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Crazy Hobbit zombie terrorists get their way

2011-08-14

"I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool." - Katherine Whitehorn

The making of a political deal is messy and crude. The debt ceiling deal was especially so. Tea party supporters took a lot of the abuse during the standoff. They were called just about everything by Democrats in Congress, a few of their fellow Republicans and liberals across the country. Late-night comedians and the mainstream media had a field day excoriating the tea partiers.

They called them crazy, Hobbits, zombies, vultures, bloodsuckers, dumb, robots, murderers, stupid, idiotic, Nazis, evil, delusional, racists, addicts, narrow-minded, imbeciles, extremists, devils, dogs, monsters, terrorists, know-nothings and several names that parents do not want their children to hear.

The descriptive language of left-leaning commentators was heard nightly on television as they tried to frame the debate in their terms. The tea parties did not care about framing. They cared about getting their way. Did they? Or were they pawns in a larger game?

You may decide for yourself who almost drove the United States over a cliff. I will try to separate the verbal war from the legislative battle leading to the final debt ceiling bill. What was the fight really about? Why did it take so long to resolve? Who won and who lost?

Note: In researching this report, I have relied on reporters and other writers and staff at the White House and on both side of the aisle in the House and Senate, plus a few elected members of Congress. My reporting is only as accurate as their version of events � and they may be spinning. One thing I did note is that the people who were most critical of President Obama were White House staffers. Perhaps the tension of the final hours, when everything seemed to be slipping away, and the frustration of indecision loosened tongues once the crisis passed.

Different definitions of control

The fight was less about the debt ceiling than about control. But each faction had a different definition of control and, therefore, a different version of victory.

For President Obama, the fight was about having Congress bring him a solution that he would accept. We have seen this before. This is his modus operandi. He stays as far above the fray as possible, not committing. In the United States Senate � and before that in the Illinois Senate � Obama cast an amazing number of non-votes: He declined to vote for or against and simply voted �present.�

His instinct is to announce what he expects in the final deal but to avoid and defer decisions along the way. Obama wants to control the process while others work out the details. He awaits the finished product before giving his judgment. Sometimes, he critiques the work in progress and he is known in the White House as a kibitzer. In this situation, he made clear his goal: The debt ceiling legislation must include new revenues as well as spending cuts.

Liberals and the Democratic leadership in Congress wanted to force the Republicans to break with the no-new-taxes vow of the tea partiers. They wanted to split the GOP and weaken it for the 2012 elections. The president encouraged them.

According to conservatives, control meant something akin to ending the New Deal. They believe that left-wing intellectuals have been running the country since the 1930s, interspersed with periods of competent but also (especially recently) incompetent Republican leadership. Some conservatives saw the tea partiers as a vehicle to break the media-academic-think tank-wonk driven entitlement crowd�s hold on the levers of government.

The hateful invective that resulted as the many sides and styles tried to engage was not new to American politics. The less time available to approve a bill increases the level of the rhetoric. House Speaker Boehner wanted to take up the debt ceiling extension early this year but Obama delayed, criticizing Republicans for not wanting to focus on �more immediate problems� first. The president apparently believed that he was more likely to get his way if he waited and forced the Republicans to make a quick deal to avoid default. Obama may have miscounted the votes.

Taxes and the tea parties

On television and in press reports, the struggle seemed to be over raising taxes. The tea parties refused to budge. Too often, they said, when taxes are included in a bill that aims to reduce spending, those taxes get diverted to new spending, not deficit reduction. Often, pet projects of powerful congressmen siphon off the new taxes.

The Democrats followed President Obama down a path that seemed reasonable. They wanted what they called a balanced approach: Cut spending and raise taxes. It turned into a political blind alley because what seems reasonable to most people is not at all reasonable if you do not have the votes. Without the votes, it is bad politics because all it does is delay cobbling together a deal that can attract enough votes.

The tea parties and many Republicans kept saying that the problem is not that Americans are under-taxed. The problem is too much spending. Obama made speeches calling the Republicans obstinate and selfish. He said that Social Security and other programs were in danger because the tea parties were driving the country over the cliff. Obama may not have believed those parts of the research reports his campaign staff conducted that showed that Americans have come to see many entitlement programs as plums doled out to favored special interests. Those are the entitlements to cut, these voters say.

For more on that attitude, please see Tripping the Entitlements Trap

Obama kept going on television, with diminishing results. He repeated that the tea parties and/or the Republicans would drive the country over the cliff. Then everything changed when the unexpected happened: The House passed a debt ceiling extension that contained no new taxes, with most tea party Republicans joining the Democrats in voting against their own party�s bill. The situation spun out of Obama�s control.

Forcing Obama to give up control

At that point, senior White House officials realized that a key part of their strategy � to force House Republicans to ask the White House for help in rounding up Democrats to replace defecting Republicans in exchange for new taxes � would not work. Speaker John Boehner had delivered a bill without Democratic support. Obama was advised not to demand that Boehner take the bill back and add taxes to it because adding taxes might cost more GOP votes than would be gained from the Democratic side of the aisle. The president could not take the chance that another impasse might run out the clock, staff advised. So the president blasted the just-passed bill and refused to accept it as a basis for continued negotiations. But he got the White House more engaged in negotiations as the Senate began work on a new bill to replace the House bill.

Suddenly, the Republicans stopped dealing with the Democratic leaders in Congress. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, began to negotiate directly with the Obama administration � specifically with Vice President Joe Biden, whom he trusted. The GOP said that direct negotiations eliminated the time-consuming and unnecessary step of engaging the Congressional Democratic leadership, which was a waste of time because all the Democratic leaders did was run to the White House for orders and talking points.

Angry, Obama tried to force McConnell to include the House and Senate Democrats and House Speaker John Boehner. The White House stressed that Boehner needed to be included because he would have difficulty delivering the votes of House tea partiers for anything that he did not help to negotiate. This would have brought things right back to the intractable impasse.

Boehner ended Obama�s feint by saying that he was being kept fully informed by McConnell and presumed that the president would be fully informed by his own vice president (zing!). He added that he believed that any deal crafted with the vice president�s help would convince enough House Democrats to vote yes to make up for no votes of tea party Republicans (zing!). Obama was assured by staff that the McConnell-Biden negotiations would prevent the crazies from grabbing the steering wheel because Biden provided a degree of control in the White House. The president conceded and the mano a mano negotiating between McConnell and Biden � both known as skilled and perceptive negotiators � continued.

Questioning Obama�s approach

Throughout the struggle, the president�s approach struck many as illogical. According to people from both parties and in the White House, the president decided early not to gamble that he would �win� a debt ceiling impasse that resulted in default. But by sticking to a losing position, he played a game of chicken with the calendar. He upped the odds of default even more by demanding that potential deals be presented to him for his approval or rejection before being voted on in the House and Senate. That took time as the president rejected a few possible deals and amended at least one to the point that its chief sponsor could no longer support it. Then the demand was ignored.

All the time, the tea parties kept saying no to new taxes. Many called them crazy or worse. Missed in this blistering angst is a simple but reliable truth: Being thought of as crazy has advantages. One advantage: The people who call you crazy may assume that you really are crazy. They will, therefore, figure that you just might pull down the building and destroy everything. We know that most of the tea partiers refused to compromise. They stood their ground. They told us they would not yield, before, during and after the debt ceiling crisis. They never wavered. So for all we know, the tea party Republicans just might have pulled down everything � except that the president tossed in the towel.

The tea parties stared down Obama and the Democrats in Congress. They stared down their own Republican leadership. They won.

Make no mistake: The conservatives also won. During the contentious negotiations, a re-orientation of the starting point for developing future federal budgets seems to have occurred. Instead of an emphasis on appropriations and earmarks, with ever-growing federal programs, federal budgets may now begin with program cuts.

What would Reagan do?

We have an example of how the image of being a little crazy can affect events. President Reagan was a sportscaster, an actor, a union leader, a pitchman and a president. He was also underestimated. During the 1980 campaign, his detractors called him dumb, demented and dangerous. They said he was a warmonger, a cowboy who would nuke Teheran if the 52 American hostages were not freed. Shortly before his inauguration, his incoming national security team started feeding Iran the line that Reagan, unstable and angry, was going to order an attack soon after he took office. The Iranians unleased a tirade of hostility and threats of retaliation. Then, a few minutes after Reagan took the oath of office, Iran released the hostages.

Would Reagan have attacked Iran? He never said. Most people close to the situation understood that the perception of craziness can be a powerful political tool. The despots of the Arab Spring lost control when they fulfilled their threats of force. How much more powerful is a weapon unused than one used? Reagan knew the answer.

Uncharted territory
If you had walked around the House and Senate office buildings in the days after the debt ceiling bill was enacted, you would have noticed a level of stress that is unusual when the elected members of Congress are away from Washington. Normally, when the bosses are away, the staffers relax and plan their own get-aways to the beach or the mountains. But an awareness of change was apparent. Democratic staffers were sullen. They knew things had changed. Tea party Republican staffers were ebullient. They were already at work on the next mission. Other Republican staff members were guarded, hopeful but wary.

They all know that they will be in uncharted territory when Congress returns after Labor Day. In a sense, the tea parties accomplished much more of their agenda, much sooner, than anyone imagined they would. The entitlement state has stalled. The liberal agenda is no longer the starting point. In this new reality, most Democrats and many Republicans will not be able to adjust. But the tea parties give signs that they may overplay their hand.

Their victory, so satisfying to tea party supporters, has left many other voters troubled. Most Americans like the idea of compromise. Will we have a collision between the tea parties, with their promise of reform, and moderate voters, who prefer less excitement and more conciliation? The voters, after all, get to decide who goes to Washington.

If you do not get elected or reelected, you have no vote in Congress. Time will tell, but someone might want to remind the tea party Republicans that hubris can take away their votes.

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Debt Deal: Winners and Losers

2011-08-04

During the contentious negotiations leading to the final deal, a re-orientation of the starting point for developing future federal budgets seems to have occurred. Instead of an emphasis on appropriations and earmarks, with ever-growing federal programs, Congressional budgets may now begin with program cuts.

President Obama did not break the tea parties by forcing the Republicans to accept new tax revenues but the president did get a deal that pushes the deficit ceiling beyond the 2012 election.

Now, if Obama can line up a few Democratic votes in the House to replace unhappy tea party Republicans, he will sign the deal into law. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, as good a vote counter as anyone in Washington, predicts that more than 60 Democrats will buck Minority Leader Pelosi and back the deal.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell can take credit for drawing the White House into negotiations at the critical point. Speaker Boehner can take credit for navigating his plan through the House, which forced the president to abandon his attempts to jam new taxes into the final agreement. Senate Majority Leader Reid will take a share of the credit even if it appears that the GOP negotiated directly with the White House throughout Saturday and Sunday, with Vice President Biden a bigger part of the negotiations than anyone realized or anticipated.

And the president, with his bully pulpit, will take and get credit.

Grover Norquist will get credit for setting the agenda: No new taxes. His importance in budget issues will grow. The tea parties will be emboldened but at the risk of continued defections among independent voters who have been turned off by the inflexibility of many tea party-backed House members.

Perhaps only the liberals in the House Democratic leadership will not be able to crow.

Oh, we the people can�t crow. We have seem our retirement accounts drop and we may still see a downgraded debt rating resulting in higher interest rates. We the people need to keep Washington on a shorter lead.

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Obama's State of the Union: Missing the Message

2011-01-29

Overall, Obama's State of the Union address impressed.

I was glad to have him tackle education more honestly than I've been used to with politicians, to the point of proposing the dismantling of the troublesome No Child Left Behind Act. Likewise, I am glad he stuck to his guns on the health care bill, while also offering concessions if they were practical and didn't compromise the overall aim of the bill. On the environmental front, of course, he offered the good talk about the potential stimulating effects of renewable energy and expanded public transportation options on the economy and the potential for job growth. However, he never once mentioned the climate.

A former co-worker of mine rebutted to a point I made on that that Obama needs to switch the messaging to adapt to an anti-climate atmosphere. Republicans and their cohorts have been successful in re-branding "climate change" as a term tantamount to taxes and inconvenience and the death of jobs. Oh, and a fairy tale. As such, Obama needs to rebrand the message to make it palatable to the public and the new House of Representatives.

I understand, but this is dangerous terrain. I voted for Obama....there are a lot of things he's accomplished that I am proud of (the advancement of equal pay for the genders, health insurance), but I won't make excuses that he's fallen way short of my expectation, especially on climate change. In the words of Jon Stewart: "he [Obama] ran as a visionary, but has served as a functionary."

