You’re not required nor even encouraged to to participate in any illegal actions.  It may be worth considering that even Al Gore recognizes the need for a more ardent response than we’ve been providing–this month, he declared that “”Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play. And I expect that it will increase, no question about it.”

The only way to turn down the heat is to turn it up.

If you cant’ make it,  MCG’s letter to Senator John Kerry is truly worth reading and digesting in its entirely. It serves as a valuable, genuinely ecological manifesto in that ties together the raft of social, cultural, economic, and political changes necessary for survival–much less prosperity–in an era of ongoing climate change and imminent resource scarcity.  The letter  is reprinted in full below:

To the Honorable Senator Kerry and colleagues in the US Senate and Congress,
 
As you may know, climate scientists continue to escalate their dire warnings. Recent reports now predict that the widely-accepted 2oC threshold for dangerous warming will be reach as soon as 2030,11 and that the climate could warm as much as a 7oC (10.8oF) by the end of century, along with meters of sea level rise1,2. With climate on the verge of spiraling out of control, it must be recognized that all humanity – as well as our global and local economies – depend on maintaining the life support systems of the planet. Our fate is bound together, rich and poor, to each other and to the Earth. Any proposed climate solutions must be based not only on science, but also on shared values of fairness and justice. The welfare of humanity and posterity, that currently hangs in the balance, must be paramount.
 
Thus we urge you to abandon the deeply flawed Kerry-Boxer climate bill and write a new bill based on the fundamental scientific and humanitarian necessity of reducing atmospheric CO2 below 350 parts-per-million (ppm). Further, the urgency for achieving 350 ppm must be that of a wartime mobilization. The threat to our security and survival is no less critical and acute.
 
Failing to urgently return below 350 parts-per-million atmospheric CO2 flies in the face of current science, and spells disastrous consequences for ecosystems and our economy that depends on them. The proposed US climate bill, unfortunately, fails to meet this test of scientific feasibility. As stated in the 2007 IPCC report, emissions must be reduced by 25-40% relative to 1990 levels by 2020 in order to stabilize even at 450 ppm. Yet the current Kerry-Boxer bill caps US emissions at a level that is only 3% below 1990 levels by 20207. And even this reduction will be obliterated due to “offsets” and discounted emissions (biomass and others) that create much higher effective emissions rates.
 
To the argument that “we need to accept political reality, and negotiate the best deal we can get”, we say3: “political feasibility” is a moving target, highly dependent on the public conversation – and that public conversation is rapidly changing.  Political feasibility will follow naturally once politicians start to speak the WHOLE TRUTH about how climate change will soon impact the public’s lives, forever, including their very survival, and about the magnitude of change that is truly required.  Political feasibility also depends on being honest about the strength (or lack thereof) of proposed climate legislation in averting climate catastrophe.  In fact, all the climate bills in the world combined, including the pending US bill, even if perfectly executed, will still bring us to way above the 2oC catastrophic warming, and 6 feet of sea level rise, THIS CENTURY, with much worse impacts still in the centuries to come2.
 
In any event, however, the climate is indifferent to political feasibility. The real test of any climate deal must ultimately be scientific and ecological feasibility of the proposed solutions.
 
It is no secret that the US climate bill has fingerprints of lobbyists for the worst polluters and the Wall Street all over it10. In addition, the US Chamber of Commerce, a long-standing, unabashed opponent of even the weakest provisions in climate policies, has now been asked to help write the US climate legislation.
 
It is deeply troubling that both the US climate bill and the international negotiations are serving to use climate change as a pretext to expand the ownership and control of special interests over the public commons – in this case the atmosphere and climate. These special interests include big coal, oil, nuclear, agribusiness, and Wall Street, many of whom are at the root of the crisis to start with. The further consolidation of power and profit into their hands leads to an increasingly unjust world where the public bears the costs and impacts while the rich makes profits, often by further worsening the climate emergency that these “solutions” are supposed to help resolve.  Examples of this phenomenon, referred to by Naomi Klein as “disaster capitalism” include:
 
• The use of “cap and trade” schemes for pricing carbon, an artificial and unpredictable ”market” approach vulnerable to the same speculators, day traders and bank executives who brought us the current financial crisis, and who stand to profit handsomely from a multi-trillion dollar carbon trading/speculation market.  Cap and trade has been repeatedly proven ineffective in reducing pollution, is extremely complex, non-transparent, slow to implement, prone to fraud, special interest influences, and perverse incentives, and stuffed with polluter giveaways and protections at the expense of the climate and the environment.
• The heavy subsidies for coal and the so called “Carbon Capture & Sequestration” technology (or CCS), – a false solution because it is extremely expensive and won’t be available for many years (if at all), and because there is no real safe storage for the captured, highly compressed CO2.  Underground storage is prone to leakage through geological faults, injection wells or abandoned wells, and even a trivial fraction of leakage will undo climate mitigation over a period of time. In addition,  the escape of even a small fraction of the gas to the surface endangers humans, animals, and plants, and will acidify soil and aquatic ecosystems4.  The enshrinement of coal in the US climate bill also condemns communities that have long suffered the environmental devastation from coal mining and coal ash disposal, to continued injustice.
• The incentives for biomass incineration, and the promotion of biofuels, based on the faulty assumption of their carbon neutrality, not only threaten to decimate our forests to satisfy our hunger for energy, but also, by burning biomaterial instead of allowing it to return to the soil, further exacerbate soil nutrient loss, soil degradation and erosion, leading to more soil carbon emissions.  By not counting biomass incineration emissions, the US climate bill also renders any proclaimed emission reduction targets meaningless, as far as the atmosphere is concerned.
• Expanding offshore drilling, and nuclear power plants, as a formula for “energy independence”.  While this may reduce fossil fuel imports to a small extent years down the road, drilling and burning more fossil fuel (including tar sand and oil shale) worsens the climate crisis, and contributes to further environmental destruction.  More subsidies for the hugely expensive nuclear industry diverts badly needed funding for investment in truly clean renewable technologies, while committing to the huge upfront carbon emissions from nuclear power plant construction, and continued environmental destruction and pollution from nuclear material mining and processing, all without even achieving real “energy independence” since much of the nuclear material will be imported from abroad.
 
We call for policies that effect an immediate, deep mobilization akin to a war-time effort, for the peaceful purpose of common survival.  This requires truly respecting science-based greenhouse gas targets, currently recognized as no more than 350 ppm, instead of paying only lip service.   This also requires the implementation of real solutions to achieve it, including:
 
