-
-
But plenty of prochoice activists, bloggers and writers are wondering if Planned Parenthood and other organizations are too close to Democrats to really pressure them. After a fight around private insurers covering abortion during the healthcare reform debates, Megan Carpentier reported for RH Reality Check that prochoice groups had actually cut their lobbying budgets when Obama took office, while antichoicers had ramped theirs up.
-
-
FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists
-
Another explanation is that this document is no mistake, nor is it an isolated case. It is a reflection of a coordinated campaign to target animal rights activists who, as the FBI agent notes, cause “economic loss” to corporations.
-
Policy 12/24/2011
Posted by rosshunter on December 23, 2011
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Sustainability 12/10/2011
Posted by rosshunter on December 9, 2011
-
Naomi Klein’s Inconvenient Climate Conclusions | Common Dreams
-
the idea that we can win the climate fight without engaging in ideological battle over these core questions about the role of government has always been a fantasy. Trying to dodge this fight is a big part of why we lose, and we need to get over it. It’s no coincidence that the countries with the most enlightened climate policies are also, overwhelmingly, the most social democratic.
-
Posted in Sustainability | Leave a Comment »
Policy 12/10/2011
Posted by rosshunter on December 9, 2011
-
Naomi Klein’s Inconvenient Climate Conclusions | Common Dreams
-
the idea that we can win the climate fight without engaging in ideological battle over these core questions about the role of government has always been a fantasy. Trying to dodge this fight is a big part of why we lose, and we need to get over it. It’s no coincidence that the countries with the most enlightened climate policies are also, overwhelmingly, the most social democratic.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 12/08/2011
Posted by rosshunter on December 7, 2011
-
In 2012 you can waste your vote on Obama or…
-
In 2012 you can waste your vote on Obama pretending that the Republicans have shackled him, but as Paul Hawken points out, he could always use his voice if he had some backbone. People like Hawken and McKibben have earned my respect from their actions – they will be the ones who help address climate change. Do you really think Obama will?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ8scoNnGS8 -
Hi Leif. I think to take this position one has to accept that changing the political status quo will take more than the 2012 election. It could take 1-2 decades of serious effort, the force of the entire Occupy generation spent in this one …thing. But we can’t address climate change without a working government. So we have to get good government.
The Democrats simply can’t address climate change. This needs to be the great call in 2012, for any candidate at every level, and the great decision-maker: can you or can you not address climate change? When I say to people don’t vote Obama or don’t vote Democrat, I’m also saying throw all your energy into studying and working in politics from the most local council race to the national, and work every day, not just once every 2 or 4 years. This way, even if we get Republicans we still know the challenge is to field our own independent candidates.
I truly believe that people who vote Democrat out of fear pf the Republican alternative are being gamed by a very cynical system.
-
I also believe that people who vote Democrat out of fear of the Republican alternative are not helping to address climate change. Out of good intentions unfortunately they’re helping to delay solutions – and we know what this means, it mean…s disaster. So if we seek true solutions to climate change, and if we understand how urgent the need is, with no time to waste, then we have to start changing our long-held political habits. The Republicans are corrupted by ideology and corporate money. The Democrats are only corrupted by corporate money. But both parties are sufficiently corrupted by corporate money that this world will burn before any regular political solution emerges. It HAS to take our action, we HAVE to get political, and we HAVE to throw the Democrats away as a solution because they’ve failed consistently and nothing will change them except to see that we have the power and the will to take them out of office. Did you read Tim DeChristopher’s piece on this concept?
http://www.grist.org/politics/2011-11-14-letter-from-a-climate-activist-in-prison-tim-dechristopher
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 11/28/2011
Posted by rosshunter on November 27, 2011
-
DeChristopher – Obama should lose the election
-
I was so glad to see DeChristopher lay this concept on the table. Voting for either of the the two main choices is NOT going to solve the climate crisis. The only solution must come from our own political action. Multitudes of deeply concer…ned good people must now begin to wean themselves away from their addiction to the Democrats, and not be afraid of the Republican bogeyman. It doesn’t matter who wins in 2012 unless it’s our own candidates – we will continue to lose, the planet will continue to lose even with a Democrat majority and Obama at the helm. Habeas corpus will still be suspended, the corporate police state will continue to encroach with approval from the White House, the planet will continue to warm irreversibly, and we will help to doom life on this planet because we couldn’t face the prospect of turning away from the Democrats and working tirelessly for political solutions of our own making.
-
-
-
don’t believe that Nader split the Democrat vote. I’d argue that the Democrats have co-opted the Green vote. And when we should all be working tirelessly to build a new platform with new candidates committed to climate solutions, instead …we waste our votes on Democrats who are in pawn to the corporations the same as the Republicans. The greatest myth is that the Democrats will solve climate change – they will not. Only we can do that.
-
-
political solution to climate crisis
-
I submit that the trajectory of solution coming from the Democrats and Obama combined is woefully inadequate to solve the climate crisis – such… that another four more years simply continues the failure. We end up in disaster.
