June 1, 2011 by mike.

It can be done.  The world we want is available.  Vermont has enacted a single payer medical care system.  Right here in the US, a state has established the medical system that would fix so much that is wrong with our health care system.  I think we can count on the free market medical care and corporate insurance interests to do everything in their power to make this system fail.  There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.  Is this the time?  I hope so.

Some links to read more about this experiment:

• Stephen Lendman piece at South Bay Indy Media
• Green Mountain care piece in American Medical News
• The push back will look like this WSJ piece or worse, I will let you find the worse, it’s out there

This experiment and push toward socialized medicine is a david and goliath battle.  Enacting legislation like this is radical. What does it mean to be radical?  A couple of bits to consider:

• (esp. of change or action) Relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough
• A person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims
• Of or relating to the root of something, in particular

Maintaining the roots of health care in the free market capitalism of health insurance profits, flattened tax rates, and annual CEO bonuses is not a reasonable formula for improving the health care system of the United States.  The change that is needed is radical.

Talking about commitment to a robust public option and failing to actually enact any public option is a capitulation to a health care system rooted in free market capitalism, a system that arguably profits from misery.  I want radical change.  I want a health care system rooted in an idea like Medicare for All.  Pose it as a pro-life scheme if you like.  I want fetuses to have Medicare coverage.

Is that radical?  I hope it is. I am a radical.

On to power generation:

Earth Times reports that Scotland has committed to 100% renewable energy grid by 2020.  That’s daring, courageous, and radical.  I am down with that.

The Beeb is covering the story that Angela Merkel has decided that nuclear power is not the future for Germany.  There is a strong environmental movement in Germany that has opposed nuclear energy.  The Chernobyl nuclear disaster gave that movement a lot of energy. The recent failure of planning and engineering at Fukushima has turned up the heat.  Merkel’s party lost recent elections and I think Merkel is making a politically wise and calculated decision.  The position that Merkel has staked out is radical.

What are the chances that the US could make these kind of radical decisions regarding power generation?  I make them slim to none.  American radicals live in the heart of the beast.

Che said he envied our position:  “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all – you live in the heart of the beast.” - Che Guevara

The fight does not have to be violent, unlawful, but it will be radical if it has any chance of effecting real change.  Thank you, Che, for reminding us why the struggle for radical politics is important.

One more quote from one of my heroes:

I. F. Stone- “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing—for the sheer fun and joy of it—to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it.”

It’s hump day, go get’m.

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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.

Posted in Eco Criminals, Financial Crimes, Politics, Connect the Dots, Global Warming, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

May 14, 2011 by mike.

I am thinking about suggesting that the progressives, radicals, and rabble (that’s me) consider sending out an SOS. Yes, an emergency call.  I think we are there.

In this instance I think the SOS will be an emergency call for a Summer of Solidarity (think Summer of Love).

Those of us who voted in 2008 elected Obama as President and put him in charge of a democratic Congress and at the end of a two year session with that group we had an escalated war in Afghanistan, huge bailouts of Wall Street banks and traders, and a corporatist health care reform bill crafted on a table where single payer or even a public option had no place.

2010 elections gave us a tea party sweep of new corporatists idealogues in Congress who defy description or classification, but any way you look at this group, they are not good news.

In 2012, there will be 33 Senate seats up for election.  21 of those seats are now held by democrats and 2 by independents who lean left and 10 Senate seats now held by republicans will be for voter and Citizen United selection.  Bad as things may currently seem, they could get worse after November 2012.  That’s my take on the federal situation.

Budget woes from the Wall Street robbery of Main Street and the 2008 crash have created a state by state funding crisis that has become a golden opportunity for cuts to social welfare programs, for privatization and capitalist takeovers or dismantling of important public functions.  Tim Eyman has continued to hammer on the state budget in Washington to create a funding snarl that creates a new excuse for hammering on the middle class, the working poor, the disabled, the lowest 50% of the socio-economic scale (that’s me and most of my good friends).

