August 26, 2011 by mike.

Global warming, big hurricanes. Any questions?

Governor Rick Perry - please report to the North Carolina Coast to pray this huge storm away.

For those of you hanging over on the right coast, move to high ground.  Find a dry place and stay safe.

Think about the long term impact of global warming and what you want to do about it.

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June 27, 2011 by mike.

Common Dreams is reporting that the berm around Fort Calhoun nuclear plant has breached.

The story continues to be spun, suppressed, and misreported.  I agree with many of the commenters who think this particular event may not be particularly dangerous.  The coverage of the story is a bigger story.  The dangers of building nuclear plants in floodplains along rivers (essential cooling water source) and the accumulation of residential growth and population in close proximity to nuclear plants is a big story.  The essential unsafe nature of nuclear engineering, the problem with “mothballing” plants, disposing (where you gonna dispose of stuff that will be dangerous for thousands of years?) of waste, the collateral damage to public health by the occasional radioactive emission when an “event” occurs; these things are or should be a big story.

Dahr Jamail has an update story on Fukushima at Aljazeera.   Thanks to my friend Pat Rasmussen at Temperate Rainforests for passing that one on.

There is an essay out about a spike in infant mortality that suggests Fukushima may have had some public health impact here on the Left Coast.

This is complicated stuff, but the handwriting is on the wall for those who want to read it: nuclear power is not safe or clean.

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June 23, 2011 by mike.

It’s hard to sort the information on the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Story, but for context, here are a couple of items to consider:

• KETV 7 in Omaha ran a story on March 31, 2011 that stated that Fort Calhoun is “one of three reactors across the country that federal regulators said they are most concerned about.”

• On June 6, 2011, the FAA issued a notice banning air flight in a 2 mile radius around Fort Calhoun.

• On June 7, 2011, there was an accident/fire of some sort at the plant.  It may have been a small matter, but like turning off the valves at Chernobyl, sometimes small matters at nuclear plants become big matters when the engineering systems develop issues.

• Business Insider has a poorly written piece (sorry, ricky, but who is OPPD?) from Jun 15, 2011 that has some good time line info and some video coverage.  OPPD is reported to have requested the video coverage not be aired.  (Omaha Public Power District) per coverage from Henry Blodget, also Business Insider story.

• Here’s an interesting story from AP that the local Olympia newspaper that covers the weakening of regulation to accommodate an aging and possibly unsafe nuclear energy industry.  (privatized profit, socialized risk model in action)

The timelines and stories, particularly the foreign coverage, do not fit together well, but the March story suggests context that Fort Calhoun is a worrisome plant.  The pictures of the plant surrounded by the Missouri River reinforce that context.  If you are interested in responsible, accurate coverage of the story, I would go with Pro Publica’s coverage.  It does not have the political edge and mission of the foreign coverage and it is likely to be more forthright that the corporate media coverage of nuclear accident stories.Another wrinkle in this story is the report that dry storage is outside the containment area and half-submerged.  True?  Maybe.  A well-informed citizenry needs to study important issues with a keen eye.  Or you can watch Fox News if you want Corporate Infotainment.

The real story, and it is being severely under-reported is that the flooding, like the tornadoes this year, is that these events are driven by global warming and climate change.  Another aspect of this story is that the nuclear industry is trying to increase its US energy future by noting the low level of greenhouse gas emissions.  But as Chernobyl made so clear, nuclear emissions are also a problem.

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June 22, 2011 by mike.

The Nation is picking up a story about a nuclear plant problem in Nebraska from news sources in Russia and Pakistan.  The story is that flood waters have created a problem for the plant and that the Obama administration has engineered a news blackout on the problem.  I don’t know which part of this story is the bigger story.

Read it at The Nation here.

There is also some buzz out there about ocean extinctions.   An Hour Ago India - DNA Daily News Analysis - has some pretty good coverage of that story.

I don’t know how worried to get about these stories.  There should be some balance between the level of worry and my ability to address the underlying problems.  Chicken Little is a cautionary tale about sounding the alarm, as is the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Chicken Little is a story that teaches courage, but maybe courage is sometimes sounding the alarm and risking ridicule?

It’s a real problem with slow-moving disasters that it’s very hard for a person to time the alarm.  I live on a particularly dangerous kind of tectonic plate that promises a large earth quake someday (think Fukushima style), but sounding an alarm is difficult to time with earthquakes.

So, a couple of alarms:

• On ocean extinctions, the timing is easier to see.  It’s time to sound the alarm.  If the oceans aren’t healthy, the planet is not healthy and the oceans are not healthy.

• Nuclear energy - not a good idea.  Not safe in the short term or the long term.  Ordering a blackout of news coverage does not change that equation.  And it is not courageous to order a news blackout, it is cowardly.

