Editorial on THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

Searching for Relevancy in an Obama World

2009-05-17T14:36:00.001-07:00

I spoke with a friend the other day, one of those rare individuals who'd passed his 87th birthday with a clear perspective on life that went beyond even his years, and heard from him frustration that has been echoed both by others of his generation and by those who are not yet of age to drink or vote.

The question they've been asking is: what happened?

What happened to the values for which the WWII generation fought and died? What happened to our principals about saving money and living within our means? What happened to fighting for freedom of religion and thought and tolerance? What happened to personal responsibility and the willingness to sacrifice to meet a shared goal? What happened to the moral centers of those in charge for the last few decades that made them think they could use the earth as their personal or corporate garbage dump, their offshore bank account, their property to pillage?

My friend bemoaned the generation that had followed his as trust-fund babies given every opportunity after a hard-won victory, who did not understand or care about the sacrifices made to provide them with the right to become something more than their fathers.

Instead, he complained, they squandered it for short term gain and immediate gratification.

I have heard the same from those younger than me. How could so much have been lost so fast? What about us? What will happen to our lives and our children now that our fathers and mothers have spent their inheritence? Who broke America, who broke the world, who is going to fix it?

The answer most people in America give, according to the polls, is Barack Obama. There is a lot to be said for his accomplishments in so short a time -- increased national debt notwithstanding (given the enormity of the problems he has inherited) -- but that's not, I suspect, the answer he would give. The president would say (and has said) that we all have to change to get out of this mess.

We have to go forward in a new way.

I would say we also have to look backward to those of the WWII generation who acted with such responsibility toward our country and the world and who thought the victory they were leaving to their children would be safe in our hands.

Sadly, that wasn't to be the case.

I had a strange reaction to President Obama's election (after the cheering stopped). I sat down and asked myself: what now? So much of the last eight years for me and many of my colleagues has had to do with what we were fighting against. The Orwellian tactics of the "Blue Skies Initiative" that supported polluters. The Jungian sense that something horrible was taking place in their preemptive wars (now proven to be prescient) for which we would have to account.

Corporations did not help. There, many of the same generation that was leading us into the abyss came to the table as if at a feeding trough set out of a sense of entitlement. Some were cognizant of their impact and tried to do the right thing, some did not care, and others were like Daisy in the Great Gatsby, unaware of their arrogance as they insisted that a cold winter in their backyard meant climate change wasn't real (ugh) and wondered why people losing their jobs through no fault of their own would think they had a right to refinance.

After all, weren't they now bad risks?

No thought to the fact that the bad risks had been those in the banks who had gambled on credit default swaps or mortgage-back securities set to fail, all of which led them to cut off credit, in some cases, to businesses with customers but with no way to finance their payrolls, who then had to lay off those that the Daisys of the world are now citing as the bad risk.

And don't get me started on the second mortages pushed by banks with assumption of the ability to refinance down the line (can anyone spell: bait and switch?), which the president is now trying to address before the prime rate rises and tens of millions of homeowners find themselves unable to meet their monthly payments when a simple consolidation that was either promised or alluded to at the time the line was granted would keep them in their homes.Add that waiting shoe to drop to upcoming credit card defaults and the anticipated (by some) crash of commercial real estate, and you can see that we're not out of the woods or the forest or the trees that we have trained ourselves over time not to see.

But what do people like my 87 year old friend, who do know the forest for the trees, and my 17 year old friends still in school and myself and my colleagues who fought so long and hard to acheive a new paradigm see now that the party's over?

I've watched the reaction in the blogosphere to some of the more controversial decisions made by our new president. The release of torture memos, the reversal of same on pictures and military tribunals, the appointment of an environmental lawyer who works for General Electric (which needed a better headline than: Superfund Lawyer gets nominated. Anyone care to mention she had served in the DOJ environmental role

during the Clinton Administration and we may need to see some vetting before we pass judgment?), the go-ahead for mountain-top removal mining (grrr).

