Z361: Zealots Will Not Fade Away

This fall I read a perspective by Steve Weissman at t r u t h o u t that spoke to my own belief that right wing idealogues will tenaciously hang on – even if hidden from view - no matter what changes might appear to be coming in a new administration. Just as they have since the New Deal, these far right forces in commerce and religion merely go into the shadows or get buried under conventional seeming covers. Every single level of government from local townships to the think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and international organizations like the World Bank are, and will remain, saturated.

In 1964, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona ran for president as a rock-ribbed conservative who yearned to roll back both the Soviet Empire and FDR's New Deal. He carried only six states with 52 electoral votes, and Lyndon Johnson remained the commander-in-chief that an entire generation loved to hate. Yet, even after suffering a stunning defeat, the rabidly anti-New Deal Republicans, ultra-right-wing millionaires, evangelical Christian preachers, John Birchers and other extreme anti-communists who backed Barry Goldwater went on to build the modern conservative movement that propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House.

McCain was one of Goldwater’s protégés with the same kind of backers though the agenda was “updated to account for the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of Islamist jihadists, and unbelievable persistence of the neocons, who are now trying to sell us a new war on Iran.” He utterly failed the agenda and lost the election.

But, as in the 1960's, today's anti-New Deal Republicans, ultra-right wing billionaires, right-wing evangelical preachers, and neocon ideologues will not run off with their tails between their legs. They have no shame, not even after the endless embarrassment of the Bush presidency, Wall Street's worst crisis since the Great Depression, and colonial wars we can never win in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan.

The right-wing zealots will, in fact, ratchet up the clichéd mantras that led us into most of the current ca-ca. We all know the routine:

• Leave the free market free of government oversight and regulation.
• Privatize Social Security and government services.
• Pursue free trade with no protection for workers or the environment.
• Expand American control of the world's oil and natural gas, both to benefit Big Oil and as a political weapon to control the behavior of other nations, friend and foe.
• Talk of spreading democracy while propping up dictators.
• Give the Pentagon a budget every year the size of the hopefully one-time Wall Street bailout.
• Leave the military as the heart and soul of our response to militant Islam.
• Continually break down our constitutionally-mandated separation between government and militant Christianity.

This last point is the most recent point of real concern for me. It is easy to see how this played out in the campaign with John McCain and Sarah Palin ratcheting up the xtianist hate. But, when Barack Obama selected bigoted Rick Warren for his inaugural invocation, something died within millions of us. The haters would make that selection, not our guy. Obama had handed us carloads of hope during the campaign.

Steve Weismann . . .

How, then, do the rest of us have any chance to make real the hope that Obama has inspired? I wish I had an easy answer, but reality is far too nuanced.

In terms of policy, the old certainties make no sense. The free market never would have created the Internet. Government did that, ironically enough, through the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency. But government never would have turned the Internet into the liberating force it has become. Independent capitalists and free-lance bloggers did that, though many on the business side are now trying to restrict the promise of "the freedom monster" they helped to create.

Government regulation is a similarly mixed bag. Wise regulations could have prevented the crap-shoot capitalism that is now bringing down the world's financial system. Stupid regulations, by contrast, long preserved monopolistic control of global telecommunications. In much the same way, balanced budgets sometimes make sense, and other times - like now - deeper deficits seem a far better way to go.

From passing future appropriations to creating a new regulatory framework, the devil we face will be in the details, which right-wing zealots and the vested interests they serve have learned to manipulate with earmarks and loopholes. Progressive public interest groups have also learned to play the game, but we badly need tighter regulation of lobbyists and the threat of criminal penalties to enforce absolute transparency.

And here is where my own thought for 2009 coincides with this perspective. My theme for the new year is 2009: Let the Sun Shine. Sunshine in the political sense is transparency. Our only hope is to shine very bright lights on these uncivil, greedy, racist or otherwise corrupt schemes and plans. Exposure to bright light makes the cockroaches scurry. Rats hide from the light of day. Sunshine heals infection and disease.

I found the following website. The Sunlight Foundation

Our work is committed to helping citizens, bloggers and journalists be their own best congressional watchdogs, by improving access to existing information and digitizing new information, and by creating new tools and Web sites to enable all of us to collaborate in fostering greater transparency. Since our founding in the spring of 2006, we have assembled and funded an array of web-based databases and tools including OpenCongress.org, Congresspedia.org, FedSpending.org, OpenSecrets.org, EarmarkWatch.org and LOUISdb.org. These sites make millions of bits of information available online about the members of Congress, their staff, legislation, federal spending and lobbyists.

I plan on visiting these each and every week.
This opens an incredible world of information on what our elected officials are up to in Washington. Explore and find the areas most important to you.

I also hope to meet with a local politico soon to find out how I might better utilize the resources available to me to watchdog my own city hall. I asked the question during the last election about how to look up voting records and I got no answers. This will require follow-up on my part.

And I am going to continue to write about what I learn. Besides writing in this blog, I have my little mobile home park newsletter and I want to start a blog or website of some kind for all of the other mobile home parks in my community. Low income populations are the most vulnerable and most patronized. The council members point at us and make democratic noises, but it is empty nonsense most often. In a wealthy, white community we are tokens for funding. I’d like to learn more about being an advocate for this population.

Again, let the sun shine. In this case it is a kind of message to myself to get out of my home and into the sunshine to meet and greet other people in other parks. And, I may again apply for a recently opened seat on the city council’s environmental committee. So, local and national is where I’d like to see transparency, see the sun shine.

Those who practice politics in the footsteps of Lenin, Goebbels or Karl Rove will, no doubt, find all this naive, undisciplined and even wacky. But what can I tell you? The approach I suggest is more in the spirit of what my generation of activists called participatory democracy. Now turbo-charged by the Internet, it is the best way I know to build the kind of free-wheeling progressive movement that will have the punch to keep today's hope alive.

Freedom is contagious. Try it, you'll like it.

A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France.

T324: Transforming Transportation

In the 1940's FDR ordered GM to begin making tanks, jeeps, etc. for the war effort. It is that time again. No bailout, just a contract to provide electrical transport, high speed trains, trolleys for the new century. The bill to be covered by Big Oil, whose partnership in crime with Big Automobile and possibly Big Insurance, killed mass transit in this country and kept the business insoluble by refusing to respond to market demands more than thirty years.

