May 22, 2012 by Mike.

I am pretty excited about having Michael Parenti do the keynote speaking event for the Fourth People’s Movement Assembly.  Will post more about that soon, but for now, just want to share this Parenti video for folks who are not familiar with Dr. Parenti’s work.

Enjoy!

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April 18, 2012 by Mike.

I have been working this past year on street politics issues with the City of Olympia.  One aspect of this work has been a push to get public bathrooms available in the downtown core.  There has been recurring commentary about the use of the downtown alleys for urination and defecation.  A relatively simple solution to the problem to the extent that it exists is to make sure that public bathrooms are available in the downtown area, especially after hours.  There are issues with security, maintenance, etc, but this is not rocket science, we can address these issues if the community makes a choice to have bathrooms available in downtown Olympia.  We were able to get the bathrooms at Heritage opened 24/7 when Occupy Olympia negotiated to move from Sylvester to Heritage, but that was only a partial and temporary solution.  We need bathrooms throughout the downtown where folks can relieve themselves and we need a free comfort station where showers and hot water are available for folks who do not have access to 3 bedrooms and 2 baths in their rambler existence.

I have also been working with the City and the Oly Downtown Association on a collaboration between the business community and buskers to improve busking opportunities in downtown Olympia and to establish relationships between individual business owners and individual buskers and between the two communities.  Busking (performance in public space - music - mime (please no) - the harsh interrogation and twisting of balloons, spoken word performance, etc) tends to go rather dormant in our maritime NW winter environment, but we have hit the time of year when it starts to pick up and I have been plugging away with the City and ODA on administrative details over the winter waiting for the sun to appear and for daffodils and buskers to start popping up all over the place.

We had a couple of events and meetings going this past weekend where I expected to connect with the busking community and step up the partnership work a bit, but it took a nosedive for me on Sunday, April 15th at the Artesian Well when a public meeting of community activists was broken up by Officer Pearce of the Olympia Police Department.

I am not interested in hearing OPD or Officer Pearce’s side of things.  Here are the facts that I am pretty certain about:

• A group of folks, probably around 20 to 25 human beings, were engaged in a peaceful and orderly meeting to discuss a range of topics, including housing, nutrition, urban gardening, busking and really really free market  economics.
• The Artesian Well is well-known public space.
• Folks at the Well from around 3:30 pm onward where not loud, obnoxious or disorderly.  At least one person was diligently cleaning the entire space, picking up cigarette butts and other detritus, essentially “policing” the area.
• A single police cruiser with female officer arrived and parked illegally across several parking spaces early in the meeting time.  After sitting there for several minutes the female officer got out of the cruiser and filled a water jug at the Well, then got back in cruiser and left.
• Around five-ish (police logs may be available to pinpoint the time) three cruisers pulled into the Artesian Well space and positioned themselves strategically, offensively?  defensively? (illegally parked again) in way that hemmed in folks who were taking part in the meeting.
• The large group meeting had broken into smaller sub-groups at that time to discuss specific topics with a plan to reconvene the large group for reports back.  At least one of the sub-groups was sitting in a parking space when the three police cruisers took up stations.
• OPD officers Pearce and Hirotaka (might have spelling wrong) approached the group and Pearce ordered that we move out of the City’s private property space.  Pearce stated that the parking spaces were for cars and ordered us to move into the narrow space against the wall to the north of the Artesian Well.  The sub-groups moved into the space as ordered.
• I confronted Pearce and explained that this was a peaceful assembly in public space, that it was a political activity specifically protected by the first amendment.
• Officer Pearce told me not to speak to him about first amendment rights because he knew all about that.
• I told Pearce that I think he needed to hear about the first amendment stuff from me, that he did not know as much about it as he thought.
• Pearce refused to rescind his order that we move out of the City’s private property and said when we left the area we should take the trash with us.  The space was clean and orderly.  Officer Pearce was literally talking trash to us.  The Really Really Free Market was open, banner up at the Well, but anyone familiar with that Market, as OPD should be because they regularly surveilled the market  at Bigelow Park last year, knows that when the Market is over the space is as clean or cleaner than it was before the Market opened.
• Officer Pearce’s approach was aggressive from the very start. Hirotaka’s approach was not aggressive.  Pearce never wavered, remained aggressive throughout the encounter.
• The meeting was effectively shut down by the arrival of the three cruisers and Officer Pearce’s aggressive behavior. We did not reconvene in the large group.

I think the meeting participants were pretty offended by the OPD actions.  Officer Pearce engaged in demeaning behavior and a raw demonstration of his power.

