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Ethanol, the 6th extinction, and You
The lunacy that bothers me is not the stuff you find in Bedlam - people raging at the walls: that's what sane people do now; it's the new variety that comes from poverty of spirit: the popular, well-dressed, well-heeled and well-spoken lunacy that elects mad leaders to make mad wars upon the unfortunate and the dispossessed - the lunacy of the soul; of cold human hollowness, emotional flatness and numbness, moral emptiness; all surrounded with a gargantuan, manic and carefully disguised greed as a remedy for pain and the fear of death: the clever, well-adapted madness that the world rewards and to which the world aspires.
Michael Leunig in The Age, thanks to woz. (Leunig's day job is as an editorial cartoonist for The Age.)
Karen Bradley introduced this quote a couple of posts ago. I found this paragraph deeply
troubling, and want to give it another reading.
At first glance, I took it as a spectacularly good summary of the mess that western civilization, capitalism, and globalization have made of the planet. At the macro level, the signs are all bad: global warming is accelerating as we pour more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere; we appear to be close to, if not past, global Peak Oil, after which energy prices will rise to heights we cannot imagine; and human activities are causing the 6th great extinction in the 4 billion year history of our planet.
But where do you and I fit in? Yes, we have “mad leaders” who make “mad wars,” and greed and moral emptiness are rampant. It’s easy enough to distance oneself from the people and the culture described in this quote, to say to oneself, “Oh, that’s those people, the Bushies, the hedge-fund managers, the bought-off Members of Congress, they’re the ones who are making these decisions, they’re the ones who are responsible for all of this death and destruction.”
After this warm and self-satisfying first reaction to Leunig’s diagnosis, I realized that while there were people like Dick Cheney who are playing particularly public roles in destroying our world, in the end, his diagnosis applies to almost all of the people around the world living above the poverty line who continue to go about their daily lives as if we are not in grave trouble.
There is a comfortable and comforting belief out there that our species will be able to figure out how to make a smooth and soft transition to a way of life that will not destroy the planet. For many people, this belief is grounded in their irrational faith in technology to deliver timely and adequate solutions to the problems we face. If we’re running out of oil, then we’ll just develop alternative fuels, like ethanol.
But the pursuit of ethanol is already causing huge problems, as the cost of corn soars, and the expansion of crops for ethanol accelerates extinction rates. For example, Tuesday’s Washington Post
reports that the expansion of sugar cane in the huge Cerrado savannah of Brazil at current rates will destroy the entire Cerrado by 2030, eliminating the richest variety of flora of all the world’s savannahs.
And as U.S. farmers switch from soybeans to corn, because of soaring corn prices, the pressure grows in Brazil to cut even more of the rainforest down to grow more soy beans.
Who’s leading this particular assault? Well, there’s George Soros, that great defender of democracy, whose company is planning to spend $1 billion on 3 huge ethanol plants.
And then there are the usual suspects from the Wall Street or Bush mafias, Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group.
The ever-compliant U.S. Congress has tried to protect U.S. corn-ethanol farmers from the cheaper Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol by slapping a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. Even with that tariff, in 2006 the U.S. imported more than 500 million gallons of Brazilian ethanol.
Back to Leunig. Yes, there are bad guys who are leading the charge to destroy our world. But at bottom, the destruction reaches its tentacles deep down in the lives of each and every one of us. Buying a CFC light bulb here, putting up some insulation there, it all helps a little.
But as long as we live in a world economy that defines economic growth as an increase in the amount of energy used coupled with an increase in the amount of raw materials that flow through the economy, our civilization will continue to accelerate down the highway that has destroyed so many previous civilizations.
One way or another, pre-crash or pro-crash, our species will come up with a radically different way of being in the world, by choice, or by necessity. The only remaining question is how bloody the transition will be. The less we do now, the greater the suffering will be.
Votescam
by Hendrik Hertzberg
August 6, 200
At first glance, next year’s Presidential election looks like a blowout. But it might not be. Luckily for the incumbent party, neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney will be running; indeed, the election of 2008 will be the first since 1952 without a sitting President or Vice-President on the ballot. At the moment, survey research reflects a generic public preference for a Democratic victory next year. Still, despite everything, there are nearly as many polls showing particular Republicans beating particular Democrats as vice versa. So this election could be another close one. If it is, the winner may turn out to have been chosen not on November 4, 2008, but five months earlier, on June 3rd.
Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes—votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union.
The Tuesday after the first Monday in June is California’s traditional Primary Day. But it’s not the one that everybody will be paying attention to. Five months ago, the legislature hastily moved the Presidential part up to February 5th, joining a stampede of states hoping to claim a piece of the early-state action previously reserved for Iowa and New Hampshire. June 3rd will be an altogether sleepier, low-turnout affair. There may be a few scattered contests for legislative nominations, but the only statewide items on the ballot will be initiatives. More than two dozen have been filed so far, ranging from a proposal to start a state-run Internet poker site to pay for filling potholes to a redundant slew of anti-gay-marriage measures. Few will make it to the ballot. Many are not even intended to; they’re a feint in some byzantine negotiation, or just a cheap attempt to get a little attention—for a two-hundred-dollar fee, anyone can file one. (Actually getting one on the ballot requires more than four hundred thousand signatures, and the outfits that collect them usually charge a dollar or two per signature.) Initiative No. 07-0032—the Presidential Election Reform Act—is different. It’s serious. Its backers have access to serious money. And it could pass.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/08/06/070806taco_talk_hertzberg
You probably already know this, but I've just read it.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/editor-shot-dead/2007/08/03/1185648093126.html
Newspaper editor shot dead
Dylan Welch
August 3, 2007 - 7:36AM
A well-known Californian journalist has been shot dead outside a downtown courthouse in what police believe was a targeted hit.
Chauncey Bailey, who had been a reporter for the Oakland Tribune before moving to become editor of the Oakland Post two years ago, was killed around 7.30am local time on Thursday (12.30am today, Melbourne time), Oakland Police spokesman Roland Holmgren said.
Posted by: woz at August 2, 2007 07:37 PM
Nick Coleman: Public anger will follow our sorrow
So far, we are told that it wasn't terrorists or tornados that brought the bridge down. But those assurances are not reassuring.
They are troubling.
If it wasn't an act of God or the hand of hate, and it proves not to be just a lousy accident - a girder mistakenly cut, a train that hit a support - then we are left to conclude that it was worse than any of those things, because it was more mundane and more insidious: This death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference.
In a word, it was avoidable.
That means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing.
http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1339911.html
Thanks dickbell. That earlier Leunig article has disturbed me also. But, I believe that if I do my best in my little corner of the planet, people who visit, will go away and do some things I've done and they in turn will follow on. It's happening on a larger and larger scale - while the horrifying solution has also begun in haste.
The destruction of Old Growth forests for our fuel is serious madness. We now have reality tv shows like Carbon Cops to teach us lots every week. But that's against doing what we do now. And because the Carbon Cops are going to households there's no information about the large scale Peak Oil problem.
A friend had a DVD here a few weeks ago and it was called Peak Oil. It was about Cuba and the success the Cubans have achieved in the past ??? years since having reached the point of no return. I don't imagine that GW would have anything to learn from Cuba, but - the lessons are there.
Its other message is the Power of Community.
Source: Reuters
Dow Jones & Co. Inc. said on Thursday it did not know that one of the people named to protect its editorial independence after it becomes part of News Corp. runs a foundation that received $2.5 million in funding from Rupert Murdoch's global media conglomerate.
News Corp. selected Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Nicholas Negroponte to be part of the five-member special committee that will oversee the editorial independence of Dow Jones's news operations. The move was part of its $5.6 billion deal to buy the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
... News Corp.'s donation now raises issues over Negroponte's objectivity, a journalism expert said.
"If in fact Nicholas' foundation is receiving money from News Corp., that creates the perception and, quite possibly, the reality of a conflict," said Louis Ureneck, chairman of the journalism department at Boston University.
... Asked if News Corp. saw any conflicts of interest in Negroponte's appointment, the company said no and defended his integrity.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN0223284...
Is Nicholas Negroponte realated to the other Negroponte ?
You bet he is. I just looked it up after seeing your post:
{blockquote]Nicholas Negroponte (born 1943) is an architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. He is the younger brother of John Negroponte, current United States Deputy Secretary of State.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Negroponte
http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php
The documentary DVD is called The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Writing from YearlyKos - Dick Durbin can't be here in person but is giving a great virtual talk from DC, as he is leaving tomorrow for Iraq and Afghanistan. He is praising the netroots for the impact they have had. I have heard this again and again.
