NFB film imperative viewing for all activists

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-world-according-to-monsanto/

this film whacked me in the head bone by virtue of default astonishment even tho i thought i was informed: the Whole Earth is being affected by the gmo revolution that is led by the corporate "powers that be" as shown in the above excellent & imperative movie for everyone-- who eats anything-- to watch!

NFB source:
http://search.nfb.ca/search?q=The+World+According+to+Canada&btnG=Search&entqr=0&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&client=beta_onfb&ud=1&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=beta_onfb&proxyreload=1&hl=en&lr=lang_en&site=beta_onfb

other related links to monsanto:
http://theyrule.net/drupal/map_633
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm

forwardstl posted this post 4 me:
 http://www.forwardstl.org/post/26291252915/nfb-film-imperative-viewing-for-all-activists-write

I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE HR1540 IS SIGNED

                                   

Well, fb friends, i have been looking over some posts on my fb page & wondering how & why it has happened that the HR1540 was supposedly signed by President Barack Obama into "Law," with a supposed signing statement attached to it.

According to govtrac, it has not yet been checked off.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-1540

On the White comment that was issued by The President, the signature is blank, lol.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/31/statement-president-hr-1540

Just because he issued the above statement about it does not mean that it has actually been officially signed by him, with all his gift pens handed out and so forth. Afterall, by that day & time most of Congress was home for New Years, wasn't it <"_?

Bloomberg, e.g., "Wallstreet," asserts it was signed in an article dated 12/31/11 but posted on 1/2/12. What, the White House doesn't quit for a week or until Congress is back in session <"_?

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-02/obama-signs-defense-spending-law-with-interpretations.html

The timing was just so well planned to get all the consternation on earth over it out in the open-- the story is mind boggling to bloggers and thinkers-- but it could not be put off at all because of threat of government shut-down, which could be a huge issue to the Administration, among others.

I watched the Weekly Address, & he did not even mention this major piece of legislation as having been signed, although it seems like everyone on the left is up in arms over it. His ears do look a little red. Maybe that is just the usual for a President who is living in the White House at such a time.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/31/weekly-address-working-together-new-year

STILL, I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!!! I NEED PROOF!!!  Where are the photos of the signing, the video, the pens he handed out to the victorious members of Congress <"_? 

I'm from MISSOURI!!!!! SHOW ME!

Don't let complications of the political discourse block Obama care.

An article in the New York Times cleared up a lot in my mind about just what had passed yesterday in the House of Congress. Maybe it represents more work than a lot of us wanted to give Congress and the President credit for. For the Democrats it is a huge win. We all hope it will be a win for their constituents as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/24leonhardt.html

Medicaid qualifications by income are a little higher and people who are on the other end, with higher incomes than most of us, will have higher taxes. Insurance plans will not be able to charge extra for pre-existing conditions. People will not be left without coverage after an illness or job loss. This is pretty much all good news.

Of course this bill will change our medical system for the good, and many people will imagine that it will not need another visit for years to come. Yet it is still very much a capitalist system that is based on privately run institutions, physicians' offices, drug providers, and medical equipment companies. We have had a significant increase in the use of technology in medicine in the past couple of decades that include surgical interventions, life prolonging devices and monitoring procedures, not to mention records. On top of that an explosion of new drugs have been patented by the pharmacological industry. Health care costs overall will probably increase regardless of how this bill is written until we change the driving force behind the whole system from a capitalist to a preventative, holistic model. Many health care professionals would agree I believe.

Meanwhile our Governor Jay Nixon is examining a variety of ways for the State to reign in its budget under the current economy. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/politics/story/898E0D28BF8B5359862576F00006EFD2?OpenDocument

And the rumors about the cost of the bill to the states are not as true as originally milled about -- much less than some reports, in fact. The increases will be gradual over time, and the federal government will pay the major initial costs.
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100323/BLOGS09/100323042/DSS++Medicaid+expansion+to+cost+Missouri++1.34+billion+over+ten+years

Whether Lt. Governor Peter Kinder can actually join the suit that has already been initiated by other states is questionable. It seems like a waste of state time and money to me. Calling Kinder's office, the Governor's or the Attorney General's to object to a pursuit of this action may be helpful.  One would expect to hear more opinions out of Jeff City in the next few days. Senator Kit Bond wants to repeal the health care law just signed by the President. This is likely purely for political reasons, in my opinion, since the Republicans are facing a challenge in the near future.
http://www.missourinet.com/2010/03/23/bond-speaks-on-senate-floor-asking-to-repeal-healthcare-bill/

The Missouri Senate wants to get in on the act as well.
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100324/NEWS01/3240475/1007/Missouri-could-join-13-states-suing-over-health-care-overhaul

My recollection of Nixon's term as Attorney General is that he was well known as someone who was effective at running a tight, efficient office. In other words, he has a track record as a good administrator. He is well equipped to address the economic challenges of the State of Missouri in health care and most other matters. We really do not need an opposition to what the people of this country have worked very hard at getting passed federally, a significant improvement in health care coverage for us all.