• Direct, rule based regulations to drastically and purposefully contract and conserve the use of energy and other key resources, and curtail excessive, unsustainable consumption.  Regulations must also aim to redirect our economic activities into energy efficiency improvements, truly clean and green renewable energy, public transportation, re-localization of agriculture and production that minimizes transportation needs, waste reduction, etc.  This means keeping fossil fuels in the ground, shifting rapidly away from incineration technologies including biomass burning, and phasing out nuclear power as quickly as possible.
• Supplementing these direct rules with a simple, revenue-neutral carbon fee coupled with equal-share dividend return or reduced income tax in an equitable manner, that provides a strong price incentive for a rapid shift to a low carbon economy, while ensuring low and medium income families are protected (even advantaged) from price hikes due to the carbon fee.  Unlike cap and trade, which does not achieve additive emission reductions in conjunction with rule-based policies or technology innovation, this carbon fee approach is fully additive to the emission reductions achieved by other causes, and is transparent, easy to implement and audit, much less prone to fraud, doesn’t create perverse incentives. Where politicians have had the courage and wisdom to inform the public about it, has already been implemented in a number of countries and regions in the world, without costing politicians their political careers!8,9
• Using regulatory rules to phase out unsustainable agricultural and forestry practices (including clear-cutting forests, “conventional”, chemical-intensive farming practices, and factory feedlots, etc.), and switch to sustainable, organic agriculture and holistic soil management practices.  This will stop the large emissions from the agricultural/forestry sector, and instead draw down CO2 from the atmosphere by as much as tens of parts-per-million globally5.  None of these practices should be allowed to be sold as “offsets”, which completely undo their effects by trading them for the right of more emissions by other polluters.
• Providing generous funding for ending global deforestation, and for maximum ecosystem restoration. These projects must address root causes of deforestation, including demand side drivers (from wealthier nations), and must protect indigenous people’s rights, and recognize the immeasurable value of their intimate knowledge on the maintenance of their natural environment.  Clear distinction must be made between natural, old growth forests and monoculture plantations, to protect against the conversion of the former to the latter.  Again, none of these projects should be allowed to be sold as “offsets”.
• Providing generous funding and technology transfer to enable the developing world to take a low-carbon path of development (before they lock into a high carbon path), and to adapt to the effects of climate change for which they are hardest hit yet least responsible for causing. The US is by far the largest historical emitter and still among the highest per capita emitters of the world. We must take up our undeniable responsibility in solving this global problem.
• Providing generous funding for promoting global population contraction.  We have already stretched our planet’s carrying capacity.  To have any hopes of improving the living standards for all persons on earth, and avoiding a planetary collapse, we must first acknowledge the primary responsibility developed world has in causing most of the stress to Earth’s environment through our uncontrolled overconsumption, and fund generously programs and policies that focus on human development and ecosystem restoration worldwide, that improve the livelihoods of all people, and that will bring an end to uncontrolled population growth.
• Redirecting at least part of our disproportionately large military spending to provide the above needed funding (and still with plenty left to spare for health care, education, etc.!).  Half of our income tax goes to pay for military related expenses, much of it to secure fossil fuel access.  We cannot win global cooperation and succeed in global climate mobilization, or achieve real national security, when our country’s military budget is 42% of the entire world’s6!
• Implementing a true public campaign financing system, and an Instant Runoff Voting (ranked choice voting) system.  These and other election reforms are needed for a fundamental change to bring about real democracy, and get corporate money out of politics and climate policies.  We need system change, not climate change!
 
The state of Massachusetts should take a leadership role by adopting the proposal of The Leadership Campaign, to re-power Massachusetts with 100% clean electricity by 2020.  We call on Senator Kerry to sign the letter from some state legislators urging Governor Patrick to introduce this measure, and to introduce such ambitious measures in the federal climate bill. We note this will bring him strong credibility at both the national and international negotiation tables.
 
Equity and justice are the basis for reaching an agreement on and successfully implementing any real solutions. This includes justice at all levels.

• Internationally, the developed world must repay its climate debt to the developing world for the devastating effects of its past high carbon, environmentally destructive “development”.
• Domestically and beyond, we must recognize that the sooner we transition away from dirty energy and other unsustainable practices, the sooner we can stop the direct assault on the surrounding communities that are inevitably most impacted and often devastated, which tend to be poor communities, people of color, and indigenous peoples who suffer disproportionately for our carbon addictions.
• When transitioning to a low carbon economy, we must protect the rights of workers, displaced peoples, and others affected by the transition, by providing worker retraining and financial assistance among other measures.
• We further note that sustainability and relocalization of food production, manufacturing, financial services, and to the extent possible, renewable energy production, are key foundations of a vibrant, low carbon economy, and represent major economic justice opportunities, providing a source of local, green jobs for those who need them most. In addition, the local small businesses and cooperatives that provide these services keep resources in the community, and multiply the community-building power of every dollar several fold, as it re-circulates within the community.
• Finally, generational justice, as well as our moral obligation to protect the web of life of which we are a part, all demand that each of us do the right thing, and that we demand our politicians to do the right thing!
 
Therefore, we call on Senator Kerry and all other politicians to do the right thing, and work honestly to ensure a livable planet for all of us and our children.

Nineteen months ago I kicked this thing off with a post saluting Barney Frank for declaring he’d seek to decriminalize the kindly herb on a federal level. Alas, 2008 brought with it matters of greater moment to the Chair of the House Finance Committee. But here in Massachusetts, we went ahead and did it ourselves, and this year’s Hempfest on Boston Common was an out-and-out-celebration.

And I couldn’t help but smile during the lead-up the war, when he was one of the very few Senators to speak openly, defiantly, and angrily against the war. Just as he did against apartheid. He was unsuccessful–but he tried, probably harder than you and I–and I thought that was, perhaps, his greatest hour. We needed all the inspiration we coudl get in those dark days–just as we did during the Reagan years–and sure didn’t get much from most Democrats. Ted delivered. I won’t ever forget that.

Among so much else, you owe him for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the National Cancer Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, the COBRA Act of 1985, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act in 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Mental Health Parity Act in 1996 and 2008, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program… the list goes on and on.

Would that he had been five years younger. If there’s anyone on the planet Obama could have used this year, it was him.

Anyway, I went into Boston for the funereal procession. As did thousands of others. And it looked like this.

I just found put about this today, but cobbled together what appears below. Having just enjoyed, for the first time, homemade sausage I picked up over the weekend at Codman’s Farm in Lincoln, seems the least I can do.  For our friend the pig. 

TO:  Members of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Agriculture

FROM: Michael Horan, Stoughton (Eighth Norfolk )

RE:  Hearing on H715, An Act Relative to Small Plot Farming

DATE: June 2, 2009
Esteemed Members of the Committee:
 

Microfarming: A Growing Trend

Several months ago, I requested an application for shares in a CSA just up the road from me at the foot of the Blue Hills, Brookwood Farm. At which time I was told that they had only a dozen additional shares available—and a waiting list of 100 households! I was disappointed by the supply, but delighted at the demand. There are clearly a lot of people interested in becoming shareholders in microfarms. And there are clearly not enough of them to help fill the demand.

CSA’s are just part of a growing trend among both producers and consumers. According to the 2007 USDA Census of Agriculture, microfarms are experiencing explosive growth:

• “Between 2002 and 2007, the number of farms with sales of less than $2,500 increased by 74,000.
• Census results show that the majority of U.S. farms are smaller operations: “More than 36 percent are classified as residential/lifestyle farms, with sales of less than $250,000 and operators with a primary occupation other than farming.”  (2)
• In Massachusetts, there are over 2000 farms ranging between 1-9 acres, and 2500 farms in the state gross under $2,500 annually. (3)
• In Franklin County, “the census shows, 219 of the county’s 741 farms were quite small with less than $1,000 in sales, and 183 farms showed between $1,000 and $4,999 in sales. Together, those represent 402 farms — more than half of the farms in the county.” (4)

Clearly there is a demand for niche farms. This bill will assist in satisfying that need, and thereby assist in expanding Massachusetts’ growing agricultural revenues.

Microfarming and New Business Models

These operations are also becoming players in the burgeoning locally-based business movement. b.good.burgers in Brookline, working with GreenGrowers of Jamaica Plain, have installed a “rooftop farm” atop their business, where they’re growing fresh vegetables to served along with their burgers.(6) And in an era in which the average distance food travels from its source to the American plate is around 1,500 miles, with the obvious environmental impact, this kind of new business model is set to capitalize on America’s increasing sense of environmental responsibility.

Small Farms and Food Safety

The bill also is a good one from the position of product health and safety. The recent spinach recall, episodes of tainted meat, even swine flu are related:  “The common thread among all these events is food production on a massive scale, where a single mistake or viral mutation can quickly grow to tragic proportions and threaten thousands of innocent people with sickness and death.”  (6) Microfarming exists at the opposite end of this spectrum.