I met people from Virginia who attributed the victory of Jim Webb largely to progressive bloggers and what they did. I met some people from Indonesia who worked hard for Eugene McCarthy back in the day so have been liberals all this time.
Meeting some phenomenal people and love Chicago. More here from HuffingtonPost and Air America and so on - this is sponsored by Laughing Liberally.
This black comedian says that we are undermining the stereotypes of Ku Klux Klan - we have all our teeth and we're smiling.
Howard Dean is speaking and he is asking US to ask every single Congressman to work on a bill to make sure all votes are counted. He is getting a standing ovation. He is saying that the bloggers can do this better than any group in America. The bill has to be passed in time to be useful in the 2008 election.
On the internet:
After his campaign, he STILL didn't realize the power of the internet and considers it the most important tool for empowering people since the invention of the printing press. he thought the YouTube/CNN debate was sensational because ordinary people got to ask questions nationally for the lst time since the Kennedy/Nixon event.
It got the exchange outside of the beltway and puti it out into the rest of the world. It's GOOD to make politicians a little uncomfortable, and what a surprise the cdnservatives don't want to do it.
As the influence of the internet expands, and innovations occur, it makes change in the party and change in the makeup of power possible. It is revolutionary to have the public take over the agenda of change. If politicians don't get used to it, they will make themselves obsolete. Community-built networks are democratic and they can also create democracy where it doesn't exist.
Dean says Iran and China will be forced by the internet eventually to become more democratic. Nations run by military will not stop the change in technology. The free exchange of ideas will triumph. Repressive nations face a difficult choice - let democracy evolve or destroy the technology that allows their best and brightest to network and then fall back into third world status.
Sending troops to Iraq will not bring forth democracy. The truth is, the most important weapon is a free internet that empowers ordinary people across the globe.
STANDING OVATION
Dean advocates two-way campaign with speaking and listening.
Politicians would have to acknowledge that power is loaned to them and they need to earn the power. They don't own it.
Filibusters and vetos prevail yet in the last 6 months, more was accomplished than in the previous 6 years.
Who is obstructing in the Iraq situation? It's those who kept everyone up all night not so long ago. Only the Libertarian wants out of Iraq, not the Republicans.
The culture of corruption needs to be ended.
We can do better.
Howard Dean (paraphrase)
Thanks for that post, Dick.
Massachusetts is losing dairy farmers by leaps and bounds, in part because the price of feed for the cows has skyrocketed, due to the ethanol movement.
"As many as a third of Massachusetts dairy farmers could go out of business THIS YEAR." (emphasis mine)
http://www.wbur.org/news/2007/65677_20070402.asp
So while we (the country) move toward ethanol, we put our local farmers out of business, thus leading to larger energy use caused by milk being shipped in from the mega dairy farms around the country.
And meanwhile, there is not a single auto maker, foreign or domestic, that will be releasing a hybrid minivan anytime in the forseeable future. Not even Toyota, who has had one in Japan for years.
WE NEED TO SUPPORT OUR TROOPS AND BRING THEM HOME
Crowd is changing
BRING THEM HOME BRING THEM HOME
Re young people:
He went to see pastor of a South Dallas megachurch as part of outreach to evangelical Christians, because of generational change in every community. The evangelical movement is changing, he says. In Los Angeles, the author of the Purpose Drive Life talks in his church about Darfur, poverty, things that are actually in the Bible. There may be disagreements but there are agreement areas and the younger generation expects work on the areas we do agree on, to make progress happen.
The number of young people voting went up 20% from 2004 to 2006 and they voted 61% Democrat. If they vote several times in a row, they are likely to continue. The direction they vote has a probability of continuing. Reagan's outreach is how John Roberts ended up on Supreme Court.
Outreach to young people in every single election is needed because the pattern is then set, for up to 60 years. In 2004, turnout went up for the young who tended Democratic and even more in 2006. Our generation may have been more confrontational and gotten out into the streets, but the young people may be on the internet getting things to happen.