First off, Obama mentioned clean coal and nuclear.

Let's talk about clean coal. THERE IS NO SUCH THING. It's a myth and a distraction. It's the real fairy tale the industry fabricated to lull us into the notion that we can keep all of our current conveniences and still combat climate change, while they still make their billions. The technology for clean coal is decades away, if it ever even comes to fruition. We don't have that time, and we need to put our mind to real solutions.

For the most part, clean coal technology refers to CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration)--that is, the capturing emissions from coal plants and injecting it either terrestially (into rocks, mountains, etc.) or under the ocean floor. Again, it's a technology that might be up to a generation away. Plus, its potential environmental implications are dire and range from the obliteration of ocean life on a micro- or macro-level (if the injected carbon escapes, it could over-acidify the ocean, causing mass die-offs of marine organisms), to eroding large amounts of our topsoil and infiltrating groundwater resources, to even the possibility of inducing earthquakes through the disruption of tectonic plates.

The implemention and execution of CCS technology would require more energy input than the process itself could possibly capture and attempt to store or neutralize. And in the end, none of it attempts to address the issue of extraction, which itself carries an enormous carbon and ecological footprint.

Contrary to popular belief, recent studies by respectable scientific authorities
(such as the National Academies of Science) indicate that we also seem to be about to enter an era of peak coal as well as oil. Though we technically may have the reserves, it is preserved so deeply in the Earth, we can't practically go about getting it without doing great damage.

Right now, we're blowing up hundreds of mountains in the Southeastern United states to churn out coal. This phenomenon, known as mountain-top removal (or MTR), not only is causing enormous and irreversible damage to the land, water, air and wildlife, it is also the main contributor of a form of genocide of the culture and communities of the people of Appalachia.

Whether or not it's "clean," there is no way we can get at the coal at the rate we would need to continue powering our current lifestyles as our populations grows exponentially without continuing and even escalating this practice. There is no way we can rely on coal on any large-scale and avert catastrophic climate change.

Then there's nuclear, which I am a bit more ambivalent about, but also ultimately against. Unlike clean coal, nuclear is more genuinely a carbon neutral method of energy production. However, what sways me to shake my head when Obama sings its praises is this: it's merely the exchanging of potential for one enormous environmental catastrophe for another, and it's another distraction. The safety issues of nuclear, it's health implications, and the waste disposal dilemma, are all things that have failed to be addressed and remedied to a sufficient level.

Here's the thing: even people who poll in favor of nuclear poll resoundingly are against having a plant anywhere within a 100-mile radius of their house.

If and when a nuclear plant gets built, it will be built in the backyards of poor people. And when the plants leaks or has a full-scale accident (which it will), it is the poor who will suffer and die. The current plants may have escaped the infamy of a meltdown, but there are still a myriad of reports on leaks and incidences of increased disease of those who reside near them. I lived in Vermont, which depended mostly on the Yankee Nuclear Power Plant for its energy, and this was the case.

Additionally, as with "clean coal," we can't build nuclear power plants at the rate needed to address our current and projected emissions scenario. If there was an opportunity for nuclear to fill that gap, we missed the boat on it awhile back.

Where does this leave us?

I am a huge proponet of renewables like wind and solar (when implemented intelligently and with concern and precaution for wildlife), increased energy efficiency (most of our technology can be upgraded to be 50-75% more efficient, a low-hanging fruit), and yes, a huge expansion of mass transit, expecially in the railroad sector. But even these things can't do enough to bridge the gap.

Here's the truth: we need to scale way back on our consumption, in all ways.

We need to not only change lightbulbs, but turn off the lights when we're not using them or don't need them. We need to not only buy hybrids, but avoid driving whenever possible. We need to not only buy organic or local meat, but eat a lot less meat (or even no meat). Some of us may need to not only consider raising our children as ethical environmentalists, but consider the concept of foregoing having biological children at all.

We may need to break down our nationalized and globalized economy to a network of local or regional ones that can operate autonomously and interdependently as needed. Our economy may need to switch to one not based on growth, but a steady state.

We won't need to live like a "caveman" as climate deniers like to say the evil treehuggers want, but we may need to--gasp!--revert a few decades, at least in our emphasis on indepent local economies and the amount to which we drive, eat meat and use energy.

And you know what? I think it would lead to better job stability, less debt, and more happiness, as a result.

But suggesting these things aren't politically palatable, are they?

But here's what I wonder: how come it is politically palatable to bash gay marriage, to praise guns, to demonize Muslims? And wasn't there a time when talk of ending slavery, or giving women the vote, was also politically infeasible? Wasn't the argument against these things partially its inferred economic implications?

The Right has gotten pretty good at playing the moral highground, even when ironically preaching prejudice, hate and violence (however thinly veiled in hypotheticals and metaphor). Democrats have gotten good at being overintellectual, and talking policy. But the common people, including me, at the end of day, don't care about policy. They care about being safe, having their bills payed, getting medical treatment when needed and without much complication or fuss, and having their children fed and educated. And I think, after that, a good many of them do care about being moral, though some may be confused as to what morality means.

Climate change is a moral issue. The poor people will suffer first and foremost the worst of its implications. They already are. Countless species will go the way of the dodo, many of which we depend on for our own livelihoods and survival. Ultimately, climate change threatens us all, our ability to feed our children, and be safe.

This is the message Obama missed.

Even if he understandably steered clear of controversial hot topics like population, he should have reminded us of the moral angle of doing something about climate change, he should've dug in his heels as he did on healthcare.

Just as he brought in patients who benefitted the healthcare law, he should've brought in an Inuit to sit in the audience, whose homeland is melting away, a girl from Africa whose land is drying up...

As for the green-collar message, it's good and needed, but it's not enough. By itself, it's just static-fluff.

Want to convince working class America of it's opporunity? Bring in people who actually work installing solar panels, whose lives have changed. There are those out there. Show them to the world, and then give us something real to grab on to, something that really inspires hope.

Otherwise, even to me, it sounds like we're pinning too much hope on pipedreams.

For original post, please see my "Writing for Survival" blog at www.survivalwriter.blogspot.com

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Questions About Obama's Calmness

2010-12-17

Is Barack Obama's calmness a mask hiding layers of uncertainty about his role as president? Is the President's seemingly unflappable persona a cover for his frequent failure to use the full range of powers of his office? As others have pointed out, in utter frustration, the President too often offers the Republicans what they want before hard bargaining even begins. Why is this happening?

Both Jackie Robinson, who was the first black Major Leaguer and Obama, the first black President faced enormous pressure to avoid being labeled the "angry black man."
Once Robinson demonstrated his great abilities, he became free to be as aggressive as any white player. The question for Obama is: can he free himself to aggressively and effectively employ the substantial leverage that his office bestows on him? My considered judgment is that it will take intense personal growth to accomplish that.

The reason is that Obama's ability to remain calm and seemingly in control is, I believe, unlike Robinson's self constraint. The President's composure most likely has its roots well below the surface. If I am correct the President will be hard-pressed to change. Indeed, how does a President find time for self-reflection or counseling under the pressure of an infinitely demanding office?

If he has awareness and wants to change, the President should consider carefully whether and when to try to break through his own emotional shield. That decision may be one of the most difficult of his presidency. It is because his beginning attempts might seem out of character, and inappropriate. An example was when the President called the Wall Street bankers "fat cats" on 60 Minutes on Sunday night, when he knew he was going to meet with them Monday morning to encourage them to lend more to small businesses. Whatever he decides, there are still many things he can do.

Protecting his own persona is vital and so he should have people with skills like James Carville and Paul Begala at his side countering the outrageous attacks from the far right.
Without such powerful advocates he is allowing his opposition free reign to characterize what he does as extreme even when often it is quite mild and middle of the road.

By avoiding being characterized as the "angry black man" and by projecting the aura of someone who knows how to stay in control, he may unwittingly be inciting the hyper-hysterical members of the media and the Tea Party to provoke him with ever more bizarre accusations. One of the aims of these attacks is to force him to lose control and to indeed act like the "angry black man." When he or his staff do not respond, he appears weak and is prey to plain old bullying. A President should not allow himself to be in such a position and there are experienced professionals ready to set up a war room to instantaneously counter unsubstantiated attacks.

Furthermore, instead of letting the country know he is in charge and not Wall Street, he is allowing major financiers to continue their old reckless gambling, self-aggrandizing ways. If Roosevelt had the power to close the banks, why is Obama's arms seemingly tied in a knot? The least he can do is to insist that the rules being written and implemented under the recently passed Wall Street reform act succeed in holding the financiers as accountable as possible.

In a different matter, he did take executive action. He empowered the EPA to begin the process of regulating heat-trapping gases. He was and is reluctant, however, to be emphatic about it. Why not broadcast widely that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is taking ground breaking initiatives to deal with the climate crisis? Instead it was recently reported In the NY Times that new controls will be postponed from January to July 2011. I believe he will receive public support if he resolves to act affirmatively., even though Jay Rockefeller and other Democratic Senators from coal mining states threaten to close down the EPA's powers under the Clean Air Act. In order to forestall such a move the President should reaffirm his message that he will veto any attempt to mitigate the authority of the EPA on climate crises issues.

What especially bewilders the public is that Obama while campaigning proved to be one of the greatest orators in history, but on becoming President he is unable to explain what he is trying to do in every day terms.

For example, to this day he hasn't explained how he is going to take one half trillion dollars from Medicare and still improve upon it dramatically; nor has he explained to the public how he can enroll 30 million more people onto the rolls of health insurance and be able to pay for it. In order for the health care legislation to become better understood, why not send every household in the country a brief outline describing how it would work, and how it would be more than financially self-sustaining?

Along these lines Obama should carefully consider the new report from the Center for American Progress detailing a myriad of executive powers constitutionally available to his office. Here are only a few examples ---

"Conserve federal lands for future generations; Manage public lands to support a balanced energy strategy;
Launch the new consumer financial protection bureau with an aggressive agenda to protect and empower consumers; Accelerate the implementation of the Small Business Jobs Act; Speed up home mortgage modifications." www.americanprogress.org

President Barack Obama gave up the opportunity of the century when he allowed the Bush tax cuts to continue. Has there been a time in our history when a president had the unquestionable authority to end an immoral gift to the wealthy?

From this day forward, every move the president makes will be measured against what he gave away with hardly lifting a finger.

Abe Markman, MSW is a recipient of The New York Society for Ethical Culture 2010 Community Service Award, and has fifty years of professional experience as a social worker. He is the co-founder of the Neighborhood Self-Help By Older Persons Project (Neighborhood SHOPP) in the Bronx, NY.

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Republican Elitism Revealed

2010-09-24

In a September 15th, 2010 Wall Street Journal article, "Rove Fires Up Talk on O'Donnell", Rove Fires Up, Republican strategist Karl Rove's off-the-cuff comments about Christine O'Donnell's victory as the Republican nominee for Delaware's Senate seat were examined. Rove's reaction to a move in the "right" direction by the defeat of Rep. Mike Castle, labeled a RINO (Republicans In Name Only) due to his liberal voting record, was very perplexing for staunch conservatives.

The WSJ article included the following Hannity-Rove exchange from Fox's "Hannity" show:

Hannity: "You may be right in the end, I don't know. We can look into our crystal ball and can say things. I would argue back to you gently that I don't think we can make progress in stopping the Obama agenda with rhino Republicans that, you know are not going to be there when the solid votes are needed."

Rove: "I agree. But we also can't make progress if we have candidates who got serious character problems, who cause ordinary voters who are not philosophically aligned with us to not vote for our candidates out of concern of what they said and what they do."

Is Rove implying the Republican Party has previously only offered candidates with impeccable character or that we should only offer candidates that would appeal to "voters who are not philosophically aligned with us"? If he is referring to Independents, polls indicate they want candidates that oppose big government, growing deficits and excessive taxation which the "Tea Party" candidates best represent.

Republican leaders and strategists, like Rove, should welcome the "Tea Party "candidates with open arms. They represent average Americans that were brave enough to run for public office in spite of the current environment of attacking the person and not the issues. Instead of rolling out the red carpet, they tout the "Buckley Rule" which is to support the most conservative candidate that is electable. The fallacy of this rule is it believes that the Republican Party, and not the voters, know which candidate is "electable" and compromising the principles and ideology that conservative voters revere is the price of victory. The Republican Party's support of candidates like Castle and Scozzafava clearly evidence of this fallacy and that their choice of candidates has not always been in line with their constituents. Once these victorious RINOs like Senators Snow, Collins, Graham, as well as Rep. Castle, get in office, they often vote with Democrats on key issues such as Sen. Graham and Rep. Castles support of "Americas Power Act", a.k.a "Cap and Trade". While the Republican Party can say they had an electoral victory with these candidates, are they representing conservative principles?