I'm not happy about much of that. In fact, I'd venture to say I'm confused, worried and waiting for an explanation that makes sense. But I do not feel the requirement to become both enraged and outraged, whether through the insistence of the 24 hour news cycle or by those in the blogosphere. This is what I mean by my search for relevancy: Eight years of having someone to point at (Bush/Cheney, et al) and say: See! There's the problem (and it was), was an easier proposition than looking in the mirror and asking the question:

How am I the problem?

That changed for me after I read a remarkable poetry collection by American writer, George Witte, entitled Deniability, which forced me to explore my inner experience of the last eight years. How much had I acknowledged? How much had I denied? How much was in favor of writing the gotcha article that would point out the deficiencies in others' behaviors without any understanding of my own part in the events upon which I was reporting?

These are questions that cannot be answered and then forgotten. They must become part of a paradigm shift that is necessary for everyone if were are to survive as the nation and world our grandparents fought to preserve: What am I doing to combat climate change? How have I saved instead of spent today? What will happen if I don't spend in a consumer economy? Is my business, my office, my home as green as it could be?

How do I fight policy I do not like with a president I like very much?

What is my part in this new paradigm?

It is easier to find someone about which to complain than to contemplate one's own part in the mess in which we find ourselves.

The truth is that we were all at the party. Some of us were in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms where torture was sanctioned and they must not be sanctioned for their choice in that. Others were downstairs at the chips and dip table where they used their credit cards to get extra guacamole they could have done without, while either closing their eyes and ears to the screams coming from halfway across the world or protesting against it as they put down plastic for yet more chips and dip.

We don't know how to fight against bad policy after the last eight years without demonizing those with which whose policies we disagree. Instead, we post our outrage that the fantasy Obama we have constructed in our minds does not meet up to our shaky version of reality.

President Obama, in my opinion, is doing the best he can in what are the most difficult circumstances since President Roosevelt inherited the legacy of Hoover. He is not perfect. He will not always, maybe not even often, come up with policies that please my sense of purity. But I acknowlege that he is the president of us all and that he has been tasked to govern responsibly in a globalized world. I know that means I won't get everything I want right away and I am willing to give him some (not unlimited) time to work it out.

Which brings me my path to relevancy in an Obama world. I will be a responsible investigative journalist who reports on policy and shenanigans and all the things that come with the Daisys and the Toms in the Gatsby of our fractured world. I will question policies even from those I support if those policies deserved to be questioned. But I will not look for a way to turn those for whom I've voted into a demonized figures upon whom I can then comfortably focus my unresolved emotional issues of the past eight years (in lieu of my own culpability) instead of doing my part to see that good policy is passed in our shared effort for a better future.

This is what my 87 year old friend had expected of his children and what his grandchildren must see happen if they are to have anything to work with from our legacy. The party is over. The bill has come do. We have a participatory democracy again thanks to the courage of one man who ran for office despite the danger that represented to him and his family.

Now we must all participate if we want to be relevant in an Obama world.

Cross-published on The Chicago Sun-Times, The Huffington Post, Austin American Statesman, Palm Beach Post, Huston Chronicle

LABELS: BARACK OBAMA, CLIMATE CHANGE, COMMENTARY, DENIABILITY, ENVIRONMENT, GEORGE WITTE,GREEN OFFICE

AMERICAN IDOL AFTER IRAQ: Competing for Hearts and Minds in the Global Media Age

2009-04-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Legendary Hollywood producer, Mike Medavoy, has teamed with Nathan Gardels, editor of New Perspective Quarterly (NPQ), to produce a timely book about the use of soft power by America: "AMERICAN IDOL AFTER IRAQ: Competing for Hearts and Minds in the Global Media Age."

Gardel’s and Medavoy’s readable and yet comprehensive book explores the need to understand the effective use of power in an increasingly globalized world; the understanding of which has never been more pressing or pertinent, following, as it has, the increasingly negative perceptions of America’s policies abroad.

AMERICAN IDOL AFTER IRAQ also details the impact of American culture on foreign public opinion toward the United States. The authors do this by showing how American film, music and television, exported to all parts of the globe, penetrates global perception; often more than diplomatic efforts or military might.

They show, as only insiders can, how the media industry works; its motivations, the percentage of foreign to domestic consumption, and what must be done in the future to insure the proper use of the soft power that the access by their programs grant to them.

Gardels and Medavoy break this down into six key concepts:

1. Future conflicts will be about contending values in the global public square created by the media

2. Power lies with the image.

3. Because of its global reach, American popular culture is as much a player in international affairs as the formal institutions of American foreign policy:

4. In the global media age America must compete for hearts and minds.

5. Liberty is our message, but we are not the tutor of mankind on its pilgrimage to perfection.

6. Hollywood needs to educate as well as entertain.

With the power of imagery, the authors make the point that perception of media is based upon the culture background of the viewer. If the message is not one that confers dignity, it will be perceived to the negative. One example they cite is the reaction to the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed that, while they might have seemed like a minor issue in Denmark, incurred rage across the Muslim world.

The authors cite other cultural examples; the Vatican’s response to the “Da Vinci Code,” the Chinese censoring media stories of Buddhist monks (only to find those same stories on YouTube).

With global reach in the media age, the authors present the importance of soft power, the ability of American popular culture, if used with accountability, to influence international affairs as much as diplomatic and military initiatives. And they warn that America, despite the increasing popularity of entertainment products, can no longer take such media hegemony for granted:

Prosperity and the spread of technology has enabled and empowered others to tell their own stories and put their own myths on the silver screen; the digital distribution revolution has democratized global information flows and diversified platforms to include not only TV and the PC, but also the cell phone screen. Increasingly, cultural flows are a two way street.

On the authors’ fifth point; the reference to liberty as our message (a side note on the quote itself: Liberty is our message, but we are not the tutor of mankind on its pilgrimage to perfection" is a wonderful representation of the choice turns of phrases to be found in Medavoy and Gardel’s book) means that it is essential that those empowered to make the message understand the impact of that message in an increasingly globalized media world.

This leads to the sixth concept, that Hollywood needs to educate as well as entertain. To teach without being pedantic (to teach and not to preach).

That brought to this writer's mind "TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD" as an example of a film that taught Americans about their own culture; not something everyone wanted to look at, but a fair and troubling bit of education that was also a fine piece of entertainment.

The authors point to the foreign market where there is a more subtle influence at play (from the book):

Often what foreign audiences learn is incidental—- the well appointed kitchen in the “Leave it to Beaver” TV show, the two cars in the driveway or kids with their own bedroom in such thrillers as “When a Stranger Calls” (an unimaginable amount of private space in most places in the world), the expectation of fair treatment under the law and the sincerity of weighing fairness and justice in “Twelve Angry Men,” the casual relationship between boys and girls as the backdrop to shows like “Friends” or even the most innocent Disney Channel shows like “Hannah Montana.” Sometimes films and television shows mislead outsiders about American life, for example by the near total absence of religious expression in mainstream entertainment, leaving impressions, like the shadows in Plato’s cave, far from the truth. This “second order” communication is often as powerful in the perception of the viewer as the first-order dramatic plot.

Medavoy and Gardels cite the need to utilize the power of imagery, not sugar coated – per se – but with understanding of the impact and the requirement to respectfully educate the world about America following the disastrous exchange of iconic imagery from the Statue of Liberty to the photos released from Abu Ghraib.

Some of the damage has been mitigated by the election of Barack Obama. The authors make the point that he cannot do it alone. The entertainment-media complex has far too much influence not to accept accountability for their impact and, with that in mind, Medavoy and Gardels present the role of the entertainment and media industry as an integral part of a coalition with the diplomatic and policy forces at work and why it is everyone’s responsibility, in a global age, to understand their impact on the world.

That they provide this in a well written, enjoyable and readable format is an added bonus to the important teaching (without preaching) moment that “AMERICAN IDOL AFTER IRAQ: Competing for Hearts and Minds in the Global Media Age” provides.

Recommended.

About the book’s authors: Mike Medavoy is an American film producer and executive, co-founder of Orion Pictures, former chairman of TriStar Pictures, former head of production for United Artists and current chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures. Throughout his career he has been involved in the creation of countless films, including sixteen nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards, and seven winners.

Nathan Gardels is the editor of New Perspectives Quarterly, Global Viewpoint and Nobel Laureates Plus, and has written widely for The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Harper's, U.S. News & World Report and the New York Review of Books.