Micro-farms Strengthen Communities

The value of these small-scale farms transcends economic concerns. These half- to-five-acre farming operations are also of tremendous value to urban communities. They revitalize empty, weed-strewn lots, donate large percentages of their harvest, and supply local inner-city farmers markets with fresh produce:

• The ReVision Center shelter along Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester yielded 5,300 pounds of produce last year (7)
• In whas a desolate lot behind the Boston Day and Evening Academ, students have established a small farm that distributes vegetables to students, staff, neighbors, and the Haley House (shelter) Bakery Café (8)
• The Food Project, in Boston, operates several small urban farms ranging from one-half to 1.4 acres, producing 15,000 and 18,000 lbs of food annually; in 2007, the operation  sold $21,100 worth of produce and donated another $7,300 worth of vegetables to Community Servings & Rosie’s Place. bringing in over 2600 pounds of veggies. The rooftop garden atop Boston Medical Center also donates food to the Boston Medical Center Food Pantry and helps to supply the Project’s farmer Market in Dudley Square (9)
• Brookwood Farm in Milton employs summer interns fro Boston and Milton who assist in running the farm and the farmstand in Mattapan (10)

Small Scale Farms are Part of the Revenue Stream

There are also obvious benefits to operating a small farm outside the urban corridor. Many small farms turn a profit by selling direct-to-consumer (and this trend is likely to continue to expand as “agrotourism” increases in the state). In Franklin County, “The increase in the number of farms  selling directly to customers increased by 39 percent — from 141 to 196 — higher than the 32 percent increase statewide, and total direct sales soared by 163 percent — for a total of $3.4 million — far exceeding the nationwide average of 17 percent.” (11) (Jennifer Dempsey of American Farmland Trust; regional office in Northampton).

The Right Time for this Bill

These days, books about fad diets are being replaced on best-seller lists by books devoted to the quality of the food we eat. Films ranging from “Fast Food Nation” to “Supersize Me” are playing at multiplexes. Students from a variety of disciplines are lining up to do internships at organic farms. In short, food consciousness—along with a renewed emphasis on nutrition, safety, and the environment—is at all time high. And microfarming is especially well-suited to addressing the issues that are being raised in each of these areas.

Massachusetts is experiencing a resurgence in agriculture. The stewardship exercised by the state agricultural department, working in tandem with university research and extension programs, should be coupled with the political will to ensure that all alternatives are explored and best practices encouraged … starting right in the Statehouse. This bill is an example of wise stewardship, and I urge you to support it.

Thank you for your time.

m h

 
References

1.  Census of Agriculture Shows Growing Diversity in U.S. Farming, USDA Newsroom, February 4, 2009
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2009/02/0036.xml
 2. Census of Agriculture Shows Growing Diversity in U.S. Farming, USDA Newsroom, February 4, 2009
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2009/02/0036.xml
  3.USDA 2007 Census of Agriculture, Massachusetts State Profile
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2009/02/0036.xml
  4.”Farms a growing industry for county,” The Recorder, February 13, 2009
  http://www.recorder.com/story.cfm?id_no=5785233
  5.”Brookline burger-maker to offer roof-grown veggies,” Wicked Local Brookline, May 07, 2009
http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/archive/x1518865971/Brookline-burger-maker-to-offer-roof-grown-veggies
  6. Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts Chapter, May 2009 newsletter
http://www.nofamass.org/news/enews.php
  7.”This farm fills their spirits, too,” Boston Globe, July 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/27/this_farm_feeds_their_spirits_too/
  8. “Nourishing more than minds,” Boston Globe,  September 28, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/09/28/nourishing_more_than_minds/
  9. http://www.thefoodproject.org/agriculture/Internal1.asp?ID=97
  10. http://www.brookwoodcommunityfarm.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=3
  11.”Farms a growing industry for county,” The Recorder, February 13, 2009
  http://www.recorder.com/story.cfm?id_no=5785233

 
That’s the Book of Revelations. I’ve just returned from a talk delivered by  Bill McKibben, who, as it turned out,  described pretty much the same thing albeit with somewhat less flamboyant imagery. But McKibben, whose books might, among weaker constitutions,  lend themselves to depression and despair, is operating in a wholly inspirational mode these days. Over the past two decades he’s written on nature; on the nature of humanity; and on the systemic and systematic disruption of the natural order and accelerating destruction of “the environment”; but following an epiphany in Bangladesh, the writer, who lives in the wilds of Vermont, and the avowed Methodist, who teaches Sunday school, and the academic, who’s on the Middlebury faculty, decided that he had no option but to turn environmental activist, and to wrench apathy and despair into action by dint of his own capacity to inspire. Affable, unprepossessing,  and direct, McKibben offered some wry assessments of his own naivete when he woke up to find  himself an organizer, but also noted, to his continued surprise, the concrete, demonstrable successes of his initial small-scale, state-focused campaigns.

Bill speaking in Jamaica Plain, May 28.

Now he’s operating on the international level, promoting the work of 350.org, a popular front serving as an umbrella for the organizations, communities, and individuals globally who want—who need—to have a say in the upcoming United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen later this year. And what that say is: we need to immediately  reduce our CO2 emissions so that they constitute no more than 350 parts per million in the atmosphere. We’re currently at 388. And that number ain’t going down. McKibben noted that the multinational industrial complex is shooting for 450 ppm–with the attendant consequences, freely admitted by the proponents themselves, described in some detail below–and that for some thirty years in the future.

These are serious times. We’ve allowed an awful lot of people to take all kinds of liberties with our air, our water, our soil, with other sentient creatures,  and with relatively powerless human beings both here and abroad; and to implicitly turn what remains over to them for one last ferocious orgy of plunder will make what’s transpired till today look like Romper Room. Remember the classic cartoons featuring the white robed guy carrying a sign–”The End is Near!?”  Well: turns out his time has come.

“Environmentalism” used to be something of a luxury. It was to some degree a matter of aesthetics. The Native American shedding a single tear at litter and all that.  Well: those were the good old days. We’re talking about a whole ‘nother level here.  Ecological awareness isn’t just something for the Cambridge ladies who live in painted rooms no more.  And while changing your light bulbs and recycling your newspapers makes for a nice contribution, your individual contributions in that vein aren’t going to add up to much. (Do it anyway: we may lose the planet, but you may yet save your soul, and that’s important too.) But what will add is up is your participation in a concerted international effort to change the political will of  elected–and non-elected, for that matter–leaders around the globe.

From "As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial," a graphic novel by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan (Seven Stories Press, 2007; for Stephanies work, see minimumsecurity.net)

 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hence McKibben’s current pet project, 350.org. To whom I’ll leave the science; so when you’re done here, read up on the scenarios. It’s for real. Nearly everyone’s  acknowledged the fact of “global warming” and the role played by a growth economy in spurring it on. There’s plenty of argument about what, precisely, to do about it, but aside from a few far-right cranks and their jabbering mouthpieces on FOX News, the idea is no more open to debate than is, say, evolution. Adam and Eve did not frolic with the dinosaurs. The earth is getting warmer.  It ain’t good. We are responsible. And we can stop it.

All you’re being asked to do is: Spend some time on 350.org. Educate yourself. Disseminate the site as far and as wide and often as you can–use the Net for something more than Facebook quizzes! Talk it up. Keep breast of plans in your area for the 24th. If you can, join a group doing something that day. Ot start one. It’s that simple, and it’s risk free.  It’s almost as though all you gotta do is show up. With your kids, your families, yur friends. Which doesn’t sound very strategic … but if  tens of millions of us do; and hundreds of millions do worldwide, we’re going to be hard to ignore. It’s a numbers game.  And there’s enough horsepower behind 350.org that you’re going to be hearing about it again and again. Whether there’s going to be enough firepower behind this movement to seriously challenge the forces arrayed against us … well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?