In 2004 and 2006, minority voters in the young group went up even faster than among young white voters and did not mirror the patterns of their parents, in fact it was the inverse. 53% voted and there was not a racial difference. Things have changed so it doesn't matter as much any more, racial targeting and so on. They are all one generation. The marketing is different. The vision from the civil rights era is the generation our children have accepted!
LOTS OF CLAPPING
Impatience is a good thing
Howard Dean
His dad said the older generation can look backward as well as forwards. He didn't believe it then but does not as he's the age his father was.
Our generation remembers MLK and remembers where they were when he was shot. Our kids see it as a moment in history.
MLK was not just an ideal that we all worked toward. He was a human being. It was 13 years between the Montgomery bus boycott and the signing of the civil rights bill. It was not an easy time for MLK and his family.
This is not a one day or one election struggle.
This is something we have to do every single day for the end of his life.
..Howard Dean is hitting on all cylinders tonight ..
ANOTHER STANDING OVATION
So great to hear the play-by-play, nmp!
Hello to all there.
Thanks for all your updates, NMP!
I so wish I could be part of the experience!
Next year, I will be.
Katrina victims shafted by insurance companies and a sympathetic federal court:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20093139/
sympathetic to the INSURERS, that is...
Haven't seen alot of media. I expect a feeding frenzy when the candidates show up but I don't think they care much what the convention is about, which is NOT the candidates per se.
The mainstream media only go where they're told, get a few shots and sound bites and move on. It was the same way last year. I asked if they were going to any of the sessions and they looked at me like I was nuts.
Just went to ArtKos and got a copy of "Art in a Liberal Frame," which I'd been looking forward to seeing, as I participated. Did some poster painting with some people known only from on-line, such as from Philadelphia. Very fun. I am still going strong because this isn't my usual time zone, but things are winding down a bit.
Also hit the literary room, which had an array of complimentary desserts. It had the longest line, of course. The ArtKos room had musicians and some school principal type came and scolded them, saying "We are trying to screen a film in the next room." What genius arranged for a film and musicians to be adjacent I don't know. It's hard to organize events on-line without Chicago people on the ground because no one knows quite what the venu will be like.
I would love to encourage anyone who hasn't gone to this to come next year. It's not just about DailyKos either, though they were perhaps early in using this form of political networking. The sponsors are great this year - a bunch of unions and media companies as well as progressive organizations. Had a few inquiries about DCP too. A couple of people told me they like smaller blogs because they have more of a community feel.
Also hit the literary room, which had an array of complimentary desserts. It had the longest line, of course. The ArtKos room had musicians and some school principal type came and scolded them, saying "We are trying to screen a film in the next room." What genius arranged for a film and musicians to be adjacent I don't know. It's hard to organize events on-line without Chicago people on the ground because no one knows quite what the venu will be like.
Posted by: not my president at August 2, 2007 11:19 PM
nmp - this is great!! School Principal types indeed! I laughed so hard with the long dessert line as well. The serious stuff is brilliant and very uplifting. Thanks so much for your live blogging here.
I don't understand why people can't but the blame where it lies. At McAuliffe, who's job was to protect the vote and deal with the SOS in the battleground states, a lack of party support that's been given a free pass, and the corporate media. How come the 08 candidates have been silent on this?
Hopefully, they will have more party support unlike Gore and Kerry.
@@@@@@@
NO - The Party's nominee for President Is The Leader of the party, not the DNC. Bush and Karl Rove didn't wait for the RNC to do stuff did they?
The next Dem. nominee for president should make a pledge that all the votes will counted in 2008; election problems will be investigated; perhaps lawsuits will have to be filed; new legislation will have to be passed if problems keep occurring etc.... The candidate should promise this during the campaign - so that after the election, if problems arise (at whatever level - Senate, House of Reps.) candidate can say the he/she carrying through with the pledge of the campaign.
I cannot believe this is not a major issue in all the Dems candidates platform. Don't leave it to Howard Dean or Terry Macauliffe.
The sore loser thing, I don't buy. In fact the opposite is the case: Dems look weak, wimpy: "We lost. We give up. Here, the presidency is yours."
In Michigan we are trying to get audits of the vote count. I would do randon audits after the election (I would do them before the election to make sure the machines are counting correctly.) Although Michigan is a blue state, our Secretary STate (in charge of elections) is a Republican and she has issued a lot of strange and troublsome orders in the last year.