“AMERICAN IDOL AFTER IRAQ: Competing for Hearts and Minds in the Global Media Age,” is published by Wiley-Blackwell. (Amazon Link).

Link to editorial reviews.

Labels: Business, Commentary, Iraq, Media, Mike Medavoy, Nathan Gardels, Politics, World

The Really, Really Bad Debt

2009-03-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

by William S. Becker

It’s time for a reality check in the contentious debate over the investments President Obama has proposed to fight global climate change and build a new energy economy.

As Ken Burns once put it, “we need a little more Pluribus and a little less Unum” in the United States these days. Instead, a newly outraged Outrage Class is firing bullets made of silly putty, hoping some will stick to the new President.

Here are some prominent current examples:

Burdening Our Children With Debt: A frequent argument from fiscal conservatives is that borrowing money to build a new energy economy – including the investments contained in President Obama’s stimulus package and his 2010 budget proposal -- will place an unconscionable debt on our children. Reacting to deficit projections from the Obama budget, for example, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said: “We simply cannot continue to mortgage our children and grandchildren’s future to pay for bigger and more costly government.”

But the debt we should be most concerned about is our carbon debt. It’s a far more serious threat to future generations. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently concluded that even if we stop emitting carbon dioxide now, the impact of climate change from emissions already in the atmosphere will have “legacies that will irreversibly change the plant” with damages continuing for 1,000 years. Among them are coastal inundation, drought, desertification, wild fires and disruptions to agriculture. They all carry big economic costs that will undermine our kids’ prosperity as well as their health, safety and quality of life.

We all agree that it would be far better to pay cash up front to build the green economy, but past Congresses and the past Administration have left the country broke. The President’s response to Boehner was right on target: “What we will not cut are investments that will lead to real growth and prosperity over the long term.”

Not making those investments now will burden our children with and irreversible carbon debt that sentences them to hundreds of years of tragically negative returns. The carbon debt is by far the worst curse.

Drill, baby, drill! In a TIME column titled “The Bad New Deal”, Newt Gingrich argues that Obama’s budget proposals will cripple the economy rather than heal it. Among other things, Gingrich writes, Obama’s proposal to levy a 13 percent excise tax on offshore oil drilling is “threatening the domestic oil and gas industry at a time when we should be encouraging it to return resources home to America.”

Gingrich would have the Obama Administration join the “drill, baby, drill” chant that inspired such enthusiasm at the Republican National Convention, and embrace a “strategy for energy abundance that would lower energy costs by exploring for more domestic oil and natural gas, as well as investing in sources of affordable energy for the future, including clean coal, renewable fuels, wind and nuclear.”

There are a couple of problems here. First, Obama is the Chief Advocate of using America’s native energy resources. The difference is that he favors resources that lead us out of the age of carbon, pollution and resource wars. Compare Gingrich’s policy statement above with this one by Obama in his 2010 budget proposal:

The pursuit of a new energy economy requires a sustained, all-hands-on-deck effort because the foundation of our energy independence is right here, in America – in the power of wind and solar, in new crops and new technologies, in the innovation of our scientist and entrepreneurs, and the dedication and skill of our workforce. As we face this challenge, we can seize boundless opportunities for our people. We can create millions of jobs. We can spark the dynamism of our economy through long-term investments in renewable energy that will give life to new businesses and industries, with good jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.

A second problem with Gingrich’s prescription is this: Our oil addiction is bad not just because we import a lot of it. It’s also bad because it is a major contributor to climate change, no matter where the oil comes from. The issue is not how much oil we can take from the ground; it’s how much carbon we can put into the air.

Third, it’s been pretty well established by the Department of Energy and other experts that more domestic drilling would not do much to lower petroleum prices, even if we didn’t put a price on carbon. Clean coal and nuclear power won’t lead to lower energy prices either. In addition to many other drawbacks, electricity from next-generation nuclear power plants and power plants equipped with clean coal technology (if it’s ever perfected) will cost considerably more than electricity today – and considerably more than electricity is likely to cost in the years ahead from wind and solar resources. For example, officials at DOE estimate electricity will cost 36-81 percent more from coal-fired power plants equipped to capture their carbon emissions.

So whose is the greater vision for our times? No contest.

The Tax Bugaboo: As I predicted in a past post, any policy that puts a price on carbon will be branded by opponents as a tax increase, even if it does not involve a tax. The “tax” word is the poison dart that everyone throws these days at energy and climate proposals they don’t like, often for vested or ideological reasons.

For example, Boehner complains that Obama’s proposal for a cap-and-trade system (which is not a carbon tax) will “increase taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a light switch, pure and simple”. The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) protests that President Obama’s 2010 budget proposal will deliver a “devastating blow” to the U.S. oil and gas industry by repealing several tax breaks those industries now enjoy.

Yet the President has proposed sending most of the revenue from carbon trading – estimated at $645 billion over the next 10 years – back to taxpayers. When it comes to subsidies like those the oil and gas industries now receive in a textbook example of corporate welfare, I come back to the problem of oil addiction: If oil addiction is bad, then why are we still subsidizing the drug? We should be subsidizing the cure. As The Economist puts it: “There is no point in calling for cleaner energy while subsidizing the dirty kind.”

Everyone who believes that the marketplace should be allowed to solve our energy and climate problems – and that includes a lot of fiscal conservatives – should be overjoyed at the prospect of pricing carbon and ending subsidies for fossil fuels. Both policies create more accurate market signals by bringing the price of fossil energy closer to its true costs to society. Repealing fossil subsidies would eliminate a public policy perversity that encourages consumers to undermine the critical national goals of economic, energy and climate security.

“Capitalizing on Crisis”: Some critics of Obama’s aggressive first 50 days in office argue that he is using the economic crisis to implement a liberal agenda. An example is Jonah Goldberg’s March 10 rant in the Los Angeles Times, titled “Obama’s fear-mongering”. An excerpt:

The real scandal is that this administration thinks crises are opportunities for governmental power-grabs… It's scary. Its amorality is outweighed only by the grotesque and astoundingly naked cynicism of it all…Obama's defenders respond to this argument that Obama's motives are decent, noble and pure. He wants to help the uninsured and the poorly educated. He wants to make good on his vow to halt those rising oceans. But this is just a rationalization. Every president thinks his agenda is what's best for the country; every politician believes his motives are noble. The point is that scaring people about X in order to achieve Y is fundamentally undemocratic.

Goldberg goes on to accuse Obama’s supporters of being two-faced because many of them decried how President Bush and the Republican Party used fear to push its agenda after 9-11.

Commentary rarely gets more specious than that. Can we really compare Obama’s initiatives – improving education, investing in a new energy economy, dealing with climate change and addressing health-care costs, all of them important to U.S. prosperity -- with the Bush Administration’s unauthorized surveillance on American citizens, revocation of due process for detainees, torture and the costly fabricated war in Iraq?

In his TIME commentary, Gingrich shows he’s not above a little fear-mongering himself. He invokes Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Global Communism to push a 12-point agenda he calls his American Solution for Jobs and Prosperity:

Here in America, the unemployment numbers keep growing. Such icons of U.S. economic power as Citigroup, General Motors and General Electric are in trouble. The big-spending strategy employed by George W. Bush and now Obama has so far failed to turn around the economic decline. Congressional leaders are talking about the need for a second stimulus package. No one should underestimate the danger posed by these policy failures. Gigantic economic dislocations have gigantic noneconomic consequences. The Great Depression led to the rise of Nazi Germany and a militaristic Japan, the spread of communism and World War II.

If these commentators are disturbed by Obama’s agenda, they must be downright outraged at the American people. Obama is doing exactly what he was elected overwhelmingly to do: Change our course and put America back on a path that makes us hopeful and proud.

Surely Obama’s loyal opposition can muster better arguments than these. Or perhaps they can’t. Either way, we should all beware of special interests, soldiers of the status quo and ideologues who think they can treat us like dummies. Let’s don’t prove them right.