In his recent book, The Uprising, David Sirota chronicles a wide spectrum of populist trends in postmillennial America, claiming that they’re evidence of a burgeoning holistic people’s Movement. McKibben wants to tap into that, and recognizes the need to create not merely a real and pressing sense of urgency, but an equal sense of commitment, even passion, leading up to a grand international display of solidarity with the ideals of 350.org on October 24. And it’s gonna take a lotta people in a lotta places—McKibben made it clear that we are up against some seriously powerful entrenched interests with some very deep pockets. He cited Exxon as just one example, a company that made more money last year than any company ever had in human history.

But … c’mon. Sure, Exxon’s a behemoth, but when you get right down it, these corporations are run by good ol’ Americans. Folks like your next door neighbor. Except of course for the gold plated toilets, the moat, stuff like that.  So how malevolent, really, are these supposedly nefarious corporations?

Answer: extremely. By their rapacity shall ye know them, and by their numbness to the self-acknowledged consequences of the same. 

McKibben noted that the poorer countries of the world are the most likely to get screwed—as he indicated with reference to New Orleans. I’m as cynical as anyone, but even I was stunned when, googling my way  through the morass of councils and consortiums and clubs intent on having their say in Copenhagen,  I turned tonight to the web site of the Combat Climate Change organization. These are the heavyweights. As the site boasts, “At present 66 global companies including General Electric, Uniliver, Citigroup, BP, Siemens, DTEK, Rusal, Reuters, Duke Energy, China Oil & Offshore Company, Volvo, Tata Power, HP and Vattenfall have joined our initiative!”  Which should provide some hint as to just what “changes” are involved here. But as I said, even I was shocked to see, buried within the council’s “Roadmap to a Low Emitting Society,” a slide under the rubric “Adaptation.”  Which reads:

“The international climate effort aims to limit climate change, but some change is inevitable. The impact of this will be most severe in the least developed countries (see figure 9 and 10), those least able to tackle the challenge. This will be a global problem and all nations must be committed to provide their share of the resources required for adaptation.”

This is bureaucratese for “since actually addressing the problem in any halfway sane, responsible way means lower shareholder earnings–and I think you know what means for guys like you and me, Bob, when they blame us for screwing up their grandkids’ inheritance–well, seems to me  the wretched of the earth are just gonna hafta get a hell of a lot wretcheder, so plan on some heavy duty investment down the road.” I can’t think of a better illustration of what Naomi Klein has termed “disaster capitalism” than this.

As for that neutral term “impact”—well, just have a look at the Combat Climate Change’s own coldblooded–and to their minds wholly acceptable–scenario:

Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night…

I began this with a quote from the Bible  knowing full well how much the learned enjoy smirking at the fundamentalists who look earnestly to the Rapture. But the fact is, we educated folks rely as much on faith as we do on our native intelligence and learning. How many of you can know enough, are ever going to know enough, to make impartial judgments on these matters? There’s a whole lot of chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy and similar arcana to be mastered. You’re not going to manage that while keeping an eye out on Ortiz’s batting slump and the state of your 401K. So you cast your lot with the people you believe, the people you can believe in. It’s a matter of faith, faith and trust.

So. You have a choice.

You can trust people like Yankee Methodist McKibben, and partners of his like Michael Pollan, author of  The Omnivore’s Dilemma, with whom he’s just composed a letter to America’s farmers asking their support, and The Rev.  Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr, a leader of the Hip-Hop Caucus and the co-creator of the Vote Or Die! Campaign in 2004. And Vandana Shiva. Bishop Desmond Tutu. Dr James Hansen.

Or you can, uh, trust Exxon. Repeat after me, and with a straight face: “I trust Exxon to do the right thing.”

McKibben and his allies are numerous, and they are damn smart, and they have nothing to gain playing Cassandra (Oklahoma’s Senator James “we have no homosexuality in our family” Inhofe, leader of the antiwarming sect in the Senate, claims the climate change folks are “only in it for the money.” McKibben came down and gave his talk at no charge–the nominal admission fees served to benefit the good people at Bikes not Bombs). They’ve  looked at the science and said that the price is too high—that we have to cut emissions back to 350 ppm NOW. Right now. The world’s corporate leaders have looked at identical evidence and drawn similar conclusions, predicting, as their own slide showed, flooding, heat waves, drought, decreased freshwater availability, coastal flooding, reduced agricultural output, declining production from forestry and agriculture, biodiversity loss, and up to 220 million people—in Africa, mind you,–suffering from a lack of freshwater. But these upstanding civic leaders have determined that, hey, South America and Africa, and the indonesian archipelago will simply have to …”adapt.”  “Adapt!” to what? Adapt to the conditions that we are imposing upon you in the name of profit.  For once, yes, it IS actually that simple. The price for continued consumption, says Exxon—and great many other well known and equally reprehensible megacorporations—is worth it. (The Copenhagen Climate Council, a “partner” of Combat Climate Change, is looking not to reduce, but to set a target of 450 ppm by … 2050. See their “Manifesto, p. 4, downloadable here [PDF] .)

 Now, once again: who am I gonna trust? And what the hell kind of world do Iwant to live in? Sheesh, reading that “plan”–endorsed by the top multinational companies–I can only ask, “what the hell kind of world do I live in?”

 
You’ll find no more clear-cut distinction between putting people or profits first. The sheer callousness of the “Combat Climate Change” consortium’s “solutions” is downright Stalinist—read that list again and consider the potential death toll. Right–“Stalinist” may be an understatement. That slide is the banality of evil incarnate, a heartless analysis of a genuine freaking apocalypse about to be wreaked upon what are already the most woebegone peoples on the earth by the angels with the seven bowls who sit atop the world’s largest corporations, created by some dessicated wonk whose spiritual ancestors did similar work for Vyacheslav Molotov–and an apocalypse that can be forestalled, but which is in their own eyes simply part of the cost of doing business. This is freaking horrible. This should cause jaw-dropping outrage on the part of anyone with even a shred of humanity left to them. This says: nothing, but nothing, shall come betwixt us and our profits.

And you know what? Nothing will without you.

Nothing is Written

There’s a disturbing connection  between the stances of Biblical fundamentalists, for whom the apocalypse is an unquestionable matter of faith, and the megacorporations, for whom it’s a foregone conclusion.  I almost prefer the fundamentalist option, because the multinationals’ willing acceptance is grounded in greed. Greed, and cynicism, in their clear belief that the rest of humanity won’t step up and say: this will not stand; we’re not going to turn the planet into a living hell for hundreds of millions of people that you might continue to reap profits that are already obscene by any rational standard. Fortunately, there’s another option, one that eludes both eschatologies, the fundamentalist bang and the corporations” whimper. Recall David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia–when Lawrence sets off to rescue a lost colleague, Omar Sharif’s character Sharif Ali admonishes him: it’s a lost cause: their compadre’s fate, his death, “is written,” he says. Lawrence undertakes a seemingly futile rescue, succeeds, and upon his return Ali can only say: ” Truly, for some men nothing is written unless THEY write it.” 

An awful lot of people are counting on you. You’re Americans. The people for whom nothing is written, remember? Your country calls the shots. And you are citizens in a democratic America. YOU call the damn shots. For once in your life, you have the chance to—well, not to put too fine a point on it, but to save the world. Like, literally. That’s not really the kind of opportunity you want to squander, is it? Especially considering the alternatives.

One again: silence, willy nilly, really does equal complicity. Show a little faith: this a cause to get on board with. Go to the web site, subscribe for updates, stay abreast of locally planned activities. McKibben himself admits that we may fail.  But look at it this way: we failed to stop a war that everyone now agrees was a tragic mistake. Because there weren’t enough of us out in the streets. If you knew then what you knew now, you would have been out there, right? Had millions and millions joined us … ehhh. We might have written a different history. Just by showing up. Well: get to 350.org, educate yourself–and this time around, fully aware of the implications, stop the apocalypse.  