Relationships and trust between the busking community and the City and downtown business association have been damaged by the police action on April 15, 2012.

Here is my call:  Officer Pearce and  Chief Roberts should arrive on foot at the Artesian Well on Sunday, April 22nd at 5 pm and offer an unqualified apology to the busker and activist community for OPD behavior on April 15th.

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April 11, 2012 by Mike.

Going to take an hour and watch this closely.  Found it while cruising Infoshop.

Posted in Friends and Heroes, Politics, Connect the Dots | Print | 1 Comment »

April 6, 2012 by Mike.

Here is the frame:  In 1972 a bunch of computer nerds were commissioned by the Club of Rome to complete computer modeling of finite resources, rates of consumption and population growth.  The output was a book called The Limits to Growth.   It caused a bit of a stir because the computer modeling predicted that global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030.  Wikipedia has a pretty well referenced page on the The Limits to Growth.

The original study was criticized by lots of folks who thought that growth could somehow become sustainable, that more resources would be found, etc.  The methodology was criticized. This study was not popular with economic growth globalists.

The Limits to Growth has been revisited on a number of occasions.  Most recently an Australian physicist named Graham Turner completed a thirty year look back at the computer modeling and Turner’s study is published at The Smithsonian.   This kind of thing is like disneyland for nerds.  Graphs, charts, all sorts of variables to argue about.  It’s a wonderland for slide rule afficionados.  Needless to say, it’s hard to present on CNN, MSNBC, BBC in a way that has gets the message across.

Look at the graph and try to focus on one primary matter:  The thirty year slice of history from 1972 to 2002 shows that the numbers in reality have developed largely as predicted by the 1972 study suggested.   Click on the graph to jump to the Smithsonian story if you want.

The good news is on the blue line where pollution is predicted to drop hard.  So, it’s not all bad.  There is something to look forward to in the projection.

I think I would prefer to see the human population make some difficult choices and reduce consumption to change the trend lines, but it’s not a popular suggestion with the folks who make the decisions.  What do they call themselves?   Oh, yeah…  the deciders.

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April 4, 2012 by Mike.

Lots of coverage of the republican primaries out there.  Few signs of intelligent life in that pile of smoking offal.  Going to move on.  There must be more important stuff going on.

Oh, here we go:  Chris Hedges has a good piece in Truth Dig about the NDAA - National Defense Authorization Act - and what a dangerous piece of legislation the NDAA truly is.  Like the presidential authority to use drone weaponry to assassinate US citizens or our “enemies” anywhere in the world, this NDAA piece of legislation may look less scary to some in the hands of President Obama (I don’t know why that is?  He’s pretty aggressive.) than it might look in the hands of a President Palin, but once presidential authority is asserted, it is seldom relinquished, so you have to look ahead at how the NDAA would work with President Santorum or the like.  I don’t like.

Indefinite military detention.  Hmm…

On another front SCOTUS Inc. came out with another 5-4 decision that says if you are arrested for any offense, no matter how minor, the jail is entitled to strip search you for a close visual inspection.   A bid Thank You to the 4 who voted against, but you lost and so did we.

The plaintiff in the underlying case Florence v. County of Burlington was strip searched twice after he was arrested for failure to pay a fine. The fine had been paid, the arrest should not have occurred, but two strip searches later, Albert W. Florence (a black man) was released.  He was a passenger in his BMW when his wife was pulled over for speeding and the records search produced the erroneous arrest warrant matter.

hmm…    sometimes the authorities simply get it wrong, right?  Those things happen.   No harm, no foul, says Justice Anthony Kennedy.  At least no harm that he can see.

I monitor a  national police oversight listserv and caught this story regarding the Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman shooting death that continues to build public outrage:  The Elusiveness of Police Accountability. 

There is something particularly scary about a cop wannabe packing a 9 mm weapon and patrolling a neighborhood.  Judgment, training, - there are a lot of things missing in this community security package.  Bu, the Atlantic Cities story tells the story of 18 yo Ramarley Graham, who was chased into his house by NY police and shot dead in the bathroom.  He is reported to have been unarmed and in possession of a small quantity of marijuana.  The point of the Atlantic Cities piece is that if Trayvon had been shot by a police officer instead of a cop wannabe, there would be a lot less news coverage of the event.  That’s probably true.  There is something really disturbing about the fact that Zimmerman continued to follow Martin after dispatch advised to stop.  With Ramarley Graham and Trayvon Martin we appear to have two deaths that just didn’t need to happen.