Ghosts Walk the Walls of Just Us

In the late nineties a news story here in Missouri came out of a Texas videotape. The videotape had emerged in a suit against our state. In a Texas private prison some of the incarcerated men were being abused by the use of violent restraint techniques and dogs. A Missouri felon had been transferred to that prison because of overcrowding in our own correctional institutions, and he won his case.

Missourians were dismayed by this and soon afterward Missouri prisoners being held in Texas were returned to our state, the contract with the private facility ended. That particular company running prisons was thought by some to be adequately punished by its loss of our business. However the prison industry is still flourishing today. In fact it would seem that one of the chief industries of Texas may have become incarceration, with Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal agency, as its chief customer. What a way to replace the corporate cattle ranches that moved south of the border after NAFTA.

Just now, we are learning of a murder of a prisoner in Texas which occurred in 2001, in a different private prison owned by the GEO Group whose stock is offered by Vanguard Group. This crime finally resulted in a civil judgement costing GEO $47.5 million. Another separate charge of murder in Val Verde County, Texas, has been tried more recently against a GEO guard. This is just the beginning of this story, which has been connected by the District Attorney of Willacy County, Juan Guerra, to Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales, who have now been indicted. One might wonder if this is the beginning of the truth telling that will follow the end of the Bush White House. And could some of those recently revealed illnesses of Bush's current Attorney General Michael Mukasey have any relationship to these revelations? It is enough to make one sick. Yet the story has not been widely reported, no surprise to bloggers.

The latest episode of this unfolding political thriller is a request for removal of the presiding judge who has been playing South Texas games with the local D.A. Guerra, who claims this judge caused him to lose reelection by filing a suit against him which was later dismissed. The judge also has a relationship to one of the local potential defendants, a Texas legislator. With a hearing set for today. Raymondville, the town where the prison is located, could get a little economic boost from the journalists likely to show up if the most famous of the stock holders in the Geo Group, which provides prison beds for federal and state offenders, actually show up. Wouldn't it be ironic if Cheney and Gonzales are indeed standing before a court in a town that dubs itself "Prisonville?'

The Lone Star State is one I have visited several times over the years. It's pretty much a straight shot over Highway 44. The billboards telling drivers things like "You are now in Big Country" always made me laugh. Parts of the state are vast expanses of grass-- other parts are desert. The tourist attractions tend to be along the Gulf Coast or in the larger cities.

Some western Texas towns where cattle are still being shipped north on trains to meat packing plants can have an oppressive odor of animal excrement hanging in the air. St. Louisans may also remember the odor of rotting blood around packing plants from back in the day when we had at least two in the metro area. It's enough to make anyone a vegetarian overnight But sometimes shipping and killing animals just plain stinks. Humans are humans though. I would never want to confuse species.

If you look at where Raymondville sits on a map you notice that it is a short way north of Brownsville, a place where the building of the Border Wall this side of the Rio Grande has been more vocally disputed that anywhere else. Brownsville has been described by some ecologists as an open biome, where people and species of all sorts go back and forth between the two countries, and have for an estimated thirty centuries. Many of the people living on either side are indigenous and have dual citizenships. No one in the vicinity is happy about the building of what has been called by Homeland Security "a fence." Yeah, eight foot tall steel tubes welded together are surely no obstruction to vision. Just ask Boeing, the company whose California branch has the contract to build it. If it's a fence it has Homeland Security specifications. Questions about it linger.

You may have seen this rising monstrosity covered on Now or on Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS. If not I recommend watching those episodes online. This is a federal project that involves four states, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. A Working Group at the University of Texas has cited human rights violations affecting in particular the long standing tribal indigenous peoples who were here before any European immigrants arrived. Their videotaped testimony {link opens your video-player} to the Inter­American Commission on Human Rights is also an hour long education. Who, under such circumstances has the first word about this land and how it is used or abused? Most Americans have begun to understand that we owe some form of reparations to the people our previous generations have used as though they are lesser beings. Take some time to inform yourself on this issue, and invite others to do so as well. Then begin to speak out to Congress, often and loudly.

That is what my blog is about, your Write to Be Heard!! Put your thoughts into your own words and tell your Senators and Representatives that reprehensible policies based on false fears do not make us more secure. They instead only incite anger, fear and divisive politics, not to mention injustice. And the use of private prisons by any government ought to be outlawed. Instead of being cost effective they raise costs not only by the per bed rate charged but by the lobbyists who continually seek longer sentences. No public official should ever have financial holdings in a government supported prison industry.

The Rio Grande makes a nice border between ourselves and our neighbors to the south. Do we really want to be capturing people who cross it and charging them with crimes while we ignore the real crimes of our own "leadership?" What is this fear, that terrorists are coming into the U.S., if not a bogus front for profiting from human flesh? Our own legislators and former Presidents accelerated this movement of people with so-called "free trade." It is free only to the corporate entities, which are made up of stockholders, some of whom are severely ethically challenged.

Our southern boundary has a rich history of disputes. Since those earlier times of conflict I would like to believe Americans have grown up as a people. Wouldn't it be so much lovelier to work together, celebrating our distinct cultures, and extending friendship to peoples and nations who have oftentimes served as humble examples of heroism to us? Or should we continue to capture immigrants to our land as prison meat?

As I have written before in this blog, we have nothing to lose but walls. Whether prison walls or border walls, both serve some purpose some of the time. A retaining wall can protect a garden or lawn from erosion. But neither can be used to an extreme against persons without causing injury. Most people relate to each other in a friendly manner, as "just us folks." When people in the upper ranks of the social or political hierarchy forget that they themselves are only human like the rest of us they make wrong decisions, and it is up to us to correct them. In some instances that may require a correctional institution.

For their sake hope the indicted do not end up in private prisons in Texas.

More Sources and suggested sites for information:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21292.htm

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Texas_DA_reveals_evidence_against_Cheney_1127.html

http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Companies/Banking,+Financial,+Insurance,+Law/Vanguard+Group

http://www.afscme.org/workers/6845.cfm

http://www.texasobserver.org/border_coverage.php

Who broke the case to the news media?

http://www.valleycentral.com/

Talking Turkey on the Economy

This year the American people have more than ever to be grateful for. While this might sound contradictory to a lot of us in the face of this economy, we have been given another chance. How often does that happen? Think about it.

Let's talk turkey. We have been the most spoiled brat consumerist country in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood for decades on end. The process accelerated under the Clinton Administration with the internet bubble and the passage of the first so-called "free trade agreements," and then blasted into outer space by the totally criminal Cheney-Bush war machine. Some of the experts are now saying the whole world economy was based on United States consumerism. No matter what the scientists told us about global climate changes threatening the lives of our own children we continued to buy stuff, bottled water, electronics, SUVs, houses, dinners out with ever increasing size of food portions. Nothing seemed to have any force of waking us up from our American Dream, the corrupted version, now available on DVD. We really must acknowledge the problem to begin recovering.

After the disastrous consequences of 9-11 and various Gulf Coast hurricanes we started yapping on and on, angrily blaming all our problems on the Muslim world, as if they could have done anything to have saved us from our hunger for more-- more oil, more bottled water, more corn syrup in our food and drink, more chain restaurants, more travel, more sex toys, more revealing clothing, more swimming pools and luxury homes, not to mention weapons, guns, bombs and the games that replicate them. Things were as they "should be," USA on top of the world, playing king of the hill, a dangerous and delusional game that could not but result in our eventual tumble down the hill alongside our friend jill, the EU.

Finally the inevitable happened and for the first time since our founding we have had to take a thoroughly good look at ourselves in the mirror of destiny. We haven't even begun to see our own image through that frosted up glass. And we may well remain in this fog until reality sets in. That is how delusional thinking works. "No, this can't be true, we are the wealthiest country on the planet, and nothing will ever change that." China chuckles, Russia outright laughs. And Higher Power, if it Be, raps us hard on our knuckles just for starters.

A lot of us, including me, have likened what we are now experiencing as analogous to the Great Depression. But it isn't. Yes, that fall was precipitated by a Gilded Age, a generous dose of materialistic obsession, as well as political corruption. But the real story today has more to do with the bottom line of natural resources. We have gobbled resources up like rats in a grain elevator who have a genetic metabolic disorder. It hasn't mattered to us how much we have or how little some others are living on-- we have still needed desperately to continue to eat, eat, eat, gobble, gobble.

Now, about those turkeys, and I don't mean the ones that are now leaving office. The turkey was the bird that Benjamin Franklin would have chosen for our national symbol instead of the bald eagle. He was, of course, talking about wild turkeys, the kind that I used to have in my rural front and back yards when I once lived in a little cottage up a gravel lane. They were close to extinction by mid twentieth century, with an estimated count of 300,000 birds nation wide.