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June 5, 2011 by mike.

I posted the first 4 points about organizing here.  This is my condensed presentation of the 14 pages, the full presentation that is available here.  This website title - The End of Capitalism - suggests that the folks behind this project are thinking like I am.  I think that unfettered capitalism, free market globalism, is an abject failure.  Read and think carefully.  I think that free market energy, style, human waves of fashion and style, free enterprise are forces like weather.  They do good things if they are harnessed and fettered. Free market globalism, the elevation of the free market as an end in itself, the commodification of the natural world, the exploitation of people and nature that is a natural byproduct of unfettered, unregulated free market economy is a bad thing.  Environmental degradation, exploitation of individuals are economic activities that can be very profitable. Regulation of free markets, of globalism, runaway capitalism must happen or we face a bleak future.  There are powerful, minority forces working against regulation and for profit as the primary goal.  I hope the end of that form of capitalism is coming.

Ok, back to the Organizing Points.  I did the first four points in Part I.  I expect this will take 3 parts, so here we go:  Part II.

5.  What Does Solidarity Mean, Especially with the Immigrant Justice Movement?

A. Solidarity is not just financial or administrative support of other people’s struggles but fundamentally recognizing the ways in which we all would benefit by the successes of movements of oppressed people

B. Demonstrating an active notion of solidarity where people with privilege don’t sideline themselves but instead endeavor the difficult task of both providing and respecting other’s leadership in the movement

C. Managing the conflict between political analysis and understanding of successful movement building strategies and letting local immigrant communities set the terms of their movement

6.  What Is the State of the Struggle Today, Particularly Internationally

A. National liberation struggles are not the primary mode of struggle today because capitalist globalization has weakened the state as a means of achieving self- determination

B. “Three-way fight” politics argue that the struggle today consists of the global capitalist/imperialist ruling class (of liberal, moderate, and conservative persuasions), the revolutionary left, and the revolutionary right (al-Qaeda, neo-Nazis, etc.) See www.threewayfight.blogspot.com for background
C. Recognizing ideas about direct and participatory forms of democracy that arise from local and indigenous traditions of self-governance and self-management and the under- theorized state of the the struggle

7.  How Do We Organize Simultaneously on Local, Regional, National, and International Levels?

A.  Many activists express the desire to organize as a national or international movement, but are not certain how to make the connections.

B.  We need to continue to make connections between groups that are arising and working toward closely aligned goals.

C. We can look at various organizations that have made headway with local, regional and inter/national organizing. These include Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that is largely active on college campuses, Northeast Federation of Anarcho-communists (NEFAC) that is active in union organization in Boston and Montreal, and Project South, a Black training and leadership development group based in Atlanta, that was key to the 2007 US Social Forum.

The underlying piece at the End of Capitalism is from November 2009 so it is a little dated.  The Social Forums and events like the April 2011 Power Shift conference may reflect the current best practice for organizing simultaneously at local, regional, national and international levels.

The solutions and changes that we desire require that we work in cooperative manner.  With an open attitude toward groups whose ideas and tactics may make us uncomfortable, but whose visions and goals are closely aligned with our own.  Liberals, progressives, radicals, whatever we choose to call ourselves are not a group that likes to walk in lockstep.  We must demonstrate solidarity and resist a puritanical call for any distinct set of ideas or tactics that are mandatory or absolutely prohibited.  I would suggest in this regard that points 3. C. and 3. E. are very important to keep in mind.

We must

3. C.   Maintain relationships with other activists and groups who may not have engaged in the same tactics but who remained committed and sympathetic

3. E. Build mass movements where militant tactics can be present without dividing the movement

I don’t need to stress 3. D. about helping increase militancy because I am pretty mainstream in my radicalism.  I am in touch with enough folks who share my visions and goals and are more militant in their tactics, so 3. D. is not critical to me.

I do not feel that I can tell the more militant that their tactics are wrong.  We face police in riot gear at peaceful demonstrations as a regular event.  We can get roughed up and arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial.  We face an electoral system that is wildly degraded now by unlimited corporate money and that continues to resist the accountability of paper ballots that can be used to make sure that votes are counted accurately. In this environment, I am not certain about how we should proceed, but I think we liberals, progressives, and radicals need to proceed together, in solidarity.

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May 30, 2011 by mike.

Tacoma activist Arthur M sent along an email and link about organizing that I think is right on.  Thanks, friend.

Here is the link if you want to read the whole article.  It’s 14 pages and I recognize that we live in a world of tweets and sparkle fingers today, so I want to tweet this article down a bit.

It’s funny, email seems so 1999 now.  I still rely on email and I do not like telephone calls or telephones, but emails seem superfluous to blogging and the resultant give and take. Now I am thinking/wondering if blogging is becoming superfluous, being replaced by more interactive social networking tools.  Not sure about that.  I am continuing to blog, but also becoming more involved in social networking stuff.