The beauty of this crusade is that it transcends ideology (despite the noisy quibbling out there on the fringes of sanity). It goes beyond politics. You’re going to see churches, youth clubs, senior citizens organizations behind this movement. Think of it as akin to one of those science fiction movies in which humanity joins together to defeat the aliens. It’s also as non-hierchical as you can get–no one ‘s directing anything: this is grassroots at its finest–this is DIY. We’re going to have to make an awful lot of noise on October 24 to get the coverage we’ll need to display the political power we need to challange the multinationals. But showing up, showing some small spark of creative energy, that ain’t so hard. And unlike antiwar marches and  anarchist parades and antiglobalist riots, this won’t make you any enemies; quite the opposite in fact–as  McKibben said, “no is going to scream at you for fighting climate change.

Remember:

Nothing is written unless YOU write it.
 

Tonight’s talk, delivered at The English High School in Jamaica Plain, was sponsored by BikesNotBombs, a grassroots organization located in Jamaica Plain who’ve done terrific work since 1984. Check out their web site; they’re conducting their 22nd Annual Bike-a-thon June 7th, culminating with a Green Roots Festival in JP’s Southwest Corridor Park, Stony Brook T station on the Orange Line from 12-5. See the web site for details. Will be fun. And electricity free. The two New Orleans style brass bands playing are first rate and play irresistably infectious stuff.

Here’s a short clip I shot at the talk. You may have to boost the volume–the mikes weren’t working well. Which was actually appropriate. 

And since Bill referred to it tonight, discussing environmental justice in terms of social justice genereally and the ways in which these connection sused to be perceived and articulated,  here’s Brother Marvin. Cuz ya gotta have your video. Which I can’t seem to embed.

Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be
No, no
Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south, and sea
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be
No, no
Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas
Fish full of mercury
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be
No, no
Radiation in the ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land?
How much more abuse from man can you stand?
My sweet Lord
My sweet Lord
My sweet Lord

This year’s card:

Past cards

Amy Goodman and Cate April 4, First Parish, Harvard Square

The “Mainstream Media” is a favorite bogeyman of everyone from Jon Stewart to Sean Hannity. Of course Stewart is consciously aware of his own membership credentials and still manages at least the pretense of some small subversion from within, whereas Hannity re-creates himself as Jeremiah-in-exile and yet does naught but regurgitate whatever warmed over dog’s breakfast his masters serve him. But Amy has the real credentials for the job: she’s (sometimes literally) in the trenches every day, doing exactly the kind of work she begs the mainstream media to perform.

She’s also an ideal speaker that she has an encyclopedic memory for facts and figures; it’s a rare enough that can combine that with a gift for crystallizing every point with a choice anecdote. Thus, in duscussing  “covering the movements that make history,”  she retold the story of  Martin Luther King’s  infamous “Beyond Vietnam” speech (April 4, 1967) —maybe the greatest speech I’ve ever heard, without a doubt the most courageous and the most enduringly relevant, describing how MLK’s inner circle advised him against taking on LBJ—and his war: the President got you the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act—stick to civil rights, you have an ally there in the President; why extend the battle?  King’s response: LBJ might be cool with helping out all the black and brown babies here in the US [I’m paraphrasing Amy paraphrasing King]—but until he extends that compassion to all the black and brown babies around the world, I have no choice. 

The speech itself is astonishing. King would have gone down as a great man–a Black leader, organizer, and visionary had he stuck the the NAACP  script. But  his April 4th speech had everything to do with race and yet  so far  transcended the simple fact of racism that it put him on a whole ‘nother plane. Time Magazine’s response? ”Demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.”  The Washington Post :  King had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.” 

That’s missing the story.

 That’s being on the wrong side of history .

Of course we don’r hear much about that speech today. About King’s developing notion of uniting poor people everywhere, regardless of race,  under one banner. The mainstream rendering of MLK as a peaceful religious leader of oppressed Americans—which tends to leave out his blistering attacks on the military industrial complex and his  desire to go way, way beyond the black rights issue, as well as his unique way of elucidating the connections, globally, between racism and poverty and militarism and imperialism and colonialism —between all forms of oppression and exploitation—is  paralleled, Amy noted, by the media’s cynical re-telling of Rosa Park’s story. In most accounts, she was, ya know, just a tired, harmless woman who jest wanted to set herself down an’ rest after a hard day’s work. How sweet. How nonsensical.  Rosa was a full-time activist, secretary to the NAACP, who’d actually done the same thing before—this was a conscious action, a premeditated act of civil disobedience and a provocation to the state; in Amy’s words, “Rosa Parks was a full-time troublemaker.”  But that’s not the story America wants to hear, because, ya know, that puts her into the class of people like, oh, Red Emma Goldman.  The mainstream media have done to MLK and Rosa Parks what Christianity has done to Jesus of Nazareth over the centuries, turnng social revolutionaries into gentle doves. Cuz we can’t have the kids gettin’ the wrong idea, you see. 

The King story took place in 1967.  How have things changed? Well, Amy had a few numbers that tell the tale. Dissident voices, she suggested, tend to either be ignored, treated as curiosities, or scorned. But mostly ignored. That ignorance is illustrated by how many antiwar voices were heard among the roughly 400 interviews broadcast by the big 4 news network programs (on CBS, NBC, PBS, ABC) in the weeks around Colin Powell’s infamous warmongering speech at the UN. That number would be … three. The voices were out there—were we ever—but you’d never know it if you sup your “news” from piss-stained hydrants like The New York Times and CNN .

And  look, too, today, Amy said, at today’s coverage of the escalation in Afghanistan;  heeding only the mainstream U.S. media, you’d have no idea of the unpopularity of this escalation both here in the states and even more so abroad. The mainstream media reports on this new round of madness as though there’s a unanimous consensus, because both the Democratic and the Republican leadership agree on the policy. Well, as to that consensus: there ain’t one. Just as there wasn’t one in 2002. But you won’t find our voices represented in the mainstream media; just as we were treated as fringe lunatics-—“oh, you silly leftie peaceniks, Iraq is going to be a cakewalk!”— back when GW was leading the country into a war that has left, by conservative estimates, at least a half a million dead, by some respected counts a million—we’re ignored now.

We were, by pretty general consensus today, right about Iraq. (No, I don’t feel good about that. At all. Right didn’t make might; we failed to stop the war). Maybe we’re wrong about Afghanistan—but that isn’t the point. The point is the news media are not reality-based institutions. What this type of “reporting” results in is what Noam Chomsky calls “manipulated consent.” 

Another story. You may have heard about Amy’s arrest at the Republican National Convention in 2008—her film crew was beaten and arrested and charged with “suspicion of felony riot”; coming to their aid, Amy wound up in the lock-up herself. A travesty on all counts, maybe not so traumatic personally for a woman  who was once badly beaten and nearly killed by Indonesian soldiers while covering an outright massacre in East Timor. More telling was her account of what transpired earlier that day, when she received word that St Paul police and federal agents armed with AK-47s raided the home being rented by members of the Eyewitness Video outfit.

You see, Eyewitness Video covers demonstrations in order to document unconstitutional behavior on the part of security forces, who have an unpleasant habit of making arrests on false charges, and then providing carefully edited video at defendants’ trials. EV supplies unedited coverage to the defendants, resulting in hundreds of innocent verdicts—and sizeable awards for false arrests. Hence the pre-emptive raid. The cops really don’t much care about the ultimate disposition of these cases—their  goal is to keep folks like these off the streets for as long as possible, the Constitution be damned. Amy jumped right into the fray and was helpful in getting the crew released, but as she notes, they were unable to do their jobs during those hours. But she wasn’t describing her own heroism—this is routine stuff for her–her point was that

“this wasn’t just a violation of the freedom of the press, it was a violation of your right to know.”