This is my take on the following articles in today’s news, blogs and opinion pieces.

New York Times Op-Ed: Have you driven a bus or a train lately? By Robert Goodman

The federal government is giving General Motors, Ford and Chrysler $25 billion in low-interest loans, and the companies are asking for up to $25 billion more. These same companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying against federal fuel-economy standards and are suing to overturn the emissions standards imposed by California and other states.

[snip] As transportmakers, the companies could produce vehicles for high-speed train and bus systems that would improve our travel options, reduce global warming, conserve energy, minimize accidents and generally improve the way we live.
This better way forward has been kicking around Washington for more than 35 years. In a prescient 1972 article in The Atlantic, Stewart Udall, an interior secretary under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, warned of America’s excessive dependence on cars and called for this approach.

[snip . . .] Mr. Udall recognized that the country could not afford the economic consequences of losing all of the automobile industry’s jobs and profits. He proposed that the auto companies branch out into “exciting new variants of ground transportation” to produce minibuses, “people movers,” urban mass transit and high-speed intercity trains. Instead of expanding the Interstate highway system, he suggested that the road construction industry take on “huge new programs to construct mass transit systems.” And he called for building “more compact, sensitively planned communities” rather than continuing urban sprawl.

As we now know, warnings like these went unheeded, and Americans became ever more car-dependent. And now, the auto industry is asking for government money that promises, even with more fuel-efficient cars, to give us more of the same. Instead of supporting companies that want to put as many cars on the road as possible, we need a transformational strategy.

There are now two newly elected Udalls in Congress (New Mexico and Colorado) and I daydream that this sentiment is a familial thing.

I suspect that a good percentage of the American population is completely unaware of the monopoly that GM and Big Oil had on the transportation system of this country, before and after WWII. Of course, some of us were introduced to this via Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That movie introduced me to this national conspiracy in an animated way, and centered on Los Angeles mass transit. Rent it, you won’t regret it for a number of reasons. Wikipedia covers the conspiracy, yet says that is has been debunked. The publications by the CATO institute don’t convince me though. I’ll come back to that.

No Impact Man, Colin Beavan, cites the following excerpt from Harvey Wasserman. It provides the outline of this sabotage of America’s rail transport system.

In a 1922 memo that will live in infamy, GM President Alfred P. Sloan established a unit aimed at dumping electrified mass transit in favor of gas-burning cars, trucks and buses.

Just one American family in 10 then owned an automobile. Instead, we loved our 44,000 miles of passenger rail routes managed by 1,200 companies employing 300,000 Americans who ran 15 billion annual trips generating an income of $1 billion. According to Snell, "virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had its own electric rail system."

But GM lost $65 million in 1921. So Sloan enlisted Standard Oil (now Exxon), Philips Petroleum, glass and rubber companies and an army of financiers and politicians to kill mass transit.

The campaigns varied, as did the economic and technical health of many of the systems themselves. Some now argue that buses would have transcended many of the rail lines anyway. More likely, they would have hybridized and complemented each other.

But with a varied arsenal of political and financial subterfuges, GM helped gut the core of America's train and trolley systems. It was the murder of our rail systems that made our "love affair" with the car a tragedy of necessity.

In 1949 a complex federal prosecution for related crimes resulted in an anti-trust fine against GM of a whopping $5000. For years thereafter GM continued to bury electric rail systems by "bustituting" gas-fired vehicles.

Then came the interstates. After driving his Allied forces into Berlin on Hitler's Autobahn, Dwight Eisenhower brought home a passion for America's biggest public works project. Some 40,000 miles of vital eco-systems were eventually paved under.
In habitat destruction, oil addiction, global warming, outright traffic deaths (some 40,000/year and more), ancillary ailments and wars for oil, the automobile embodies the worst ecological catastrophe in human history...

...So let's convert the company's infrastructure to churn out trolley cars, monorails, passenger trains, truly green buses.

FDR forced Detroit to manufacture the tanks, planes and guns that won World War 2 (try buying a 1944 Chevrolet!). Now let a reinvented GM make the "weapons" to win the climate war and energy independence.
It demands re-tooling and re-training. But GM's special role in history must now evolve into using its infrastructure to restore the mass transit system---and ecological balance---it has helped destroy.

The last piece to this current GM hoopla relates to the many dog whistles that will be sounded by the corporatist irritainment industry’s 24/7 drone. This drone is all about blaming labor for GM’s demise. As I said above, the CATO Institute’s “debunking the conspiracy” contained one such dog whistle.

Federal subsidies to transit advocacy groups and misguided environmental and labor regulations also encourage a large investment of taxpayer money in wasteful transit systems.

The emphasis is mine. This sounds like standard republican deregulation and labor busting framing. From Think Progress a scattering of these:

Congress and the Bush administration are currently considering whether to spend $25 billion to rescue Detroit automakers. The proposal has generally been met with stiff resistance from conservatives, who have increasingly been pinning all the blame for the crisis in Detroit on labor unions:

Sen. Jim DeMint: “Some auto manufacturers are struggling because of a bad business structure with high unionized labor costs and burdensome federal regulations. Taxpayers did not create these problems and they should not be forced to pay for them.”

Sen. Jon Kyl: “For years they’ve been sick. They have a bad business model. They have contracts negotiated with the United Auto Workers that impose huge costs. The average hourly cost per worker in this country is about $28.48. For these auto makers, it’s $73. And for the Japanese auto companies working here in the United States, it’s $48.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: “You know, if you pay the auto workers or the benefits and all of those things, are maybe too high. … We have, like, in America, you sell a car, and you have $2,000 of each car just goes to benefits. So I think that there’s a way of reducing all of that, make them more fiscally responsible.”

These men know they are blaming the wrong source with lies. This is deliberate strategy to subjugate. Organized labor is one of the biggest threats to imperial power. I am so sick of these tools with the life approach of “I’ve got mine, screw you.” There seems to be no end to the how far this group in power will go to loot this country and to steal from the people.