The Eastern wild turkey is indigenous to Missouri and also a feed into our current state economy. Unlike eagles that soar in the sky these gloriously feathered creatures keep to the limbs of trees for safety, mostly living close to the earth where they consume insects, select grains and nuts. Every spring and fall these birds, related to quail, pheasant and grouse, reinstate themselves as a success story in the history of conservation in our state, bringing hunters out to rural areas to bag themselves a meal. Because of our first rate conservation efforts Missouri can now afford the hunting of over ten thousands of these creatures each year.

Where I was living in the late 80s, in Iron County, the turkeys were probably attracted to the pond on the roadside end of the property, a watering hole inhabited by peeper frogs and surrounded by tall grass and wildflowers. My undisciplined dog had alerted me to their presence by barking at them at night After that I noticed them more often as I traveled the countryside on home visits. They fly in small groups, gathering in flocks in some fields, and once I happened across a pile of feathers left behind by some hungry coyote.

The local people knew when hunting season began and when it ended so they could choose when they themselves would hunt. "Those city folks are going to be out here this weekend like flies on dead roadkill," they would say on the last days of the shotgun season. It was the most likely weekend for hunting injuries to show up in the ER and the worst two days for putting yourself in harm's way. Same with deer season. But it brought money in, which was important of course. Money is important to all of us, each in our own way. Some of us who are used to living more humbly are also more likely to survive the ups and downs because we have developed survival skills along our paths which we never forget.

Others ride individual private jets to Washington, D.C., to beg for a bailout loan. They expect their workers to keep them fat, even when some of us "lower" beings are starving. Here they are now, wearing their depleted money bags like millstones around their collars, having taken a workforce down with their lack of vision, not having planned ahead or faced the facts about the consumption of domestic and foreign oil that they have been selling to us for decades. We should help them out of this fix? Whatever for? So they can build factories in other countries for lower wage workers?

Instead we need to direct our attention to the workers, the people who create the wealth by their own sweat. We need to extend unemployment compensation, place some safe guards on IRAs and retirement funds, create a system of health care that treats everyone equally and covers all of us. We need infrastructure repair jobs created in every large city. We need mortgage assistance for the people who are in danger of losing their homes. And we will have to shore up the conservation efforts everywhere, planting neighborhood gardens, eating food that is within a two hour drive of where we live, and cutting back on the fertilizers that are creating dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico by farm runoff. We are going to have to start using some of the knowledge we have gained about renewable energy and energy conservation. If we want to remain a viable species in the web of life we will have to steward the planet in a more conservative and responsible way. This will be an exhilarating, wondrous experience as each community begins thinking and acting locally instead of just monetarily.

Globalization is necessary in the realm of human rights but not in the corporate world. The World Bank has not regulated global trade, it has facilitated escalation of exploitation by companies we know as "American," but what have they really become? Truly American corporations will need to be regulated with an eye to benefiting GDP, not CEOs. Capitalism is not in and of itself evil, but the motives behind it often become so.

Do we need any of these fat cats, who have been selling financial products that are essentially empty folders of bad debt? NO! Send them straight to prison. Empty some prison beds for them by creating recovery services for drug users and dealers that include training to work in self motivating neighborhood gardens, cooperatives, local theaters, shops, restaurants, and renewable or passive energy manufacturing. Make small business loans available in downtrodden urban neighborhoods instead of accelerating big business on the interstate edge of suburbia. We need to call a lobbyist what s/he is, a prostitute for corporate bigwigs, and make the job title "lobbyist" represent a felony crime. The johns in Congress need reforming as well as antibiotic shots into their every "but, but, but. . . ."

We are going to have to return to our roots as a community based democracy which is based on an assumption of sharing and responsibility for each other, a naturally occurring hierarchy of cooperation that is inherent in all primates. In the spirit of Thanksgiving perhaps we can remember that the living local model for American democracy was taught to us by the indigenous population of people whom the pilgrims met, and who were later to be exploited by the immigrant European concept of take, take, and take some more.

The reality is that we will have to accomplish this goal of community if we want to survive on a planet that our dear nation has been robbing blind. The word "corporation" in no way actually implies rights recognized by the Constitution. In fact the word has been expanded in meaning from a collection of like minded investors in business together so that it has taken on a connotation of corruption, imperialism, exploitation and downright evil. Money can only be a false idol to a social parasite.

Sometimes I feel kind of sorry for the Ayn Rand fans and other upper one per cent of the top ten percent of our population that control most of the world's wealth. They are so addicted to a way of life that feeds them more, more, more, that they have lost their sanity. If you dropped them off at a house trailer out on old Highway V they wouldn't have the foggiest notion what a turkey looks like or how to hunt for one.

Chances are the one they might spot would be in their own mirror, which is now beginning to defrost. And this is a good sign for the resurgence of true democracy, which has been handed back to the people after a recent significant election.

Just don't let yourselves down, folks. You are going to have some real work ahead of you. Vigilance is ever so. Change is welcome but never easy.

Twelve Points in favor of Impeachment

1. My support is fully behind pursuing impeachment of current members of the administration, George W.Bush and Richard (Dick) Cheney. I deign not to designate them by their presumed titles, President and Vice President.
2. Holding the current administration accountable is required to safeguard the United States Constitution.
3. The press has publicly recognized the fears of some members of Congress related to their inside knowledge of administrative policies that skirted legality. Not only was a sovereign nation illegally invaded and war illegally waged, but also illegal torture was used against persons who had not been given Rights which are sacrosanct to Americans as well as to civil society in the World. Lies were used to produce more lies and violence was initiated without warrant or due process
4. Congress now must act, since the truth has emerged, in order to effect a remedy. This will require courage. Courage is a quality admired by the populace.
5. Failure to pursue all legal means necessary to reign in the powers of the Presidency will result in damage beyond knowing to our nation. The failing economy is only the beginning of the decline that could ensue.
6. The outcome of pursuing every legal remedy, including impeachment proceedings against both persons known as the President and the Vice President, preferably simultaneously, will be to relieve our nation of its now damaged reputation in the eyes of the world and to restore confidence of its citizens in the government.
7. Assuming a political stance of looking forward rather than back as a way of protecting individual Congress members is not a choice. It smacks of cowardice. It is an inside-the-Beltway idea that has no relevance to the people who cast votes in a nation no longer recognizing the sovereignty of The People.
8. Our nation has ventured into the beginning of a reign of fascism, a too close alliance between government and corporate powers. The so-called "Bail-out" is symptomatic of this.
9. The Republican and Democratic Parties have become way too intertwined and mutually corrupt. Their members are deluded by material gain and illusory power rather than serving as our true representatives. Other Parties must be allowed equal access to office.
10. Currently reigning political corruption is most damaging to us in foreign policy. We often label other nations as intolerant and in violation of civil rights. In fact we are a nation of great resources and wealth with an obligation to share with those who are not so blessed. Yet we fail to provide some of our own citizens with "the pursuit of happiness" as could be provided by health care.
11. Money forfeited to the now defunct regime of evil, to be replaced by President-elect Barrack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, has been wasted on violence, personal accrual of assets, false and nefarious propaganda and directives such as the imperial rule of the Department of Justice, blasphemous violations of the Constitution by political operatives for political gain, abuse of the role of Commander in Chief, and establishment of illegal empire in foreign states. These are indeed high crimes and misdemeanors.
12. As a citizen of the United States of America, I demand that the Congress of these United States proceed with impeachment against George W. Bush and Richard (Dick) Cheney.

A New Era in American History

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

- Mark Twain

Thoughts have been running around in my head since that memorable day, September 19, when the stock market first crashed and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson danced out in front of Congress demanding we turn over all our money. This past week I heard more than once that we are now beginning a new era. George Soros appeared on Bill Moyers' Journal Friday evening, October 10, and he may have been the original source of the new phrase, since he said it there, and has written a new book. That idea rang true as perhaps the culmination of a whole new book genre written by multiple authors about the scandalous Bush administration and the loss of power in Congress.

The elephant in the room is not just a republican, it is “The War,” that illegal incursion and continued invasive occupation of Iraq that was illegal in the first place, illegal now, and ill conceived by global thieves. Representative Nancy Pelosi, current House Speaker, has been videotaped saying, “At the time it seemed like a good idea,” in reference to the secret change in administration policy which included spying on American citizens, only one in numerous violations of our cherished Constitution. This spending of 720 million dollars a day in Iraq, which has chiefly benefited questionable military businesses with connections to government, is the dark underbelly of our fall. We the People themselves have become a cheap commodity. Have we ourselves no inherent value compared to the oil our country drinks for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

The Bush House and its advisers will be forever chiefly known as the robber barons who retreated into history under the guise of saving us from our own greed and addiction to oil by raping every corner of the earth for more, more, more. Act I, Scene I, as I well remember, opened in the first Bush administration, with journalist Dianne Sawyer confronting the then president, H.W., by initiating a question around a toy soldier on a White House mantle. He said, “I have not yet experienced my test of fire.” He sounded, to me, defiant to her critical gaze. When the Gulf War was later declared by him I spent half a day crying, remembering Viet Nam, and placed a candle in my window at night fall. Later on I noted another candle in a window across the street.