That’s my take on the State level.

Folks can argue (and they do) that Obama and centrist democrats are so much better than the other real alternative, but I think it is difficult to argue that Obama is taking us in a progressive direction.  He has continued the imperial presidency, violates national and international law with the drone attacks on civilian populations in countries that we are not at war with.  He has arguably committed war and high crimes, most recently with the murder of the people (whoever they were) in the compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan.  So, even if you think this is better than the alternative, I will challenge you to persuade me that Obama is taking the country in the right direction.

Back to the Summer of Solidarity.

We wrapped up our Friday the 13th zombie crawl to the Olympia Capitol yesterday.  It was a good time, good food, good music, good cause, good company.  And there is reason to believe that the pressure that we have brought to bear on the Washington legislature is producing results.  A tax loophole ending bill made it out of committee yesterday on a straight party line vote and is heading to the floor for consideration. Would this have happened without the demonstrations, without the occupation of the Rotunda last month, without incessant pressure from the groups and individuals who have spent time in Olympia over the past couple of months?  I think not.

But, it’s small victories that we are achieving in a sea of big battles.  Environmental degradation, corruption of the political process by court decisions that find that money is speech and corporations are people, deregulation of markets and industries, wholesale class war on unions, teachers, the poor, the disabled?  It’s hard to see how a small legislative victory or two is going to turn the tide.  Still I think we are right to claim those small victories.  They are ours.

That’s as much as I have time for today.  I need to work on a few things around the home front as so much time and energy has been directed to the zombie event over the past couple of weeks.

I will tell you this much: a lot of the discussion is evolving toward creation of the alternative community.  The battle for good public policy is important and should continue for those who have the time and energy for it, but we also need to let the good times roll.  We need to step in and fill the vacuum that is created by the failure of public policy.  And we need to do it in the company of good friends, enjoying music, sharing food and really FREE (that’s you, Lee) market thinking and that is what I am thinking about when I start organizing myself around the idea of a Summer of Solidarity.

More tomorrow.  Love and peace to all of you who put energy into the activities in Olympia over the past two months.  I am optimistic because of your ideas, your ideals, and your energy.

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

May 5, 2011 by mike.

Washington State is pushing college tuition up as part of the budget cutting stage of the Great Recession.  This is exactly the wrong way to go, but it is driven generally by free market forces, forces for deregulation, bubble economy speculators who understand that the current flattened tax table provides the opportunity of a lifetime to take huge risks, may big profits fast, and hope that they are able to find a chair when the music stops playing in each round of the economic game.

Trying to imagine a culture built around something other than capitalism is very difficult for folks who live in the industrialized world.  Free market capitalism, globalism is like water to fish for us.  We swim in every waking minute and we sleep and dream free market dreams.  There is another way.  The regulated capitalism that was in vogue post WWII was less unstable, more conducive to healthy community (healthy communities provide or flirt with the idea of education, health care as a right), but Mr. Reagan really led the revolution that created the current world capitalist economy and we are deeply mired in the muck of speculative economics today.

Here is a community that took another path.  The Barefoot College was established back in 1972 by Bunker Roy.  Thanks to my friend, Pat Rasmussen, for passing along a link about this group.

Here is a link to a CNN video that has higher production values if that is important and if you want to sit through 15 seconds of advertising to get to the video.

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

April 28, 2011 by mike.

I think this covers the situation pretty well:

Posted in Eco Criminals, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »

April 27, 2011 by mike.

Mary at The Left Coaster is right about the methane hydrate feedback loop. Mary posted about that on Tuesday, April 26th if you are searching back.

I have been talking about methane release from thawing permafrost and icesheet melting for several years.   The release of methane is a deadly tipping point that we are approaching.