Against this failure of the climate, what comparatively can be the disaster of the Republicans in office? Under Bush the environmental lobbies fought hard and sharply. Under Obama, they recognize themselves that they’ve been lulled into inactivity (until recently). Obama’s administration continues to advance the police state, corporate rule continues unchecked – we CANNOT fix the climate without representative government, and this is severely broken across both parties.
Thus the only true answer to climate crisis is to fix politics – to get political ourselves and put in our own candidates. This can’t all be achieved by 2012 – but to move forward in the name of all the living things on this planet we have to be unafraid of Republicans, and fight regardless, instead of hoping the Democrats will help. If we blithely waste our votes on them instead of working ceaselessly in our own political actions every day then we have failed to meet the challenge.
-
I’m trying to say that if you only see two choices in 2012, then I have to keep working every day until you see at least a third realistic choice, and hopefully an entire political movement that grips you like the Occupy movement has gripped us all. And it needs to be persuasive because to believe that a third option will “split the Dem vote” as the old meme goes, will only buy us four more years of climate failure. In fact the Dems and the Repubs both have split the vote of the true solution, which is trying to be born right now, and which I assume will gather force as 2012 progresses. With all respect, yours is the very opinion that any new political force needs to change. Of course I’m familiar with this opinion, it used to be mine also. I wish I had the articulation to persuade you to this other view, but thanks for the chance to try.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 11/27/2011
Posted by rosshunter on November 26, 2011
-
I don’t believe that Nader split the Democrat vote. I’d argue that the Democrats have co-opted the Green vote. And when we should all be working tirelessly to build a new platform with new candidates committed to climate solutions, instead we waste our votes on Democrats who are in pawn to the corporations the same as the Republicans. The greatest myth is that the Democrats will solve climate change – they will not. Only we can do that.
-
Ross Hunter Climate change says we don’t have to the time to proceed on the current trajectory. Re-electing Obama and Democrats will NOT fix climate change in time to save us. Letting the old corrupt system fall wherever it falls and working for new climate-committed candidates is the only solution.
I submit that if anyone votes Democrat simply from fear of the Republican alternative, they are being gamed by the good-cop, bad-cop system that has crushed grass roots movements for a century.
And anyone who thinks voting once every 4 years is enough is missing the opportunity to work ceaselessly day after day for a true political solution – our own candidates, at all levels from local to national. This will take time but it won’t even start until we start.
I used to like Obama but I prefer habeas corpus – the police state edges closer, and Obama’s record is truly scary in this arena. Republicans or Democrats, the rhetoric is different but the paymasters are the same – and they are opposed to climate solutions.
-
I was so glad to see DeChristopher lay this concept on the table. Voting for either of the the two main choices is NOT going to solve the climate crisis. The only solution must come from our own political action. Multitudes of deeply concerned good people must now begin to wean themselves away from their addiction to the Democrats, and not be afraid of the Republican bogeyman. It doesn’t matter who wins in 2012 unless it’s our own candidates – we will continue to lose, the planet will continue to lose even with a Democrat majority and Obama at the helm. Habeas corpus will still be suspended, the corporate police state will continue to encroach with approval from the White House, the planet will continue to warm irreversibly, and we will help to doom life on this planet because we couldn’t face the prospect of turning away from the Democrats and working tirelessly for political solutions of our own making.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 11/25/2011
Posted by rosshunter on November 24, 2011
-
‘We have lost respect’ – former US Senator — RT
-
“Most people are unaware of the fact that over the last year, the Obama administration chased out of the United States… over 500,000 people. If we had a media that is all honest – this would have been front page and hotly discussed,” he reveals.
“Obama is raising a billion dollars for his re-election campaign, and he has made a statement which demonstrates what respect he has for the people. He made the statement ‘We’re not going to take any money from special interests’. I tell you – the billion dollars come from special interests,” ex-Senator Gravel accuses.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 11/11/2011
Posted by rosshunter on November 10, 2011
-
Capitalism vs. the Climate | The Nation
-
This is a crucial point to understand: it is not opposition to the scientific facts of climate change that drives denialists but rather opposition to the real-world implications of those facts.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 11/07/2011
Posted by rosshunter on November 6, 2011
-
-
Points of discussion: Obama didn’t simply not get around to restoring habeas corpus – this is a policy of his administr…ation. He didn’t fix the economy, not because the republicans wouldn’t let him but because his campaign donors wouldn’t let him. Check his cabinet, compare those people (the enemy) with economists who call bullshit on this economic collapse. Even Krugman shows Obama to be less an accidental disappointment, rather more a politician who was exceptionally gifted on the campaign trail (where did the oratory go now? Answer, he can’t make those promises now in office where he would have to fulfill them).
It goes much deeper than this, to 1 crucial point: that the Democrats historically have acted to co-opt grass-roots movements into themselves, where they go to die, to become placid and toothless. The Dems play the good cop side of a two-headed monster, and we buy into it because the scare of the Repubs is so awful. The reason then that a Democratic majority doesn’t achieve anything is that most of the Dems would rather keep their jobs safely in a minority and not be called to fulfill their legacy platform.
The answer to all this lies in the activism happening at the grass roots and not yet co-opted into the Dem party. The millions of voters in environmental groups are testing Obama right now with the Tar Sands actions – he alone can stop the pipeline, without being able to blame any other forces. So by January 1, expect to see the results of this.