Back to Organizing.  Thanks again to The End of Capitalism for this work.  I recommend reading the whole text, but here is Part 1:

“We aren’t done, we’re not leaving, and we’re in this together.”

1. What Is Organizing?

A. How to actually organize and build lasting radical organizations, particularly in terms of maintaining radical politics while reaching beyond insular communities

B. Without a sense of why they are there or a program about which to talk with people, door knocking will yield few productive results

C. Build Dual Power, Confront State Power. Building coalitions, political infrastructure, and visionary, alternative institutions that prefigure the types of social relationships we desire — while simultaneously confronting the state, right-wing social movements, and other forms of institutional oppression. One without the other is insufficient

2. How Do We Build Intergenerational Movements? (A Challenge to Young and Old!)

A. Recognizing that the struggle is for the long haul means that no generation can or should exist in a political vacuum

B. Most people do not work in productively intergenerational groups or live intergenerational lives outside tightly circumscribed roles (e.g., teacher-student)

C. We have a responsibility to find and work with the teenage radicals who are just now becoming political conscious and active

3. What Role Do Militancy and Confrontation Play?

A. People want to not just register their dissatisfaction with the war through petitions and periodic protests but actually end it

B. Develop a strategy that incorporates a sense of direct action in line with the state of local movement

C. Maintain relationships with other activists and groups who may not have engaged in the same tactics but who remained committed and sympathetic

D. Continually expand the movement numerically, while simultaneously increasing the militancy of those prepared to take risks.

E. Build mass movements where militant tactics can be present without dividing the movement

4. What about Anti-racism and Multiracial Movement Building?

A. The left, like U.S. society in general, remains significantly divided by race, so proactive measures are needed to create multi-racial spaces

B. The relationship of race to gender to class is still a challenging one for many U.S. radicals to grasp and organize around

C. How do we build a radical power base among white people that is profoundly anti-racist to contribute to toppling white supremacy?

I think the groups that M & I are working with in Olympia are very much about 1. C. right now.  I feel good about the dual power.  More of the ten questions sometime soon.

Solidarity.

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May 11, 2011 by mike.

“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”
– David Brin
(1950- ) Author

I don’t know much about sane folks, but I get the drift here from Mr. Brin.  I figure the realm of politics attracts opportunists the way a basketball court attracts tall folks.  It’s just obvious that this realm appeals to a certain population. One population that is called to politics are reformers, utopians, philosophers who want to see if their ideals can be put in practice.  That is probably the best of the lot. Another group are or become pragmatists who think they can see a way to move a body politic toward an ideal through compromises and the politics of the possible. And yet another group are simply political functionaries who understand the political realm as primarily a playing field for exercise of power.  All of the experimentation that attends the exercise of power is done without the counterweight of the human values captured by Eleanor Roosevelt’s master work, the declaration of universal human rights. Or perhaps it is done in the context of a different philosophical realm - the social darwinism of Ayn Rand or the puritanical criminality of folks who come to power with the idea that ethnic cleansing of society is a means that is justified by their dream end of a pure society.  And really, this ethnic cleansing model is simply operationalizing social darwinism.  It is an impatient social darwinism that doesn’t even have the moral conscience to enact policies of neglect and exclusion that will achieve a similar end more slowly.  I will give those folks points for efficiency.  The trains will run on time or the conductors will be thrown under the wheels.

So, in an exercise of brutal or brutish efficiency, our country now engages in some horrendous stuff and there is not much outcry.  Waterboarding?  Is it ever ok to torture beings?  I don’t think this is a tough question.  Our efficiency (misunderestimated imho) overcomes our values and we are drawn into questions about whether torture works?  Does torture work?  Of course it works.  The work product is tortured individuals on both sides of the equations.  Torture creates monsters. 

The correct question is should we torture beings?  Is there ever a justification for torture?  The simple and correct answer is no.   Kick the question to ethics philosophers, to religious leaders, to large political bodies, the answer is the same.  Torture is wrong.  Don’t bother playing around the margins with sleep deprivation, isolation, stress positions etc.  This is torture.  Subject any of the individuals who favor these “pragmatic” options to skirt the clear moral and legal prohibitions to torture to enhanced interrogation techniques for 72 hours and let’s see if they continue to think this is ok.  Of course, that is a rhetorical proposition.  Unless the proponents of enhanced interrogation techniques volunteer for the treatment to show that is not inhumane, we who believe the treatment is inhumane cannot cross that line.  It’s just that simple.

