom told me.

It was well known throughout the 2003 recall election that Mr. Schwarzenegger was totally in the pocket of California business interests. His only passions throughout the campaign were taxes and "the business climate." But of course, to the MSM, business interests are not a "special" interests.

In point of fact, the three most powerful daily newspapers in the country: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, have all published ignorant, silly partisan junk about California lately. I am not shocked that it was printed. I am shocked by the fact that nobody cares. Gentle reader, that's why we need a "Media Matters for California" and every state in the union.

Editorial: The Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2009
"How three liberal states got into deep trouble with 'progressive' ideas"

President Obama has bet the economy on his program to grow the government and finance it with a more progressive tax system. It's hard to miss the irony that he's pitching this change in Washington even as the same governance model is imploding in three of the largest American states where it has been dominant for years -- California, New Jersey and New York.

A decade ago all three states were among America's most prosperous. California was the unrivaled technology center of the globe. New York was its financial capital. New Jersey is the third wealthiest state in the nation after Connecticut and Massachusetts. All three are now suffering from devastating budget deficits as the bills for years of tax-and-spend governance come due.

These states have been models of "progressive" policies that are supposed to create wealth: high tax rates on the rich, lots of government "investments," heavy unionization and a large government role in health care.

The Washington Post, May 3, 2009.
"No More California Dreaming" by George F. Will

Under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best governor the states contiguous to California have ever had, people and businesses have been relocating to those states. For four consecutive years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in. California's business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state's. In the past decade, net out-migration of Americans has been 1.4 million. California is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty. The latter is not California's fault; the former is.
. . .
Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenue -- high income tax rates on the wealthy. In 2006, the top 1 percent of earners paid 48 percent of the income taxes. California's income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest and its business conditions among the worst, as measured by 16 variables directly influenced by the Legislature. Unemployment, the nation's fourth-highest, is 11.2 percent.
. . .
But what actually ails California is centrist evasions. The state's crisis has been caused by "moderation," understood as splitting the difference between extreme liberalism and hyperliberalism, a "reasonableness" that merely moderates the speed at which the ever-expanding public sector suffocates the private sector.

How long, O Lord, how long do we have to endure this "Big Lie" that California is a high-tax state? In an opinion piece published by the Los Angeles Times, Jean Ross of the California Budget Project directly addressed "The Myths of California's Tax Systems"

WTF does George F. Will mean by writing that California "is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty" ? I guess he means California is losing "White People Like Us" while gaining "Those People Like Them." But excuse me, I forgot. The only "racists" left in America today are "liberal" advocates of affirmative action. George F. Will has been obsessed with "race" for forty years, but he is not a racist. He's just a "conservative."

Why shouldn't the MSM write junk about California for a national audience? They know no no one is going to call him on it and most of California's big-league "progressive" activists are too busy worrying about East Jerusalem and the West Bank of the Jordan to give a damn about what's happening in East L.A. and the West Bank of the Sacramento River.

That's why we need "Media Matters for California" and a Green movement that matters for California.

July 4, 1826

On July 4, 1826, both the 2nd and 3rd Presidents of the United States died, within a few minutes of each other. After many conflicts, these two friends passed away on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Another 183 years has passed and we would do well to go back and re-read that document that bears both of their signatures. Many seem to stop reading with these words.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

. They have been so important to this country's finally growing up about racial equality, especially as they were echoed by Dr. King. We are not there yet, but have come a long, long way.

The list of grievances against King George is long and little remembered. It was enough to justify the Revolution in spite of this caution penned by Jefferson.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

When we consider this list of grievances, maybe we should consider ourselves fortunate but acknowledge that we are yet threatened; threatened by a system that demands ever more growth to pay for all of our current excess, threatened by a politics based on media manipulation rather than a Jeffersonian ideal of an informed citizenry.

We in California have an opportunity right a lot of wrongs. Our current governance is broken and neither Gavin Newsome nor Meg Whitman will have the solution as both are locked into the old paradigm of left / right political slogans. The time to move forward is now if Greens have the courage to seize this opportunity.