It is unfathomable at a time when conservative voters are energized and united that the Republican Party would betray its own platform and candidates. Unless, of course, the true agenda of the Republican Party isn't to restore America back to its founding principles and values but to restore its own established, elitist power base. A glaring example of elitist mentality is the comments of Senator Isakson (R-GA) after meeting senate nominee, Sharon Angle.

"She's a fiscal conservative and that sort of thing. But it was not the kind of speech you would make if you were speaking to the unwashed back home, so to speak."

Sen. Isakson was not referring to voters bathing habits, but as the Encarta Dictionary defines, "unwashed" is an offensive term referring to the lower social classes or masses of ordinary folk. This superiority complex may explain the less than enthusiastic embracing by the Republican establishment to stand by "Tea Party" candidates like Christine O'Donnell.

Reactions from defeated establishment Republican candidates also demonstrate their sense of entitlement and elitist mentality by rejecting their own constituents' voices. They have ranged from changing party affiliation (Gov. Charlie Crist, FL- I), running a write-in campaign (Murkowski-AK) and refusing to support the voters chosen candidates (Mike Castle,R-DE & Bill McCollum, R-FL).

The real issue here is that both parties have forgotten that they are elected to be servants of the people not to have the people serve them. The elitist mentality has dominated the leadership of both political parties for too long. Our Founding Fathers foresaw that pride and greed were human traits that needed to be resisted by our elected officials; however, should they fail, the people needed tools to change and restrain government. Those tools include our rights to free speech, bear arms and vote. We have exercised our free speech at town hall meetings, huge rallies and local protests. Our elected officials have turned a deaf ear to our cries, but they can't ignore our vote.

One solution, a stronger third party, would divide the conservative vote thereby benefitting the Democrats in the short term. Alternatively, there is progress by the Republican Party in addressing the concerns of conservative Americans with the recent release of the "The Pledge To America." If Republicans, like Rep. McCarthy (R-CA), continue to focus on restoring the Republic, complying with the Constitution, and repealing bills that expand Federal government power then there will be a slow re-development of trust and loyalty. However, if the Republican Party continues to believe that they are superior to the "unwashed" common folk, they will be the ones getting a "bath" in upcoming primaries and elections.

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Alaska Kills Wolves!

2010-08-03

I once had a single bumper stick that emblazoned my first car, a beat-up smurf-blue Chevy, that simply stated, "Little Red Riding Hood LIED."

I grew up in an inner-city area. The only wild animals I ever saw were squirrels, pigeons and the occasional rat, and their wildness was in question. I never saw a deer or raccoon other than behind bars until I went away to college in a more rural and mountainous setting. My eyes opened up...

Before that, at my first university, I took a class in environmental and bio-medical ethics. I was assigned a project about wolves, which was the beginning of me embarking on some path I still haven't quite finished traveling on. At the end of the semester, the professor, an animal biologist with a compassionate streak for his subjects, bought me a book on wolves as a gift to foster my new passion. As he put it in my hands, he said, "When you understand the wolves, the rest kind of all comes together...it's like coming home to yourself."

Wolves are not the only subject of my fascination with nature, but they definitely marked the beginning and the pinnacle of it. Because of them, I put aside my poetry and my dreams of writing to pursue a path as a wildlife biologist and natural resource scientist. I couldn't underscore the significance of this enough even if I spent a whole book writing on it. I do not possess a naturally scientific mind; numbers scare me, and though I love nature, I still have a city girl's stubborn fear at being in it alone or for too long. Yet despite this, I went down this path, bringing with me a poet's perspective of our endangered wild world and marrying it to the science I learned over the course of the next several years...

Sometimes, I have to say, I find myself a bit putoff by the plague of ecological illiteracy that pervades our society.

The other day at an open reading, someone read a poem she wrote. At one point, she speaks of a family of ducks, describing the father duck and its role in the group. Something in me cringed because I know ducks by nature to be a promiscuous species. That is, the daddy duck doesn't stick around much after he's planted his seed, and he definitely doesn't invest in his children.

Geese, on the other hand, are monogamous and both genders work together to raise their young. I know this from my schooling. I also know a general rule of thumb for figuring out the sexual proclivities of many species: among animals, the species in which it's hard to differentiate gender because the two look nearly identical are usually monogamous and raise young together. However, when the colors differentiate wildly among an animal of the same species, this indicates the males are generally gigolos.

This is particularly true of the majority of bird species: consider the emerald green of a mallard's neck as compared to the dull, drab brown of the female, or the multi-eyed tail of a male peacock next to his intended. Now, think of the little brown sparrows that are everywhere, or the geese, and how you can never tell one from another, think of the lack of bright crisp colors among them all.

BUT GETTING BACK TO WOLVES....

Wolves, whose physical differences are slight (some males tend to be slightly bigger than the females), usually mate for life.

Okay, so some of you may be finding my depiction of wolves as overly romantic, a case of the goggle-eyes for some specimen of charismatic megafauna.

I'll admit, yes, maybe I am romanticizing a bit. But when I lived in Alaska I never feared a wolf attack while walking through the woods. In all of our recorded North American history, there has only been ONE case of a healthy wolf killing a human being. I have often had to correct a zoogoer as she instructs her child of a wolf's man-eating nature. So, perhaps my romanticism is a backlash against the severe and overindulgent (and quite undeserved) hatred, fear and persecution we have subjected them to over the past several hundred years and up to today, an aversion often begun in the cradle when our toddler ears first hear the words, "the Big Bad Wolf."

Our ignorance about wolves runs deep and brings with it bloody consequences. Even in our supposedly civilized modern world, wolves are still shot from planes and helicopters. In Alaska, this is known as an aerial hunting and predator program, and it claims the lives of hundreds of wolves every year.

In Alaska, and other places out West where similar programs are being considered, the politicians prey on people's basic ignorance of wildlife population dynamics. We are told the wolves overpopulate, that they are eating all of our livestock and wild prey, that they are a danger. That, even though it may sound sad, killing them off is an tragic necessity to ensure our race's own well-being and survival.

Here's a quick ecology lesson: in natural conditions (like Alaska), top-food chain predators such as wolves self-regulate their populations. It hits a threshold and levels off. Through some sheer miracle of biological intuition the wolves themselves are not conscious of, their breeding and birthing cycles are dependent upon availability of food, the amount of territory they have, and the harshness of the season, among other factors. A female wolf's body will literally self-abort fertilized eggs under strained conditions. Also, with wolves, it is usually only the alpha pair in a given pack that has puppies, further restricting population growth. Prey species on the other hand, do not self-regulate, and in the absence of top-chain predators will grow unrestrained, overbrowsing their territory and eventually committing a collective suicide.

Now, here's what happens in Alaska: wolves are blamed for killing off moose populations--nevermind that most studies on the subject show that wolves actually have a relatively low success rate in killing an adult moose (Have you ever seen a moose up close? They are mighty big MF'ers; one quick kick of their hind legs to a wolf's head will crack its skull open).

Now, we are told that the people of Alaska need to hunt moose for subsistence, especially indigenous people, and that the wolves are competing too much with people for basic food (again, a moose stands a much better chance with a wolf pack than a single well-aimed hunting rifle). What politicians like ex-governors Frank Murkowski and Sarah Palin (who actually had the audacity to reinstitute a bounty hunt on wolves reminiscent of the Wild West days of slaughtering buffalo) won't tell you is this: out-of-state hunting tourists bring in a nice revenue, and the state wants to keep them coming. Essentially, Alaska is harvesting more moose by instituting mass culls on their predators in select areas (often areas that get a lot of out-of-state tourists looking to bag the biggest bull moose they can find) to keep to money flowing.

Here's what happens with the wolf culls: they kill a bunch of them willy-nilly, shooting them from the air like it's a video game target. It's a slow, gory and agonizing death, being shot piecemeal like that.

Afterwards in the absence of the wolves, moose populations EXPLODE. Then either one of two things happen, which is that the out-of-state sportshunters have a field day picking off the vast abundance of moose, or the moose now overbrowse their territories and so eat themselves out of their own food supply. Their populations then crash. This usually happens right around the time wolf populations are recovering. Then we get to blame the wolves again, and authorize more killings, and so the cycle goes on. And on. And on.

When I lived in Alaska, I worked with the Alaska Wildlife Alliance (AWA), on this issue. I collected signatures for a ballot to overturn the program (the state's people voted twice to get rid of it by ballot, though by an admittedly small majority). First observation: individuals of indigenous origin were resoundingly against the program (perhaps because, like biologists, their rich heritage gives them a deeper understanding of the predator-prey relationship than the rest of us).

Second observation: People in favor of the program liked to pin on the opposition hyperbolic assumptions--that we are crazy, PETA-loving vegans. This was ironic because even though they called us the zealots, they were the ones often pelting rocks at our table and screaming things like, "The only good wolf is a dead wolf." Now, almost everyone I met in Alaska, even in the cities, either hunt, fish, or has someone in the family who does it. The people of the AWA are no different. They have buck hides drying in their garages, too. But there's a difference, both biologically and ethically, between hunting an ungulate (often shot at close range in a clean kill) for the purpose of food, and killing a predator by gunning it down in a plane because it threatens our sense of the heirarchy.

A lot of the predator control proponents will say the science is on their side. It's not, as my basic biology lesson up above illustrates. Also, make note of the fact that the state of AK never bothered really to take any censuses of wolf and moose populations to back up their claims, and disregarded those censuses they did take that contradicted the claims.

Don't believe me? Well, then I defer to the findings of the National Academies of Science Natural Resources, the foremost scientific authority in the country (and one of the biggest in the world), which also concluded in an extensive study that such programs can rarely be justified scientifically, and in fact, may inflict longer-term damage on both the predator and prey species, as well as the larger ecosystem.

If you want to put an end to Alaska's egregious predator control program, please call the state's Governor's office to express your dismay and disgust over this program. Also, consider becoming a member and contributing to the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, which works on this issue.

**Laura Kiesel is a freelance writer and editor, with a background in natural resources and wildlife biology. She is the founder and sole author of the blog, Writing for Survival, which is about sustainability, social justice, and scraping by as a scribe.

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Moving Towards Sustainability: Why the Plastic Drinking Straw Signals a Starting Point

2010-07-20

Even though I consider myself fairly low impact in most of my everyday practices, giving up the plastic straw was an oversight I didn't finally address until fairly recently. I had been on the way to weaning myself slowly off of excess waste: bringing my own tupperware to restaurants to pack leftovers (and simply not eating out as much), refusing paper and plastic bags in favor of my own canvas ones, and bringing my own reusable mugs and cutlery in my bag as part of a permanent carry-along item, along with my wallet, keys, and the ever-present pen & paper that always is on a self-identified writer's person.

But as for straws...well, when did my vendetta against them begin in earnest? I had, these past few years, intermittenly refused them at restaurants, though it didn't bother me so much if I forgot to or not (which I often did). If they still adorned my glass, I took it in stride and shrugged it off. I don't eat meat, rarely drive and hang-dry my clothes, so I have done my part...there are so much bigger things to worry about, right?

Last year, I attended the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Madison, Wisconsin. During the evenings, there were small informal dinner meet-ups. As such informal talks do, this discussion for the meet-up I joined weaved and bobbed between the very serious (our potential imminent extinction) to the mundane, to abstract esoteric thought and even gender arguments (are women more environmental than men?). And then, very simply, one of my colleagues picked up a straw out of his glass to prove a point of how prolifigately wasteful we humans can be.

"Do we really need these?" he asked, the offending straw pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Indeed, we don't, and we all nodded and stared at the offenders that took up residence in all of our own drink glasses, shaking our heads in shame...

I wish I could say from then on, I ardently objected to the straw, but it wasn't a strong enough motivator to make me kick the habit for good. Like most people, I sometimes need a visual cue, often something strongly visceral, before I can really change a bad behavior (or even come to really understand the consequences of a societal behavior), and this was no exception.