Watch also all the movements happening, from the Occupy actions to the Coffe Party actions, to the November 6 action – on and on great forces are shaping themselves that at any point you and I and others can join with
-
If you vote for the Dems because the Repubs are terrible then you’ve been fooled for another four years. I expect plenty of pressure to be applied on me in 2012 to vote Dem, to stave off the Republican alternative – but you know what, most of the people applying that pressure step up to politics once every four years and they think that’s enough. I’m actively involved in politics, starting right here with our city council, every day of every year. Can your commenters here say the same?
The answer to all this is to stop being lazy and voting every few years, and instead to become actively involved in politics all the time – this is the eternal vigilance we were warned was necessary, this is the answer being manifested at the grass roots right now, this is the only solution that exists, and anything less than this is beneath discussion if solution is what we’re discussing.
-
We thought the hour had produced the man, and this was a plausible belief but it won’t help this country or this world if we insist blindly on believing in Obama, when a serious study will show that he is not the answer. If we had a hundred… years or two, I believe we could continue to evolve past these current political logjams. But climate change says we have no time at all – so it’s up to us. What matters is, what next?
Gretchen the candidates are not completely visible to me yet but that’s not the real point. The real point is that we can no longer choose from the sorry assortment presented, as if we have no other choice. We have another choice. We will organize into voting blocs and run our own candidates, on platforms of campaign reform, political accountability and climate justice. With a responsive political machinery, actually we don’t need platforms, the right things to do are quite obvious to anyone not vested in the wrong things.
And it doesn’t matter if we get results in 2012 – this can take 10 years if it has to, and whatever authentic shift occurs in 2012 will scare the shit out of the established parties, setting them on the defensive, and forcing them into multiple mistakes. Eventually we win.
-
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont shows how powerful a single independent representative can be. We’ll run independents, or whatever the party comes to be called. Consider the forces in play right now.
Bill McKibben will circle the White House with people in November, exactly one year from the election. Van Jones and his group plan to run 2,012 candidates in 2012. Occupy “Everything” is everywhere. The Coffee Party is organizing. Avaaz has ten million petitioners and is now aiming for 20 million. Everyone is mobilizing, and the only way this can come to nothing is if we think we need to give away this power to an established political party, by voting blindly for the Democrats or Obama.
Power comes from organizing. That’s all that’s needed to get power. Power is the one thing you can’t fake, you either have it or you don’t. In politics the vote is one piece of power and when we throw it away on liars we hurt ourselves and the world.
-
Finally, for the moment – sorry no links for all the above references, but do listen to Annabel Park for 4.5 minutes explaining what’s actually happening in this country today. As she says, massive engagement is the answer. And it’s what’s happening. We’re making our own hope, our own change:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXclZz0RbSk
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 10/21/2011
Posted by rosshunter on October 20, 2011
-
-
Points of discussion: Obama didn’t simply not get around to restoring habeas corpus – this is a policy of his administration. He didn’t fix the economy, not because the republicans wouldn’t let him but because his campaign donors wouldn’t let him. Check his cabinet, compare those people (the enemy) with economists who call bullshit on this economic collapse. Even Krugman shows Obama to be less an accidental disappointment, rather more a politician who was exceptionally gifted on the campaign trail (where did the oratory go now? Answer, he can’t make those promises now in office where he would have to fulfill them).
It goes much deeper than this, to 1 crucial point: that the Democrats historically have acted to co-opt grass-roots movements into themselves, where they go to die, to become placid and toothless. The Dems play the good cop side of a two-headed monster, and we buy into it because the scare of the Repubs is so awful. The reason then that a Democratic majority doesn’t achieve anything is that most of the Dems would rather keep their jobs safely in a minority and not be called to fulfill their legacy platform.
The answer to all this lies in the activism happening at the grass roots and not yet co-opted into the Dem party. The millions of voters in environmental groups are testing Obama right now with the Tar Sands actions – he alone can stop the pipeline, without being able to blame any other forces. So by January 1, expect to see the results of this.
-
Watch also all the movements happening, from the Occupy actions to the Coffe Party actions, to the November 6 action – on and on great forces are shaping themselves that at any point you and I and others can join with
If you vote for the Dems because the Repubs are terrible then you’ve been fooled for another four years. I expect plenty of pressure to be applied on me in 2012 to vote Dem, to stave off the Republican alternative – but you know what, most of the people applying that pressure step up to politics once every four years and they think that’s enough. I’m actively involved in politics, starting right here with our city council, every day of every year. Can your commenters here say the same?