We don’t know if Ramarley was wearing a hoodie when he was shot.  That seems to be scary attire.  I am wearing my hoodie every day now.

Here are some facts that I think are inescapable:

Justice is elusive.  Handguns are ubiquitous.  Armed men who think they need to keep the peace are dangerous to young black men.

My solution?  Reduce the number of weapons in the community.  Gun control.  Buy back programs.  Interference in the realm of handgun commerce.  A big government type solution to a big public problem.

Yep, a like a little big government from time to time, but I am not too crazy about the NDAA and Scotus Inc.

Posted in News, Politics, Connect the Dots | Print | 1 Comment »

March 30, 2012 by Mike.

It seems likely to me that the Supreme Court Inc. will break out 5 to 4 to scuttle as much of the President Obama’s health care program as possible, perhaps all of it.  This is a pyrrhic victory for the opponents of Obama, but may not be all that bad a thing for those of us who think that health care reform based on private insurance and fee for service profitability has always been a poor choice.  The anemic public option that might have kept a foot in the door for the better single payer (Medicare for Everyone) option was dropped by the even more anemic Democratic Party when they were pressed by the Republicans.

Robert Scheer hits the mark in my estimation with his article:  Five Hypocrites and One Bad Plan that ran at Truth Dig.   I think that the five justices in question are simply adhering the hypocritic oath and performing true to form.

Paul Krugman came out today with his view that the 5 right justices would seize on any argument that would allow them to strike down progressive legislation, and if that is true, then maybe it would not have mattered if health care reform had included a public option.

What do you think?  Are the Supremes going to strike it down?  Cast your votes and predict the score.  I am going with the easy prediction:  5 to 4 to strike the law down.

Posted in News, Politics, Small Foot Print | Print | 1 Comment »

March 11, 2012 by Mike.

Posted in Small Foot Print | Print | 1 Comment »

March 11, 2012 by Mike.

I know there is a lot of talk about how hard it is to start a third political party and there is no doubt that the talk is true.  Large political swings that realign the political parties in the US are rare, but the political history of the US is about the swings. Whigs and Tories, Bull Moose and Know Nothing parties.  These things come and go and right now we have the appearance of a two party system: the dems on the left and the repubs on the right, but the truth is that we have dems in center/right and the repubs in right to hard right. 

There is no significant left party in the US, only the 25 to 30% of us who identify as left/progressives/liberals/social democrats etc. and we are left to rail at the dem party to move left and lead the country with good public policy that works for all of us, and the party leaders provide lip service, then do the bidding of the large political contributors - the deciders, the haves and have-mores who control the political agenda of the dem and repub party.  Don’t kid yourself about that.  Just look at the need to provide Medicare for Everyone, a national health insurance policy that could/would have left the insurance industry scrambling to compete for Medigap insurance coverage, but instead we could not even get a public option, we got Health Insurance for Everyone - The Pay Up health care system doubled down on us.

So when will a political realignment occur that will put a left political party on the scene?  Who knows?  These changes are like the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement and more.  The political shift will occur when the time is right.  There is work to be done having the options available when the body politic wakes up and says, that’s it, I have had it with the Dems and Repubs.

Here are some options that are already established and waiting, or developing:

The Green Party    -    Another U.S. is Possible, Another Party is Necessary (a political party that is established and global)

Americans Elect  -  Pick a President, Not a Party   (doesn’t look like a political party in the making?)

Justice Party   - Economic, Environmental, Social and Civic Justice for All  (Rocky Anderson’s party platform is the basis at this point)

Are there others that are forming or on the scene?

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March 9, 2012 by Mike.

James Stafford with Oilprice.com suggested that their interview with Juan Cole would be of interest.  With gas prices surging over $4 per gallon, oil news is probably of interest.  

I agree, therefore:

Oil & Politics - The Real Situation in Iraq

A delegation from the International Energy Agency spent two days in Baghdad speaking with high-ranking officials in preparation for an end-of-year report on the country’s oil sector. By some estimates, Iraq could hold some of the largest oil reserves in the world and an international auction for oil and natural gas blocks is planned for May. Without a hydrocarbon law, and considering the fractured political system, the IEA’s report may be more about political obstacles than oil potential, however.

Baghdad announced triumphantly this week that oil production increased to more than 3 million barrels per day for the first time in more than 30 years. Exports, the government said, should increase substantially once a new floating oil terminal starts operations later this week. The IEA in December said crude oil production in Iraq could reach an average of 4.36 million bpd by 2016, about half of what Riyadh produces. The agency warned, however, that Iraq’s fractured political system might be as much of an obstacle as anything.