That visual cue came only a month or so later, while I was perusing an article in either Discover or National Geographic on the phenomenon of plastic waste in our ocean, which tends to aggregate into large patches that come to resemble evil science fiction creatures. I turned a page and then--BAM!--a picture of a biopsied duck, its belly gorged with remnants of our plastic waste, mostly drinking straws. It hit my own stomach like a sucker punch, crept into my cranium and stuck there. It gave me a bad dream.

Ducks don't eat straws because they are dumb. Bits of plastic straws, especially glimmering in the obscuring underwater view, resemble the iridiscent fish that comprise many a seabird's savory meals. And are the ducks really so dumb to think that there would be fish in the ocean as opposed to our garbage?

A similar thing happens with our plastic bags, that we so often see dancing on the streets in the wind (as so poetically portrayed in the movie "American Beauty") that almost always eventually drift into our oceans, lakes and rivers: sea mammals like seals and whales mistake them for jellyfish (also the same fate of most of the balloons we find romantic as we set them "free" into the sky at the peak of their buoyancy, seemingly forgetting or denying that they are inevitably destined to deflate and litter elsewhere out of our sight).

Most of the animals who swallow our plastic waste won't immediately choke to death, but rather the bag will take up residence in their GI tract, where it will slowly but surely strangle their disgestive organs. Just because you are good about throwing away your trash into a can, does not mean it stays out of the ocean either: storms and winds cause a lot of trash to migrate, the smaller the plastic item (straws), the more likely it will end up elsewhere, usually someplace wet.

If I seem to be making too much of a big deal about one little straw, consider this: in the United States we discard of HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF STRAWS EVERY YEAR! Think of that number. Think of how many straws you might have even blown through this week. Most likely, in your lifetime, the amount of straws you threw out could build several makeshift homes in developing countries. The drinking straws I am decrying are also made of PLASTIC, and are a direct product of the petrochemical (translation: oil and oil refinery) industry, an enormous market, one large outlet of which exists on the Gulf Coast.

By supporting plastic, we are also supporting continued oil production and dependence. Not to mention, as a product made of petrochemicals, straws and other plastics are chock-full of known carcinogens like Bisphenol A (BPA), that leech both into our drinks through straws and into the ocean when they wind up there as waste. This is something those with young kids might especially want to consider when offering their children another sippy straw-equipped drink box.

But the biggest question is: what are they good for?

I mean, straws were something that didn't really come into vogue until a few decades ago. Before that, we lived well without them. For the bigger environmental choices, like driving, we can argue that we sometimes NEED to do it--that because of the way our society is structured, we sometimes simply can't get from point A to point B without getting into a car--and if point B is a hospital or a job, what choice do we have? Even the most adamant of the ecologically-conscious occasionally drive. They do it not because they are hypocrites but because fully abstaining from driving requires a larger infrastructual change that extends way beyond what we can just grasp with our personal choices, and many of us simply can't afford the more efficient or sustainable alternatives.

But none of this can be said about the straw. In almost every situation but a couple (say, you have a handicap that prevents you from having mobile use of your hands and arms), they are nothing but frivolous and contrived conveniences, so small by itself, but so much a part of a larger desctructive whole--how much smaller (or even non-existent) would these ocean plastic patches be if we went sans straws and other superfluous plastic items (utensils, cups, etc.)?

Unlike car culture, our plastic culture is subject to a paradigm shift that can be instigated more from the bottom up than the top down: personal choice trumps political will here. That is why straws are in fact the ultimate symbol of both our profound tendency towards being needlessly wasteful, as well as our extreme potential towards achieving a more sustainable society through our smaller personal choices. And, unlike the automobile, more sustainable alternatives (namely reusable straws made of non-cancerous materials or disposable straws made of biodegradable material) are affordable.

This is one way we can change which won't hurt us at all.

To view my complete article about straws and to find out about what you can do, please visit my blog.

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Obama, Liberals Threaten Our Nation

2010-07-07

Since we just celebrated our nation's victory for independence, it's healthy to step back from the canvas of the current admininstration to better understand the genesis and current context of its policies.

In the area of national security and military intervention, it's been a fascinating exercise in political forensics to witness the response to President Obama's firing of General Stanley McChrystal. If history demonstrates anything it's that its lessons are perpetually susceptible to revision based on new evidence and more informed analysis. So it is that over the centuries, the credibility of Herodotus' rendering of the Peloponnesian War has attenuated, while that of Thucydides is deemed more persuasive.

Moreover, the deeper one delves into the tiered nature of history, the clearer it becomes that discrete causes for events are the exception rather than the rule. A prototypical example is the causes of the Great War, now known as World War One. The standard causal explanation, which has demonstrable credibility, is the abysmal complexity and countervailing influences of the treaty arrangements that prevailed in advance of war.

The issue of Belgium's neutrality obligations date to the 1839 Treaty of London, which isn't commonly discussed except in the more erudite--that is, unread--texts. However, it wasn't merely Belgium's neutrality that was guaranteed under Article VII of the treaty, but rather the grim obligations of the signatories in the event of foreign invasion.

Peeling away yet another layer, Britain's declaration of war against Germany, subsequent to the latter's invasion of Belgium in August 1914, was less a matter of upholding its treaty obligations than with Britain's fear of Germany's control of Belgium's sea ports. A key message in matters as complex as war is that we must move well beyond the gloss of casual observation into the sub-text of nuanced motivations.

To that end, and regardless of the historical incident in question, it's wise to discern patterns of events that evolved over time, ones that indict or reward strategic prescience and the relative efficacy of outcomes. With respect to war, and in contrast to the modern liberal who naively endorses soft power, Plato's maxim prevails: "It's only the dead who will see the end of war."

Axiomatic in the equation is that a consensus among historians typically fractures beyond the empirical description of events. For example, there is little disagreement regarding the effectiveness of weapons and tactics in the Hundred Years War, but the legitimacy of Britain's claims on the French throne and the inbred role of dynastic succession as well as Salic Law, are debated to this day.

On a broader scale, however, the sway of culture and the values that underwrite it is, perhaps, more challenging to decipher, especially when its proximity is so close that it taints our lens. Besides understanding history's many lessons, it's at least as important that we recognize the insidious and noxious cultural influences in our midst, so we can quickly neutralize and correct them.

Against that background, it's particularly curious that the deeper message in Mr. Obama's firing of General McChrystal has been largely overlooked. Even in a military that has suffered at the emasculating hands of political correctness, weakness is correctly understood as a trait our enemy will reflexively exploit. Dating to the appeasement of Hitler before World War Two, as well as the studied reticence to confront Communism under Stalin and fascism under Mussolini, modern liberalism created a template for weakness in foreign affairs that is as resilient today as it is damaging to national security.

Facile analysts in the mainstream media were quick to compare Obama's decision to President Truman's firing of Gen. MacAurthur, asserting that both generals were insubordinate. However, the code of military conduct in a civilian model is the low-hanging fruit of this matter. The deeper and more instructive lesson is that the acerbic battle between Truman and MacArthur signaled the genesis of the American left's descent into national security irrelevance, this despite Truman's unwavering opposition to Communism.

Indeed, under the political aegis of the newly formed Progressive Party in 1948, Henry Wallace, FDR's vice-president, began shaping a foreign policy framework that willfully failed to recognize the threat of Communism. With few exceptions, the ensuing decades have witnessed the tectonic depreciation of the Democrats' steely defense of freedom under FDR against Hitler and the Japanese.

The glaring sub-text, which has been scrupulously overlooked by the mainstream media, is that Obama's firing of McChrystal was merely the latest example of a clash of national security polities.

Liberals, whom Obama faithfully represents, disdain all war and have what amounts to a genetic predisposition to avoid it at all costs. The clear message in the Rolling Stone interview is that McChrystal's staff profoundly disagreed with the president's stringent rules of engagement. even in the context of a counter-insurgency strategy, which predictably hobbles our military's efforts. In this instance the dots are pre-connected to MacArthur's caustic criticism of the Progressive Party's evolving appeasement of Communism, and Obama's approach to our current war is just as feckless.

When combined with his instinctive inability to call radical Islam by its proper name, Obama's apology tour, his obeisance to the tyrants of Iran, his stunning indifference to Russia's evolving autocratic, anti-democratic policies, and his benign response to North Korea's resurgent belligerence, merely reanimate the policy of Democratic appeasement that began decades ago.

Mainstream Americans have a hard-wired understanding that a policy of weakness is doomed to fail. This is a fundamentally flawed approach to dealing with our enemies, and the left's unambiguous role in perpetuating it with strategic policies at odds with our national security interests, is as dangerous as it is ignorant of history.

Mella blogs at http://clearcommentary.townhall.com.

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The Tea Partier in the GOP�s midst

2010-06-02

Here is what I wrote in April:

The Republican Party will experience it at the local and state levels first, as Tea Party candidates defeat conventional Republicans and win GOP nominations. Some of those Tea Partiers will be kooky, others will be single-issue ideologues. A few will be anti-immigrant, a smattering will be paranoid. Others will be very like the Republicans they beat.

In November most of the kooks, ideologues, nativists and paranoids will lose to a Democrat. That will cause anguished cries by establishment Republicans: �They cost us Kentucky! They are ruining our party.� The few crazies who win will be magnets for the media and their weird statements will cause embarrassment for the majority of responsible Republicans. After that, individual Tea Partiers - who are shown by research to be as sensible as any other politically involved Americans � will make individual decisions.

Whew, that was fast! Tea Partier Rand Paul won Kentucky�s Republican senatorial primary on June 18. By June 20 he had expressed doubts about the efficacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His reasoning contained two flaws, one legal and the other political. First, a provision of the Act modified a property owner�s right to exclude people when that property was used in public commerce. Second, defending the concept of property rights that forced minorities to the back of the bus was just plain dumb.

Predictably, the gratuitous analysis raised a huge fuss among minorities and in the media. Democrats were only too glad to suggest racism. The Democrats want to brand Paul as an extremist. Paul helped them out. The Democrats want to make Paul the �intolerant� face of the Republican Party. Paul�s willingness to go on television with no preparation is a recipe for more bombs.

Establishment Republicans had not even had a chance to meet the man who had their Kentucky nomination and they were forced to defend him, excuse him or distance themselves from him. They chose distance.

Paul was left to careen along all by himself. Even the most hot-headed GOP senators issued statements that, in total, made Paul look like the inexperienced pop-off that he seems to be. The establishment Republicans should have foreseen the problem. Many people predicted during the campaign that Paul would have trouble with the national media. The GOP establishment in Kentucky backed a boring �I�m-entitled-to-it� candidate. The GOP leaders may not have recognized their choice�s shortcomings because so many of them suffer the same affliction, starting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Whoopee cushion politics

Kentucky�s Republican leaders lack maturity. Like giggling geeks without social graces, the Republican leaders smirk and give the impression that they think they know more than anyone else. They share jokes at others� expense. They are suspicious of �outsiders.� They whisper in the back of the room during Republican meetings, exchanging knowing glances and grins. They behave like a high school clique. What they know seems to have about the same political usefulness as a whoopee cushion.

So the dire predictions of Kentucky�s GOP establishment have come true: Paul is a loose cannon. During the primary, the GOP leaders warned voters about Paul�s �unusual� ideas and tendency to let his words cause trouble. So why didn�t they have a few advisors ready to counsel Paul before he sat down with one of the cleverest interviewers in TV?

Face it: The Republican establishment � in Washington and in Kentucky � blew it. They did not circle their wagons around their victor. They sulked and consoled the loser. They figured they had time to cozy up to the Tea Partier in their midst. McConnell did embrace Paul after Paul claimed victory in the name of the Tea Party, not the GOP. One bystander said McConnell �looked like he was afraid of catching the flu or something from Paul.�

Paul was fresh meat and the media tigers saw their chance and made a meal of him. When Paul talks, it�s like listening to a college student during a late-night bull session � examining the edges, debating long decided issues, impressed with his ability to verbalize intricate concepts. In politics, that style risks unfavorable interpretations. Two things can prevent Paul from jumping into another frying pan: He can get smart, quickly; or the GOP establishment can get together behind him, even as they dislike him. Place your bets. Will Paul learn quicker than the establishment warms to him? Probably. But beware: If GOP leaders are not there when he needs them most, Paul and other Tea Partiers will feel even more like outsiders in the clubby atmosphere of the GOP.

Let him fail?

The Tea Party offers the Republicans a chance to plug into intensity and to benefit from volunteers with a willingness to work. Instead of reaching out, some within the Kentucky GOP establishment are planning to put a whoopee cushion on Paul�s chair. Think I�m kidding? Some GOP leaders in Kentucky have been discussing whether they will �endorse� Paul � as if Paul�s run-away primary victory needs their blessing. Yes, some GOP leaders have discussed that it might be best to abandon their winner and let him fail in November. That way, the establishment will be done with him. Do they forget that If Paul loses, the Democrats pick up a seat in the Senate?