The answer to all this is to stop being lazy and voting every few years, and instead to become actively involved in politics all the time – this is the eternal vigilance we were warned was necessary, this is the answer being manifested at the grass roots right now, this is the only solution that exists, and anything less than this is beneath discussion if solution is what we’re discussing.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 10/13/2011
Posted by rosshunter on October 12, 2011
-
-
Ross Hunter I truly think everyone has always known this, for centuries and millennia .. and if there were time remaining for a future it would be wise enough in our lifetimes to say nothing can be done to change this. But we are in a time where we have to stop this pattern or lose the entire world .. we have gone along with this exploitation forever, until now…
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 10/11/2011
Posted by rosshunter on October 10, 2011
-
-
-
Ross Hunter interesting point about fudging – the one thing you can’t fake is power. Everything else is posture. So what matters if they shift the perception of reality, if we in fact outnumber them then we can win, if not, then not.about an hour ago · ·
1 personAshish Java likes this. -
Ross Hunter and power comes from organizing, of course…
-
-
-
-
”Critics are quite cross that Occupy Wall Street activists haven’t already come up with a tidy set of demands for change. They’re missing the point. Politics where people draw up a numbered list of requests for someone else to implement, please sir, plainly doesn’t work anymore. The people want to be included at the decision-making table; shockingly enough, they’re demanding to actively participate in their democracy.” BRAVO!!
-
Ross Hunter”please sir” – Mary you nailed exactly what nobody cares to say, ever again…this is the huge paradigm shift.
And to Nicholas, with respect, as for electing Democrats: it speaks of electoral maturity – finally – that we are not trying to… elect the same old people who are happiest with second place under the old paradigm, who secretly prefer to lose, in the end, and after token opposition.
We see instead that we need our own representatives, held to new commitments, under new paradigms still being articulated, but none the less real for that.
-
Actually the results are already becoming manifest, in the media responses to the action. The mainstream media was forced to look at this action after a week or two of deliberate ignorance – they were out-stared by persistence over time. Th…e situation has opened up for commentators to acknowledge.
But it’s very early – don’t look to congressional action at this stage. You can’t look at this as a power equation in its visible identity at this hour, you have to see the iceberg below the tip.
And you have to see how this one tip has activated all the other icebergs. The environmentalists (who number in the millions of voters) have crossed over and announced solidarity. Likewise the labor movement.
The true, inspiring message of this action is that it shows no sign of being short-lived, or of losing energy, or of fading away. Give it time, my friend, and the watched pot will eventually boil.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 10/01/2011
Posted by rosshunter on September 30, 2011
-
Weighing the Cost, Building Resistance | Truthout
-
The notion that the nation can be made safe by trawling through databases in search of “suspicious patterns” was vigorously debunked by an exhaustive multi-year study carried out by the National Research Council, published in October 2008. The report says that finding terrorists through data mining “is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable” and that it will result in “ordinary law abiding citizens and businesses” being wrongly treated as suspects.
-
On December 25, 2009, it was the action of passengers on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 – and a faulty explosive – that disrupted Abdulmutallab’s effort to blow up the plane, just as it was the action of passengers – and a faulty fuse – that kept the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid from bringing down American Airlines Flight 63 on December 22, 2001. In the only other known terrorist plot (as opposed to FBI sting) that was foiled in the process of being carried out, street vendors – and not the multitude of surveillance cameras – alerted police to the smoking van in New York’s Times Square on May 1, 2010.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Sustainability 09/06/2011
Posted by rosshunter on September 5, 2011
-
-
-
Ross HunterIt will always remain a brave thing that you did. Perhaps you don’t see what the outsiders in the environmental movements are seeing from this, because you’ve been inside it. But think of this as an early sample of the multitude of actions …and steps that will break out around the world and across the country, and come to saturate the politics of our time.
It’s certainly not the powder keg, it may not even be a blasting cap, it’s perhaps no more than a basic chemistry class showing that powder burns. Don’t look for results from this today, but look towards 2012. It’s odd that you have such ambivalence about this action when you yourself donated so much character and strength and engagement to it. All honor to you for showing up and taking it on. This is the real lesson you’ve taught here.
Much respect and gratitude.
See Moreabout an hour ago · -
Gail Zawacki Thanks Ross! I confess I am confused. I honestly don’t know what tack to take, or the best action going forward – I only know that so far if we continue unimpeded, we are headed towards oblivion.55 minutes ago · -
Ross Hunter I can’t remember now who said it – the question was, what’s the solution to climate change? And the answer is, everything. We throw everything we have at it.
So you are doing more than your part with your great act of bearing witness to the dying trees. You have no idea how you inspire us do you?
Just keep rooting for everyone and every thing. Read “Blessed Unrest” by Paul Hawken to see how we are all playing our parts. We are all called into service in our way. The patient may die. We ourselves may never live to see the result. Doesn’t matter. We do what we can and what we must.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U
-
-
Posted in Sustainability | Leave a Comment »
Policy 09/06/2011
Posted by rosshunter on September 5, 2011
-
-
-
Ross HunterIt will always remain a brave thing that you did. Perhaps you don’t see what the outsiders in the environmental movements are seeing from this, because you’ve been inside it. But think of this as an early sample of the multitude of actions …and steps that will break out around the world and across the country, and come to saturate the politics of our time.
It’s certainly not the powder keg, it may not even be a blasting cap, it’s perhaps no more than a basic chemistry class showing that powder burns. Don’t look for results from this today, but look towards 2012. It’s odd that you have such ambivalence about this action when you yourself donated so much character and strength and engagement to it. All honor to you for showing up and taking it on. This is the real lesson you’ve taught here.
