nightmare on another level of awareness

So here in the middle of the muddle of a maplewoodian noosphere I am waking up with an amoebic dysentery of the brainblog over all this mixed up nutcasting of everything on earth. There those crazy flagellating organisms are floundering around in my cerebral interior and leaking out of my every skull based orifice without any actualization in the realm of logic or any auditory consent form. How the fiction of a complicated diction did any of this stupifyingly weirdo constellation of an earthborne disorder of the mythological mystery of Life & Times turn out to rhyme with a riot act of distinctly moralizing nonsense such as all the worst talk show crazy loony tunes on the face book of the continent play with in their own nightmares <”_?

Well, it must just be money squawking.

http://www.startribune.com/business/135700128.html

Jobs are god, no matter what devil they happen to actually serve.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/62588--u-s-senate-puts-more-pressure-on-obama-over-keystone-pipeline

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/12/01/athabasca-chipewyan-first-nation-suing-shell-canada-65520

Thanks so much, Senators, for forcing the cards out on the table over the Keystonian cop out over our outrageous gobbledygook of an appetite for horrendous oil disturbances all over the surface world.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/12/17/senate-democrats-supporting-gop-keystone-xl-pipeline-strategy-will-obama-reject-68152

It is really the most simon & garfunkle hormone of an excellent comedy central guffaw of a laugh track the whole earth club has ever clobbered out over us all.

http://www.grist.org/energy-policy/2011-12-16-america-must-not-back-down-on-sustainable-energy

Meanwhile some really serious downtown news of an urgent sort has floundered its way out into the science blogosphere here:

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-12-16-fundamental-breakthrough-could-double-electricity-produced-from-

As for job creation, well, gee willigers, could someone please get Van Jones on the phone <"_?

OMG, i love that man!

http://contract.rebuildthedream.com/?rc=rtd_feature

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.

On the Way to Copenhagen: UN climate summit on 12-09

President Barack Obama will be travelling to Copenhagen to speak to the UN summit on climate change, appearing on December 9 to speak. As citizens we can individually support his efforts by conceding that our country has been a largely destructive influence to the climate and ecology of the planet.

Early European settlers in the New World cleared forests for farm land, gradually crossing from East to West, and from the South to the North. Up until current times we have engaged in the most profligate growth of industry and habitational developments among all nations. Obama only recently re-approved our agreement to the Kyoto Protocols which were developed decades ago, and deleted by the Bush Administration.

The so-called “Free Trade Agreements,” begun during the Clinton Administration, have further eroded environments by enabling corporatizing of resources on this and other continents. Over the years our own agricultural industries have disturbed the ecology of the oceans with runoff of chemical nonorganic fertilizers and weed control products into the Gulf of Mexico via the Missippi River and into the ocean from there and other sources.

Take a look at a recent NASA developed map of the global climate influence of El Nino in the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. Your cursor will display “El Nino” when you run it over specific red “hot spots” in the Gulf and along the equator in this view of the Western Hemisphere.

How can we as individuals help the effort to turn the dial back on climate change? The truth is, according to the Copenhagen Diagnosis, we will not be able to stop the stampede of the inevitable-- many processes are already irreversible and will continue while we work toward changing our habits. Our enormous consumption of material products and energy used to produce them, as well as energy used to keep us “comfortable,” are way beyond the levels that other nations habitually use.

Spread the word, and cut your own home use of virtually everything. Oh yeah, go ahead and eat, but consider a garden in your back and front yards, plus planting trees in your community. You all have been hearing the environmental message for a long time. At this point we have to get busy and change our “standard of living” to a much simpler one to extend the lives of all creatures and species, least of all us. As stewards of the Earth we have failed thus far, and the changes already in progress are likely to last for at least 1000 years.

Perhaps we can consider our continuing economic woes to be a blessing in its necessity that we get by with less and begin to cut our energy usage individually and as a collective effort. How about a kitchen composter or a slowcooker for a gift this year? Solar power is decreasing in cost—can you afford to install it? Maybe so!

Encourage your friends to be grateful for each day of life we live with Mother Earth. Life ahead is likely to be a challenge.

Senate Stimulus Bill needs a nudge from constituents

Dear Friends and Readers,

In a previous email I informed some of you that the Senate economic stimulus bill appropriates $50 billion to new nuclear power plants. Since then I have learned that Senator Kit Bond is in fact a member of the Appropriations Committee, and also that this will not be introduced to the full Senate until sometime this coming week.