I wrote last month that Republicans have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Are Kentucky Republicans about to do just that? Paul won the nomination decisively. He is the Republican candidate. He could use some help.

Put away the whoopee cushions, kids.

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Blunting the Arizona Boycotts

2010-05-21

Those of us who believe the state of Arizona has a right to protect its borders should do our part to blunt the effects of liberal-organized boycotts against that state. We are in the majority here. Most polls show that Americans favor Arizona's new immigration law by nearly two to one. There is power in numbers, and they are on our side this time.

The boycotts are starting to mount up, from school boards meddling in politics and depriving their student athletes of the chance to participate in sporting events in Arizona to the Los Angeles city council's recent vote to suspend business activities with that state. Arizona will soon begin to feel their negative effects.

Let's replace the lost business and revenue by providing them with some of our own. Make Arizona your primary vacation destination this year. Buy as many products as you can that are made in Arizona. Look for produce that comes from Arizona. Encourage your friends and family members to do the same. Get the word out.

And there's something else we can do. Encourage your state legislators to pass a similar bill in your state to show solidarity with Arizona as well as protect its own borders from illegals. This would also make things more difficult for the boycotters. They can't boycott but so many states at one time. The good news is that it looks like Oklahoma may soon be about to come on board.

I've seen this movie before. Time and again, liberals have ganged up and boycotted people, businesses, nations, states, or localities that were doing something that they didn't agree with. They've accused them with some of the most favored words and phrases from their arsenal, such as bigots, haters, racists, homophobes, meanies, baddies, agents of intolerance, etc. In almost every case, the object of the boycott has capitulated and the liberals have won.

Now they're at it again. This time, they are making reactionary pontifications about a law they know little about. Even people who should know better, such as Attorney General Eric Holder, are making public judgments and pronouncement about Arizona's new law without even having read it. It was a delicious development to hear Holder have to admit before Congress and the nation that he had not read it, days after having questioned it on NBC's Meet the Press. Shame on General Holder!

This is not a bigoted law that promotes racial profiling, as some would have us believe. Americans are good people in general. The majority of them would not support a law that they believed to be mean-spirited. And most of them are smarter than the media and academic elite give them credit for. Of course, these elitists are a condescending sort that think they know so much more than the rest of us. They just know the Arizona immigration law is evil because, well, it's inconsistent with their world view.

However, most of those who oppose it do so innocently out of ignorance. They have heard so much false propaganda about it, including many dire predictions, that they have become unjustifiably frightened. Most of us know that ignorance often leads to fear. That seems to be the case here. As Sarah Palin has suggested, perhaps a little education about this law will allay some peoples' fear about it. Therefore, she has joined forces with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to try to accomplish this end.

At any rate, let's make sure history doesn't repeat itself. We need to stand up to the instigators and tell them they're not getting their way this time. I'm getting so tired of the minority pushing the majority around in this country. We should at least be willing to put our collective foot down and say enough is enough every once in a while. This is the perfect time for us to begin to exert this power. In fact, we must do so. It's not just a matter of practicality; it's a matter of survival.

PS: Kudos to Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig for refusing to cave and remove baseball's All-Star Game from Arizona next year. The same goes for Los Angeles Lakers' coach Phil Jackson for declining to involve his team in any kind of political statements against Arizona. We need more men like them - men with backbone.

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Europe's search for the new Holy Grail

2010-05-20

We have met the enemy, and he is us.
- Pogo, the comic strip philosopher created by Walt Kelly

Under the best of circumstances, the strong have trouble lifting the weak. More often, the weak pull down the strong. When the forerunner of the European Union was created with the 1957 Treaty of Rome, Europe's political leaders heralded a new spirit of cooperation that would bring the disparate countries into political and economic union that could close the gap of economic disparity among Europe's many nations. Eventually, through cooperation on continent-wide problems, Europeans would adopt a single currency, followed by a coordinated monetary policy and - possibly, just possibly - a single foreign policy.

After centuries of rivalry and warfare, Europe would settle into maturity under a single flag. Although partly realized, the vision was never completely practical. Early on, Europe's leaders ducked the key constitutional and economic decisions concerning joint economic policies.

A common currency can go only so far with no coordinated, underlying economic policy. Without a constitution or other governing document, a flag can be hoisted only so high. Eventually, as with so many things, the situation comes down to money. The problem, then and now, is that Europe's leaders wanted the benefits of a common currency without the consolidation of financial authority. The Euro became an attempt to float a common currency on an inadequate institutional foundation. Most of the individual nations trade in the new currency but keep their national books in whatever budgetary jumble suits from time to time. Each nation can claim that its books balance, even when any casual observer can detect that what balances in Greece does not balance in Germany.

Searching for the Holy Grail

The founders set Europe on a quest for the modern Holy Grail. In ancient times the Grail was never found and brave knights were lost in the search. Today's Europe has not found monetary union and citizens of other Eurozone nations will suffer for Greece's foolishness. There is no other way, at least no other way that does not tear at the union itself.

As is so often the case, money is at the root of this family argument. A few weeks ago, we all heard the squabbling as Germany and other stronger nations struggled to decide whether to rescue Greece, their weakest and most profligate member. The politics of the May 9 German state election in North Rhine Westphalia made the decision harder for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She dithered. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France pounded the table, insisting that if Germany did not back a bailout for Greece, the Eurozone would collapse - with France headed for the exit first. In the end, once again, Germany cast its lot with Europe. The Euro survives to be fought over another day. As expected, the election went badly for Merkel. Her government lost control of the upper house of parliament.

This brinksmanship was not about the Greek people. Who does not love Greece and the Greeks? Combine a beautiful place with wonderful people and you have a paradise - but a paradise that has courted fiscal disaster for generations. Now, at least temporarily, you have paradise lost for the Greeks and more taxes for the citizens of the better managed countries.

Merkel had to act despite the political risk. Greek default might have triggered panic and Portugal might have followed, perhaps with Spain and Ireland not far behind. Suddenly, Greece let the whole world see that by declining to create strong leadership in a central government, Europe merely pushed problems down the road - and Greece was the end of this road. Brussels has thousands of EU officials issuing hundreds of directives, but no central finance ministry. The European Central Bank was designed to be impotent. It could not issue debt on behalf of the EU member nations. It lacked authority to intervene with extreme and creative monetary policy as the U.S. Federal Reserve attempted during the 2008 financial crisis.

Jealous countries

There were no good or easy solutions to the Greek crisis. One investment manager spoke for many when he advocated letting Greece go belly up: "Investors had always regarded the Euro as a de jure German mark; it is dawning on the world that it is becoming, de facto, a Greek drachma." Most influential investors pushed for short-term solutions - in essence, to buy time to unload their investments - and they were willing to mortgage future generations with a crippling debt burden. But the burden is already beginning to hobble the present generation.

Some analysts worried that the more mobile Greeks would abandon their homeland for other parts of Europe, leaving behind those incapable of functioning in a competitive economy. Vultures would gather to pick at the bones. The EU would have a third world country filled with dependent people on its southern fringe. Those gloomy analysts may overstate the situation. But they focus attention on the fact that when countries join the Eurozone, they lose their ability to devalue or manipulate their currency to stave off disaster. A one-size-fits-all Euro does not accommodate every country, every budget and every political and economic situation.

Politicians and academics have speculated for years that European unification could be undone by East-West tension, especially between the old Soviet Union and the United States. One reason the Eastern Europeans were brought into the EU so quickly was to put that fear to rest. The concern might have been better directed from East-West to Europe's North-South fault line. The financially disciplined nations of northern Europe, led by Germany, resent the loose financial ways of the southerners, who have treated the Euro like a credit card with a bloated balance that never needs to be paid.

Warnings ignored

European politicians had warnings: Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden, among other countries, demonstrated concern. France, the nation that championed the dream of one Europe, barely ratified the Maastricht Treaty that established the common currency. Then, five years ago, French voters rejected the European constitution that was shepherded into existence by their former president, Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

The warnings were ignored and now Europe and the rest of the world must sort out the mess. Perhaps there will be an orderly - albeit costly - sorting out under Germany's leadership. More likely, Europe's leaders will criticize the deal in order to placate their own citizens. Europe has accomplished much. Ancient enemies have been reconciled. Communism has been conquered and Europe has experienced unimagined prosperity in the last half century. Now, Europe must try to form a more cohesive union, binding countries of very different cultures, ethnicity, traditions, attitudes and old antagonisms. From such disparity they will try to create a real union, encompassing financial controls. If they succeed, Europe will take its place as a powerhouse among nations and regions.

If not, another Greece awaits, but perhaps not in Europe. All over the world, we are all Greeks now.

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Texas' New Curriculum - The Founding Father Argument

2010-05-17

"This is what the Founding Fathers intended" - a commonly used phrase in the U.S. in defending heatedly discussed issues, such as the right to bear arms. The Founding Fathers are the heavy weights of debate, the killer argument if you will, no more reasoning necessary, discussion completed.

The same argument could be heard in recent months in a public debate over revising Texas' school curriculum. The Texas board of education considered changing the Founding Fathers' strong commitment to a secular government to a more Christian-based interpretation. Never mind that the idea of America as a Judeo-Christian nation has been revised and discussed for decades. The Texas School Board of Education treats these ideas as established and unmovable truth. And never mind that Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was a strong advocate of a strict separation of church and state. The board simply removed him from its canon.

And these are not the only changes. The board added Confederate President Jefferson Davis' inaugural speech to its curriculum, altered the portrayals of conservative movements to a more positive one, and presents the U.S. Army as one of the revolution's greatest achievements, even though it were precisely the Founding Fathers that had strong reservations against a standing army.

Conservative members of the board see their efforts as correcting a curriculum that has been skewed by liberal teachers over the years and Texas is not the only state with these tendencies. Virginia's governor Bob McDonnell declared April to be "Confederate History Month" and urged Southern values should not be forgotten. Civil rights activists were rightly shocked since this declaration essentially results in a trivialization of slavery.

A split along party lines can frequently be found in American public life, no surprises here. But in this case even one of the ten Republicans on the board exclaimed during a meeting "Guys, you're rewriting history now" and its consequences could soon spread beyond state borders. Texas has one of the largest education funds in the country ($22 billion), which is used to finance a huge amount of textbooks every year (48 million), keeping costs per book low. Other, less wealthy, states like to profit from these comparably low prices and buy Texan textbooks instead of publishing their own. Since January more than 100 amendments have been added to the 120-page curriculum that affects history, sociology and economics classes from elementary to high school. In March, the changes were passed by a 10-5 vote with all Republicans on the board voting for it. A final vote will be taken this month although, with a Republican majority, changes are unlikely to happen.

But a ray of hope remains. Conservatives wanting to Christianize schools' curricula have never remained in office for very long. For one, Don McLeroy, leader of the conservative faction of the board, was not re-elected in March. His term will come to an end in the beginning of next year. After all, term limits is what the Founding Fathers intended, isn't it?

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Emergent misbehavior

2010-05-13

How would you like a beer? How about a beer company along with it?

On Thursday, the 6th of May, for a few minutes, you could have bought a delicious Sam Adams plus a substantial interest in its maker, the Boston Beer Company, all for the price of a pint. Boston Beer stock, along with dozens of others on the major U.S. stock exchanges, plummeted to zero, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average nosedived 700 points in a matter of minutes.

To the great relief of most traders and to anyone whose financial well being is linked even indirectly to the stock market--and that's pretty much all of us--the market rebounded almost as quickly. Still, the wild ride left even seasoned traders in shock.

It's hard to overstate how much value was at risk during this ten-minute event. As just one example, Exelon, a utility worth about $30 billion at 2:49 p.m. was worth nothing three minutes later. It's estimated that one trillion dollars of value evaporated during the "flash crash." That's three times what the U.S. spends on public education per year, $300 billion more the U.S. government bailout of the banking system in 2008, and about equal to the current European package to rescue Greece.

Some of the most extreme trades were eventually erased. The tech-heavy NASDAQ decided to annul trades that took place during those critical minutes and at more than 60 percent above or below a stock's pre-anomaly value.

The grab-your-airsick-bag crash and rebound was an anomaly, but that's not the same as saying that it was an error, in the sense that it was caused by some specific mistake or malfunction.