Much respect and gratitude.
See Moreabout an hour ago · -
Gail Zawacki Thanks Ross! I confess I am confused. I honestly don’t know what tack to take, or the best action going forward – I only know that so far if we continue unimpeded, we are headed towards oblivion.55 minutes ago ·
-
Ross Hunter I can’t remember now who said it – the question was, what’s the solution to climate change? And the answer is, everything. We throw everything we have at it.
So you are doing more than your part with your great act of bearing witness to the dying trees. You have no idea how you inspire us do you?
Just keep rooting for everyone and every thing. Read “Blessed Unrest” by Paul Hawken to see how we are all playing our parts. We are all called into service in our way. The patient may die. We ourselves may never live to see the result. Doesn’t matter. We do what we can and what we must.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U
-
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 09/01/2011
Posted by rosshunter on August 31, 2011
-
-
Ross HunterJen I’m very much with you but I have to say I hate this hostage situation every four years of having to vote Democrat because it’s better than Republican – this is a rigged game.
If Obama doesn’t stop the Keystone pipeline then all the env…ironmental movements will begin finally to think the unthinkable and abandon the Democrats. We need our own candidates. We need our own politics. We have 10-20 years to do this and we won’t get started until we get started.
Let Obama go – I’d rather have habeas corpus. And if we have an evil Republican in office this is not the end of political engagement – we have to break this fixation on one voting day out of every four years – and become engaged in political action 24/7. It’s the only way we deserve the America bequeathed to us – under terms, as I recall, of eternal vigilance.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 07/08/2011
Posted by rosshunter on July 7, 2011
-
-
-
5 people like this.
-
-
Ross Huntersince you bring the subject up – I’ll vote for anyone who will restore habeas corpus, and that doesn’t seem to be Obama. His being less evil than the others doesn’t make him good enough for the heroic times we live in … in other words, th…e obvious choices don’t work – we have to create better than Obama, that’s our true task. We have to aim for better, and if we fail we have to know that voting for the same old was already a guarantee of failure anyway.
And I have to practice this concept before 2012 – didn’t expect it to arise so early. But we will discuss this again, many times yet…
See More17 seconds ago ·
-
<form class=”live_10150240646822839_131325686911214 commentable_item autoexpand_mode” onsubmit=”return Event.__inlineSubmit(this,event)” method=”post” rel=”async” action=”/ajax/ufi/modify.php” data-live=”{"seq":17354292}”>6 hours ago · ·
</form>
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Sustainability 07/05/2011
Posted by rosshunter on July 4, 2011
-
Climate Change and how to move forward
-
-
-
Ross Hunter beyond all other considerations, climate change for sure. But I’m persuaded (by Paul Hawken’s concepts) that social justice and indigenous rights form a crucial component of same. And there are some nuances from seeing how we’ve drifted past tipping points unable to pull back – this shows our society’s architecture is at least corrupt and perhaps even wrong in its original design. So I’m greatly interested in sustainable economics and accountable politics as the necessary tools both to “recover” and to “rebuild” with whatever survives the crisis.
-
-
Posted in Sustainability | Leave a Comment »
Policy 07/05/2011
Posted by rosshunter on July 4, 2011
-
Climate Change and how to move forward
-
-
-
Ross Hunter beyond all other considerations, climate change for sure. But I’m persuaded (by Paul Hawken’s concepts) that social justice and indigenous rights form a crucial component of same. And there are some nuances from seeing how we’ve drifted past tipping points unable to pull back – this shows our society’s architecture is at least corrupt and perhaps even wrong in its original design. So I’m greatly interested in sustainable economics and accountable politics as the necessary tools both to “recover” and to “rebuild” with whatever survives the crisis.
-
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Economics 07/05/2011
Posted by rosshunter on July 4, 2011
-
Climate Change and how to move forward
-
-
-
Ross Hunter beyond all other considerations, climate change for sure. But I’m persuaded (by Paul Hawken’s concepts) that social justice and indigenous rights form a crucial component of same. And there are some nuances from seeing how we’ve drifted past tipping points unable to pull back – this shows our society’s architecture is at least corrupt and perhaps even wrong in its original design. So I’m greatly interested in sustainable economics and accountable politics as the necessary tools both to “recover” and to “rebuild” with whatever survives the crisis.
-
-
Posted in Economics | Leave a Comment »
Policy 05/24/2011
Posted by rosshunter on May 23, 2011
-
The People vs. Goldman Sachs | Rolling Stone Politics
-
Thanks to an extraordinary investigative effort by a Senate subcommittee that unilaterally decided to take up the burden the criminal justice system has repeatedly refused to shoulder, we now know exactly what Goldman Sachs executives like Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks lied about. We know exactly how they and other top Goldman executives, including David Viniar and Thomas Montag, defrauded their clients. America has been waiting for a case to bring against Wall Street. Here it is, and the evidence has been gift-wrapped and left at the doorstep of federal prosecutors, evidence that doesn’t leave much doubt: Goldman Sachs should stand trial.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Economics 05/24/2011
Posted by rosshunter on May 23, 2011
-
The People vs. Goldman Sachs | Rolling Stone Politics
-
Thanks to an extraordinary investigative effort by a Senate subcommittee that unilaterally decided to take up the burden the criminal justice system has repeatedly refused to shoulder, we now know exactly what Goldman Sachs executives like Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks lied about. We know exactly how they and other top Goldman executives, including David Viniar and Thomas Montag, defrauded their clients. America has been waiting for a case to bring against Wall Street. Here it is, and the evidence has been gift-wrapped and left at the doorstep of federal prosecutors, evidence that doesn’t leave much doubt: Goldman Sachs should stand trial.