I got an email from Jack Zeiger in Olympia with a link to Tim DeChristopher’s speech at Power Shift.  I think Tim is also seeing the tipping points approaching and passed and concluding as I do that we are in for some rough times ahead. We still have the choice that no one can take away from us (thank you, Viktor Frankl) to choose how we seek meaning in our lives.

A couple of Frankl quotes for the day:

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance.”

“When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.”

so thanks to Jack for sending the following:

So did you hear about the Power Shift conference that was going on in Washington, DC? Sounded pretty amazing. In addition to the bill McKibben speech below, make sure to check out Tim DeChristopher’s speech (Tim is the student who disrupted an auction of oil and gas drilling leases by posing as a bidder in 2008). Here’s his speech:

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April 4, 2011 by mike.

Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson says we can do it in 20 to 40 years.  The Stanford University News has the story.  Here is some of it:

A new study – co-authored by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson and UC-Davis researcher Mark A. Delucchi – analyzing what is needed to convert the world’s energy supplies to clean and sustainable sources says that it can be done with today’s technology at costs roughly comparable to conventional energy. But converting will be a massive undertaking on the scale of the moon landings. What is needed most is the societal and political will to make it happen.

BY LOUIS BERGERON

If someone told you there was a way you could save 2.5 million to 3 million lives a year and simultaneously halt global warming, reduce air and water pollution and develop secure, reliable energy sources – nearly all with existing technology and at costs comparable with what we spend on energy today – why wouldn’t you do it?

According to a new study coauthored by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, we could accomplish all that by converting the world to clean, renewable energy sources and forgoing fossil fuels.

“Based on our findings, there are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources,” said Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “It is a question of whether we have the societal and political will.”

This is the political opportunity that Prez Obama missed in his first 100 days.  You want a legacy?  Try a clean energy revolution.  Plenty of jobs, serves the economy and the environment.  Health care reform?  Please take that on in the wake of this kind of big government manufacturing economic push.  Commit 5% of the defense budget to this project and see what happens.  Commit 20% of the defense budget and make it happen.  Of course we we would need to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and maybe shut down some foreign bases.  But we would not need strategic power and influence all over the globe if we could plan for an energy grid that did not depend on foreign oil and environmentally destructive extraction technologies.

It ain’t rocket science there, Barack.  It’s late, but maybe it ain’t too late.  Do it now.  Campaign on this change, a revolution of energy, a future of green energy independence and manufacturing jobs in the USA.

Thanks to my friend Walt Jorgensen for bringing this to my attention.

Posted in News, Politics, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »

March 29, 2011 by mike.

Dr. Daniel Nocera and his team at MIT have created an artificial leaf that might be able to power a home.  Here’s a bit from the story I found at Mail Online with help from Slatest:

About the shape of a poker card but thinner, the device is fashioned from silicon, electronics and catalysts, substances that accelerate chemical reactions that otherwise would not occur, or would run slowly.

Placed in a single gallon of water in a bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day, Nocera said.

It does so by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen.

The hydrogen and oxygen gases would be stored in a fuel cell, which uses those two materials to produce electricity, located either on top of the house or beside it.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1370839/Scientists-Holy-Grail-science-mastermind-worlds-artificial-leaf.html#ixzz1I0NMTV5y

Posted in News, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »

March 23, 2011 by mike.

Thanks to Donna Albert for sending me a link to this video that is running on Grist among other places.

Posted in Politics, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »

March 5, 2011 by mike.

If you are in San Francisco, Portland or Seattle, you can see the movie Carbon Nation in the next week or two.  There are solutions to our energy issues that do not require that we bomb anyone or support oppressive regimes to keep oil prices down.

This does not have to be a Red or Blue issue.  Can we persuade the country to move in a direction that is good for all of us?  (almost all of us, may cost the Exxon/BP execs some big bucks down the line)

Tip of the hat to Mary at The Left Coaster for picking up this story from Climate Progress.

Here’s the trailer:

Posted in Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »