COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS FIGHT BACK

I was stunned by Sarah Palin’s attack on Barack Obama because he was a Community Organizer. She mocked him, and I was seriously paralyzed at first. The directness of the attack was shocking. Then, a colleague told me that would come back to bite them. Then, I was sent this blog link where Community Organizers, who rebuild community housing, get folks health care, ensure access to education, clean up drugs, and fight environmental pollution that is often targeted at low-income and racially marginalized groups, responded to these insulting assaults. It was not a good move to attack them and it was to say the least “elitist”. I heard Barack Obama has raised 10 million since Palin’s speech. I wonder why so many people would give to someone without any proven accountability to their responsibility?

Turning Bush Off

Tonight my children and I were spell-bound by the American Olympic gymnysts. We literally were glued to the television, despite the natural beauty surrounding the cabin in McCall we were watching from. Then, HE came on the screen. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I shrieked. Both my children startled and stared. “What Mama?” said my youngest. “It’s George Bush” I seethed. I don’t know why it affected me so. It was really too much, I guess, to see him sitting right there next to Bob Costas, smiling about the games and saying how pumped up he was. Really? Cause I haven’t seen you around lately sir. I haven’t heard from you on the economic crisis, the oil crisis, the climate crisis. Nor have I heard from you about the blood bath exercise you are deploying in order to secure a capitalist playground built on a resource economy and the backs and blood of your fellow human beings. Really, shame on you Mr. President. And please wipe that smirky little smile off your face.

All of those thoughts transpired in the time it took my baby boy to find the channel changer and simply press the off button. At first I was frustrated, cause I wanted to see what the dirty scoundrel had to say. Then I realized we were better off with him turned off. Even a 2 year old figured that out. What was up with the rest of America in the last 2 elections?

PROGRESSIVES, GET A GRIP!

It is becoming too late and so this is a post I have, as I often do, been waiting for the “energy” to write. The importance of the issue is one I need to ensure I do justice to. Nevertheless, I am writing it now.

A week ago, exactly, I had the good fortune to be present for a talk by Naomi Klein–author of Shock Doctrine and No Logo. Her thesis is that in moments of crisis, such as Katrina, the Tsunami, and the war in Iraq (or 9/11 generally) a dangerous machine of anti-progressive political strategy will emerge from what we traditionally call “the right.” This happened in New Orleans, she argues, when just days after Katrina, the Heritage Foundation met with others to discuss the “Free-Market Solution to Hurricane Katrina” The list included the resortization and industrialization of the devastated area, and drilling in ANWAR. You get the point. And from what I understand, that is largely what is happening in New Orleans and Newt Gingrich is leading the charge to ANWAR. Her point is that progressives need to be able to insert socially just agendas in crises much quicker than they do currently. The right takes advantage of the shock, the left should genuinely attempt to heal.

This is the crux, the lesson, my bone to pick with progressives: When I asked my question of Naomi, on nuclear of course, she allowed me about 2 minutes to answer after endorsing my position generally. I mentioned Obama at the end, how I thought he would democratize power. I GOT BOOED. I was in a room of progressives, in a bar known for its leftist politics, in Washington D.C. and I got booed for endorsing Obama. They all were snickering about the FISA vote.

PROGRESSIVES GET A GRIP!

This is not 2000, this is not even 2004. Sure, it is easy to believe that the immediacy of this moment is no different than any others. We may be paying more at the pump, our children (of this world) may be dying everyday in Iraq, food crises are globalized, and global warming is leading to drastic changes in the environments we know how to inhabit, but the attitude seems to be one of arrogant hostility to the urgency of this moment. Progressives do not have room to criticize Obama now. Someone has even mentioned Ralph Nader to me. People, this is a problem. We have our nominee. We must do everything we can to elect him. This is serious. Many of you have seen the New Yorker cover. Already a racist bent is at work which is undercutting Obama’s character. I have recently heard that the new racism is something called “cultural regionalism” that is at play here to. Barack Obama, as Naomi Klein explained when she later addressed her feelings about Obama, is not our savior. He is a man who, I believe, history has brought forth to deal with the present. I believe he will be a great leader. I do not expect him to solve our problems. I do not expect him to agree with me on every issue. I do not even expect that he represents the majority of my ideals. But he demonstrates a commitment to the core ones. He shows me he listens, he offers support to the marginalized, and he inspires hope, vision and action. I trust him in a way I have not felt trust for a President before. That is what matters. O.k. ,Naomi didn’t say that, but she did say that it was up to us to tell Obama what we wanted and hold him accountable. That is something we should all intend to do. After we elect him.

Pack your bags right (I mean left)

Let me explain the meaning, to me, of “confrontation.”  How I mean it is in the productive transformative impetus sense.  It is only with confrontation, most often a respectful clashing of ideas, that we really are able to address the issues at hand.  In this election we are, absolutely, seeing this clash.  Black/White, young/older, democrat/republican, freshman/senior senators, Hope/Fear.  There are more, feel free to share some of those I missed.

Race is a potent component in our culture.  This clash of race will result in the arising of racism, you better believe it.  We will have to wait to see if, and in what form this malignant hate will take shape, but I know it is there, I know it is not healed.  I am serious now, prepare for confrontation.

There is a song I like with a line that says “Love conqueors all, love protects all, love defends all.”  I want to realize the beam of “love supreme, love supreme.”

So lets get out our hope, our love, our compassion, and our vision.  Lets take out of our packs the hatred, lies, and petty self interests that we do not need.  Lets pack some pragmatism, and definately some optimism, and a good dose of realism and lets go about enacting the repairing and healing needed in this country and abroad.  

But we will only get that opportunity if we prepare for and win the confrontation over race.  And that will be easy, if we pack our bags right in the first place.

 

 

Time to Prepare for Confrontation

This is a post I have been meaning to write, but waiting till I was centered, grounded, rested and balanced.  Well, finally, I have realized that none of those things are going to happen anytime soon, so here it goes anyways.

 There is an e-mail circulating through the electronic mail box systems that is exemplary for its display of the kind of opposition we will face in electing Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.  This is similar to the kind of attacks referenced on 43rd State Blues as the Obama Smearmachine   It takes sentences from “Dreams of My Father” and one from “The Audacity of Hope” and deploys them as evidence that Obama is disgracefully unfit to hold the presidency.  It entails one sentence quotes of Obama’s with accompanying commentary to the regard: “Don’t elect this guy he is a racist and a muslim.”

I have thought a bit about whether I would share the direct sentences from this e-mail on my blog.  At first, I thought I would just type them in, but then I realized that I am unwilling to reproduce quotes, out of context, that are being used to attack Obama.  First of all, I don’t have a single problem with any of the assertions (6 of them), even in their out of context form.  But, since they are being used as such and since I am opposed to out of context citation as a general principle, I will not replicate them.  I will offer a summation of each of them, an, In Other Words, and so I will transform them into a more relevant explication of the meaning of the terms and not the implication implied by the e-mail chain letter:

1) Obama expresses early recognition of the way in which calling attention to his mother’s whiteness was really an attempt at validating himself and spiting his blackness. He chose not to continue this self-degragating behavior.

2) A description of the way he had dealt with racism by feeling animosity towards white people.

3) Expressing that a past distrust towards an individual he encountered may have been rooted in their whiteness.

4)A historical telling of the necessitated reality to identify with one side or the “other” in terms of race relations.

5) The locating of his inspiration not in race, and not in one particular historical figure, other than his African born father, from whom he found inspirations intertwined from many historical icons to enact his own “attributes”.

6) I will just quote this one directly, because my summation is likely to misconstrue it even further, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Now, this is meant to imply two things 1) That Obama is a Muslim not a Christian and so not to be trusted and 2) Play on the notion that his muslimness will lead to his surrender of our country to the ‘”terrorist jihad.” Give me a break, and not that I put myself starkly on the Christian side of the divide, but I think I have already aligned with muslim sentiments in light of our country’s behavior of late.  That is, I think, near what he means.

When I watch Sunday Morning shows, or late night news commentary, I sometimes hear what I think is a white supremecist pervasion of the mass culture in response to Obama.  I know, it sounds paranoid, but it does concern me. And, we should brace ourselves for this.  In my “Past Presidential Ponderings” you will find an entry discussing some of the racist claims out there regarding an Obama presidential run.  Many people think this country will rise up against a black president.  We need to insist on the CONFRONTATION OF ALL RACIST ATTITUDES in the face of such a response.  That is what Obama was doing in his book. Ironically, the senders of this e-maiL, I imagine, do not see the racism they are enacting.  Obama has every reason to have experienced a reaction to the many times in his life that he was subject to the realities of Racism and the historical memory of the pervasive and violent racism experienced in this country, just shortly before his time. To argue that he is somehow dangerous because of an open and real response and process of reflection is to disregard his experience and once again engage in a definatively racist exclusion.

We must all be prepared to defend Obama from these attacks by finding our own ways of articulating and contextualizing them through explaining their real meaning.  The force working against this presidency, may be quite great, depending on the amount of racism that has covertly subsisted in spite of an equalization of race in status quo political culture. The movement to defeat this position must be ready to go steps, maybe even miles beyond where we have had to go before to elect desperately needed leadership.  We will, of course, do what needs to be done.  For now, rest up for the confrontation, prepare your response, but do not go to sleep, we still have a long way to go and a big foe to meet.

 

 

“CEO Found Evading Vital Democratic Practices”

This is something I want to make public in the hopes of instigating the repetition of the information to the largest degree possible.  At the Interim Energy Committee’s meeting on Thursday, Don Gillispie, the CEO of AEHI, the company proposing a merchant nuclear power plant in Elmore County, ditched out on his coveted opportunity to speak to critical members of the Idaho Legislature.  He was there, and then, right before he was to testify, he left the building and called from his cell-phone to say he had to go.  The legislators were shocked.  For one thing, it is quite an honor to be asked to speak, one that many would love to have.  To miss that chance is totally disrespectful, not only of the legislators and their valuable time, but of the other members of the public, both in state agencies and the non-profit or for profit business sector, as well as the public at large.  Basically, Gillispie’s move was an insult to all of us. In addition, it demonstrates what kind of integrity Gillispie has, he has cancelled on at least two functions recently. In both those instances he was not “in control” of the proceedings.  The last “public” meeting he held, his staff used the local police to remove some who disagreed with them.