The Growing National Debt

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William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Related articles:
The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet
Struggling for Obama's Soul
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 1 Action in 100 Days
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 2 Tough Questions, Tough Answers
How to Plant a Christmas Tree
In Math We Trust
Small Businesses: Too Big To Fail
Economic Stimulus, Part 1: 16% Green?
Unleashing the Geeks
Climate Bill: Principle Draws Interest
Avoiding the Frankenplanet
Invasion of the Present Tense
Whistleblower's Revenge

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Becker, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP, Politics,

Deniability: Facing the War on Terror through Poetry

2009-01-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

by Janet Ritz

Cross-published on The Huffington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times

There are times in history when it is best for a people to move on from past mistakes. There are other times, such as now, when the past cries out to be explored. For those who are searching for meaning to the last eight years, a new book by American poet, George Witte, Deniability, is the place to start. This is not only for writing that is spectacular in its simplicity, its perfect placement of each word, its prose, but for its bravery in peeling back the layers of the war on terror as an eight year journey that is stark and unforgiving in its verse.

It is, in this writer's opinion, required reading before we move on, an inner truth and reconciliation to the last eight years that serves as an important reminder of what we must face and not allow again.

George Witte's Deniability begins with the fall of the Twin Towers, a poem appropriately entitled: Uh-Oh, reflecting the feeling so many experienced as they watched the attacks on 9/11, and proceeds chronologically through the physical, actual and psychological journey that would come to be known as the war on terror.

UH-OH (excerpt): No photograph records that day's unmasking roar / Things ripped from skins, words from definitions. / Letters distilled until incomprehensible.

I first became familiar with Witte's work when I stumbled across his previous collection, The Apparitioners, and was so impressed by its form and substance, its free-flowing exploration of American life that led one reviewer to refer to Witte as the "Frost of the Suburbs," that I purchased several copies for friends and have reread it many times since. It was therefore with anticipation that I awaited my copy of Deniability as a new and unique linguistic presentation that would cause me to think about American life.

What I found was a chronological exploration of American conscience through the last eight years of war and terror that makes Deniability more than just a great book of poetry (and it is). George Witte's new collection is the best opportunity I've seen for Americans to peel back the layers on their own experience of the last eight years as Witte, with his unparalleled imagery, speaks for us all of both the inner implications of everyday life:

PAGING (excerpt): In hospitals and airports, places where arrival or departure collect us, one is called, the intercom invades most private nooks--graffitied restroom stall, a chapel's narrow pew of whisperers. Though ours is not the name announced, we look up curious from books, hush children still, tilt ears toward ceiling grates where the speaker's secreted, though its voice sounds everywhere. We wait.

And the wider consequence of alliance with a superpower:

NEXT (excerpt): By popular demand, dictators flee aboard a private plane, cower into holes, from which they're yanked in hirsute infancy and whisked away, location undisclosed. Our asset's now a liability requiring diplomatic solution: exile, jail, or roadside execution.

Deniability is a journey from beginning to end that allows the reader a connection to their own experience. It is a book I will read many times and then reread again, and, yes, I will get copies for friends. I'd send it classrooms and libraries if I could and to those who are tasked to decide whether or not to prosecute the past and how to proceed in a future made more dangerous for our eight years of Deniability:

DENIABILITY (excerpt): Officials fashion lullaby from lie, commitment into exit strategy, conveyed in semaphore, averted eyes a silent language undercutting words. Truth's relative as beauty, circumstance our ever-shifting standard, as an urn's exhumed pastoral darkness to reveal a priest receiving sacrificial girls with oil and fire, their moistened limbs consigned to greater good, the glaze that purifies. You turn it, passerby, obliged to none, witness without testimony, faint sough of bone and ash inside this artifact the only evidence you can't deny.

Link to Deniability on Amazon.

Labels: 9/11, Commentary, Deniability, George Witte, History, Literature, Poetry, politics, Torture, War

Struggling for Obama's Soul

2008-11-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

by William S. Becker

Now that we know Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States, we can turn to the next critical question of national leadership: In this historic moment, how bold will President Obama be?

It was Candidate Obama who introduced the theme of change to the 2008 campaign, and it proved so powerful among voters that the other leading candidates quickly adopted it. It’s a cliché for candidates to run against the status quo in Washington, no matter how long they’ve been there. But in 2008, Obama seems to grasp that “change” has a much deeper meaning.