Much better things can come from this country now filled with hope. It demands the people stay awake and alert and make a very loud noise. Like the weekend marches say no to H8, we need the heady power of being people together, people who make demands, people who take to the streets and feel the power of a people united.

First image by Jason Logan

R314: Ramrodding Rule Regulatory Rush

Stealth destruction and greed . . . So, along with the bank robbery I just posted, there is environmental mayhem and destruction orchestrated by the Bush Administration. Let's put to rest the notion that this administration is incompetent. These people are supremely successful at their goals. Just because only a tiny number of individuals on the entire planet benefit doesn't mean they haven't succeeded at what they set out to do.

All we have are our voices, our attention and our ability to shine light at the things that are being hidden. It is not a time to make nice. The OMB Watch published this by Matt Madia on Wednesday, October 22, 2008.

To Gut Species Protection, Interior Calls "All Hands on Deck"

The Bush administration is moving at warp speed to finalize a rule that will allow government-approved projects to intrude on the habitats of endangered species.

The Department of the Interior received about 300,000 public comments, mostly negative, on its proposal after it was unveiled in August. According to an internal email obtained by the Associated Press, Interior wants to review all the public comments in just four days:

In an e-mail last week to Fish and Wildlife managers across the country, Bryan Arroyo, the head of the agency's endangered species program, said the team would work eight hours a day starting Tuesday to the close of business on Friday to sort through the comments. …

At that rate, according to a [House Natural Resources Committee] aide's calculation, 6,250 comments would have to be reviewed every hour. That means that each member of the team would be reviewing at least seven comments each minute.

That gives each comment just enough time to slide across someone's desk, directly into the trash. Welcome to the federal rulemaking process, thanks for participating.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne instructed the agency to review all the comments this week, according to AP.

Kempthorne is obviously trying to hurry the rule out the door before President Bush himself is hurried out the door. A new president may not cotton to the idea of government-approved projects threatening endangered species.

Interior's proposal would allow federal land-use managers to approve projects like infrastructure creation, minerals extraction, or logging without consulting habitat managers and biological health experts responsible for species protection.

Allowing agencies to bypass expert scientific review for development projects runs counter to long-standing practices required by the Endangered Species Act. The act requires project managers to request from Interior "information whether any species which is listed or proposed to be listed may be present in the area" where construction will occur.

Kempthorne may be trying to comply with a deadline set by White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten. In a May memo, Bolten instructed Bush administration agencies to finalize regulations by November 1.

But the endangered species rule has already violated other provisions in the memo. Bolten also instructed agencies to propose rules by June 1. (Probably so agency officials wouldn't be stuck reviewing hundreds of thousands of comments in just a few days.) The endangered species rule was not published until Aug. 15.

Other peculiarities have signaled Kempthorne's intent to ramrod this rule through the regulatory pipeline. Interior initially announced only a 30-day comment period. (Comment periods usually last 60 days; Interior extended the period to 60 days after public outcry.) Also, OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — the White House office in charge of reviewing agency rules — spent only three days looking at the endangered species changes. OIRA's average review time for Interior Department rules in 2008 is 58 days.

So despite the overwhelming public opposition and the time constraints on the agency's ability to give this major policy shift careful consideration, Kempthorne will plow ahead. The rule would be a feather in Bush administration's cap; Bush's record on protecting endangered species is abysmal.

There were and are other rules being messed with too. Some exit strategy. This is another form of robbery in progress. First, we don’t get the huge fines due the government by these huge polluters like Exxon Mobile. Also, we are being robbed of species and other living things and a clean, healthy world. To hand over profits to big business by robbing the public good, the planet’s good. While I was being distracted by the elections – along with everyone else - this mass destruction was being undertaken. This is not my area of expertise so I rely heavily on what others have discovered. The Rag Blog was particularly helpful.

EVERY RULE IN EVERY AGENCY IS UNDER ATTACK.

We are all going to need to support those organizations, like Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, NRDC, EDF, etc., that will be making these fights. Whatever interest you have, it is under attack.

All that money you were giving every month to Obama? Figure out what organization making these fights you support and make a monthly sustainer to them, so they can make the fight.

This is the Bush Administration's real legacy.

So, while we've all been distracted by the campaign...

I’d say pick a group and at minimum visit the website for the latest petitions and actions. Every bit of energy counts even if you can’t donate. (I like to tell myself this because I can’t donate).

Here are a few more rules . . .

Rule Description Proposal Date Current Status Office of Surface Mining (Interior) — The rule would allow mining companies to dump the waste (i.e. excess rock and dirt) from mountaintop mining into rivers and streams.
+ Find out more from Earthjustice Aug. 24, 2007

(Proposal) Final rule sent to OMB Sept. 22. Department of the Interior — The rule would alter implementation of the Endangered Species Act by allowing federal land-use managers to approve projects like infrastructure creation, minerals extraction, or logging without consulting federal habitat managers and biological health experts responsible for species protection. Currently, consultation is required.
+ Find out more from RegWatch,

OMB Watch's regulatory policy blog Aug. 15, 2008*

(Proposal) Final rule has not been sent to OMB, but Interior officials are hastily reviewing public comments. Environmental Protection Agency — The rule would ease current restrictions that make it difficult for power plants to operate near national parks and wilderness areas.

+ Find out more from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee June 6, 2007

(Proposal) Final rule sent to OMB Oct. 30. Environmental Protection Agency — Under the rule, concentrated animal feeding operations, i.e. factory farms, could allow farm runoff to pollute waterways without a permit. The rule circumvents the Clean Water Act, instead allowing for self-regulation.

+ Find out more from the Natural Resources Defense Council March 7, 2008

(Proposal) Final rule announced by EPA Oct. 31.

(Final rule) Environmental Protection Agency — The rule would change EPA's New Source Review program, which requires new facilities or renovating facilities to install better pollution control technology, by subjecting fewer facilities to its requirements.