Oh, and one final note on the supposed visit of Mrs. Bush to Minnesota to offer her condolences:
Stay home and talk to your moron husband. We don't need you.
Victoria
Posted by: Victoria Ellen at August 2, 2007 01:02 PM
Besides which, Minneapolis law enforcement officers are now working 12 hour shifts because of the bridge collapse (likely other departments, too, but I just remember that mention from in-state snooze). They don't have time to be distracted by doing motorcades for someone associated with one of the two most hated men on the planet. Go back to Crawford and play wifey-poo. If we can ever convince our Reps to start the impeachment processes on Dickie and Georgie, we can send your husband back to you before January 20, 2009.
[Technically, I think that visit was scheduled before the bridge collapse so she could visit a school or library or something, but since the bridge collapse the "reason" for the visit has changed.]
I'm glad you and yours are well, Victoria! :-)
No, you missed the point.
It's the DNC's job to promise all that. The DNC's job is mainly to protect the vote, secure the elections. And make sure that each state Democratic party is organized and doing it's job. The Democratic Party should have had each, if not all Democrats on the media talk shows talking up their candidate and defending them from the attacks?
You think Bush did all that by himself. No, Rove, the GOP and the media did it for him.
I don't know why people expected Kerry (and Gore too) to do all this work, with weak state Democratic parties, fight it out with no party support behind him, and solve every election problem in every state all by himself. While the ones that should have been doing all this are let off the hook, we blame the candidate.
And name calling won't get you anywhere.
Thanks, Dick. A valuable (if unexpected) perspective on Leunig's original observation.
Thinking about Leunig's quote...it struck me that he succumbed to that unfortunate human tendency to place current events in the two-dimensional perspective of a unique "now": as though the situation he describes, ironic and disheartening though it may be, were somehow specific to 2007.
I don't mean to sound depressing; but perhaps we should look to the past to see what our future might hold. Human nature hasn't changed much in the past 6000 years of recorded history.
In fact, the popular, well-dressed, well-heeled and well-spoken lunacy has always supported mad leaders who make mad wars upon the unfortunate and the dispossessed.
Over the years, we have distracted ourselves from these disturbing Machiavellian tendencies by disguising the actions in cloaks of "democratic elections", "just wars", "rising tides", and my personal favorite, a blatantly misguided thought that we as a race had somehow "evolved out of" our baser nature.
A growing middle class over the centuries has done nothing to restrain the Napoleonic tendencies of disconnected, aristocratic politicians, always rustling up veils of religious and moralistic support for their pocket-lining, crusading wars; instead, seeking to create definitive distance between ourselves and the gutters from which we like to think we escaped, we enthusiastically support and consciously pattern ourselves after those larger-than-life figures who dominate the airwaves and the markets.
Oh, and woz? I wouldn't put "Cuba" and "success" in the same sentence.
At least not based on the migrants I've interdicted.
When a doctor (a specialist) is willing to leave his small children behind, take his wife, get in a barely seaworthy craft, brave some 70 miles of open ocean crammed in a tiny open-cabin boat with a couple dozen others and a bunch of 5-gallon gas cans...run the risk of getting caught and wearing plastic jumpsuits and sandals and living on the deck of a ship for several days in very primitive conditions before you're processed and returned back into the bowels from which you had hoped to escape...all on the wisp of a chance that you might make it to the job, house, and car that are waiting for you in a mythical place called America...and to have the courage or desperation or both to do this over and over and over again on the hopes that one day you might just make it...
...then your home country is hardly a success.
In fact, the popular, well-dressed, well-heeled and well-spoken lunacy has always supported mad leaders who make mad wars upon the unfortunate and the dispossessed.
Posted by: V at August 3, 2007 12:37 AM
Very true, V. I often find myself bemoaning that very point/condition of humanity. We pride ourselves on being intelligent and educable whilst the same lesson comes at us, in different guises, over and over and over and over. And that one lesson, we just will not learn.
My father used to say, "War is waged to make money. It's always about money. Noble causes, but that's just convenience." I never really understood his view till recently.
Posted by: not my president at August 2, 2007 11:19 PM
It's all about networking for me. Living a Republican/reactionary life at a Republican/reactionary job in a Republican/reactionary suburb, I need a good dose of Democratic and progressive contacts and thoughts whenever I can get it.