Economist and market analyst John Hussman points out that U.S. stock markets have hit similar "air pockets"-- in 1955, 1987 and 1999. Like the Thursday event, those episodes resulted in roughly ten percent losses. The big difference is that they played out over weeks rather than minutes.

Since the Thursday debacle there's been no shortage of fingerpointing.

Early speculation centered on a so-called "fat-fingered trade" as the trigger for the selloff. Instead of offering to sell a few million shares of Procter and Gamble, rumor had it that a trader mistakenly put up a few billion shares. Lacking buyers, the stock tumbled, starting a panic that took the rest of the market down with it.

The theory got a lot of attention, but like the infamous weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there's no evidence for it.

The most recent theory is that as the market started to fall a particular hedge fund placed a $7.5 million bet that the drop-off would continue, and the rest of the hedge funds followed suit. Do lemmings come to mind?

One suspect that most market gurus agree on is high frequency trading. Multiple firms now trade using high speed computers linked directly to the stock exchanges. These constantly analyse massive amounts of data and exploit fleeting opportunities by buying and sell huge quantities of stocks and futures in milliseconds. Experts estimate that these automated agents now make from sixty to seventy percent of all trades.

The existence of these computerized agents goes a long way towards explaining what happened, and the absence of an identifiable trigger.

If there's one thing we've learned about complex systems since chaos theory pioneer Edward Lorenz popularized the idea of the "butterfly effect" in the 1960s, it's that they are capable of amplifying the tiniest perturbation to virtually any scale. It takes just one last snowflake to unleash an avalanche.

The stock market is a classic example of a highly dynamic system driven by many independent but interacting agents. One state that it's capable of occupyin--what system theorsists refer to as an attractor-- is when the tug of war between buyers and sellers arrives efficiently at a stock's current value. That's the state that economists tell us represents the stock market's raison d'etre.

It would be great if that were the only way the system functions. Unfortunately, history shows that the stock market can also wander into at least two other states or attractors. It's prone to huge bubbles, in which contagious enthusiasm drives the prices of most stocks well above their "true" value, and, as we've just seen, "air pockets" in which contagious panic does the opposite.

That was bad enough when human traders were the ones calling the shots. Presumably they had some sense that a company valued at $30 billion one minute couldn't really be worth zero a few minutes later. Their interaction led to dramatic booms and busts, but at least these had believable tops and bottoms and unfolded on a human time scale.

Over the years the markets have instituted various fixes to try to keep the market from manifesting its most unattrractive attractors. After the global "Black Friday" market crash of 1987, The New York Stock Exchange, for example, put in place "circuit breakers"--trading curbs that snap into place when the market falls too quickly and that are supposed to slow panic selling and so prevent a full-scale crash.

Some market analysts are blaming the circuit breakers themselves for the Thursday meltdown. They think that when the NYSE circuit breakers clicked in, the effect was to shunt the flood of sell orders to other markets that were even less able to find buyers for them .

(Just as a star needs to maintain a continuous flux of nuclear fusion to keep from collapsing under the force of gravity, stock markets need to continuously match sellers and buyers. If there are no buyers, stock prices start to fall. We now know that computerized trading can drive a sagging stock to zero in minutes, and can threaten to implode the entire market).

The circuit-breaker problem has gained traction. Six major exchanges have now agreed to strengthen and coordinate their circuit breakers. New rules are currently being negotiated and should be in place within a few weeks.

Those fixes may be good ideas, but they almost certainly are nothing but temporary patches. The system remains as complex, dynamic, and unpredictable as ever. It's still shuttling hundreds of billions of dollars form buyers to sellers at inhuman speeds every day, impelled not just by humans vacillating between greed and fear, but increasingly by computerized agents impelled by abstruse algorithms. There's no "beta testing" for these patches, leaving all of us as guinea pigs in a very high-stakes experiment.

Regulators and investors would like to believe that the proposed fixes will result in an efficient, reasonably stable market. I think it's more accurate to view the market as something like a manic-depressive chef on speed--brilliant at what it does but capable of cooking up a disaster at any time.

Thursday's collapse and rebound, and the current fix-it-on-the-fly patches, ought to make normal investors think hard about their nesteggs. Harry Truman's aphorism about politics seems even more appropriate for investors in today's market. "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

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We Should Learn from Socialism's Collapse

2010-05-12

We would all be wise to take warning from the recent events in Greece that have led to jitters in our stock market as well as markets around the world. The problems in Greece, of course, were caused created by socialism.

Too many people were getting too many freebies off the backs of too few others. There was no way that such a system could sustain itself. It was doomed from the beginning. It was just a matter of time before it would begin to collapse. The chickens are now coming home to roost.

The government of Greece is now broke and has therefore been forced to bring the gravy train to a screeching halt. This has led to riots in the streets, as many Greeks are still demanding their goodies anyway. A bailout by the EU may stem the tide for a while, but it will not resolve the current mess in Greece. There is much more pain to come. Things will likely get worse before they get better. And that includes the probability that Greece will default on its debts.

Of course, Greece is not the only country that has linked its fate to this kind of socialism. It was adopted by the majority of Europe decades ago. Therefore, the economic crisis in Greece is likely to soon spread throughout most of the continent.

Unfortunately, during the last decade, the U.S. has begun to slouch in that direction as well. If we don't turn back now, we are destined to meet the same fate as Greece and most of the remainder of Europe. We need to flatly reject all the tenets of socialism and return to the core capitalistic values of our forefathers. But we need to begin soon. Time is not on our side.

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Earth Day Reflections: Plastic Ocean Patches, Hermaphrodite Fish and No Talk of Cap and Dividend

2010-04-22

Today is Earth Day. I started my morning, as I almost always do, looking up the latest environmental news brought to my email Inbox by the Society of Environmental Journalists. Today's news consisted of: a killer whale who died off the coast of the Puget Sound gorged on plastic debris and other garbage (the objects didn't kill him, though scientists think it might have been the ingestion of invisible industrial chemicals), the latest update about yesterday's explosion of an offshore oil rig off our Southeastern coast, and an AP article about the events that spurred the first Earth Day with a comparison about our current state of the environment.

To begin with this last item, we no longer have waterways that catch on fire or birds falling dead from DDT poisoning mid-flight, and most of our skies are not rendered mere shadows by smog and soot. Our environmental threats are now more concealed and more complex, and so harder to believe in, or combat. Chemical exposure and climate change are more difficult to see, and their threats are for the most part, slower to take hold.

For the AP article, I was struck by one of the last lines, which contained a quote by a Beltway resident who now lets her children swim in the Potomac, and does not even bother to clean them off afterwards. This is to highlight how we have improved the cleanliness of the River and other bodies of water that once brimmed visibly with sludge. I found this interesting, because having lived in the D.C.-metro area myself and having spent enough of my spring and summer days riverside, I never once saw a swimmer in the Potomac. I also recall that the few times I went sailing, we all had a fear of tipping over into the murky water. This is because most of the fish in the Potomac are reported to be hermaphrodites from exposure to the environmental estrogens in the water. Just two days ago, there was another article again about this issue, and how it has accelerated. Environmental estrogens do not attack our bodies the same way DDT attacks the body of the bird. We don't instantly drop down dead, and so we have been less vigilant about reducing exposure or banning products that contain them. Instead, we develop cancer, usually of our reproductive system (breast, ovarian, uterine--organs that are more estrogen-regulated) and at much higher rates and earlier ages than we used to. We may go on more marches rallying for a cure, but at the same time more and more of our products contain these chemicals, including our cleaning products, personal care products, even most our milk and dairy products. The bitter irony is that most of the "sponsors" of these marches and proactive cure cancer events are cosmetic companies that have refused to phase out the estrogenic chemicals in their products at the request of many cancer victim advocacy organizations, though they have already done so for the product lines available in other countries that have such bans (and where, incidentally, rates of cancer development are decreasing). Not only will chemical companies not voluntarily phase out chemicals in the U.S. they are prohibited from using elsewhere, they are working vigilantly against Obama and U.S. government efforts to do so. Yes, there seems to be a lot of irony, as with the recent explosions of oil rigs and mines at a time when our government is pushing to exponentially increase these activities and has ensured the public that we can do so safely. In addition to the fact that these activities will exacerbate climate change and other environmental maladies, it seems they are still inherently unsafe for workers in the field. (A lesser known piece of news is that concerning the closure of the Yankee nuclear plant in my recent resident state of Vermont, where more reports of leaks and adverse health effects have come to light at a time when we are pushing and planning for more nuclear energy.)

Finally, today's news concerns EPA recommendations for regulating carbon. It's about time. Of course, the rules are still too weak (regulation starts for industries emitting 75K+ tons of CO2 annually). What also fails to be mentioned is that the House-passed climate bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), otherwise known as the Waxman-Markey bill, contains language that would usurp the EPA's authority to regulate carbon and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it could three years ago. Though some say this bill is as good as dead, the new Senate bill being fashioned by Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham, seems likely to incorporate a lot of the language and provisions of ACESA. And there's the fact that Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski and other Congressional representatives are taking decisive and aggressive action to ensure the EPA is castrated of its legal powers to protect us from climate change. Frankly, the House cap-and-trade bill was a sell-out piece of legislation that would do nothing to genuinely and effectively address climate change. It would giveaway most carbon permits instead of sell them. It would depend greatly on offset schemes--which just yesterday, a huge investigative story ran in the Christian Science Monitor that confirmed a vast majority of offsetting programs are not real and are simply scams. The bill also sought to lavish subsidies on technologies that simply don't exist and are implicitly counterintuitive to addressing climate change--such as clean coal. Clean coal is a myth, as I discussed in my blog the other day about the House cap-and-trade bill.

Which leaves me to my final thought: where is the discussion of cap-and-dividend? Why has the President, Congress and most of the media ignored the fact that there is another climate bill that has been introduced into Congress? One that does not deprive the EPA of its court-ordered obligations and duties, one that does not allow offsets to qualify as emission cuts,one that does not giveaway permits to polluters, and one that would GIVE MONEY BACK TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE? That's right, the cap-and-dividend bill, known as the CLEAR Act (Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal), would auction off every single permit. Then, it would take the majority of that revenue from the auction and give it directly back to U.S. citizens in the form of a dividend check distributed by snail mail or direct deposit come tax season. Low-income and middle-class citizens would get the largest share, with our wealthiest 2% either breaking even or losing a small amount. The check would help offset small increases to prices at the pump and in our electrical grid. The smaller precentage of leftover revenue would go towards direct subsidies in conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy programs, that would further deflect the burden of projected energy price increases on our populace. Even our anti-climate bill politicians in the great state of Alaska cannot deny the popularity and effectiveness of dividend programs--the state has subsidized a lot of its infrastructure through its own program from oil revenues and the state citizens are very pleased with their annual checks.

The bill definitely has its drawbacks: the carbon cap is too low, and it still offers some funding to dubious technology (again, the dreaded clean coal, though the funding is not as lavish), and it only is focused on carbon. However, the auction and dividend process would aid in naturally tightening the cap and, as the concept of climate regulation begins to face less resistance and as more climate-friendly programs and infrastructure is implemented, the cap could be strengthened. Again, the bill's biggest strong point is it is downright populist and progressive in messaging and intent and has the ability to rouse unprecedented public support. All of the arguments of catering to corporations aren't applicable here, and when people got on board, so would our politicians. So, again, why don't we hear about it? Well, because our corporations wouldn't benefit, and their interests are adamantly protected in our government lately. The Supreme Court ruling in January that interprets them as individuals and money as speech more or less let us in on that secret. If we do want other Earth Days for our children, this is a bill we can believe in. Even if you don't believe in human-induced climate change, or even if you don't believe it's a bad thing, I am sure we can all agree that we need to steer away from fossil fuels, and that we need cleaner air and water (CO2 and other GHGs cause environmental health problems in addition to global warming), that we need energy sources that are safer for our workers and residents, and that we need a system that favors people over industry. And so far, we're wasting time. For more of my reporting and commentary on cap-and-trade v. cap-and-dividend, I invite you to please visit my latest blog post on the issue.

Happy Earth Day!

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No Need for Wise Men?

2010-04-10

You go through the gate. If the gate's closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole-vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we are going to get healthcare reform passed for the American people.
- Nancy Pelosi

When I was a kid, I was a baseball pitcher. I loved it: Nothing could happen till I threw the ball. I was in control.