Since that time, if not earlier, we have been setting our sights on oil all over the world. To think we could save ourselves now by drilling in the Alaska wilderness or continental shelf is the last sputtering of an addict's demise.

This is not going to be easy, folks. It's like going off tobacco cold turkey. Every one of us is going to feel it in every corner of our individual little bodies. So you think you feel bad now, having lost a lot of money? So your paralyzed cilia are waking back up in your bronchial tubes and hacking up noxious mucus? If you have been in some position of power and responsibility all eyes are on you now. The “underclass” who have been living on less for their entire lives will be in a position of advantage to you, having developed survival skills you know little about. You can't miss what you have never had, and you do not have a desire for what you have never known. How many of us are ready to be good sports about this?

Imagine missing time spent standing with a few friends at a bus stop in a big city on one's way to a job in outer suburbia, where the development has spread further and further out, away from the decline of infrastructure, the rise of crime, the old, dominant brick buildings, the newer skyscrapers, the concentrated population and dirty politics, the white people on some streets and other colors on others, the endless cry for renewal, money spent on a new stadium while schools have been taken over by the state.

You would miss the neighborhood where you live in old flats made of nineteenth century brick. The street corner liquor store, that corner where the dope is sold. The little storefront now converted into a safe house or a church with an evangelical minister. The food pantry that you visit another short bus ride away so as to help your grandma who watches your kids while you spend ten hours at least including transportation time to go to work. The outdoor market where your cousin goes at the end of the day to collect the leftovers the vendors discard as garbage. That park where one of your uncles can be found with his bottle of whiskey in a brown bag, sitting on a bench until he notices the approach of a blue uniform. The old school yard where you played as a child, of the now boarded building. This neighborhood is filled with memories, and still houses those you know as family.

You take the bus way, way out there to the fringes of the metropolitan area through the city to the county, through the inner suburbs to the fringe where neighborhoods of new condos and houses built out of imported lumber from now deforested places in countries that have few environmental laws, and you step off at a high class shopping center where people spend the money they have “worked hard” for, in professional jobs in health care, education, business administration, or whatever, after earning doctorates in their respective fields. You do know where the IT jobs have gone, right? Well, think now back to the days of fifty students in a classroom. We are not going to be able to afford this continued high class/ low class division of labor, with the bus riders unpacking shoes in the back rooms for your preciously covered exquisite little feet.

Either we are going to have to move out to your house or you back into ours. All those highways that you built out to South County or West County (to create jobs, you reasoned) are not going to continue to be needed. We will have to consolidate again, ride bicycles, share rides, and invest in mass transit. Some of us have been saying this for forty plus years now, but most of you have become great fans of Walmart, where poor folks can buy work clothes to wear into office buildings, where they clean offices after you go home.

This is all going to be hugely emotional, and not only emotional. If you are one of the lucky ones who has been spending time in the gym you are unlikely to need to continue when you are depending more on your shoe leather to get you wherever. People in China are glad to hear this because they will be shipping us the footwear until we get back to the geographic reality of needing actual skilled labor and factories again right here where we live ourselves.

These are not easy things to consider, while contemplating the ravages of continued severe and unpredictable weather patterns which have just begun to emerge. The surface of the earth itself is warming up, and it may contribute to geological disturbances and water shifts with some contraction and expansion of solids being altered from recent into new forms. We never know until it happens.

What will tomorrow be like? It is the ever present question which keeps us focused on the mystery and pulls us into the future. These will be exciting times too, not just times of stress and conflict. These challenges may actually pull us together if we choose our leadership wisely and follow our hearts toward the possibilities, the potential for creativity and new communities of diversity as a replacement for our weaknesses and greed. Once again our culture will look to the Sun as a source of inspiration and power, as cultures of old universally did.

Yes, I agree, this is the beginning of a new era. Perhaps instead of Armageddon it will emerge as another marker that has been predicted for years by a different subculture than the extreme right. Reagonomics and Bill O'Reilly will be history.

We have now entered The Age of Aquarius in a tangible way. Celebrate!

Values v. Reality: Power v. Family

Here (below) is George Lakoff's analysis of the Palin candidacy. He reminds us to frame the discussion as a values point of view rather than arguing on the true issues per se. After watching the coverage of the RNC on PBS this evening, listening to David Brooks & Mark Shields, my impression is that there is still a lot of controversy about Palin among the delegates on the floor, and some would like to nominate Mike Huckabee instead, according to Brooks. Shields says that some people think her nomination was a mistake because by choosing to accept it she should have known it would quickly shoot her daughter into the limelight as the most famous pregnant teen, unwed, in the world, which is a heck of a lot of pressure for her. A "good mommy" might have considered the consequences of her own ambition on her daughter's life.