I was fortunate enough to take three classes with a writing mentor who works for CodePink. But that's not enough. I need to work with more people.
Posted by: V at August 3, 2007 12:47 AM
Agreed. Cuba is hardly a paradise.
Don't let our opposition to Cuban-American reactionary politics cloud our judgment.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/02/chris-dodd-smacks-down-oreilly-about-daily-kos-the-video/
Chris Dodd Smacks Down O’Reilly about Daily Kos: The VIDEO
Anyone besides me horribly offended that Billdemort interrupts his guest at every turn, talks over his guest's answers...? This is why I refuse to pay for cable. Why pay for drivel when I can get something like Bill Moyers Journal for free on PBS...? Bill Moyers doesn't shout and yell and talk while his guests are speaking, nor try to put words in their mouths, nor distort their stances on any subject.
I do no know why anyone watches Billdemort....
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/02/the-evil-empire-grows/
The Evil Empire Grows
http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2007/08/080207_wsj.html
{Because of the formatting on the web page, you may need to scroll to the bottom of the page to see the cartoon.}
Bush Invokes Broad Privilege to Block Rove Testimony
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080207R.shtml
Greg Gordon for McClatchy Newspapers reports on Bush's decision to order White House adviser Karl Rove not to testify in the seven-month-old Congressional investigation into the firings of nine US attorneys. Gordon reports this huge roadblock to the investigation moves the confrontation between Congress and the White House closer to a constitutional showdown in the courts.
Excerpt:
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it "a shame that this White House continues to act as if it is above the law."
"Why is the White House working so hard to hide Karl Rove's involvement?" Leahy said in a statement Wednesday. "Mr. Rove has given reasons for the firings that have now been shown to be inaccurate after-the-fact fabrications. Yet he now refuses to tell this committee the truth about his role in targeting well-respected U.S. attorneys for firing and in seeking to cover up his role and that of his staff in the scandal."
{{{So, Patrick Leahy... When are you going to quit mumbling into your beard and round these miscreants up, and keep their asses in jail until they testify...? You do have the Constitutional right to do these things, you know, and all you have to do is send out the Sergeant-at-Arms and drag these people before you.... What's stopping you? I respect you as one of the good guys, Senator, but you really do have to move faster than this on this and many other matters that have been under investigation and stonewalled by "faulty memories" on the part of some witnesses when DimWit hasn't claimed that mystical "executive privilege" which is completely bogus crap to claim in a government that is supposed to be transparent. (Two stories from two different newspapers on same link.)}}}
Arrested Iraq War Demonstrators Awarded $1 Million
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080207T.shtml
The Associated Press reports that 120 protesters who were improperly rounded up by police during demonstrations against the Iraq invasion, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund received $1 million from the District of Columbia.
White House, GOP Push to Rewrite Wiretap Law
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080207N.shtml
Ellen Nakashima reports for The Washington Post, "The Bush administration is pressing Congress this week for the authority to intercept, without a court order, any international phone call or email between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States."
File under: You Knew This Was Coming, Didn't You?
US Military Doctors Criticized Over Force-Feeding
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/01/2912/
Ady Barkan | Challenging the GOP's Filibluster
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080207D.shtml
Ady Barkan writes for The American Prospect: "This session, every time that Democrats have scheduled important legislation, the Republican leadership has threatened to filibuster it. After a few hours of debate, the Democratic leadership calls for a cloture vote to end debate, and it inevitably fails. But instead of continuing debate, Senator Reid has been tabling the legislation and moving on to other business. The media barely notices - after all, a failed cloture vote followed by a motion to table is not exactly high drama - and Democrats become increasingly demoralized by the process."
General: Kuwait Facilities Could Handle Big Troop Pullout
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080207E.shtml
Josh White reports for The Washington Post, "US commanders in Kuwait said Wednesday that they have enormous capability to handle the tens of thousands of troops and their equipment that would stream out of Iraq during a US withdrawal."
Oh, and woz? I wouldn't put "Cuba" and "success" in the same sentence.
Posted by: V at August 3, 2007 12:47 AM
I know. Check out the documentary. It most certainly is successful. Those who've left the country needed all the things we've grown used to overusing and abusing. It seems there aren't so many wanting to flee any more. They kind of like their new lifestyle. And now we have to stop. Well, it seems that Cuba got there before us. And it succeeded.