One day, my team went into the last inning with a two-run lead. I got the first two hitters out. The next hitter grounded softly to the third baseman, who picked up the ball and threw it past the first baseman for a two-base error. The next batter grounded to the second baseman, who became confused when the runner did not run to third but drifted a few feet off second base. Instead of making the easy toss to first base to end the game, the second baseman lunged after the runner near second. The runner stepped back on second base, safe. The batter crossed first base, safe without a throw: Another error.

The next batter -- their weakest hitter -- smashed my first pitch over the chain-link fence. Three runs scored and we lost the game.

"How did we blow this game," I shouted as I walked off the field with my sullen teammates? The third baseman was looking the other way. The second baseman was being comforted by his dad. I shouted it again: "How did we blow this game?" The coach put his arm around my shoulders and said, "You threw a bad pitch and their worst hitter got a home run."

Me? I didn't make a bad throw to first. I didn't pull a bonehead play at second base. I didn't make those two errors on easy ground balls. Sure, I had thrown the pitch.

The lesson sunk in. I had blown the game.

I could rationalize that the game would have been over if my teammates had not made those two errors. But I threw the pitch that was hit over the fence. I blew the game.

This isn't Chicago. Or is it?

President Obama blew healthcare reform. When his strategy of aloofness from the Congressional machinations blew up, he got out of sorts and blamed other people. He demonstrated the worst political leadership skills imaginable. He sulked. He growled. He frowned. He pointed his finger at inquiring reporters. His eyes blazed with anger. He was short with his friends and ice-cold to his opponents. As Obama became ever more testy, some of his staff, partly in jest but based on their appraisal of his outsized ego, started referring to Obama as "the smartest man in the room." Little by little, the smartest man in the room was exposed as an overreaching loser. His ineptitude brought him to the abyss -- a failed presidency.

Then a Republican won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Everyone else saw the election of Republican Scott Brown as the end for healthcare reform. Obama chewed on it. He came to see the election of Brown as liberating, not terminating. Somehow, in that moment of defeat, a written-off president realized something that few leaders would understand: His enemy's great triumph was his opportunity. Presidential Advisor David Axelrod has confirmed that Obama intensified healthcare efforts when he perceived a GOP let-down.

Obama realized that he was released by Brown's victory from having to play by the Washington rules. He could play by his rules. He could play by Chicago rules. He could crush a few skulls, trick a few dunces, make one-sided deals with a few congressmen who thought that they were getting the best of a weak president. He could use the old Chicago gangster methods of intimidation: The mob developed to a high art the ability to "rub out" someone without leaving enough evidence to arrest anyone -- but everybody know who ordered "the hit."

Obama announced yet another last assault for healthcare reform while jobs, the economy, the environment and everything else waited. So while Obama made speeches and took the high ground, a few editors and influential Democrats around the country learned of possible ethical lapses by their local congressmen. No one noticed at first that the congressmen singled out for tidbit treatment were all Democrats who had not committed to voting for Obamacare. As soon as a congressman committed to support reform, the leaks stopped and the editors and influential Democrats were told, "never mind!" Sometimes, it was implied that Republicans were behind the scandalous rumors. Quickly and unexpectedly, seemingly unnoticed, several wavering House members lined up behind healthcare reform.

Friends doubted Obama

Meantime, all the smart people -- especially in Congress and the media -- saw Brown's election as more than the end of healthcare reform. They saw it as the end of Obama's pretensions, the end of his grab for greatness. He became the stubborn ideologue who refused to move on to other issues. He seemed intent on dragging the whole world through the folly of brutal, intimidation politics that he could not win. The cynics were wrong. Brass knuckles and full-frontal threats in Washington? Yeah.

By the time the House voted, Obama had made it almost noble to play Chicago-style politics to pass healthcare reform. One gimmick called for the House to pass reform without actually voting on the bill itself. While Republicans attacked that strategy, more undecided Democrats realized that the Tea Party was a lesser threat than the White House political operation. Rather than risk damaging publicity back home, Democrats signed on to Obamacare. Many just wanted to get it over so they could move on to the issues that the voters wanted and that Obama was ignoring.

Obama turned his back on voters wanting jobs. He ignored the economy. How do you think the people of Indonesia feel? They were all ready for a celebration. They had spent their money on Obama tee-shirts and United States flags. Continuing an inexplicable record of irritating and alienating America's allies, the president dissed two important countries. In essence, the president said that healthcare reform in the U.S. was more important than the people of Indonesia, more important than our faithful Australian allies. Essentially, the president implied that Congress could not be trusted to do its job without Obama twisting arms and making ugly and unartful deals.

The final deal with an overmatched Michigan Democrat showed just how skilled the president and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are. You may read about Pelosi's Baltimore-honed political tactics here. They outwitted the poor pro-life congressman into sacrificing his issue for a meaningless promise that can be withdrawn at any time. Overnight, that congressman went from crusading hero on the way to reelection to ridiculed bum trailing in the polls.

Were the wise advisors intimidated, too?

Come November, voters may display their disgust. But it will be too late to bring down Obama. By sheer force of will, and with the vision to see his opposition take it easy after the big win in Massachusetts, Obama made certain that he will not go down as a failed president. He seemed to have squandered his opportunity. Instead, the Republicans wasted theirs. He gambled with the good will of an anxious nation and the hopes of people around the world. He trusted myopic Congressional leaders who did not have his vision or courage. He scared them into voting against their own best interests. He sacrificed them, like pawns on the chess board. They fell in line. Obama won. Americans love a winner.

There is a belief -- perhaps a myth -- that in times of crisis, the political parties have a few respected, gray, seasoned leaders who will go to the president and tell him what he needs to hear. They are the last safeguard, available to protect the president from self-inflicted disaster. They went to Richard Nixon. They went to Jimmy Carter. They went to Bill Clinton and they went to George W. Bush. Nixon listened and left. Clinton listened and changed. Carter argued with the wise men. Bush listened but stayed the course.

Barack Obama got no visit. Does he respect no one enough to make a visit helpful? Are there no people of sufficient gravitas to talk turkey with him? Lyn Nofziger, advisor to President Reagan, gathered steely-eyed men and women on more than one occasion and ushered them into the Oval Office. He remarked once that his job was simple: "To let the president know when he needs a shoe shine. Everyone steps into dog s**t once in a while, that's all."

This president did not need the wise, seasoned advisors. He saw his opportunity and made the winning decisions. The Republicans seemed to coast after Brown's victory. They, not Obama, paid the price of hubris.

This is one time when the smartest man in the room was the smartest man in the room.

Can Obama throw this pitch again?

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A Second Civil War or a Constitutional Convention?

2010-03-26

In addition to all the unrest in the aftermath of the the healthcare legislation that became law this week, there may also be a battle brewing over the recent decision by the state of Texas to use more conservative-oriented textbooks in its schools. The federal government might very well try to force Texas to reverse course, claiming that the Lone Star State is making an attempt violate the separation of church and state.

However, I don't think it's a matter Texas wanting to teach creationism or any other Christian precept as fact in the schools. If that were the case, I would completely agree that they shouldn't be changing school textbooks for that purpose. Instead, I think the changes are being made more along the lines of emphasizing the fact that many of the Founding Fathers held Judeo-Christian values and beliefs. That's a fact, not just somebody's opinion. Therefore, there's nothing inappropriate about including it in U.S. history textbooks.

Unfortunately, modern textbook writers have opted to suppress that kind of information out of deference to political correctness. Some writers have gone even further and are now using textbooks as vehicles to indoctrinate school children with their own liberal, elitist views of the world. Schools are supposed to be places for learning, not laboratories for social engineering. I don't blame the good citizens of Texas for becoming sick and tired of such nonsense.

There are people who actually believe the coming showdown with the federal government could result in Texas (and possibly some other "red" states) opting to secede from U.S., ultimately triggering a second civil war. However, despite all of the rhetoric and bravado, I think it's safe to assume that secession ain't gonna happen. No state official would seriously consider such a move because it's just not practical from an economic standpoint. Besides, think of the logistical nightmare it would create.

Now, with that being said, I don't see why states shouldn't have a right to secede if they wanted to. Should a state be forced to remain joined to an entity it has irreconcilable differences with? Why should one state or group of states have a right to force its/their values on another state or group of states? In my opinion, New England has no more right to boss Texas around anymore than "old" England had a right to boss the 13 colonies around. The latter seceded from England because they desired self-rule. Was the U.S. formed as an outlaw nation?

If secession were ever to occur again in this country, it should be handled peacefully by both sides. Threats and violence are never the answer to our problems. However, like I said, secession not going to happen anyway. What might happen is a constitutional convention. The states can force Congress to call a constitutional convention if two-thirds of them petition for such. Several things happening right now - including the aforementioned textbook showdown and healthcare legislation - could provide impetus for such a call.

If that's not enough, then there's something else currently in the pipeline that could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. Well-known lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies have taken the case of those who wish to overturn California's state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. They vow to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. That could result in a ruling that makes gay marriage legal throughout the nation.

If that happens, look out! We'll have a constitutional convention that amplifies the 10th Amendment and establishes states' rights once and for all. They would finally be able to tell the federal government to kiss their collective backside and bug out of stuff like health care and textbooks. It would underscore a state's sovereignty over - among other things - commerce within that state and what types of marriages it will perform and recognize. And it would probably even establish - yes - their right to secede (theoretically, anyway). Oh, and while they're at it, they should seriously consider repealing the 16th Amendment and abolishing the IRS. Glory, glory, hallelujah!

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Camelot and Climate Change

2010-03-04

"It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear.
The climate must be perfect all the year.

A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot."

--Camelot, by Alan Jay Lerner & Frederic Loewe

The Legislature of the State of South Dakota distinguished itself by passing an anti-climate change resolution--House Concurrent Resolution No. 1009--late last month,

No, the legislature did not follow King Arthur's lead by attempting to stabilize the state's climate by decree. Instead, it called for "the balanced teaching of global warming" in South Dakota's public schools, borrowing the language and tactics of the ongoing campaign to force the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in America's schools.

On a 36 to 20 vote, South Dakota's House of Representatives urged the state's schools to teach that global warming is a theory rather than a proven fact. Teachers are to impress on students that the significance and "interrelativity" of the "variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological [sic], thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics" that determine global weather patterns are "largely speculative" and that the scientific investigation of global warming has been "complicated and prejudiced" by "political and philosophical viewpoints."

The resolution concludes with a seemingly innocent statement urging that "all instruction on the theory of global warming be appropriate to the age and academic development of the student and to the prevailing classroom circumstances." The phrase "prevailing classroom circumstances" is a coded way of warning teachers not to present climate change in a way that might anger students or parents who believe that climate change is a hoax hatched by the U.N. to frighten ordinary citizens, justify draconian laws and enrich greedy scientists. It's similar to language advocated by the right-wing group Students for Academic Freedom in its "Academic Bill of Rights", which has been used to attack and even sue college professors whose teaching goes against the beliefs of conservative students.

It's all too easy to trivialize the South Dakota House Resolution and poke holes in the facts and reasoning advanced to support it. The resolution's use of "astrological" instead of "astronomical", the flawed list of anti-climate-change evidence it present--that the earth has been cooling for the last eight years, that there is no evidence of warming in the troposphere, that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but "the gas of life"-- and the argument that the existence of naturally driven climate change in the past rules out human-caused climate change today, makes for a document that's hard to take seriously.

Even South Dakota's senate seems to agree. They stripped out the most embarrassing verbiage before passing their own version of the resolution on 24 February.

Unfortunately, the resolution has to be taken seriously. It stands as the lates--but by no means the last--skirmish in a long and continuing battle for the minds as well as the hearts of America's children. As reported by New Scientist, the Texas school board--whose annual purchase of some 48 million textbooks allows it to determine what most of the nation's children stud--voted last March to require textbooks to question the existence of global warming, and, in an astonishing kowtow to "young-earth creationists", deleted the 14-billion-year age of the universe from the science curriculum.

It's not just climate change, evolution, or the age of the earth which are in the crosshairs in this battle, but science as a whole. The religious-conservative movement that helps elect creationist school board members across the country, state legislators like Resolution 1009's author, Don Kopp, the 110 members of the United States Congress who win perfect ratings from ultraconservative groups, or Senator James Inhofe who now wants to file criminal charges against U.S. and British climate scientists, has a far more ambitious agend--nothing less than to replace the pluralistic secular humanism that most people think has defined the United States since its inception with religious fundamentalism.