Therefore, I urge you, if you have not already done so to write and/or call him to let him know that the use of nuclear power is a defunct and expensive idea which few people support anymore. You should have time to do this for the next week, but the sooner the better.

Below is my version of a letter with links to further info.

_________________________________________________

Dear Senator Bond:

The news that the Senate Appropriations Committee has added fifty billion dollars ($50,000,000,000) to it's proposed stimulus package for the building of new nuclear power plants shocked and disappointed me. Perhaps the Committee is not adequately informed about nuclear power. It would take years to get around to doing this even if it were a good idea.

The facts are that even the study done by Congress itself shows that nuclear power is extremely expensive. Given the additional dangers of accidents it only presents us with further environmental and security dilemmas for our own and future generations.

The nuclear industry will, of course, tell a different story. Here in Missouri we are concerned with keeping the "no construction work in progress" (No-CWIP) provision in Missouri law so that Ameren UE does not imagine that it can add another power plant by charging its customers for an advance loan. This would be on top of a recent rate increase. The idea that the Federal Government would subsidize new nuclear plants is essentially the same thing, leaving a burden of debt that can perhaps never be repaid, dragging us down further. You are surely aware that the problem of storing spent nuclear waste remains unsolved. The only permanent storage solution proposed is Yucca Mountain, a venture too dangerous for towns and cities on the route there and for the tribal nations living near the mountain.

Even the newest thinking that existing nuclear waste can possibly be reused is simply conceptual at this point. How much more would it add to cost? In all my reading on the subject the only sources that support more building of nuclear power plants are ones from inside the nuclear industry. And other writers suggest that even the most conservative estimates of total costs could be less that the ultimate reality.

So-called "clean coal" is in essentially the same position-- there really is no such thing yet as "clean coal" and we will need to replace the coal power plants we already have with passive and renewable power sources. In the House Recovery Bill that was just passed 2.4 billion dollars are appropriated to carbon capture technology. From what I have read this is an iffy proposition. Comparing our own to European efforts to reduce carbon based air pollution, which contributes to climate change, we would be better off changing to the available passive sources, e.g. wind and solar. Some success has been achieved with hydro devices as well which are minimally intrusive to the environment.

The realized use of corn as a biofuel has demonstrated that it is also more expensive and polluting than was first predicted. At least it does not leave radioactive waste behind, but farmers who want to plant fields of biofuel are now looking into switch grass and other more efficient plant sources. This is an emerging science, not one that is established with well tested outcomes. Renewable fuels are an improvement over mining which further decimates the environment.

What we need right now are community based manageable alternatives that provide long term and acceptable solutions. This description usually refers to solar and wind power, which are already emerging in Missouri. But additionally using different building specifications including tighter insulation and more efficient use of square footage, with built-in passive energy capture and biologic additions such as roof gardening will be an already proven route to decreasing domestic energy consumption. Also we must retrofit buildings in our existing urban areas, as recommended by Van Jones and some social justice organizations. If such projects were subsidized by the stimulus plan now in Congress they could probably be in place relatively quickly, with ready labor in neighborhoods that were underemployed before the current depressed economy. Retrofitting rental properties that are Section 8 eligible is covered in the House Bill, and I support this proposal.

It is also essential that we increase green spaces and local gardens, something that has already been initiated in urban Missouri as well. Providing support for these sorts of efforts, helping neighbors to help their neighbors by planting vegetable and permaculture gardens, makes infinitely more sense, since it is based on readily initiated and time worn actions. These ideas could be implemented by nonprofit efforts or by local small businesses that would also spring up quickly if loans were available. They would add longer term jobs to the already conceptualized infrastructure repair projects.

One more area of concern is mass and distance transit. Both Kansas City and St. Louis could use funds to complete planned light rail projects. Also backing up passenger and freight rail would make far better sense economically and ecologically than new development of highways. To me it would be worthwhile to add a public information campaign that would promote rail over private automobile for distance travel.

Please discuss these ideas carefully with your fellow Senators of either party. We must address the economic crisis that is continuing, but certainly we have choices about how to do that. Wasting the money, even if it is only freshly printed paper, would be foolish. Most of the ideas I have presented will create jobs as well as reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Nuclear power and coal of any sort belong to the previous century.

Thank you for your attention to these issues, and for your work on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Undoubtedly it is difficult to stay up to date on every issue without a great deal of information input.