Posted by: V at August 3, 2007 12:47 AM
V - have no doubt. Life will be equally difficult for those who have no way of surviving without all of our energy and fuel. Just as Richard pointed out - there will be devastation everywhere - just how devastating is up to this generation and the next. It will be the places like Cuba, who have been forced to make decisions before others.
How many people arrive on your shores every month nowadays, V? The same numbers? Leaving their children? Or are you talking of a time past?
US Military Doctors Criticized Over Force-Feeding
Posted by: NonnyO at August 3, 2007 02:28 AM
NonnyO, this is very strange. Wouldn't you think the military would love to condone hunger-strikes. I'm sure Bush would be thrilled to let the gitmo guests have such a right. They would starve themselves to death and save heaps of food dollars for the Bush Regime.
Oh - how pathetic!! I just heard Nancy Pelosi saying how brilliant Congress has been and how much "we've achieved". When asked about impeachment of Gonzales, she replied, "Well, no. He must resign and the president must accept his resignation." I couldn't bear to look at her wimpy, off-the-table prissy, tut-tut manner. I hope she's not returned to your government when her turn for reelection comes around. If she's a democrat, and after this interview, it's quite obvious that she's not - she should be dumped. The polls that register Congress, show that it is lower than Bush's presidency!! I'm not surprised.
http://ustream.tv/YearlyKos/videos/Mq5ipJGUWI705JzIX8tPnA
Video: Howard Dean's speech at YKos (1/2 hr.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080202023.html
The Rise of Kos
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080202261.html
'Net Roots' Event Becomes Democrats' Other National Convention
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/326273_joel03.html
'Net roots' activists carry political weight
Excerpt:
It's earnest enough to be a little amusing, but these are serious people intent on taking back their country, with the dream of an America run not through Washington, D.C., spin, but with active participation by the governed.
What a break that would be from George Bush.
Posted by: woz at August 3, 2007 02:50 AM
It's a lose-lose situation. Allowing the prisoners to starve themselves to death emphasizes the fact that the prisoners would rather starve to death than endure more torture. Keeping the prisoners alive seems, on the surface, that Georgie and Dickie and their cohorts are treating them "humanely" by keeping them alive - but it's only keeping them alive to torture again. In any case, the prisoners don't get a fair trial because MCA '06 took away their habeas corpus rights.
Either way, the publicity is bad. Or "good" - if one wants to publicize the fact that torture is being sanctioned by Georgie and Dickie and their cohorts and wants torture of any kind to stop.
The big losers in all of this are the prisoners who are being illegally detained and tortured.
I believe when the full story of the torture and imprisonment comes out in years to come that it will be many generations before we can get over our embarrassment because our Congress Critters have (so far) not removed the top two war criminals from power. Future leaders of this country can no longer get by with criticizing other countries for human rights violations when our Congressional leaders refused to do their constitutional duty and remove Georgie and Dickie and the rest of their misbegotten administration.
I am hearing that "Dodd grew some" as far as standing up to O'Reilly. Just went to FireDogLake breakfast, which is good because 7-9 AM here is 5-7 AM at home so I'm not running on all cylinders.
We are about to see Wes Clark. Passed him in the hallway wearing his Daily Kos badge. Waiting to hear him speak now. heard hom last year and he was speaking about Science.
nmp - Looking forward to today's happenings.
Pelosi thinks gonzo needs to resign..? That is real funny, cause some people are thinking about her resignation as well.
To me the only question left about Reid and Pelosi, is are they bought or are they being blackmailed.
Either way, these two, thier cowardice and hesitation is going to go down in history as the very thing bush needed to destroy an empire of free men and women.
I think I will call Pelosis office and ask if she will be resigning the moment after torture boy does.
I just called her office, her guy seemed really confused as to why she would tender up her own resignation, so he just copped out and gave me her message line.
So I left a message.
I told her the inability of anyone to do their jobs in DC has gone far enough, and if she can not impeach him, then she should resign.
Wesley Clark was fantastic this morning.
Now I'm listening to David Brock and looking forward to John Dean.
It's kind of like an AA meeting.. "I'm ___ and I'm an ex Republican."