That same evening she wandered around the Convention itself noting the parties being thrown by big-time donors like AT&T. In a skybox, a mainstream media type responded to her recounting of the day’s activities by exclaiming that he didn’t get arrested. Her response was, well, of course he didn’t, because he didn’t get into the streets. 

This is the second time I’ve seen Amy speak. I went, taking daughter Cate with me this time, because far being at all self-aggrandizing, Amy insists that everyone is capable of taking part in those “movements that shape history”—that we can assist in getting get the real story out. Or at least another real story, as real as ones being reported.  Wherever and whenever we can.  So she discussed the White Rose Society in Germany, the kids who handed out pamphlets telling the truth about the Nazis so that “German people would never be able to say they didn’t know” (and who were beheaded by the Gestapo for their troubles); about Emmett Till’s mother, who insisted the 14 year old lynch mob victim be displayed in an open coffin, so that other might see, vividly, what Jim Crow was really all about; about the Presidential Scholars who during their White House visit handed a Bush a letter pleading with him to end torture; about the librarians who stood up to the Patriot Act. The kind of action that is also the subject of her latest book, NYT bestseller Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (Hyperion, 2008).

It was a lively talk, and I can’t begin to do justice to the entertaining digressions, endless factoids and insights, and grim jests with which she peppered her talk. But I felt that maybe her most important point occurred when she was talking about Obama. Amy nailed what I believe are the mixed feelings many of us felt about his inaugaration; she  was not immune to the sheer wonder of witnessing a black family occupying a house built by slaves (she couldn’t resist talking about torture-promoter Donald Rumsfeld living in an estate once owned by a “slavebreaker” assigned with using torture to break the spirit of, among others, Frederick Douglass). But she’s realist enough to wonder at who really has the President’s ear—the millions who made small contributions to his campaign, who bought and paid for the Convention (to  cite just one example of their endless largesse) or the numerically far smaller group who contributed the real big money. Her question—to us, really—is, and I paraphrase: “when the corporate exec whispers in Obama’s ear, can he point to the window and say, `but if I do that, they’ll storm the Bastille?’”

When it comes to the “bailouts,” healthcare, and the wars, my answer, obviously,  is: no—they’ll remain engrossed in pop stars, fantasy baseball and facebook applications (that’s artificially-enhanced stars, non-existent baseball teams, and virtual “friends”–but the triumph of the unreal, of the spectacle, is a whole ‘nother matter). But who can blame them? If I got all my news from CNN and The Boston Herald, I’d do my share of tsk-tsking and go back to updating my MySpace page too, all the while assuming that someone, somewhere, up there in there in the rarefied air of the technocratic ether, will make it ok.

So, there are two endings to this piece. The dystopic ending: media reform is a moot issue; with so many entertainment options immediately at hand (iPod laptop cell phone radio TV Blackberry, each promising all manner of mind-numbing delight), why choose, ya know, to get all pissy about stuff? A gram, after all, is better than a damn. The happy ending: there are so many lively, interesting sources of information also immediately available via those same vehicles, and genuinely interactive ones to boot, that reforming the mainstream media isn’t a necessary option, and the citizenry will eventually tend to avail themselves of the opportunity to guzzle from these fountains of truth, inform themselves and turn from inane commentary on Facebook to some meaningful input into what should be an endless national conversation about stuff that matters.

I’m a pessimist, myself. Lately, especially, I find myself wondering: why bother? I suppose that one thing that keeps me motivated is simple shame—I see too many people bothering not to. I saw the reporters and camerapeople from the local indymedia outfits last there, I saw Amy seemingly almost unwilling to stop talking during one night of a  tour that’s going to hit fifty towns and cities over the next thirty days. And I saw among the crowd last night the faces of people whom I know are working indefatigably, with no hope of earthly reward, on behalf of that earth and its inhabitants.  With that in mind, well…

…The least we can is to start listening.

(For local web-based reporting, see indymedia.com; in Boston, see http://www.openmediaboston.org/; see, of course, DemocracyNow!, where you can also find Amy’s speaking schedule [she’s in NYC tomorrow April 4]; and check out the links at right… !Amy, along with fellow Izzy Stone Award winner Glenn Greenwald, are also on Bill Moyer’s show this weekend– http://wwd.wgbh.org/tv/program/bill-moyers-journal/no-title-36).

 Swagger like [a] Mine

 Environmental matters aren’t something I usually write about. Largely because discussions about the same eventually have to take into account stuff like chemistry and physics. Science is hard, and it makes my brain hurt.  I’d much rather write about The Cramps and the Palestinians. I’d rather write about stuff I can actually see.  Talking about Volatile Organic Compounds remind me of the days I spent studying Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse. That sorta thing.

And, too, the issues are often muddled–and by folks on the side of the angels–by overmuch sentimentality. When kids are being gunned down each week a few miles from here in Roxbury, it’s hard to get too worked up about whether the caribou are going be less satisfied with the quality of their lovemaking due to Exxon’s noisy equipment.  And, hell, if as many people cared about the plight of chickens as they do about wild wolves the national food factory would take a sharp change for the better. It’s the same all over–it’s the glam animals what gets all the good press.

 But all this “green” business–the word has been co-0pted to such an extent its practically a joke now–is no longer about edenic visions of an unspoilt ANWR. It’s about the survival of all species, including mine. And like everything else these are matters are too important to be entrusted to the experts. Or at least the experts we’ve trusted  (video) to date, swindlers who have often received satisfying paychecks from the companies that profit from blowing up pristine mountaintops, strip-mining wide swaths of woody terrain, converting the seriviceable output into electricity and spewing the waste into the air and thereby contributing mightily to our overall CO2 emissions (and asthma and tumors and etc) and, hence, ozone depletion; and which, not incidentally, make some mighty nice payments to the politicians in the districts in which they operate, from local to federal legislators.

These are the companies involved in the mining, refining, distribution, burning and conversion of coal. Namely, mining operations and your friendly neighborhood electrical utility. 

 Thus, I’m not exactly an expert on carbon composition, its properties, and its alternatives. True, I was born in a town bearing the enchanting  name “Carbondale” (PA) in the shadow of some towering slag heaps I’d later wander, extensive enough that I could get lost in them.  Also true that my great-grandfather worked in the mines—for a long time too: I have in front of  me a newspaper article from the 1930s, with his picture—he’d been working 62 years as of that date. As an aside, it’s grimly amusing to see the way this life was celebrated by the newspaper, beginning with the headline, “Old Age No Bar to Employment in Mines, Records Here Reveal: William Bartholomew [Still] Working] at Coal Brook for Over Seventy Years”:

These records show that age need not mean idleness but some new form of activity, and many who have experience, but no longer exuberant vigor, find opportunity and even distinction in minor bossing jobs in and outside the mine, for the industry has no dead-end jobs nor jobs that end with a sudden jolt from relative comfort to a penurious jobless old age… The active life is rough, it’s true but the exercise and the moving air in the mine are conducive to good health and manly vigor; so men of years are not few. The company takes pride in finding jobs suitable to their declining years.

 (My great-grandfather’s name was Michael Francis Howard; his pic is at right).

The article, en toto, is an essay itself, but for now, you can draw your own conclusions. But that and puttering around in old coal cellars is as close I’ve come to the stuff.

Wiser heads than mine, though, have made it abundantly clear how significant an issue this is. As for as the consequences of continuing in this vein—pursuing the endless American fantasy of having your cake and eating it too—listen to and read a couple of short pieces by James Hansen.  Or have a look at the bullet points presented by SecureGreenFuture.org.  And by Maggie Zhou.

And more aware, and more courageous folks are doing more than reading and writing about it.

Like drawing a line in the sand, as a few pissed-off locals did in West Viirgina.