To me, it is mostly all about oil. Palin is willing to have the Feds let big oil come in to wreck the Alaska wildlife habitat just to feed the country's oil habit.

Apparently McCain is unwilling to face the facts. We have to stop using fossil fuels, unless we want the oceans to boil up more hurricanes, melt more glaciers, and drown the oceans in decreased salinity and increased acidity, not to mention the disastrous weather effects on the continents that we are now seeing regularly.

When Lieberman was the Dem.VP choice in 2000 I did not realize what a fool the man was. Apparently he would have run with McCain this time around, but the Dems refused to allow him to do it. Still, he endorses McCain over Obama!

So, what are you going to do personally? Continue to drive your gas guzzling automobile or switch to public transit? The buses and trains will never get any money until people start seriously choosing to ride them. Does the future matter to you, or are you in the denial snooze that the media have hypnotized us into?

If it doesn't matter a bit if you progeny survive (we will probably last, but they won't) go ahead & vote for McCain/Palin. It is a family issue, definitely, and they are pro death, pro war, pro corporate power, pro climate havoc. Don't let the lack of birth control convince you that Palin is pro-life. She is pro personal power.

P. Berg

The Palin Choice: Democrats Need to Shine a Light on the Shared
Anti-democratic Ideology of McCain and Palin, by George Lakoff

The Reality of the Political Mind

By George Lakoff (Submitted on Labor Day to BuzzFlash by Mr. Lakoff)

This election matters because of realities—the realities of global
warming, the economy, the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, civil
liberties, species extinction, poverty here and around the world, and
on and on. Such realities are what make this election so very crucial,
and how to deal with them is the substance of the Democratic platform
(http://www.demconvention.com/assets/downloads/2008-Democratic-
Platform-by-Cmte-08-13-08.pdf [1]).

Election campaigns matter because who gets elected can change reality.
But election campaigns are primarily about the realities of voters’
minds, which depend on how the candidates and the external realities
are cognitively framed. They can be framed honestly or deceptively,
effectively or clumsily. And they are always framed from the
perspective of a worldview.

The Obama campaign has learned this. The Republicans have long known
it, and the choice of Sarah Palin as their Vice-Presidential candidate
reflects their expert understanding of the political mind and political
marketing. Democrats who simply belittle the Palin choice are courting
disaster. It must be taken with the utmost seriousness.

The Democratic responses so far reflect external realities: she is
inexperienced, knowing little or nothing about foreign policy or
national issues; she is really an anti-feminist, wanting the government
to enter women’s lives to block abortion, but not wanting the
government to guarantee equal pay for equal work, or provide adequate
child health coverage, or child care, or early childhood education; she
shills for the oil and gas industry on drilling; she denies the
scientific truths of global warming and evolution; she misuses her
political authority; she opposes sex education and her daughter is
pregnant; and, rather than being a maverick, she is on the whole a
radical right-wing ideologue.

All true, so far as we can tell.

But such truths may nonetheless be largely irrelevant to this campaign.
That is the lesson Democrats must learn. They must learn the reality
of the political mind.

The Obama campaign has done this very well so far. The convention
events and speeches were orchestrated both to cast light on external
realities, traditional political themes, and to focus on values at once
classically American and progressive: empathy, responsibility both for
oneself and others, and aspiration to make things better both for
oneself and the world. Obama did all this masterfully in his nomination
speech, while replying to, and undercutting, the main Republican
attacks.

But the Palin nomination changes the game. The initial response has
been to try to keep the focus on external realities, the “issues,” and
differences on the issues. But the Palin nomination is not basically
about external realities and what Democrats call “issues,” but about
the symbolic mechanisms of the political mind—the worldviews, frames,
metaphors, cultural narratives, and stereotypes. The Republicans can’t
win on realities. Her job is to speak the language of conservatism,
activate the conservative view of the world, and use the advantages
that conservatives have in dominating political discourse.

Our national political dialogue is fundamentally metaphorical, with
family values at the center of our discourse. There is a reason why
Obama and Biden spoke so much about the family, the nurturant family,
with caring fathers and the family values that Obama put front and
center in his Father’s day speech: empathy, responsibility and
aspiration. Obama’s reference in the nomination speech to “The American
Family” was hardly accidental, nor were the references to the Obama and
Biden families as living and fulfilling the American Dream. Real
nurturance requires strength and toughness, which Obama displayed in
body language and voice in his responses to McCain. The strength of the
Obama campaign has been the seamless marriage of reality and symbolic
thought.