-
Posted in Economics | Leave a Comment »
Policy 04/30/2011
Posted by rosshunter on April 29, 2011
-
-
Ross HunterI kind of think the premise and the frame go together. I’ve been waiting for somebody to say this, and I’m glad it’s McKibben. We have to make a new politics. I think Obama is the very best the old politics could produce, and he’s not adequ…ate – but it took time to see this.
To make headway in this battle we are going to have to elect our own candidates, in a new scheme of accountability that survives the corruption of office. Democrats from the old school (which is precisely what Obama is) will not save this situation – WE must create a new politics. And that task will either succeed or fail, but no one from the old system will help.
The thought is that not even the very worst could hinder us much more badly than the very best could fail to help us – or at least the difference is not strategically decisive, compared with the scale of what we have to create. And if we fail to create this new thing it’s all over…
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Policy 04/17/2011
Posted by rosshunter on April 16, 2011
-
-
I’ve been pondering criminality lately, because so much of what we see in the system seems criminal. When I think of criminal activity I find the archetypal thing that doesn’t care about consequences to society. Crime is the original externalizer of costs. I think it’s time to start calling crime crime – that’s what we’re seeing in the refusal to care about the rest of society and just take what you want.
-
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Economics 04/10/2011
Posted by rosshunter on April 9, 2011
-
Wall St. Stands at the Pinnacle of 5,000 Years of Human Exploitation | | AlterNet
-
The species is completely out of balance by denying one half of it’s intelligence, the half that would never have split the atom nor built nuclear power plants; the half which would have warned of the dangers of cutting down the sacred groves, giving us our oxygen. The half which invented civilization in the first place.
-
Would add what others have, and push it farther: We have a SOCIOPATHOGENIC SOCIETY, meaning that our social systems DEVELOP sociopathy, and they do so for the simple reason that they are not based on Empathy. A sociopath (psychological cousin to a psychopath) is defined as someone who is INCAPABLE of empathy. If a society’s systems are not set up to reward empathic action — which is the American case — then empathy is not developed and withers; but — worse, and also the American case — if exploitation of others IS rewarded, and empathic action an (economic) liability, then you have a sociopathogenic society, one whose systems are designed to encourage and develop non-empathic behavior.
Creating the new systems, especially economic and political, that foster and most of all REWARD us for empathic action — making Empathy the key to economic success (whatever that might look like), to create the Empathic Global Society (or, as Jeremy Rifkin calls it, the Empathic Civilization), is the great work of our time.
-
Would add what others have, and push it farther: We have a SOCIOPATHOGENIC SOCIETY, meaning that our social systems DEVELOP sociopathy, and they do so for the simple reason that they are not based on Empathy. A sociopath (psychological cousin to a psychopath) is defined as someone who is INCAPABLE of empathy. If a society’s systems are not set up to reward empathic action — which is the American case — then empathy is not developed and withers; but — worse, and also the American case — if exploitation of others IS rewarded, and empathic action an (economic) liability, then you have a sociopathogenic society, one whose systems are designed to encourage and develop non-empathic behavior.
-
The species is completely out of balance by denying one half of it’s intelligence, the half that would never have split the atom nor built nuclear power plants; the half which would have warned of the dangers of cutting down the sacred groves, giving us our oxygen. The half which invented civilization in the first place.
-
But the boot heel of the androcentric culture came down swiftly.
I could almost believe that the rise of the Christain fundamentalist movement and the subsequent empowering of the ultra misogynist “right” was a direct response to the threat of the women’s equality surge. -
I could almost believe that the rise of the Christain fundamentalist movement and the subsequent empowering of the ultra misogynist “right” was a direct response to the threat of the women’s equality surge.
-
Oh, where have we seen that before?
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
-
David Korten’s conclusion -that the working class establish its own economy and abandon the corporatist one- isn’t new. but it is very radical. It got Martin Luther King assassinated for daring to propose to the black community that they had the economic power of small nations, and that they should use that power for the good of their own community, for to continue to support the racist economy any longer was not going to help them gain freedom and respect. It’s all in his Mountaintop speech, given the night before he was shot. It’s just as valid today, and for a much wider and more varied audience, than it was in 1968. We should heed King’s warnings and advice while we still have the means to do so.
-
I would like to encourage women to become involved in food production and distribution. In fact i would like women to dominate agriculture world wide. I think they would be better at it than men.
-
Posted in Economics | Leave a Comment »
Economics 03/02/2011
Posted by rosshunter on March 1, 2011
-
-
The root is that economic reason won’t work because the system is corrupt. Ergo, it’s a political problem because free market forces can’t work.