Sincerely,

write2bheard

Some sustainable energy solutions in Missouri

This article is promising a revolution of sorts. They have made kits for local start ups to manufacture solar panels. Do any of you have some business expertise? This could provide jobs as well as help the transition, although Taiwan is across the globe somewhere.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cranking-out-pv-panels&SID=mail&sc=emailfriend

Another person who has been active in establishing some work on renewables in St. Louis is the Rev. Larry Rice, most known for his homeless shelter downtown. He has TV spots on his channel, 24? about solar panels, as well as wind turbines that are small enough to put on a roof.
Do any of you St. Louisans know any more about this? Could a renter install a wind turbine? How much power would it provide, for what cost, etc.?
http://moreenergy.org/main.htm

We also have a wind farm in NW MO., only one I have heard about so far.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/EBDFFCB0634D549686257492001CAF6C?OpenDocument

Actually what I find the most exciting is the relatively new project being worked on at SIUE (Southern Illinois University--Edwardsville) across the river from here. I think they may also have a connection with Washington University. The Green Roofs concept has been used widely in Europe from what I have read. It not only provides great insulation, especially for all these old flat roof buildings like I am currently living in, it also increases green space with benefits to the air, etc. Done properly, established rooftop gardens require very little maintenance since the plants are ones that live well on existing rainfall and tolerate a wide range of temperatures.

Anyone want to talk my landlord into installing one? ;-> Then I would not have to move. They are still a relatively expensive investment at this point, but perhaps eventually they will be helped along by government grants or something.
http://www.greenroofs.com/projects/pview.php?id=454
http://www.green-siue.com/
http://www.stop158.org/2008/2008-02-18-Edwardsville.htm

To me it seems obvious that we will have to take ahold of moving forward to such methods ourselves on local levels in order to reduce our dependence on foreign resources as well as the least desirable fossil fuels that continue to pollute and increase global warming. This will require a lot of political cooperation, but I do think that people are more ready now than ever. Ultimately it is one of the most helpful ways to work for world peace.
It is great to know that a lot of ecological approaches have been initiated in Missouri, and enthusiasm is building toward actual solutions instead of the same old denial arguments.

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.

Missouri Election Protection On Track

Channel 5 news at 10 pm surprisingly showed a sound bite of U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway giving a phone number hotline for election fraud. I thought I heard her say strongly that election fraud will not be tolerated. That was not in this video of her full press release from Wed. morning.
http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=158162

This Platform blog by Eddie Roth appears to have been updated to reflect his conversation with Phillip, and also has a link to Phillip's prepared testimony for the BoEC. Congrats, Phillip! Outstanding work.
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/campaign-2008/2008/10/st-louis-county-polls-penny-wise-and-paper-foolish/

Here is one that was on the Tues. Fox 2 News featuring our beloved Goeke.
http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7693161&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

And another in the Wed. P-D about the BoEC meeting, with Goeke's argument continuing against Project Vote testimony to the contrary.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/politics/story/CD342E1A2924CF5D862574EA001078E8?OpenDocument

Reading between the lines I think perhaps someone or ones have already contacted Hanaway's office re: their concerns. Mr. Rove, you can stay home. You will not disrupt us here.

Missourians are not called the Show Me State for no reason.

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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--
Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and test of our civilization.
Mohandas Ghandhi

Nothing to lose but walls

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell underneath
And spills the upper boulders in the sun.
--Robert Frost

We used to see and hear the stories on TV, black and white back in the early sixties, of people trying to climb the Berlin Wall and being shot down, of others tunneling under, and we cheered them on. To us in our middle class neighborhoods these scenes were cruel aspects of some life far away from us, while we lived in freedom in America.

The Diary of Anne Frank, televised version, ended with that creepy up and down siren that lived on in the imagination afterward, even though that detail was actually a fiction. All of us little white children could never have imagined the horrors even in our own country of segregationist policies that kept some people out of the halls of power. Until they too showed up on that little screen in the living room, most of us were excruciatingly naïve. We had not yet comprehended our own shame, far less that of others, far less that of governments.

Oh, it was all in the Bible, those verses that we memorized and sought to practice against reprimands from our parents. But we had very little other context than our own back yards, the swing sets, the doll houses, the teeny little green rubber soldiers that engaged in make believe battles on the sidewalk or on the living room rug. A lot of us had fathers who were soldiers in World War II.

Across the street from where I was a new little house went up next to the giant oak tree and a family moved in with a couple of girls around my age and their little brother. Their father was a “Mason,” or so my mother told me with a touch of disdain in her voice. I never was sure what that meant or why it angered her. Maybe she was jealous.