+ Find out more from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee May 8, 2007

(Proposal) Final rule has not been sent to OMB. Environmental Protection Agency — The rule would exempt factory farms from reporting air pollution emissions from animal waste.
+ Find out more from OMB Watch Dec. 28, 2007
(Proposal) Final rule sent to OMB Oct. 24. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Department of Commerce) — The rule would transfer the responsibility for examining the environmental impacts of federal ocean management decisions from federal employees to advisory groups that represent regional fishing interests. The rule would also make it more difficult for the public to participate in the environmental assessment process required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

+ Find out more from Pew Charitable Trusts May 14, 2008

(Proposal) Final rule sent to OMB Nov. 4. Environmental Protection Agency — EPA proposed two options: 1) to impose no new requirements on oil refineries; or 2) to impose minimal requirements. EPA is responding to a congressional mandate that it control toxic emissions from refineries, but option 1 would ignore that mandate, and option 2 would not go far enough, environmentalists say.

+ Find out more from the Natural Resources Defense Council Sept. 4, 2007
(Proposal) Final rule approved by OMB O

Rule Description Proposal Date Current Status National Park Service (Interior) — The rule would end the 25-year-old ban on carrying loaded weapons in national parks.
+ Find out more from the National Coalition of Park Service Retirees April 30, 2008
(Proposal) Final rule sent to OMB Nov. 4.

L262: Lenders Be Damned

This week I will be talking about love, community and light. But there is an urgency this morning to say a simple thing. Contact Congress.

This is well and truly the Shock Doctrine as Naomi Klein described it in her book by the same name. The federal bail out of the banks is how the financial sector will be given vastly more unregulated power than it already has. I guess there is no limit to greed.

Call your Congress Critters today to nix the blank check to the Treasury.

• Contact your Senator here.
• Contact your Representative here.

At least we can go through the pretense of a democracy or at least jam up the phone lines and the toobz. The banks reaped profits, they need to take the risks.

Update: Here is another way to fight. Sign this petition to Harry Reid.

I am not going to write about it because it will raise my blood pressure and it has been covered well in almost every blog I visit. I am so fed up I will make too simplistic an argument out of pure frustration. Here are just a few if you have been away from the news (a good place to be).

Shakesville

Casaubon's Book

Common Dreams

Little Blog in the Big Woods

Another update: Anger is vital as an emotion. It is as vital as any other. What we need to be careful about is how and where we weild it. Don't be ugly to the people who answer the phone, but you can let them know how angry you are at what is happening.

G233: Guerilla Gardening

Seed bombs

Seed Bomb Step #1: Decide what type of seeds you will be planting. Make sure that you choose native flowers or trees that will survive with little intervention (i.e. hardy). Be careful to not introduce an invasive plant species into the mix that will spread and choke out natural vegetation in the area. Flower seeds that work well in a seed bomb are sunflowers, bachelor's buttons, poppies, and cosmos.

Seed Bomb Step #2: Gather your ingredients. You will need 1 part seeds, 3 parts compost, 5 parts dry red clay, and 2 parts water. If you have rivers or streams nearby with red clay, gather from there and let dry. If not, you can buy dry red clay in a pottery supply store. Make sure to use red as it contains minerals necessary to the growth of the flowers. Other types of clay are sterile.

Seed Bomb Step #3: Mix the seeds well with the compost.

Seed Bomb Step #4: Mix in the clay with the seed/compost mixture until completely blended together. At this step, you could add a few teaspoons of cayenne pepper to the mix if you think you will have problems with ants or other creatures hauling off the seeds when the seed balls start to break down. If you are adding cayenne to the mix, use gloves to do the mixing.

Seed Bomb Step #5: Add water, a bit at a time, mixing with your hands continuously. You want to get the mixture to almost bread dough consistency but not wet and sticky.

Seed Bomb Step #6: Form the seed bombs. Pinch off a marble size piece of the mixture and roll between your hands until rounded and outer shell is smooth and has no cracks. This will protect the seed bomb from predators until germination. Continue to make seed bombs until all mixture is used up.

Seed Bomb Step #7:
Lay seed bombs in sun to dry. Continue drying for 24 hours until clay is hard and set.

I think I might make some to sell at our upcoming yard sale. The following day is my neighborhood area Art Walk. I think I could keep a sign up by my home that next day for interested art walkers. Right outside my door is the scorched earth of the railroad tracks. Many of us long for vegetation, but politicians have had crews remove any vegetation. I believe it is a sustained effort to make this area appear blighted so that there is more likelihood of declaring eminent domain. That is one theory anyway. The politicians named are just childish and petty enough to adopt such an approach.

I also like the idea of the provocative name, Seed Bomb, in this time of war mongering and machismo talk related to Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

Seed bombs first spotted at Dwell

Seed bomb image courtesy of Diana Settar's Flickr

E215: Eat the View – This lawn is your lawn

Sign the Petition

h/t Kitchen Gardeners International

Y169: You thought poop from cruise ships was bad . . .

Ship to Nowehere
From Collateral News
This week's story fits perfectly with what we've learned about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay: According to UK-based human rights organization 'Reprieve' the U.S. has used navy ships acting as prisons throughout the world. Some accounts indicate that the abuse suffered on these ships was worse than that suffered in Guantanamo.


Crunchy Chicken had a post about Fun Cruises that focused on poop in the water. We can have a lot of pearl clutching about nasty environmental practices for luxury liners, while simultaneously be pushing back against Myths America. The American Empire is torturing and killing around the world – and on the high seas. There is a place for our outrage, blogging and activism across all levels of our efforts to lead conscious lives. Poop to politics isn't really a leap.

Q115: Question Authority!

This is the May Day Tradition - a day for labor. This aspect of our American tradition is all but wiped out with unions disappearing. Today there are three groups rejecting the status quo and taking action.

• Immigrants are marching in the streets - questioning unfair treatment, detentions and intimidation.
• Dock Workers are closing Ports on the West Coast - questioning Iraq war continuance.
• Truckers are striking all around the country, especially in the East Coast.

As I wrote earlier this week. The militarism of the country is on the rise. We need to get out in the streets with the above or watch their backs and support these efforts. If we lack courage we must at minimum encourage. Most of all we need to rouse ourselves and be aware. Those with the most to lose are throwing themselves in harm's way. It is remarkable.

Oh, and is it impossible for elected officials - including Democratic congress critters - to do the right thing? Rhetorical question.

But, pick any elected official today and question him or her about something that matters to real human beings - not corporations. Do it today, May Day.
Senate link. House link.