Iraq’s post-invasion political system has never been stable. Tensions in Baghdad flared up when Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused his Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of terrorism almost as soon as the last American troop left the country in December. Juan Cole, the man behind the influential blog Informed Comment, said the action by Maliki “was part of an effort to marginalize and humiliate his Sunni enemies, and a sign of unwillingness to seek a grand national bargain.”

Iraq may be a democratic country in theory but it certainly isn’t quick on the political front, especially when it comes to passing a long-delayed hydrocarbon law. Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, described Iraqi politics as anything but stable.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath on getting anything accomplished on the oil law,” he said.

Maliki may be able to use his hard-ball tactics in an effort to get his way on things like the federal budget, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to widespread political influence across the rest of the country, said Cole.

Kurdish leaders objected profusely when it looked like Exxon Mobil would be left out of Iraq’s upcoming fourth international auction because of its contracts with the semiautonomous Kurdish government. Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nuri Shaways, a lawmaker from the Kurdistan Democratic Party, complained, in a statement, that Baghdad was somehow opposed to “economic openness” and the “promotion of trade.” Baghdad protests that any unilateral deals with the Kurdish government are illegal, though Cole said there isn’t much that the central government can do about it.

“The Iraqi government faces two big problems on petroleum development. It is still too weak to provide security reliably for the Western corporations and their employees,” he said. “And, it is still economically depressed enough to be afraid of being taken advantage of by a bidding process that favors the corporations — causing it to drive so hard a bargain that it has spooked potential investors.”

Iraq could be able to take advantage of its strategic position in the Middle East. Its Turkish neighbors to the north are keen to become an influential energy hub by playing host to some of the most ambitious oil and natural gas pipelines in the world. To Iraq’s south, the Strait of Hormuz transports about 20 percent of the oil traded globally.

“Politically, however, Iraq is landlocked,” said Cole.

Getting a federal budget passed this year might’ve been a temporary political victory for Maliki. Long term, however, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to make any claims to a political mandate in a country that relies so heavily on oil for its federal revenue. Baghdad has tilted at times toward Iran and higher oil prices may embolden the Shiite prime minister’s position. But Iraq might find itself in a geopolitical tug-of-war given Washington’s regional interests.

“Iraq is extremely vulnerable right now,” Cole warned.

The IEA is expected to release its report on Iraq in October as a prelude to its full energy outlook for 2012. While expressing optimism about the prospects for the oil sector in post-war Iraq, IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said politics are getting in the way of broader developments. When asked what he would title the October report from the IEA, Cole just chuckled and said “slow progress.”

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Iraq-Oil-Outlook-Overly-Ambitious.html

By. Daniel J. Graeber of Oilprice.com

Posted in Eco Criminals, Friends and Heroes, News, Politics, Small Foot Print, Connect the Dots, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »

March 1, 2012 by Mike.

Yep, it’s snowing again in Western Washington.  Very pretty, just an inch or so here in Chehalis.  I expect it will be gone soon, but as daylight appeared, the neighborhood was especially appealing to the eye.

I collect quotes.  They are useful in so many ways.  Sometimes the author captures something large in very few words.  That’s a good feat.  Sometimes, the quote reminds us that our current problems may be the same one that we have faced for generations. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the problems aren’t real or worthy of our attention, it may just remind us to be patient, to consider challenges in larger time frames.

I am thinking about unfettered capitalism, the dominant current cultural love affair with free market economics  and thinking that Dresden James’ quote below is on the mark.  To question capitalism is preposterous and the questioner appears to be a raving lunatic.  I am raving these days.

I am also thinking about socialism: medicare - universal health care - public services from garbage pickup/recycling to higher education and thinking that Tallyrand is right about new names.  How would we propose economics and public governance as if people mattered without getting isolated as socialists or communists.  How did these terms become so odious?

Commune, a couple of definitions:

1. To be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity, as with one’s surroundings: hikers communing with nature.

2. To receive the Eucharist.

 “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.”      –     Talleyrand,      Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838)   1st Prince de Bénévent, French diplomat

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?”
– William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice

“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”
– Dresden James

“It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disfranchise the public;
and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind.”
– W. E. B. Du Bois
(1868-1963) Professor, Civil Rights Activist, NAACP Founding Member

“We are not liberated until we liberate others. So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves.”
– Marilyn Ferguson  1938- ) American author, Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy

Get out there and do great things today.

Mike

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