Like singlehandedly monkey-wrenching power plants.

Like  engaging today in what will be the single largest example of civil mass disobedience in regard to climate DC has witnessed, when thousands converge on an outdated, outmoded coal-fired plant  within view of the Capitol building itself (update here). .A plant owned by Congress. And a plant which provides the Senators and Congressfolk their electricity. (Explanatory video here).

Coal Mines are Gold Mines

Senators like these:

Campaign Contributions: Electric Utilities

Rank Senator State Party 2008/ Lifetime

1 Voinovich, George V OH R $114,050 $551,066
2 Graham, Lindsey SC R $112,090 $517,427
3 Domenici, Pete V NM R $79,000 $498,673
4 Obama, Barack IL D $382,498 $487,698
5 Bingaman, Jeff NM D $12,000 $458,076
6 Burr, Richard NC R $27,500 $431,645
7 Baucus, Max MT D $130,542 $430,743
8 Clinton, Hillary NY D $273,554 $429,946
9 Landrieu, Mary L LA D $67,458 $427,254
10 Specter, Arlen PA R $84,700 $408,247
11 Inhofe, James M OK R $82,300 $367,863
12 Lieberman, Joe CT D $352,842
13 Craig, Larry ID R $28,500 $342,045
14 McCain, John AZ R $183,740 $338,240
15 McConnell, Mitch KY R $68,150 $312,400

TOTAL $1,646,082 $6,354,165

AVERAGE $117,577 $423,611

Campaign Contributions: Coal Mining

Rank Senator State Party 2008 /Lifetime

1 McConnell, Mitch KY R $80,400 $399,549
2 Rockefeller, Jay WV D $74,000 $194,300
3 Specter, Arlen PA R $12,550 $162,656
4 Voinovich, George V OH R $20,750 $158,549
5 Byrd, Robert C WV D $124,500
6 Shelby, Richard C AL R $113,000
7 Bond, Christopher S ‘Kit’ MO R $18,200 $106,850
8 Bunning, Jim KY R $106,160
9 Inhofe, James M OK R $37,500 $93,550
10 Conrad, Kent ND D $2,300 $90,612
11 Bayh, Evan IN D $86,000
12 Sessions, Jeff AL R $23,900 $85,600
13 Allard, Wayne CO R $81,875
14 Warner, John W VA R $74,550
15 Craig, Larry ID R $3,000 $73,406
TOTAL $272,600 $1,951,157
(americanprogressinaction.org; data from Center for Responsive Politics.  Charts includes contributions from 1990 to first quarter 2008 for all of the Senators’ federal campaigns: House, Senate, and Presidential races).

“No one on the corner got swagger like mine,” indeed.

Here’s the summary of a very useful report published by the Institute of Southern Studies:

Using the most recent data available from the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org website (updated with Federal Elections Commission data as of Dec. 8), the Institute for Southern Studies examined campaign contributions from electric utilities to members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in the 2008 elections. We found that the industry gave members of this key committee a total of $1,079,503….The 10 majority Democratic members received a total of $541,939, for an average contribution of $54,194. The nine minority Republican members received a total of $537,939, for a per-person average of $59,729. The committee’s biggest recipient of the industry’s money was Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) at $297,877. She was followed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) at $173,643, George Voinovich (R-Ohio) at $163,010 and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) at $146,704.

Overall, electric utilities contributed $18.8 million to members of Congress in the latest cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org. The two major parties’ nominees for president were the biggest recipients of the industry’s largesse, with Barack Obama receiving $612,306 and John McCain getting $521,184. Clinton’s contributions put her in third place.

Italics mine. The coal/utility complex is obviously as enamored of the Democratic platform as it is the Republicans. Astonishing, no? You can draw your own conclusions from that, too.

And don’t think for a second that the “clean coal” people have neglected the big media when it comes to distributing their  largesse. Why does CNN trump the virtues of a non-existent technology? Watch.

“We’re Doing This for the Grandchildren”

As far as the electric utilities, coal mining companies, and Senators and Congresspeople on the take are concerned—and let’s not leave out the President out of that category—well, the demonstration in DC today will be big enough to prick up a few ears, for sure. Ongoing local demonstrations are going to be just as important, especially when they’re attended by taxpayers, local municipal politicians, clergy, and whatever political party isn’t beholden to coal or utility money—that would be the Green Rainbow Party here in Massachusetts, some of whose leading spokespeople (all of whom serve with  local activist groups as well, and who were joined yesterday by along with assorted community leaders, and clergy, and officeholders) addressed a small crowd on a blustery cold Sunday afternoon in Somerset, the site of a particularly noxious coal-burning plant, The Brayton Point Power Station (there was another demonstration north of Boston in Salem).

It was bitter cold standing on the Brightman Street Bridge connecting Fall River to Somerset. But it was worth it. Worth it to hear Green Rainbow Party co-Chair Jill Stein bluntly declare that we are out of time. Worth it to hear David Dionne make it patently obvious that there ain’t no such thing as “clean coal,” and to inspire with the phrase, “We’re doing this for the grandkids.”  Worth it to hear longtime environmental activist and GRP Secretary John Andrews remind us not to be snookered by corporatized pipe dreams promising yet another technocratic fix, and that it’s not “clean coal” we’re after, but an an end–altogether–to dependence on non-sustainable, non-renewable fossil fuels. Worth it to bid godspeed to a Massachusetts delegation to the DC demonstration led by GRP member Eli Beckerman. And maybe best of all, worth it to hear cars on the bridge honking as they sped by, honking in support.

Here’s my video:

The event was hosted by an array of civic organizations  , but it was genuinely heartening to see the Green Rainbow Party taking the lead, because this is truly a political issue–and neither of the two major parties are confronting the problem head on (right, like they do all the other ones…). The fact is you can’t even begin to start solving this on your own, as you can with other problems. For example, when it comes to food, you can pretty much live outside the national factory farm. It takes a bit of effort, but it’s eminently feasible–for some examples, see Bill McKibben’s chapter “The Year of Living Locally” (Deep Economy, 46-94) and Barbara Kingsolver’s recent Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. You won’t bring down the system singlehandedly, no more than you will by personally boycotting sweatshop apparel and avoiding Wal Mart, but you can do the right thing, get a few others to do the same … and in any case, you can live ethically, you can reject that which is wrong. But when it comes to the Grid … well, it takes a supremely self-reliant person to dump the car and live without factory-generated electricity (coal supplies 50% of our current electrical needs). Sadly, we can’t all live

 (Scott Nearing’s  early autiobiography, The Making of  Radical, is probably the most fortifying thing I’ve read in twenty years).

¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

Now, over the past few years, I’ve walked through the streets of Boston with the antiwar groups a dozen times now. I’ve marched with the anarchists, too. And on more than one occasion, god help me.  Knowing full well that wars were not going to end nor governments topple as a result of our noisy spectacles. There’s a reason to do it anyway, but the sense of imminent success isn’t part of it. This … is different. An incredible array of far-flung groups–religious, civic, neighborhood, political–are getting together on this issue–and not just in discussion forums and conference rooms but in the streets– because it transcends ideology ( unless of course  you’re a right wing nut job). It’s rare to have an issue that can unite evangelican Christians and anticorporate activists and Sierra Club types and local bankers. Like the sea turtles and trade unions in Seattle.

It’s also rare to face not only  an issue on which we have to win, a formidable goliath we gotta take down … but one we can.

 So: whaddya want me to do about it?

Well, you could start by turning off your refrigerator. Your microwave. Your stove. Your lights. Your TV.Your lights. Your heat. And finally, yes, even this machine you’re sitting at.