How about murder?  Is murder ever ok?  “Thou shall not kill” seems  to be a pretty common principle in religions and moral philosophies.  Geopolitics continues to find justification for wholesale violation of this principle in decisions to enter into wars or “police actions.”  Intentional destruction of life is delivered through our proxies, the drones, that circle above us. The finger that pushes the button is isolated from humanity by electronic screens, the screens of violent computer games, the screens of electronic drone control panels, the human screens that allow this murderous activity to be conducted anonymously.  Murder from behind the screen of anonymity.  Pay no attention to the man behind the screen or curtain.  The drone attacks are surgical and intelligent.  We get the illusion of smart bombs when we need the reality of smart leaders, smart policies, smart action.  

So, this country recently sent a team of assassins into another sovereign country in the dead of night to murder an unarmed man.  Our agents captured a man who had been convicted of no crime and it is said they shot him in the face, possibly in front of his family members.  Are we ok with that?  Is that an event for celebration?

I say no.

So what are our values?  Why do other folks around the planet find themselves in conflict with us?  I will let John Foster Dulles have the last word:

“Somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich should plunder the poor.”
– John Foster Dulles former Secretary of State

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April 28, 2011 by mike.

I think this covers the situation pretty well:

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March 8, 2011 by mike.

“The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance.”
– Paul Johnson

Keynesian economics are the solution to recessions and depressions.  In the battle of great ideas, Keynesian economics can lose traction to free market economics and for folks who have six hours can learn lots about the push and pull of economic theory by watching the PBS series Commanding Heights.

Keynesian economics and the commanding heights of manufacturing lose steam when they fail to accommodate and incorporate the power of human desire, the engine of capitalism.  Fashion, this year we want fins on our cars, the next year we want round headlights, the next year we want two tone paint jobs and chrome, the next year we…     you get the idea…    one thing I took away from watching Commanding Heights is that these human desires and the dynamics of popular capitalism are like a force of nature, they are like wind and tides.  Simply dismissing fashion and desire is a big mistake. The wind will blow.

One thing that happens when keynesian economics are employed (see the deficit spending of the Obama administration and started by the Bush administration in response to the economic meltdown) is that governments run deficits. This is a normal cycle of keynesian economics.  The deficits are made up in good times if you leave tax rates alone.  If the free market capitalists manage to drive tax rates down in the good times and prevent the accumulation of wealth, the paydown of debt by government does not occur and we are ill-prepared to deal with the next downturn.  This is where we were in 2008-2010.  It doesn’t help that the financial planners around Bush and Obama were intent on saving bankers instead of homeowners, but the flattened tax schedule of the Reagan revolution had prevented economic good times from paying down deficits.  There is also the issue of the wisdom of spending on war economies instead of peace and manufacturing economies, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Our current situation has created deficit issues and the deficit hawks/vultures are seizing the moment to attack social democracy institutions such as education, health care and social security.

Alternet has a good piece by Larry Beinhart from March 1st.

The Astonishing Stupidity of Not Raising Taxes on the Rich When Budgets Are Tight

 The current economy is routinely and universally referred to as the worst recession since the Great Depression.

It makes sense, therefore, to look back at government tax and spending policies during the Depression and what the results were.

1932 — Hoover raises the top tax rate from to 25 to 63 percent.

1933 — Roosevelt comes into office. He begins spending at the same time that new tax hike comes into effect. The Depression bottoms out.

1934 — Recovery begins. The GNP rises 7.7 percent, unemployment falls to 21.7 percent.

1935 — New government spending on public works and rural electrification. A push to strengthen labor and raise wages. New taxes through the creation of Social Security.

The GNP grows another 8.1 percent, and unemployment continues to fall.

1936 — The top tax rate is raised again. This time to 79 percent.

GNP grows a record 14.1 percent; unemployment falls even further.

1937 — Roosevelt is afraid of deficits! He cuts spending for 1937.

There’s a new recession. It continues for a year.

Might be a good time to review our history,  kids.

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March 4, 2011 by mike.

My friend Pat Rasmussen sent me a link to the Center for Biological Diversity.  Pat does some great work with temperate rainforests and works with so many groups in the Puget Sound area on forestry, sustainability and environmental issues.  It’s an honor to know Pat.

The link contains the NYT story about how the Clean Air Act will yield 2 trillion in benefits.  It’s also saving lives.  Does government regulation work?  Yes, it does.   Is it necessary? I say yes, though I know that Monsanto, BP, and Enron say it is a waste of precious public dollars and that we can trust the market place. Each of us will need to make some decisions.  One thing we can count on is that automated pod people will show up in the comments suggesting that Monsanto et al have done so much for us.

I also got a link/suggestion across the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace list serv this morning that informed that Tim DeChristopher was found guilty this past week and faces up to 10 years in jail for making a fake bid in an oil and gas auction.

Will Potter at Green is the New Red has the DeChristopher story.

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