What’s referred to in the post is a metaphorical approach – saying that since we can’t recoup the true cost of carbon in taxes because the system is corrupt, we the people must work to make carbon costly in every way we can.
We the people are paying the true cost of carbon with damaged public health and environmental conditions, among other things. The true cost of carbon, if exacted, would pay for that, and what better way to pay for the commons, the public good, than through taxes. But government no longer works for us, it works for the owners. So we have to go deal with the owners, directly. Our representatives are slaves, and not worthy of our sovereign time. So we’ll have to take down the slave owners instead.
-
Posted in Economics | Leave a Comment »
Sustainability 02/25/2011
Posted by rosshunter on February 24, 2011
-
Colony Collapse Disorder may be caused by Bayer, and EPA and USDA scientists may have suspected this for two years – thanks to European media this story is breaking here. Please pass it on so that this all comes to light
Top USDA bee researcher also found Bayer pesticide harmful to honeybees
www.grist.org
Remember the case of the leaked document showing that the EPA’s own scientists are concerned about a pesticide it approved that might harm fragile honeybee populations? Well, it turns that USDA researchers also have good evidence that these nicotine-derived chemicals could be playing a part in Colon -
The planet has become the computer model and we’re following behind events that sweep us up. Soon everyone will be talking about this everyday – because this is real life now.
ABC connects the dots between “wild weather” & climate change in Australia, Brazil, Sri Lanka
www.youtube.com
ABC World News reports on the torrential floods in Brazil, Australia, & Sri Lanka and record snowstorms across the US, and draws a strong connection to a warming climate. -
pictures (only 10, won’t take long)
Best Nature Photos of 2010
See the most incredible images to cross our desks in 2010! Here are 10 amazing photos–see the full slideshow at: http://nature.ly/fvWwP0
By: The Nature Conservancy -
Bard Center for Environmental Policy – National Climate Seminar
www.bard.edu
Listen in real time to climate and clean energy specialists talk about the latest science, policy, law, and economics of climate change. Assign these half-hour calls to your students for a chance to hear top scientists, analysts and political leaders discuss climate and clean energy solutions -
“And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.”
- Revelation 11:18. King James Bible -
which is melting and releasing methane, 20 times worse than CO2 for the atmosphere – watch the bubbles. And how ironic that the lies about climate conditions come from the U.S. and the truth now comes from Russia.
Russian Permafrost Melt – BBC
www.youtube.com
Russian scientists travel to Siberia to measure output of methane from permafrost lakes. BBC goes along.-
Russian scientists travel to Siberia to measure output of methane from permafrost lakes. BBC goes along.
-
-
Leading the dirty life | Rodale Institute
www.rodaleinstitute.org
Kristin Kimball and her husband Mark run Essex Farm near Lake Champlain in New York. The incredibly diverse CSA is powered by draft horses and feeds over a hundred families a whole diet year round–from milk to meat to vegetables to grains and even sweeteners. But Kristin wasn’t always a farmer. Kri -
-
”the other great ecosystems of the ocean stand behind reefs like a row of dominoes.
-
”the other great ecosystems of the ocean stand behind reefs like a row of dominoes. If coral reefs fail, the rest will follow in rapid succession, and the Sixth Mass Extinction will be upon us — and will be of our making.”
-
climateprogress.org
When J.E.N. Veron speaks, we all should listen. Veron is the former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. He is principal author of 8 monographs and more than 70 scientific articles on the taxonomy, systematics, biogeography, and the fossil record of corals.
-
Posted in Sustainability | Leave a Comment »
Policy 02/25/2011
Posted by rosshunter on February 24, 2011
-
this is a good view of how the U.S. mis-stepped with regard to Egypt and how – ironically – Obama’s move to conciliation and accommodation after Bush’s excesses led us to be silent instead of disapproving of dictators. Led us to side “with regimes and against peoples.”
US caught out by Egypt’s fight for democracy | The Australian
www.theaustralian.com.au
THE contours and consequences of the uprising in Egypt are still unclear. The politics of the revolt are murky, and the role and aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood unknown. The army may decide, with the government seriously wounded and robbed of any semblance of legitimacy, to do more than bring -
”I will die today…” A brief window into the struggle that has erupted across Egypt, a nation of 80 million people. Surely the Internet has been silenced there to hide the shame of the government as it falls, back to the people?
The Most AMAZING video on the internet #Egypt #jan25
www.youtube.com
Credits to Tamer Shaaban who made this video Important message to youtube and people who flag this video : If it gets flagged or removed , it will be uploaded 10 more times -
here’s a quick, hip primer on Egypt and the scale of what is happening there
Egypt: A Nation Forced Offline (January 25th, 2011 Protests)
www.youtube.com
For the first time in history, a government has shut down all national Internet and cellular access. Written by: Brittany Darwell (http://www.brittanydarwell.com/) Animation and Music by: Michael Marantz (http://www.michaelmarantz.com/) Watch live coverage here: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_n -
well, this is 23 minutes long – so you may never watch it. But I’ve said before I wish we in America could get the character & the backbone that the people in Egypt are showing. And our time is coming. But this is their story, and it’s the true story behind the current riots, if you want to know.