Let me know how much you want to know. I took notes on Clark. Very very good.
I'll just liveblog it, hell ..
John Dean:
"I'm using to microsphones being around me but .."
Recounts how Bush went over to a little boy selling puppies and said, "Son, I assume all those pups are good conservative Republicans" and rode off with his detail. Next weekend he brought Laura over and said, "Tell the First Lady what kind of puppies you've got there." "Mrs. Bush, these are all little Democrats, Progressives and Moderates .. they opened their eyes!"
His own eye-opening experience:
He returned to writing after being out of his law career and found himself more political than the others. With his insider's mentality, he had stayed close to those in conservative ranks. He does comment some of them have been drinking the Koolaid.
Anyway, he noticed alot of secrecy and resemblance to Nixon administraton but no one in the media was paying attention to this. He then wrote "Worse than Watergate," which was mistitled as it should have been "Much Worse than Watergate."
He felt there used to be a big tent in the Republican party with even liberal elements, co-opted by the religious right, the untrustworthy business conservatives, and the neocon ideologues running the party. He started to study the body of literature on Authoritarianism.
Authoritarians are Leaders with many more Followers, who compliantly obey. He realized many authoritarian, bigoted, intolerant, incivil, unattractive personalities who were of course completely blind to their defects. He pegs them at 30% of the population, the lemmings who go over the edge, who are frightening.
Repercussions included letters from Republicans who wrote to thank him. Democrats and progressives were assured. Dean the Goldwater conservative find himself now well left of center in the Republican party and thinks the Senator would turn over in his grave. Goldwater's granddaughter agrees. "When history looks back on me and my philosophy, they're going to call me a liberal," said Goldwater in 1964. He was not as reactionary. Dean was roomate of his son and Goldwater Sr. was not an authoritarian personality.
Now the third of the Triology has been completed, coming out in September, called "Broken Government - How Republican Rule Has Destroyed the Legistlative, Executive and Judicial Branches."
Now Eric Massa, standing in for Arianna Huffington who broke her ankle. Most know she was activist conservative wife of a Republican closet case at one time. So we have a written bio.
"I too was once a Republican," says Massa, "but I only voted against Bill Clinton once." He went from CitizenSoldier to CitizenPolitician, fighting to save our nation from a Commander-in-Chief he feels uses our military as props then stabs them in the back, which is fundamentally wrong. He cites Vets who cannot see a doctor yet those who disagree with the President are called "unpatriotic."
"I am not a member of the Ku Klux Klan, nor am I a Nazi!" "Bill O'Reilly I'm talking to you .. because while ou spent your life dodging the draft stabbing those in the back who make you safe .. how dare you insult the US military every time you go on television."
SUPREME OVATION
"It is no longer enough to take your shoe and throw it at the televison."
"If you are a neocon, you believe government is evil and incompetent. So our government has become evil and incompetent."
He describes driving up to a trailer with waist-high grass and cards in the yard and a four foot Bush poster in the window. He got out of his minivan and walked up and knocked and a man answered through a broken screen in a t-shirt with a shotgun who said, "I'd rather shoot a Democrat than vote for one." He told the guy the gun wasn't even loaded and explained how he knew from his experience in the military. He went in and talked with the guy for an hour and gained a voter.
His story - he retired with cancer and four months to live and this was several days ago. He never asked if his surgeon was Republican or Democrat. Access to healthcare for all people should be a birthright, not a political issue. Why can't we agree on that?
I'm signing off but did take notes during Wesley Clark and that was phenomenal.
"The Republican party once was a big tent but it's become a very small outhouse and you know what it's full of .. and Bill O'Reilly I'm talking to you" - Massa
"He is single-handedly destroying the American dream and we must not only make sure he is out of office but that his legacy is crushed so it .. never .. happens .. again."
"People like Limbaugh and O'Reilly and Savage and Ingraham have destroyed the family values that my immigrant father and I fought for."
"If you are a neocon, you believe government is evil and incompetent. So our government has become evil and incompetent."
Posted by: not my president at August 3, 2007 10:56 AM
Thanks for all your liveblogging.
That quote is so right on - government is evil, because neocons don't know anything about running a good government.
Posting a new thread so jump over, but let's keep hearing about Chicago!