Q113: Qualifications = Old and Bored?

This ad I spotted Sunday scares the piss out of me. I have a picture in my mind’s eye of a lot of bored old white men with serious attitudes of hate, fueled by fear and propaganda. Hey, I qualify and would no doubt create a stir if I showed up. If I were a tad braver I’d have QUESTION AUTHORITY tattooed on my forehead. Yes, I realize this is hyperbole.

I believe that we are on a fast tract to a police state. Did you notice that the POL was dropped for the new moniker for Federal Immigration cops? ICE! I think it is to make one’s blood turn cold in fear. Quiver and quake – the name of the game in what is euphemistically called ‘Security’ in the new Orwellian fantasy land of America. Who’s security? Despite the evidence of swaggering police becoming more aggressive with fewer consequences, as with the acquittal of the NYC police officers who gunned down Sean Bell, we are asked to believe that “to serve and protect” is the guiding force. I can’t reconcile old and bored with serve and protect.

Naomi Klein has written a brilliant book, The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and countless articles. You all know how to Google, but I will start you off with this from the Nation . . .

I have this on the brain this morning because I found out that Blackwater is trying to sneak into South San Diego after having been thwarted by the community of Potrero they have gone to some lengths to conceal their intent to build a training facility anyway. The information is here via the Courage Campaign of California, an incredible Activist Group.

You see, Naomi Klein speaks about Blackwater in the following excerpt:

PRIVATIZING GOVERNMENT ITSELF

As we have seen time and time again in the Bush Administration, virtually every possible government function is outsourced to corporate contractors, often with no bidding for those contracts. The middle-class and poor get stomped on and squeezed, but the corporate behemoths and multinationals — the Bechtels and Halliburtons and Blackwaters and KPMGs — make out like bandits. Graft and corruption are built into the system, with billions simply disappearing into corporate black holes, with the Administration conveniently looking the other way. And the general public, of course, winds up paying for all this transfer of wealth and is left holding the bag in the form of lack of spending on public needs and infrastructure upkeep and a huge debt burdening future generations.

"A more accurate term for a system that erases the boundaries between Big Government and Big Business is not liberal, conservative or capitalist but corporatist," writes Klein. (p. 87) (Mussolini described this amalgam of government and business as fascism.)

"Its main characteristics are huge transfers of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt, an ever-widening chasm between the dazzling rich and the disposable poor, and an aggressive nationalism that justifies bottomless spending on security. ... Other features of the corporatist state tend to include aggressive surveillance (once again, with government and large corporations trading favors and contracts), mass incarceration, shrinking civil liberties and often, though not always, torture." (p. 15)

At times, Klein seems to be suggesting that such behaviors are but unfortunate and accidental by-products of over-zealous free-marketeers, but mostly she leans in the direction of a conscious conspiracy on the part of the corporatist manipulators of the economy and body politic. For example, she says, "the extreme tactics on display in Iraq and New Orleans are often mistaken for the unique incompetence or cronyism of the Bush White House. In fact, Bush's exploits merely represent the monstrously violent and creative culmination of a fifty-year campaign for total corporate liberation." (p.19)

Add to the mix the horror that is the US prison system where we have the largest ratio of prisoners to population in the world at 1 in every 100 in this country is in jail. And it is big business, run by corporatists as a new kind of slavery, according to human rights groups. No surprise to thinking, reading people that the prison population is disproportionatly people of color. Update: This link is what I had in mind. "KBR-Halliburton Get $385 million contract to build detention centers just in case they are needed."

Alright, already - I am not a journalist and this just creeps me out. I can read, absorb, take an action or sign a petition. I can’t seem to write an essay that does anything more than hint at this police state issue. I lack any kind of courage except to 'encourage'. I will encourage you to see these primary sources for the ‘real’ stories. Enough? No, not nearly while it is much better than to deny the reality or refuse to acknowledge the dangers.

I just want to say that Blackwater is too damn close. Just as I feared the miserable qualifications of 'old and bored.' This company is built on the intimidation factor of armed men who are 'young and angry.' The following video from the Courage Campaign speaks to the quality of life that is the exact opposite of this secret army of assassins and intimidation forces.

A Potrero, CA farmer speaks about the quiet of his community. It is rural, small and water dependent . . . This company doesn't belong here.

O104: OUTRAGE!

As a fulfillment of Greenpa's request I am pleading with readers to go read his post on Hunger Compilation - And ACTION. Now. It isn't that long, but it is jam packed with facts you will not be reading anywhere else.

O103: Oaxacan activists visit local migrant workers

From my local paper, Edward Sifuentes wrote about these Oaxacan activists. I found it refreshing to see news of activists coming to hear the stories of American abusive treatment. In Myths America, my experience says that this new perspective doesn’t exist. But, again Myths America is busted.

I may be stretching fair use a bit, as there is not a thing I want to exclude from Mr. Sifuentes’ article. Reading it I felt very uninformed, except on a factual level. As with my home, the mobile home park community, there are three Spanish speaking households with whom I can’t communicate. I hope to take Spanish classes this next year as others in my park have done. Why Americans are not taught both throughout school years has baffled me for years. The Americas contain more Spanish speakers than English speakers. Oh yeah, white privilege again.

You will see from this article that the population estimate of 25,000 is high for the Oaxacan immigrants alone, not just all Mexican immigrants. Oaxacan activists Socorro Zurita Vazquez, left, and Centelia Maldonado spoke with fellow Oaxacans on Wednesday about the difficulties many face after coming north to find work.

Centelia Maldonado saw firsthand the toll that migrant work takes on a person.

Her father was a migrant farm worker most of his life and suffered many health problems later in life that she said stemmed from the often backbreaking work he performed.

Now, the 40-year-old activist from the impoverished Mexican state of Oaxaca said she wants to prevent her countrymen from having to migrate to the U.S. by helping create jobs at home.

Maldonado was one of a small group of activists from the impoverished state of Oaxaca that visited day labor sites and migrant camps in the Rancho Penasquitos area Wednesday.

She said the group wanted to see the migrants' living and working conditions to take back their experiences and help dispel some myths about migration.