It is only through critical reflection and debate that we can evaluate differing visions for a present and towards the future.  To disallow that kind of engagement is authoritarian, in some respects, and it does not make me trust Mr. Gillispie’s wayward claims about what his plant will mean for Elmore County.  He creates truths without the transparency of valued democratic processes.  The opposition he is facing is a response to this lack of transparency, and is now operating fervently to resist his evasiveness.  In the specific case of this plant, the core of the operation seems rather rotten. ” Nuclear Power Plant Built by Rotten CEO”.  Mmmmmmm, not so much.  I wonder if the legislature would agree with me?  

Just to be clear, I know that, in practice business men like Gillispie, are not operating through a democratic frame of decision making. But what Mr. DG neglects to realize is that he is proposing a NUCLEAR POWER plant.  Nuclear Power plants are, and everyone should agree on this, implicitly risky.  There is a potential health hazard that could have devastating consequences for the surrounding population.  And despite  what is maybe a small possibility of a nuclear accident, there is, undeniably, the reality of nuclear waste.  So, Mr. DG, you’re just gonna have to buck up and get ready to answer the tough questions truthfully, or keep on runnin’ and don’t come back.

 

 

Too Important to Not Address

Hold on here, because I am about to unleash my fury. If you have ever read my politico ponderings you will know I can sometimes get fired up. I actually held it in most of the Convention. But here it goes.

JOHN MCCAIN PROPOSES 45 NEW NUCLEAR PLANTS BY 2030! BAD IDEA! His ultimate goal is 100!

It is time to take a stand on this issue on some level. What is wrong with nuclear power? Why hasn’t a new nuclear plant been built in this country since the 1970’s? Well, there are plenty of reasons and John McCain’s assertion that if Europe is doing it, we should too, is completely uni-visionary and lacking innovation. We have the potential to develop truly renewable sources of energy and avoid the many hazards nuclear power poses for the overall security of our country.

1) Nuclear power requires uranium mining. Uranium is a finite resource. Over 70% of this country’s current uranium demand is met by foreign sources. Russia is the largest supplier. Nuclear power does not leave us less dependent on “foreign” sources of energy. Uranium mining is environmentally devastating and poses serious health risks to nearby communities. Navajo reservations in the Southwest have been left with thyroid cancer and leukemia as the legacy of uranium mining.

2) Nuclear reactors require water to cool their core temperatures. This requires, well, WATER AND LOTS OF IT! This water cannot be pumped back into the original source, and a significant amount of water volume is lost due to evaporation. Plants in the Southeast and France have had to go completely off-line due to lack of water as a result of drought. It is potentially dangerous to shut-down a nuclear plant, and it is not considered a normal and safe protocol. We in the West know how precious water is.

3) There is no good solution to the waste issue. FRANCE DUMPS RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL INTO THE ENGLISH CHANNEL THROUGH EFFLUENT PIPES. Yikes! No good solution, and 100 new plants means way more waste with no where to go. The “de-commissioning” plants that convert radioactive waste into “disposable” waste are decades from being built. And do not tell me that we should just get rid of regulations and build them faster. It is exactly that kind of thinking which will result in a nuclear disaster. Which brings me to…

4) We are a very large nation, with a very complex bureaucracy. In our current global political environment does it make sense, given the transparency of our current administration, to allow a massive expansion in the nuclear industrial complex?

5)RENEWABLES ARE THE FUTURE! Congress has repeatedly not extended the tax credits for renewable energy. The nuclear industry has far greater incentives than the renewable industry. Nuclear purports to be the whole pie energy source, but for all the reasons above, it cannot be a reasonable solution. We should focus on the development of a diverse energy portfolio with renewable sources as the priority.

It is time to take a position on this as a Party. Obama will have to say something, other than that he supports nuclear power, and soon. I believe Obama will democratize power in this nation in such a way that he will ask the people what power they want and when he hears a resounding call for an emphasis on renewable power like wind and solar (both of which will soon be available as baseload power) he will not unreasonably expand the threats of a nuclear energy source with too many problems to be considered reasonable.

100 New Nuclear Plants? 100 More Years In Iraq? John McCain Has Got His Numbers Wrong!

In summation, nuclear power has a hidden carbon footprint through the mining and transport process. There is no way it is renewable given the finite supply of uranium, and its health risks are in no way to our benefit. We should step up for renewable energy and encourage Barack Obama to emphasize a responsible vision for our energy future that does not include provisions for an army of nuke plants, but rather a peaceful plan for a country powered by the wind and the sun. Now that is innovation.