The movement dates at least to the 1980s, when the Rev. Pat Robertson founded the Christian Coalition with the stated goal of advancing a Christian agenda nationwide through grassroots activism. This still growing movement has made it clear that it is determined to redefine America in the light of the "truth" that the nation was founded not on the basis of the rationalism of the Enlightenment, but on fundamentalist Christian beliefs. They see the Bible as true and the wall of separation of church and state as a dangerous myth. Be it evolution, global climate change, or embryonic stem cell research, when science gets in the way, it will be attacked.

As reported in the New York Times, attacking climate change along with evolution may be a way to get around court rulings that so far have found that singling out evolution for so-called balanced presentation in textbooks and classes is clearly religiously motivated and violates the separation of church and state. By also targeting global warming, the age of the universe, or the origin of life, anti-evolutionists can claim that they are merely advocating academic freedom and fair play.

And I suppose it doesn't hurt that the same politicians who seek the votes of true believers are often funded by corporations that are strongly motivated to keep pumping crude, mining coal, or pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

At least in the United States, this is not a challenge to which scientists and those who recognize that science can only thrive in an environment that values facts and reason over Bible-based belief and God-given truth can remain indifferent or uninvolved. A war has been declared, and scientists and their supporters can no more wish it away than South Dakota's legislators can resolve away global climate change.

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Sarah Palin for President in 2012?

2010-02-24

Will Sarah Palin run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination? Absolutely. Will she be a serious contender for president? It ain't gonna happen.

Like the all other GOP politicians with their eyes on the White House in 2012, the former governor of Alaska will throw her hat into the ring early next year. That will be the easy part. From there, she will begin to raise money and watch the polls. This will continue throughout the bulk of 2011.

In some ways, 2011 will be to Palin what 1999 was to former Vice President Dan Quayle. If you will remember, Quayle declared his candidacy early that year, but was unable to raise much money or gain any traction in the polls. By the end of the summer - more than six months before the first primary or caucus of the 2000 presidential election season - he was out of the race.

However, unlike Quayle in 1999, Palin will be able to raise money - and lots of it. Trouble is, she has a low ceiling on her poll numbers, even within the Republican Party. I'm not sure where that ceiling is, possibly 10, 15, 20, or perhaps even as high as 25 percent. She does a have an extremely loyal band of supporters and admirers, but outside of those people, she's not particularly well-liked. In order words, her support is very deep, but not too wide.

Therefore, while her popularity will appear to be growing at first, it will soon begin to stall at a level that will not lend her much hope of capturing her party's presidential nomination. As political pundits know, the national poll numbers mean very little in the months leading up to the initial nominating contests.

While 25% might seem impressive in the national polls at that point, her problem is going to be in states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, where potential voters would be starting to look closely (and seriously) at all the candidates. I believe she will be having a hard time cracking double digits in any of those places, come November of 2011.

In recent history, it has been impossible to win the Republican presidential nomination without being victorious in at least two of those states, regardless of one's standing nationally. So, not willing to risk humiliation, she will pull out of the race sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Even someone like Palin is pragmatic enough to know when to cut and run. At that point, she will call a press conference and say something to the effect of: "I have decided that I can best serve the interests of my party by supporting [fill-in-the-blank] for president." However, she will never admit that she dropped out because she didn't think she could win.

And, if offered the vice-presidential nomination, she would gladly accept it again. Why, that would be a win-win situation for her. She would have everything to gain and nothing to lose. If her ticket won in the fall of 2012, she would say, "We won." If they lost, she would say, "He lost." From there, she could possibly resurrect her quest for the presidency at some point in the future.

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Last Week�s Supreme Court Ruling: A Step Towards Corporate Communism?

2010-01-23

This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5 to 4 decision to do away with any limitations to corporate funding of political campaigns. The decision comes on the heels of the surprise election of conservative candidate Scott Brown in Massachusetts to take over the late Ted Kennedy's seat. As such, the verdict seems to have been passed in preparation of the upcoming 2010 election, by paving the way for corporate sponsorship of candidates. This decision should deeply scare us all as it establishes new legal interpretations of the 1st amendment. First, it interprets corporations as legal individuals entitled to the more rights in deciding elections than you and me. Second, it deems that money is the same as "speech," and that therefore funneling money into the campaigns is the same as voicing support for a candidate. Besides flying in the face of legal precedent, the implications of these unfortunate interpretations are potentially quite dire. It makes us consumers first, and citizens second. It defines us solely as consumers and our worth to and in this country estimated by how we oil the great corporate machine. Groups such as the right-leaning Tea Party have based much of their rhetoric on the fear of government takeover of our lives. And yet, the Supreme Court decision single-handedly puts us on the fast track of a complete corporate takeover, where corporations dominate and even dictate who our elected officials will be and how they will vote. By default, our political choices will be made for us. Unlike a government representative, corporations are not vulnerable to votes or petition signs. A corporation is not limited by election terms. A Corporation is not a human! It is granted immunity from culpability in many court cases because of this reason, and as such, should not be granted rights on equal or greater par than us.

A corporation is comprised of countless individuals, many of whom are probably not residents of the states in which they will be subsidizing campaigns. In fact, since most large corporations are multi-nationals, corporations may be calling the shots in who runs for office in your district even though they may not even be from the United States. The most disturbing aspect of this ruling is its affront against freedom of speech. The founding fathers, in creating the first amendment, sought to offer the constituency rights to which we all equally share. All of us have a voice and a means to communicate. We are, for the most part, on fairly equal ground in this respect. We do not all have easily disposable incomes. Most of us don't: a recent poll revealed that more than half of American individuals make $35,000 a year or less. For a single parent, this toes the poverty line. By claiming that money is tantamount to speech, the Supreme Court has inevitably set up a system in which corporations have the power to hand-pick candidates. We lay citizens cannot compete, as even our individual campaign donations cannot legally exceed $3,600 per candidate. Most of us can't afford airtime or to buy up bill boards as an alternative to our single votes. Our speech has thus been rendered less prominent, and so less important or influential, than that of the corporations.

Whereas we are restricted to one vote per elected official and in our home towns and states, a corporation is now given a free pass to vote with its dollars anywhere and everywhere it chooses. Corporations have hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal and can drown out all of our voices to elect officials amenable to their interests. And since a corporation is not human, it has no conscience or consciousness, and cannot be tried for crimes against humanity. It conjures up apocalyptic images of the dystopian novels we are assigned to read in high school and college. We are told to read them to better comprehend the capabilities of runaway power. We are taught that this is a real risk. It is-we should heed these works of literature and find the lesson in this.

A corporation, by virtue of its implicit purpose and function, is run with one reigning goal in mind: to maximize profits in the shortest time possible. All other things are secondary, or more likely, peripheral. Such goals run counter to public health and welfare, social equality, and environmental sustainability. I fear the worse from this and will use an example. In the Appalachian region, a majority of coal (which makes up most of our electricity source) is extracted using a nefarious method called Mountain Top Removal (MTR). The name is literal: the tops of mountains are blown off with reams of high powered dynamite. What is left blacks out the sky and slides down the tops and fills the valley with rock and soot. It chokes and coats the nearby towns with dust, kills all the fish and birds, and leaves an ugly mess in its wake. Kids in towns where MTR is conducted have high levels of asthma, bronchitis, and GI upsets. One small child asleep in his bed was killed by a stray boulder during an MTR 'extraction.' His parents received a judgement of only a few tens of thousands of dollars for the murder of their son from the multi-million dollar coal company responsible (which did not have the proper permit at the time of the incident). One of the largest silos that stores the coal sludge of MTR debris is kept behind an elementary school, where it threatens rupture and drown the school. Townspeople in MTR towns have much higher cases of diseases like cancer and Crohn's. I was shocked to learn something like this was being practiced in our country. But the reason it still goes on is clear: coal companies have a lot of money, do a lot of lobbying, and even take judges ruling on the cases against them on yacht trips. How can poor people compete? They can't. And yet, an effort has been made recently in both state and federal governments to seriously clamp down on this destructive practice. But what chance would small communities stand if all of the electorate was put in place by corporate interests? The slim chance they might have had quickly becomes none. Their dollars are less, so their speech has much less worth to the point of worthlessness.

Another case is our health care system. Health insurance companies maximize profits and eliminate costs by denying people coverage with pre-existing conditions or canceling when the person becomes too much of a "cost-risk" (e.g.: develops cancer). For some reason, many Americans decry implementing more regulation on these companies or a public option in this system because they think some socialization will lead us down some slippery slope to Cold War-era Russia. This is despite the fact that most other developed nations have universal healthcare and have maintained robust democracies (and have higher life expectancies, lower rates of cancer, etc.). It seems strange to me that people are so scared of government-run healthcare, and not corporate-run healthcare, even though the latter can and does take so much more liberties with our lives. To the corporate run healthcare system, we are and continue to be nothing more than consumers who cease to be of worth once they can no longer maximize profits by our continued patronage. I would think even those hard-lined conservatives who don't want a social option in medicine can still see the atrocity in denying or canceling care for these ends. Under the Supreme Court ruling, these problems will accelerate as health insurance companies will continue to pursue and attain their corporate agenda by these means unchecked. Additionally, other corporations will continue to pollute our air, soil and water, and use carcinogenic chemicals in our products without environmental regulations, thereby exacerbating the rate at which we become sick with a myriad of disorders and diseases for which we then cannot secure (afford) health care to treat.

Think this can't happen? It already has been in the works for a long time. Check the voting records of your Congress person and then check his/her campaign donors: you can easily see connection. The Supreme Court ruling will take this several steps further. We will have outright corporate sponsorship of representatives. Their positions in our Congress will be bought by the highest bidders and the agenda of that bidder will be what that representative is beholden to, not to his constituents! This ruling puts Congress in the pockets of corporations and keeps them there. It measures the significance of our free speech in dollars, and defines its worth by stocks. And we as regular people are vastly outweighed.

So what is the purpose of this post: is it just a dystopian vision, an apocalyptic rant to bring down your day? Not completely. It probes us first to reflect on the unconstrained power of the Supreme Court. Unlike the executive and judicial branches, these justices are rendered impervious to public opinion or social concern. They are not beholden to voters, or even to the other branches of our government. Once elected, they may and often do sit on the bench for several decades, legislating with ideologies that reflect the era and influences that affected their appointments, ideologies that may now be irrelevant and obsolete. We need to appeal to our government to consider effective checks to the Court, especially when decisions contradict strong legal precedent and undermine individual rights and the overwhelming will and interest of the people. A Constitutional amendment is perhaps in order to restrain corporate financing of elections, as well as the power of Supreme Court justices. A petition for such an amendment, that would clarify that for-profits are not entitled to 1st amendment rights through subsidization of candidates, is available at www.dontgetrolled.org. Another bright light in this dark tunnel is the introduction of the Fair Elections Now Act in Congress, which would waiver limitations on individual citizen donations and offer competitive public financing options as an alternative to corporate backing. Please make sure to contact your House Reps. and Senators and urge them to co-sponsor and vote for the bill when it hits the floor.

In the interim to attaining the passage of legislation or a proper amendment, we need to understand that this is not necessarily a hopeless situation. But it is a David and Goliath case. We can look beyond the dollar signs and ad campaigns the corporations will no doubt bombard us with. The one possible good thing to come out of this is more transparency in campaign financing. This gives us the opportunity to investigate candidates and understand the subliminal messaging of their rhetoric, what it is they are really supporting. We can still vote, and choose the less funded candidates with no or the least corporate representation. We still have the power to reject the beginning of a plutocracy. We can vote with our dollars. Corporations have power because we fund them. Extremely large corporations with huge government influence and shoddy reputations when it comes to human rights protection are good targets for a boycott, as are those that will emerge as the dominant forces in elections. Whereas it is unrealistic to expect we can completely abstain from supporting corporations, as they are now a ubiquitous facet of our society, we can consume much less and consume more conscientiously. By doing this, we refuse to be just consumers, pawns in the chess game of profit playing. This means patronizing our local co-ops and mom & pop shops over big chain retailers, buying second-hand goods over new, sourcing more food from CSA shares, community gardens and farmer's markets, seeking non-profit over for-profit services when it is a viable option, investing in small-scale renewables and conserving energy at home, driving less and shopping from companies that support democracies at home and abroad (The NGO Green America has a comprehensive online Business Directory of socially and environmentally responsible businesses at http://www.greenamericatoday.org/pubs/greenpages/).

Perhaps this sounds Pollyannaish of me, but we need an appeal. If corporations are in charge of our officials, for now the only control we have over corporations is our financial support of them and we need to scale that back considerably.

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