When migrants return to their communities with American clothes, cars and money, people see the benefit of coming to the U.S., but they don't realize the dangers and hardships that migrants face, she said.

"We want to let people know the suffering people go through and to look for alternatives" to migration, Maldonado said.

At a day-labor site the group visited Wednesday afternoon, a group of about 30 men milled around under the hot sun waiting for a job. Ramiro Santiago, a 60-year-old Oaxacan man, said he had been waiting since about 6 a.m. without any luck.

"There's very little work," Santiago said.

The old man, who was leaning against a utility box wearing a dark baseball cap to protect his face against the sun's rays, said he's been in the country for three months. He said he gets work mowing lawns and pulling weeds for homeowners about two days a week.

Socorro Zurita Vazquez, one of the activists, said there is a better way for Oaxacans to make a living.

"Their sons are left behind and they come here to suffer," she said.

Vazquez said she hopes her visit will spark interest in a plan to create jobs at home by starting small companies that produce Oaxacan crafts, textiles and traditional food for export to the U.S.

"We may be poor in economic terms, but we are rich in culture and natural resources," Vazquez said.

Maldonado said her father began working as a migrant farmworker in northern Mexico and California when she was 2 years old. She said economic trade agreements and policies in Mexico that favor industrial farmers have forced people to search for work in the U.S.

"All these kids will be sent back to us when they are no longer able to work," Maldonado said looking at the group of predominantly young day laborers.

Oaxaca is one of the more economically depressed states in Mexico. It is inhabited predominantly by indigenous people, many of whom speak native Mexican languages and little Spanish.

Political turmoil, environmental devastation and economic problems have conspired to keep indigenous people largely undereducated and unable to continue their traditional farming way of life, said Jose Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Frente Indigena Binacional Oaxaqueno, the Oaxacan Indian rights group that organized the visit.

Oaxacan activists Jose Gonzalez, left, Bernardo Ramirez and Centelia Maldonado talk to a fellow Oaxacan at a day-laborer site in Rancho Bernardo on Wednesday. The Oaxacan activists toured migrant camps to gather information about the hardships many migrants face after crossing the U.S. border.

As many as 25,000 Oaxacan immigrants are estimated to live in North County, Gonzalez said.

In recent months, Oaxaca continues to simmer with protests and calls for the ouster of the state's governor, Ulises Ruiz, whom activists blame for political unrest and human rights abuses.

Oaxaca City was the site of sometimes-violent demonstrations in 2006, when protesters seized the city's center for months and accused the governor of electoral fraud. The federal government eventually sent in police to clear the city of protesters, and Ruiz remains in office.

The conflict began as a teachers' strike in May, 2006, but quickly mushroomed into a broad protest against centuries of social and economic injustices.

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at esifuentes@nctimes.com.

WALDO NILO Staff Photographer

N97: New Orleans = Vagina of America

Vagina Monologues author and activist, Eve Ensler, has had the pivotal role along with help from the Katrina Warriers in organizing this weekend’s 10th anniversary event against violence in New Orleans yesterday and today.
The Best of New Orleans blog post, Making Herstory writes,

For a decade, playwright and activist Eve Ensler has been using her continuously evolving work The Vagina Monologues to raise funds and awareness in a global effort to end violence against women. During a talk at the University of New Orleans last month, Ensler addressed her decision to hold "V to the Tenth," the 10th anniversary celebration of V-Day, her anti-violence initiative, in New Orleans. She had struggled, she said, to find the right symbolic link that would perfectly express her focus on the women affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Then it came to her.

'Duh," she said, "wetlands."

It's a glib but appropriate metaphor and the central point of one of her newest monologues. "New Orleans is the vagina of America," begins the piece, which casts New Orleans and the Gulf South in the role of the feminine in a culture that disrespects and underserves women; seductive and sustaining — and repeatedly abused.

Friday morning Democracy Now host Amy Goodman devoted the show, being broadcast from New Orleans to this V to the Tenth event. She interviewed spokeswomen from the Gulf Coast, Kenya, Congo and Iraq as well as replaying clips from Eve Ensler and Jane Fonda interviews. The video is impressive.

The Making Herstory, Gambit Weekly article continues,

Statistics consistently have borne out that following natural or man-made disasters, women suffer disproportionately, says Dale Standifer, director of the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children. Not the event itself but resulting burdens of stess and difficulty coping leads to increases in abuse of women. The frequency and intensity of sexual assaults and domestic violence increase.

In a cruel inverse ratio, the availability of services for women in need — from available childcare services to shelter beds — declines. The aftermath of Katrina affected women in shocking ways. Emergency medical services that were functioning had very few forensic nurses — the trained staff who deal with sexual assault victims and collect evidence for rape kits. Abusive partners were able to track down their victims through post-Katrina networks set up to help families and friends find one another. Victims of domestic abuse found themselves dependent on abusive spouses who signed up for FEMA benefits under the abusers' names.

In conflict zones, some Third World countries, and in nations where religion and cultural tradition incorporate misogyny into law and custom — like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan or West African countries that practice the female genital mutilation referred to as female circumcision — Ensler saw women becoming casualties as a matter of course. In post-Katrina New Orleans, she saw it on American soil.

'In any war, or any place where infrastructure falls apart, poverty increases, racism increases, abuse increases. And women are on the front lines," Ensler says.

Fonda made this point, that Eve’s little play has done more for the women of the US than the government. More money has been given because of this one woman than all of the federal government. That is an inspiration for us individual women (as well as a national shame).

Update: Shakespeare's Sister, Melissa McEwan, has written a compelling post specifically about the Congolese sexual terrorism. There is to be a Blog in Solidarity: Congo Rape Epidemic. She has links to some powerful testimony from one rape victim. Heartbreaking.

I will re-iterate, the Democracy Now program cited above has a Congolese woman who speaks passionately about this horror for the women of the Congo that the US government and the coroporate media is ignoring.

Update: One of the best summaries of the DRC conflict.

M82: Mobile Home Park

I have written a lot about the mobile home park where I live. I love this funky little community. I have it on the brain these days for a number of reasons. There is the great community participation we had the last two Sundays towards our community garden.