Too drastic? Yeah, probably. Though it wouldn’t hurt to turn the damn TV off. But as I said, this is essentially a political isue, and unlike other causes, you don’t have to give up anything–except your time and energy. You don’t need to go vegan or smoke pot or or drink free trade coffee. Getting the nation–the culture–off coal is as massive a task as is weaning us off oil, it requires the most elemental form of politics, marshalling your forces and finding allies everywhere and pitting power and against power, maybe even keeping in mind the protest chant that sounds hackneyed but whose simple truth is revealed over and again: The people, united, will never be defetaed. This is a political program, and it’s gonna take a whole lotta people to stand up against the big-time donors to leaders of both parties, including the President himself. Who, if  I recall correctly, stated outright that voting was one thing, but that he was gonna need your help, in spades, if he’s really going to affect anything vaguely resembling change once in office.  In other words, voting changed nothing. Active participation will. Again, this is what we’re up against:

At the same time, the fossil-fuel industry is preparing for a major political fight. An alliance of utilities, coal and mining companies has pledged $40 million to influence any climate-change legislation. And some 770 companies have hired more than 2,300 lobbyists to work on climate issues, which means that there are four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

So join an organization that provides the political counterforce to the bribery and proganda utilised by the profiteering power companies. Preferably a local one. If you can’t find one, drop me a line and I’ll find one for ya. Look at the national organizations involved, especially Power Past Coal and McKibben and company’s 350.org. If you’re in Massachusetts, check out SecureGreenFuture, or Toxics Action Center or Healthlink (North Shore)  or Mass Coalition for Healthy Communities. Show up on March 14th at the Statehouse for a rally. And to make a real statement against the entrenched political establishment that just can’t give up its carboniferous mistress, register with your state Green party–in Massachusetts, the Green Rainbow Party.   

Here’s Merle Travis.

Isn’t Change wonderful?

Making my way, slowly,  through William Greider’s account of the Federal Reserve under Carter and Reagan (Secrets of the Temple) in a possibly futile attempt to begin to understand the full naure of this, umm, “stimulus” business, I came across this passage today:

The Cold War, it was said, threatened American survival, and, therefore, defense spending must take precedence. Or, conversely, it was argued that the Soviet threat was exagerrated, that military spending was excessive and that the government’s resoures should be directed to domestic development. But, in practical terms a political consensus was fashioned between them, an implicit understanding that endured for more than three decades, through conservative and liberal regimes, under Democrats and Republicans. The government would refuse to choose between war mobilization and peacetime spending. It would do both.

***
America was the new leader of the world, building the largest arsenal ever imagined, prepositioning American troops in dozens of foreign lands. For many years, it seemed, the United States could indeed afford both war and peace at the same time.
But, in time, the failure to choose between the two caught up with the economy and the government’s balance sheet. (102-104).

Which may have added emphasis to two articles that appear on the front page of The New York Times today, not that they needed any:

“Obama to Send 17,000 More Troops to Afghanistan”: President Obama will send an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer in the first major military move of his presidency, White House officials said on Tuesday…..The increase would come on top of 36,000 American troops already there, making for an increase of nearly 50 percent. (Oh, and from Reuters: “The new deployments are seen as the first stage in an expected build-up from the present force of 37,000 to about 60,000.” )

“Signing Stimulus, Obama Doesn’t Rule Out More”: President Obama has not ruled out a second stimulus package, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said on Tuesday, just before Mr. Obama signed his $787 billion recovery package into law with a statement that it would “set our economy on a firmer foundation.”

The government would refuse to choose between war mobilization and peacetime spending. Greider was writing in 1987 about the economic disaster of the late 1970s. We have learned, apparently … nothing.

As always, I’m left wondering how many of  Obama supporters are planning to head to Kabul, or to send their kids to Kabul. Or was the deal “my vote, but someone else’s blood?” And if they are … I’m wondering why, precisely, it’s so important to kill and die to protect the Karzai government Obama is going to sell out soon enough–just like Kennedy did Diem. Or is it  the splendid group of warlords who make such an attractive alternative to the Taliban that they’re smitten with?

Having received your vote–thanks, America!–all the war party and its pretty figurehead require in terms of your support are your tax dollars–and your silence.  They have your dollars–in deciding that his rules about hiring lobbyists, typical of the Obama BS that made for such great speechifying,  don’t apply to to defense contractors like Raytheon, thus allowing him to place William Lynne in the Defense deputy slot, Obama made sure that the industry will continue to bleed the country like the stuck pig it is–and, thanks to the so-called stimulus, they have your children’s children’s dollars, which they are merrily raining down on giddy bankers.

But you don’t have to give them your silence.  Or any more votes, for that matter.  Alternatives exist.  I mean, unless you’re liking this latest surge. These stimuli. These Cabinet and agency appointments.

And so in honor of this latest round of American colonialism imperialism stupidity heroism,  M.I.A.:

He got Colgate on his teeth
And Reebok classics on his feet
At a factory he does Nike
And then he helps the family

Lux and Ivy

Four years ago Ann handed me two tickets and told me we were going to see The Cramps.  At what was formerly the Axis/Avalon complex behind Fenway Park, now newly reopened under the  auspices of  a national chain of sanitized, themed rock clubs.  Which surprised me, in part because we don’t see much live music no more, but also because I didn’t know Ann back in her Cramps-lovin’ days.  Fronting her own band and wielding a blue strat no less. An image that  always gives me pause.  And, too,  admittedly in no small part because of my own lack of familiarity with the band. Which was actually kind of embarassing.

Which is why, sometime into the second song, I tuned to her and asked: Where has this been my whole life?  The answer being: right under your damn radar.

It turned out to be the only time I’d see the band. Lux Interior died today.  Which is really hard to imagine, because I’d never seen anyone so downright vital on stage; not for years anyway, lean years.  The band exemplified the entire rock and roll mythos at the same time it caricatured it: hot redheaded guitarist in go-go boots (Lux’s wife Poison Ivy), semi-ironic cartoon goth iconography, vulgar entendres and calls to excess of all kinds, the crowd, up from the start and right through to the finish, the whole circus fronted by a half naked madman who led the band through downright sublime streams of irresistible rockabilly riffs.

Back in  1977, Lester Bangs followed the Clash around England,  kind of a nice little gig when you think about it, certainly better than whatever you’re doing for rent money today, a lark  that crystallized in the very long and equally brilliant review “The Clash” for NME that you definitely want to read someday and in which he writes:

The politics of rock ‘ roll, in England or America or anywhere else, is that a whole lot of kids want to be fried out of their skins by the most scalding propulsion they can find, for a night they can pretend is the rest of their lives, and whether the next day they go back to work in shops or boredom or on the dole or American TV doldrums in Mom ‘n Dad’s living room nothing can cancel the reality of that night in the revivifying flames when for once if only then in your life you were blasted outside of yourself and the monotony which defines most life anywhere at any time, when you supped on lightning and nothing else in the realms of the living or dead mattered at all.

I thought about that one the way home that night, and I thought of it again tonight when I saw the obit.  Maybe because it was that kind of show; or maybe because you knew Lux would have dug those lines, because  lightning was mother’s milk to him.

It’s sad, in a way, that the band never got the recognition it deserved, but surf/psychobilly never does.  Sufficient unto the band are the fans thereof. Video can hardly begin to capture the energy of the show, but if they were under your radar, you’ll find some clips here on this obit.  Or you can watch one of my favorites: 

Lux was 60. He and Poison Ivy were together for 37 years. And started playing together in 1975. That’s 35 years of theatre, professional musicianship, pranksterism, carnival in its very best sense. Thirty-five years of giving the people what they want, what they often enough needed. Thirty-five years of what you always thought of when you thought of rock-and-roll. 

The Bangs piece, btw, is reprinted in the first volume of his collected reviews and essays, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, ed. Greil Marcus, Vintage, 1988, pp 224-250. It’s back in print for around ten bucks new. You owe yourself.