Egypt’s Facebook Face Off – Egypt
www.youtube.com
July 2008 For over 27 years President Mubarak has ruled with an iron fist. With protests and strikes forbidden, activists are finding new ways to fight for democracy. Through Facebook, protestors can now find a voice. -
”Social Security is a solemn promise that has been honored for decades and that reflects the investment into an insurance program over a lifetime of hard work” – Whitehouse
“For people to come forward and say Social Security is collapsing and we have to cut benefits tomorrow – is totally untrue. We will not let it happen.” – Sanders
Sanders Convenes Social Security Caucus
www.youtube.com -
Welfare for the rich and the elected. In case you wonder where most of the money goes – “According to 11 years’ worth of Environmental Working Group data that tracks $200 billion in subsidies, the wealthiest 10 percent of “farmers” have collected 75 percent of the money.”
Teabagger Queen Michele Bachmann Cashed In On $250,000 In Welfare – By Yasha Levine – The eXiled
exiledonline.com
Michele Bachmann has become known as the Queen of the anti-government Tea Baggers, protesting health care reform and slamming every other government handout as “socialism.” But what her followers don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is also a queen of another kind—a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti -
Rather than hope to come together and love each other because our President requests it, let’s fix the systemic rot: re-enact the Fairness Doctrine and restore the balance of the airwaves – a public trust belonging to the people, thus subject to our regulation.
David Morris: How America lost control of its airwaves | StarTribune.com
www.startribune.com
At the dawn of the broadcasting era, the airwaves belonged to the public..broadcasters were “public trustees.” The FCC made clear there was no room for “propaganda stations.” -
This is good perspective on the history of hate talk since the sixties – funded then, as now, by billionaires.
The History of Right Wing Hate Talk
www.youtube.com
Conservative hate talkers are not a new phenomena, and as Mike Papantonio points out on The Ed Schultz Show, hateful and violent rhetoric from the right existed back in the days of JFK, and many believe that this is what led to his assassination. -
Sharing this around if you haven’t seen it. Basic call for better messaging from progressives (ANY messaging would be a nice change) – ways to dominate the frame of reference by creating new memes…
Storytelling as Organizing: How to Rescue the Left From Its Crisis of Imagination
www.truth-out.org
In an editorial in In These Times’ November 2009 issue, reflecting on the right’s success at re-framing the healthcare reform debate in its favor, Kevin O’Donnell wrote, “When it comes to messaging, Republicans believe in science. Democrats don’t.” To their detriment, “Democrats cling to the idea, d… -
we’ve seen a master orator in the White House lose control of the messaging. Why? Because eloquence and even reasoning are not crucial – although truth is. Dominating the frame of reference is the task of marketing and messaging – nothing sinister or manipulative. The right only succeeds at “manipulation” because there is no skilled counter.
-
somehow there’s a message for us in this beautiful story. In Egypt bombers divide Copts and Muslims by massacring Copts. Thousands of Muslims, including the President’s sons, then form a human shield around Copts, saying “we will live together or die together.” If only we could muster the character of the Egyptians
ThinkProgress » Thousands Of Egyptian Muslims Show Up As ‘Human Shields’ To Defend Coptic C
thinkprogress.org
On New Year’s Day, a devastating terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt killed 21 people and injured 79 others. Although the identity of the culprits was not known, it was assumed that they were Muslim extremists, intent on targeting those they saw as heretics. Religious tensions immediately -
The ironies in what she said back then, trying to be fair and balanced. It brings it home to me how over the line the tea party, fox news, and the republican scum really have been, how they’ve pushed the lines way across good taste, and now safety. I have no doubt they stand responsible.
Rep. Giffords target of harassment, threats
www.msnbc.msn.com
March 25, 2010: Reports of death threats, vandalism and harassment have Democrats on edge as they’re preparing to head home for their spring recess. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who is one of the Democratic leaders targeted, discusses.
Posted in Policy | Leave a Comment »
Dharma 02/25/2011
Posted by rosshunter on February 24, 2011
-
Calm your mind. Thinking is a waste of life.
(recent note to self) -
-
”There is no obstacle you will encounter that has not been encountered and overcome by others before you, so you need not become discouraged.”
- Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
-
Posted in Buddhism | Leave a Comment »
Economics 02/25/2011
Posted by rosshunter on February 24, 2011
-
the Koch brothers you have to understand that they’re not libertarians – they’re vampires drinking deeply at every exposed vein. And investors know this, even though the Tea Party hasn’t wised up yet. Read this story and understand – it’s nuanced, and our job is to make it simple and pass it on.
Freemarket Failures: Investors Prefer Doing Business With Hugo Chavez Over Billionaire Koch Brothers
blogs.alternet.org
You didn’t hear this on Fox News or the Drudge Report, but on October 10 Venezuela seized and nationalized a massive fertilizer plant part-owned by Koch Industries. The media silence is a bit puzzling. You’d think that the seizure of property belonging to America’s second-largest private company, ow
Posted in Economics | Leave a Comment »