But clearly it was some kind of distaste which was not even something described in the Ten Commandments, to my knowledge. I wanted her to be friends with the mother because one of those girls and I hit it off over making mud pies together. Before we moved away from there when I was twelve that family was already in another new house, bigger and better, around the block from us, and my first real friendship with someone outside the family had vanished into thin air. I never really knew what had happened. My first best friend had to be substituted for by some girls at school who were, presumably, of the right sort of Christian like us.

Where do those kinds of wall come from, the ones that prevent people from speaking their minds and honestly working out their problems, leaving some things unsaid with the blessing of humane acceptance? Those subtle walls known as prejudices slowly build over time into physical structures, separating us from the benefit of alternatives to our own rigid thinking. In the U.S. we now have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and are building actual physical walls on our southern border.

Now, nearly half a century later than making my first solid friendship, everything on the computer screen is in color and you will not be able to watch TV next year if you have not yet made some adjustments for high definition. Oh yeah, it is all still about money. Some of us have access to information, political power, education and jobs and others do not.

And now we have businesses such as Boeing, a corporation which is a member of Dwight D. Eisenhauer's predicted military-industrial complex, benefiting from the current rage in building walls to keep people from crossing borders to our south, just like Israel has around Palestine. Here we have the effects of so-called “free trade” at work, along with climate change. Well, you know, it is all for our safety against terrorism (one of those “isms” in the same class as racism). And building walls provides Americans with jobs, not to mention gives some specific contractors access to government handouts. Who gives a deflated dollar if it hurts them there foreigners or does virtually no real good for us? For the most part it is kept totally out of our eyesight anyway, since the corporately owned media will not let us know what we are doing as a nation. And that keeps us innocent of any crime as individuals, at least in our imaginations.. It is all the property of the Homeland Security office or some foreign state that we underwrite. None of us need get our own hands dirty if we don't want to. It is just the way things are. We gotta have walls.

During my last couple of years in high school I lived in a southern state, not the Deep South, but close enough. We were some of the first students to go to the now desegregated school. The town was still divided, as it probably remains to this day, into black and white neighborhoods. Moving back to St. Louis again not long after graduation-- and even up until today-- our neighborhoods are still generally ethnically divided. People say that they want to live by people who are like them, but that is not the whole story and we know it, everyone who has half a brain. Yeah, we still have these walls, which we work together to maintain, despite those noble words of Robert Frost. If only they could tumble down so readily among us creatures so easily divided by hierarchical heritage with our fearful brains and hairless bodies hiding under clothes. Each of us insists we are some special breed because of the small piece of land upon which we were bred by circumstance outside of our command. Sometimes I feel lucky to be able to answer the eternally famous St. Louis question, “Where did you go to school?” with two words, ”Not here.”

Because I don't fit in anywhere. Because I started out working in the trenches with the least among us and did so for years and years, and I always wanted to learn something new. So I found out at a young age what dying was like, what a corpse actually looks like, how people are terrified by death and work like hell to bring someone back, rarely entertaining the idea that for some it might actually be an improvement over what they are experiencing on this plane.

And I went from hospitals to homes and usually made friends with the “lower class” workers and patients because they were more like me in many ways, despite some advantages that I have benefited from. In my own early life there had been violence, a lesson that imprints itself indelibly on the organism's physical body forever after, leaving trust of others always in question. Besides that I was “shy,” a quiet person who didn't talk excessively like most “leaders” do, so I became an astonishingly good observer, since that was my job, and also my lifestyle.

Politics are everywhere and nearly always involve dirt. When they sink to violence we might consider them animal, but the truth is that no other species is as self destructive as we are to ourselves. When Mr. Gorbachev “tore down those walls'” in 1989 as leader of the Soviet Union he was just a few years past the Chernobyl incident in the Ukraine. Reagan may have taken credit for it but internal pressure was probably more likely the cause of democratic moves in Eastern Europe.

Perhaps I have spent most of my life looking for something that will always remain totally inexplicable and elusive. We apparently cannot escape the despicable ways that humans beings behave so that we find lasting peace.

But this week I was given renewed hope by a small band of international human rights workers who sailed on a couple of fishing vessels into Gaza, opening the Palestinian citizens there to outsiders for the first time in forty-one years. The Free Gaza Movement had arrived.

On Saturday, August 23, two boats landed on the beach where they were welcomed by enthusiastic Palestinians, who have been blockaded into their small borders by the Israelis since 1967. Perhaps facing the devastation of ensuing global climate disruption will bring us forward into a new era of peace, working together for our common interests.

We really don't have much to lose in hoping.