The 21st century is presenting us with new problems that politics as usual can not solve. Pollution, once local and fixable, is permanently damaging the planet’s life-support systems. The world is running out of affordable oil at the same time energy demand is skyrocketing. Because nations don’t yet know how to lift their people out of poverty without fossil fuels, economic development has become a zero-sum game that leads to resource wars. And speaking of wars, the most powerful military force in history has found again that it cannot be assured of winning them, even against enemies with relatively primitive weapons.

Candidate Obama was specific about what he intends to do on many of these issues. His campaign posted positions on the economy, education, energy, ethics, foreign policy, health care, homeland security, the war in Iraq, taxes, veterans, civil rights, national defense, social security and issues of particular concern to women, to name just a few of the planks in his platform. The campaign promised that President Obama would use “innovative approaches to challenge the status quo and get results” on solving “seemingly intractable problems”.

Those seemingly intractable problems aren’t for the faint of heart, or the politically cautious, or for elected leaders who allow themselves to be shackled by their parties. We can expect a struggle for Barack Obama’s soul between those who believe he must be a courageous, charismatic and transformative leader of epochal stature and those who believe he must govern from the center.

In its Nov. 1 issue, The Economist worried that President Obama might allow a “muddle-headed Democratic Congress” to damage the economy. The editors were comforted by assurances from unnamed Obama advisers that “he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington.”

Let’s hope not. There is a vast difference between a president who leads the nation and one who presides from a political comfort zone that appeases both the right and the left, or offends neither. When it comes to imperatives like controlling greenhouse gas emissions and weaning ourselves from disappearing energy resources, there is no “right” or “left”. There is only backward and forward. And on energy, climate and economic transformation, the challenge for America and the rest of the world is to move forward at warp speed, not with politically comfortable baby steps.

Let’s not mistake leadership with accommodation. The new Congress, however it is composed, will not be immune from the money and influence of the carbon lobby. In the final months of the presidential campaign, the candidates’ histories of “reaching across the aisle” became a litmus test of their ability to lead. When the McCain campaign alleged that Sen. Obama had never sought accommodation with Republicans in the Senate, the Obama campaign felt compelled to respond that “Senator Obama has reached out to Republicans to find areas of common ground. He has tried to break partisan logjams… (and) has accumulated a record of bipartisan success.”

But on the really important issues of our time, where incremental change is no longer enough, “accommodation” to the guardians of the old economy or those who want change in tiny doses, if at all, would be capitulation in search of a palatable synonym.

Let’s be clear about compromise, too. Science is science, not a negotiation. Compromise is an act of facilitation, not leadership. The voters’ desire for leadership appears to be one reason Sen. Obama prevailed over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. A Gallup poll in September 2007 found that three out of four Democrat voters favored the promise of change over political experience (in other words, the ability to play the political game) in their presidential candidates. It probably is a key reason, too, that Obama prevailed over John McCain after he allowed himself to be de-mavericked by the right wing of his party.

At this point in our history, the real test of Barack Obama’s leadership will be his ability to rally the American public around a commitment so indisputably necessary and strong – something akin to the final decision to enter World War II -- that a new majority is born in Congress, compromised of members of both parties who understand the importance of the moment, who grasp that a green economy is the only bright economy, that withdrawal is the only cure for oil addiction, and that climate change is the mother of national security issues. (In addition to these principled members, of course, the new majority will include those pragmatic congressmen and women who know a big parade when it’s about to pass them by, and fear they’ll lose their seats unless they appear to be leading it.)

We need a president who will take us to places our nation has not been before – an enlightened understanding of America’s role in an interdependent world; a radically different economic paradigm based on current solar income and conservation of natural capital; the full embrace of the symbiotic relationship between economy and ecology; unconditional acceptance that in a global economy and global environmental crisis, isolationism is not an option, if it ever was; and the long-delayed recognition that the age of fossil energy has, for all intents and purposes, come to an end. We need a rapid transformation of our values and priorities, as well as our vehicles, buildings, appliances, power plants and urban designs.

The best estimate of the world’s climate scientists and policy experts is that the greenhouse gas emissions from industrial economies must peak and begin to decline around 2015, a mere six years after President Obama moves into the White House. If we want any hope of stabilizing the climate, our energy supplies and our economy, that’s not a negotiable timetable and goal. If there is a way that reversing carbon emissions can be reconciled with more oil drilling and more conventional coal plants, the champions of old carbon economy have not yet explained it.