This doctored illustration (click for big) originated from the second newsletter I completed in the last several weeks. It was to get support for some community art projects I want to suggest. I decided I would underscore to the tenants just how creative a little place we are by creating a montage of just a few of the artistic, aesthetic touches around the park.

My spot is the upper left. Check out the lower right where a Tango teacher has transformed her home one glass bead at a time. It is a virtual grotto. I photoshopped some plantings in the center as I didn't want to use the park's name which was on the sign. That graphic with the ladder relates to the sign needing a possible fix.

The only dark cloud is my trepidation with the city council's mobile park study. I keep being told by my neighbors and the 'cityspeak' that this is all about assuring mobile home park residents all over the city that they will be protected from urban development. Supposedly as one of the only bastions for low income housing in an overpriced California coastal city, we are a vital statistic to assure the city funding from the state and federal transportation departments. I have oversimplified this, but the idea is what I want to convey.

Today I am reviewing a year's worth of information beginning with the letter I wrote the city council members and the mayor, voicing my displeasure with the selection of a consultant for the mobile home park study as he owns 11 mobile home parks in other locations. My letter, along with all the other board members of our park's resident association, spoke about the conflict of interest and how this consultant couldn't speak as an advocate for us. No responses from any of them.

I also have read and re-read the questionnaires sent to us all and the sorry compilation of findings. I then watched the 4.5 hr city council 'workshop' from February (a year after we wrote) and heard this consultant obfuscate for an hour with bold preferences towards owners and the city development rather than for residents. Gah. . .

Having spent hours at this, I finally stopped for a bite and to regroup. I frankly had forgotten to post today. So, rather than use what I'd prepared I thought I might just decompress by letting you all (all 4-6 of you) know what is up. Oh yes, forgot to say. Tomorrow night is the third and final motor home study workshop at city hall and that is why I am boning up on this theme. Did you notice my reluctance to capitalize anything in this post? It was an act of questioning authority.

M81: Movement Hero César Chávez

March 31 is celebrated in a handful of states because it is César Chávez Day. He would have been 81 today. César Chávez Day is an observed holiday in eight states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

This morning I watched Democracy Now on the computer and learned (re-learned?) about this profoundly beloved leader of Mexican farm workers from his companion and co-founder Dolores Huerta. Now as I write that last sentence I wonder how many of this nation's farm laborers are NOT Mexican.

Having spent yesterday afternoon digging in the soil, I heard about the farm labor movement with a heightened sense of awareness.

It is also the 40th anniversary today of the end of the grape boycott. I remember the boycott in 1968 as I found out about it after knowing I'd eaten grapes without any awareness. I stopped after heard about the UFW strike and César Chávez going on a 25 day fast of water only.

The United Farmworkers Union AFL-CIO (UFW) has a special place in the history of farm labor organizing. It is the only successful union ever established to defend the rights of those who grow and harvest the crops.

This PBS website answers my own question as I found that historically it was the Filipino farm workers who stared the grape boycott.

Everything changed on September 8, 1965. On that day another farmworker group, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), struck the Delano table grape growers. Most of AWOC’s members were Filipinos who had come to the U.S. during the 1930s.

One week later the NFWA voted to join the strike. Among the joint leadership were César Chávez, Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla from NFWA, and Larry Itliong, Andy Imutan and Philip Veracruz from AWOC.

Today, in 2008 I am very frightened for the farm laborers. As unions are growing weaker and weaker in this corporatist country and as racial hatred gets stronger and stronger the situation is a tinderbox. César Chávez'said, “The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.”

Using more of César Chávez' own words:

"¡Sí se puede!"

"If you're not frightened that you might fail, you'll never do the job. If you're frightened, you'll work like crazy."

Painting by Robert Shetterly

M80: Manual Labor

Yesterday our community garden had its first work detail. Several young residents and a guy my age went to pick up the load of topsoil and horse manure (dried) from an ad I’d found on Craig’s List. They also went to a second spot and picked up aerated soil for a total of about 4-1/2 to 5 yards. Once back here a half dozen of us sifted through the pile and took wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow to two separate plots. One neighbor, a nurse during her day job, worked for several hours spreading the soil and then began at one end of the larger garden and turned the soil one spade full at a time.

Now that doesn’t sound like a big deal. But here is the thing. The bunch of us women around the dirt pile with our shovels had mostly sat around this last year and gotten weak. At least one guy suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and another had been at it for some hours. This crew around the great mountain of soil aged from late 50’s through 70’s. The prime energy mover is a young woman (manager) in her 20’s and the tree / plant professional neighbor is late 20’s or early 30’s. This poor guy injured his shoulder a couple of weeks ago and is miserable about not being able to do anything. He did what he could by driving the big truck, directing people and doing some pruning. Nothing underscores the importance of teamwork than our motley crew. Alone we would not be able to get much of anything done. Hell, I wouldn’t even try. Another fascinating aspect of this motley crew was the ease with which labor saving ideas were adopted (like my neighbor Jim's idea to use milk crates to sift) and suggestions for dividing the work or where to move the earth. It was consensus, cooperation experiment that did us proud.

We had pizza from the petty cash and lots of laughs. It was a good opportunity to talk about politics, music, jokes and the 50’s. I kidded that shoveling dirt and shit was the perfect time to talk politics. I was surprised there were so many Obama backers. I know there are some die-hard republicans in the park, so I usually don’t ask. But, a shared task does this. It loosens the tongue, it loosens the spirit. We had a lot of funny interactions and story telling. I found that I wasn’t alone as a Cornell graduate or someone who lived in Iowa or Nebraska.

The other benefit was a heightened sense of excitement for the next stage, and the next. Several people felt the need to talk about what a good feeling it was to join together in this task. All of us were astounded to see the pile of dirt go down. We actually finished it all but the pile of dirt clods, grass and sticks we’d sifted out. This last pile was spread out so that the dirt could be dried completely. We will then pulverize it as much as we can to make it spread-able.

This weekend there were at least 4 neighbors with the flu, one visiting a father, another burying a father and my own son had a shoulder out and work. I’d like to think that this groups and a half dozen more might be able to jump in with some bit over the upcoming weeks.