The Republican strength has been mostly symbolic. The McCain campaign
is well aware of how Reagan and W won—running on character: values,
communication, (apparent) authenticity, trust, and identity — not
issues and policies. That is how campaigns work, and symbolism is
central.

Conservative family values are strict and apply via metaphorical
thought to the nation: good vs. evil, authority, the use of force,
toughness and discipline, individual (versus social) responsibility,
and tough love. Hence, social programs are immoral because they violate
discipline and individual responsibility. Guns and the military show
force and discipline. Man is above nature; hence no serious
environmentalism. The market is the ultimate financial authority,
requiring market discipline. In foreign policy, strength is use of the
force. In fundamentalist religion, the Bible is the ultimate authority;
hence no gay marriage. Such values are at the heart of radical
conservatism. This is how John McCain was raised and how he plans to
govern. And it is what he shares with Sarah Palin.

Palin is the mom in the strict father family, upholding conservative
values. Palin is tough: she shoots, skins, and eats caribou. She is
disciplined: raising five kids with a major career. She lives her
values: she has a Downs-syndrome baby that she refused to abort. She
has the image of the ideal conservative mom: pretty, perky, feminine,
Bible-toting, and fitting into the ideal conservative family. And she
fits the stereotype of America as small-town America. It is Reagan’s
morning-in-America image. Where Obama thought of capturing the West,
she is running for Sweetheart of the West.

And Palin, a member of Feminism For Life, is at the heart of the
conservative feminist movement, which Ronee Schreiber has written about
in her recent book, Righting Feminism. It is a powerful and growing
movement that Democrats have barely paid attention to.

At the same time, Palin is masterful at the Republican game of taking
the Democrats’ language and reframing it—putting conservative frames to
progressive words: Reform, prosperity, peace. She is also masterful at
using the progressive narratives: she’s from the working class, working
her way up from hockey mom and the PTA to Mayor, Governor, and VP
candidate. Her husband is a union member. She can say to the
conservative populists that she is one of them—all the things that
Obama and Biden have been saying. Bottom-up, not top-down.

Yes, the McCain-Palin ticket is weak on the major realities. But it is
strong on the symbolic dimension of politics that Republicans are so
good at marketing. Just arguing the realities, the issues, the hard
truths should be enough in times this bad, but the political mind and
its response to symbolism cannot be ignored. The initial Democratic
response to Palin — the response based on realities alone — indicates
that many Democrats have not learned the lessons of the Reagan and Bush
years.

They have not learned the nature of conservative populism. A great many
working-class folks are what I call “bi-conceptual,” that is, they are
split between conservative and progressive modes of thought.
Conservative on patriotism and certain social and family issues, which
they have been led to see as “moral”, progressive in loving the land,
living in communities of care, and practical kitchen table issues like
mortgages, health care, wages, retirement, and so on.

Conservative theorists won them over in two ways: Inventing and
promulgating the idea of “liberal elite” and focusing campaigns on
social and family issues. They have been doing this for many years and
have changed a lot of brains through repetition. Palin will appeal
strongly to conservative populists, attacking Obama and Biden as
pointy-headed, tax-and-spend, latte liberals. The tactic is to divert
attention from difficult realities to powerful symbolism.

What Democrats have shied away from is a frontal attack on radical
conservatism itself as an un-American and harmful ideology. I think
Obama is right when he says that America is based on people caring
about each other and working together for a better future—empathy,
responsibility (both personal and social), and aspiration. These lead
to a concept of government based on protection (environmental,
consumer, worker, health care, and retirement protection) and
empowerment (through infrastructure, public education, the banking
system, the stock market, and the courts). Nobody can achieve the
American Dream or live an American lifestyle without protection and
empowerment by the government. The alternative, as Obama said in his
nomination speech, is being on your own, with no one caring for anybody
else, with force as a first resort in foreign affairs, with threatened
civil liberties and a right-wing government making your most important
decisions for you. That is not what American democracy has ever been
about.

What is at stake in this election are our ideals and our view of the
future, as well as current realities. The Palin choice brings both
front and center. Democrats, being Democrats, will mostly talk about
the realities nonstop without paying attention to the dimensions of
values and symbolism. Democrats, in addition, need to call an extremist
an extremist: to shine a light on the shared anti-democratic ideology
of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They
share values antithetical to our democracy. That needs to be said loud
and clear, if not by the Obama campaign itself, then by the rest of us
who share democratic American values.

Our job is to bring external realities together with the reality of the
political mind. Don’t ignore the cognitive dimension. It is through
cultural narratives, metaphors, and frames that we understand and
express our ideals.

George Lakoff is the author of The Political Mind: Why You Can’t
Understand 20th Century Politics With and 18th Century Brain. [1]
[1]

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