There is a great deal more manual labor required to do in simply preparing the soil for planting. But, yesterday made me relax that we will be able to gather people and to accomplish much this spring and summer. And it looks like we might be able to do it with good feelings. I also reminded the gang that we were getting something for free (besides the topsoil and manure). It was funny how there were puzzled looks and a neighbor woman said, "Good feelings working together?" (or something like that) and I said, "Food, my first goal here is that we will feed ourselves." This point is just not sinking in yet. It is part of the staggering number of Myths America that we will always have enough to eat. That was one grounding thought (excuse the pun) for the day.

Flickr ant's view of dirt pile
Flickr wheelbarrow rainbow
This photo is so pleasing to me. I like the kind of mind that would come up with such an unconventional use of a wheelbarrow. It is so happy.

J64: Join

The word join usually is my cue to exit stage left. But an integral part of my year in living a life of sustainability necessitates leaving my hermitage on occasion and working with others. I have written about some interactions with my neighbors. But, I haven't been consistent or ventured very far.

Several weeks ago I took a real leap into community by participating in a city workshop on the Highway 101 streetscape for the 2 miles in front of my home. I also have been attended a city council meeting and viewed several of them live streaming on my computer. I approached city council members, emailed and have been commenting regularly on a local blog. This is pretty big 'joining in' step for me at the community level. As a liberal I have never felt 'at home' in these western bodies. In the 80's I lived in upstate New York, Manhattan and Philadelphia where I felt shared political values with so many others living in those places.

Moving to Phoenix in '92 indeed felt like moving to a desert. I feel similarly here in Southern California. I will admit that I didn't dig deeply into the red state community groups. I just stayed to myself. But, I am pushing through my reluctance to have some beginnings of a grassroots experience. The other beginning is my participation in my mobile home park's resident association board. This only entails a meeting once or twice a year.

Now the last two weeks, since I haven't been writing on my blog, I have been writing possible city council presentations and composing several newsletter drafts. Some interested neighbors and I are trying to drum up more participation in a Community Garden for our 'soulful little' mobile home park. We also want to do some art projects around the park. This is timely with city council action coming up with mobile home parks, with the rising cost of food and to help us all build community for whatever the future will bring. The city could be contemplating eminent domain, despite talk of needing the only bit of low income housing the city can claim.

The garden is something that will help us all focus on empowering ourselves rather than stewing in paranoia or general anxiety. So, I have joined with others. It is good to venture out of my comfort zone now and again. It is also a way to be an example of living more lightly. Already so many themes of combating waste and conserving water have come up conversationally. There will be the junk that comes up with group processes, but I just know I will get more than I give.

H55: Hero Howard Zinn

This last entry of this week of *H* topics also ends this 4 weeks of fire element, of passion. I have written about passion, action, energy, fun, emotion and excitement. Here is a little more loving before acknowledging real crisis.

This guy is one old white guy I feel good about loving. Believe me, for me the list is very, very tiny. But Howard Zinn is a hero for me. This last week he wrote about the US Presidential elections. I absolutely agree with him that they deserve my 2 minutes of attention. That said, I gave the elections several more minutes in the following links focusing on the feminist perspective. Like any addict, I visit more political websites than I should. It serves no real purpose. But, Howard says it far better than I might.

Here are some of the specifics in his criticism, speaking against our obsession with the election he titles, Election Madness.

He begins with a story about a Floridian who has written him long handwritten letters over the years. The man is a blue collar guy with a security guard job who has always railed against the failures of the capitalist system to assure “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness” for working people.

Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: “Well, I’m writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can’t tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now.”

Some news highlights around the same time of this letter included the following that may be reported in the media, but they are gone in a flash:

• Thousands in Mass. Foreclosed on in ’07.
• 7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the ’06 rate.
• 750,000 people with disabilities have been waiting for years for their Social Security benefits
• Social Security is underfunded and there are not enough personnel to handle all the requests, even desperate ones.

These stories are instantly gone (if even reported) but the press day after day is relentless fixated on the election frenzy.

I felt his scrutiny as he describes those of us who have ranted about the corporate media’s domination and should distance ourselves, yet we are “transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry”. Howard doesn’t describe the blog addiction, but suffice it to say . . .

The following really struck me with the historical comparison of the thirties to the present, both as times of national crisis.

No, I’m not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes—the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.

But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.

Do read the original article for details. It is filled with the fact of a people’s movement on many fronts in the thirties. Roosevelt pushing progressive programs all by himself is a false picture. He was pressured by many forces, people in the streets, people protesting. There were “disturbances of the unemployed” in all the major American cities. Strikes were everywhere, all over the country with frightened, desperate people defying police and creating self-help organizations. Without this national crisis, the New Deal politics would never have been instituted.

It is painful for me to acknowledge the truth in what Zinn proceeds to tick off about today’s Democratic Party refusing to move off the center. And all progressives do know that these two candidates are in no way addressing and radical change in the status quo. I will add here in my own words Feminist rights, equality under the law. It is our turn.The list goes on with what people cry out for but neither candidate is offering;

• Job guarantee to everyone who needs one
• Minimum income for every household
• Housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure
• Deep cuts in military budget
• Radical changes in the tax system to free trillions for social programs to transform the way we live

None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.

So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.

Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Zinn, the historian, the activist spells out the American response to crisis after the Revolutionary War when farmers couldn’t pay taxes and neighbors, friends filled the courthouse steps and would not let auctions of the farmer’s lands and goods proceed. In the thirties, people organized themselves and when evicted families’ goods hit the streets, they helped haul them back inside, illegally.

Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war.

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

I started make-a-(green) plan because of my own disenchantment with the political situation.

It is a really formidable task to tune out this orchestrated election crap. The sustainable blogs I read are growing in the recognition of how important it is to step away from our computers and our television screens. Like any addiction it is tough. But feeling miserable seems almost a prerequisite to change. Why do we think we should change the world without inconvenience, discomfort, depression, anger, etc? I need to keep reading brave articles like this and trusting my own notions. I knew I should trust my feelings of being under-whelmed on supercalifragilistic Tuesday.

P.S. Did you notice that not once did Howard Zinn feel compelled to discuss anyone needing to have the ‘balls’ to stand up? That is refreshing.

Painting by Robert Shetterly