While he’s dealing with what might be the worst inheritance in presidential history, President Obama will need to prove to the centrists and conservatives in Congress and in his own party that transformation is good politics. He’ll have to turn Blue Dog Democrats into Green Dog Democrats, among other things. For that purpose, his bully pulpit and the lesser pulpits of those who voted for him in the interest of real change may be his most important allies.

To the many veterans of super-bowl politics inside the Beltway, it must seem improbable that this relative newcomer to Washington can handle the challenge, especially if he rejects triangulation and refuses Faustian bargains. But, as President Obama undoubtedly experienced on his long path to the White House, confounding the skeptics is one of the joys of true leadership.

President Obama has all the natural gifts he needs to make his moment America’s moment. The rest of us should encourage him to use those gifts to the fullest as he changes politics and America’s future for the better.

Meantime, for the many people who voted for Barack Obama because he promised to tackle the “seemingly intractable” challenge of establishing a new energy economy, our work – like his – has just begun.

-------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Related article: The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Becker, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP, Politics

The International Day of Peace

2008-10-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

by Greg Reitman

The International Day of Peace was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1981 for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace within and among all nations and people”. Twenty years later, the General Assembly set the date of September 21st to observe the annual occasion as a “day of global ceasefire and non-violence… through education and public awareness and to cooperate in the establishment of a global ceasefire”.

This year, 2008, I had the opportunity to be present at the 60th anniversary of the International Day of Peace and to introduce my new film, ‘Rooted in Peace’ to the United Nations. Among the participants were 192 children who each carried a flag representing the nations of the world. It was also the 60th anniversary for UN Peacekeeping operations and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The International Day of Peace session was opened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who rang the Peace Bell at 10:00 am on Friday, September 19th in the United Nations headquarters accompanied by UN Messengers of Peace, Jane Goodall, Elie Wiesel, Michael Douglas, and violinist Midori Goto, appointed as the messenger of Peace that day. United Nations offices and peacekeeping missions around the world also held events to commemorate the occasion with a minute of silence observed at 12 noon local time around the world on September 21st.

To encourage even greater awareness of this important day, the United Nations encouraged people around the world to send text messages for peace on or before September 21st. Messages of peace were then collected by the UN who presented them to world leaders gathered in New York for the 63rd General Assembly held on September 23rd, 2008.

Conflicts rooted in grievances caused by systematic human rights violations, discrimination, marginalization and impunity manifest themselves long before violence begins. In a time filled with despair and gloom, from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to clashes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Darfur, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, destructive violence continues to pervade our planet. This year, 27 million children live in conflict affected areas and more than 25 million in displaced homes. With the advent of war, our world society continues to cause the unnecessary loss of life and destroy the basic building blocks of our modern society such as education, health and justice systems and the maintenance of law and order.

Millions of people have crossed borders as refugees or been forced to live as internally displaced persons within their own countries. Thousands have been victims of sexually based violence, a consequence of the lawlessness that prevails during wartime and, increasingly, a tactic used by warring factions. Hundreds of thousands of children who live in war zones are denied the right to education, while lose basic social services such as shelter, sanitation, access to clean drinking water, health care and employment. The rule of law collapses, taking with it other rights, such as the right to a fair trial, and giving rise to abuses such as torture. Freedom of movement is curtailed as checkpoints and roadblocks are set up by State and non-State parties to a conflict.

Worst of all, people are killed in violation of their fundamental right to life.

In addition to alleviating suffering, the protection and restoration of human rights by State and non-State actors has proven essential for the realization of lasting peace and the avoidance of relapse into war. The return and reintegration of displaced populations and refugees, the accountability for past atrocities, the rebuilding of the judiciary and other foundations of a democratic society are an indispensable part of peace efforts and post-conflict reconstruction.

The United Nations is at the forefront of helping these victims of conflict to ease suffering and restore the basic rights of a normal life. The UN also continues to build upon the significant progress made in putting into place international human rights frameworks to protect victims of conflict and prevent its recurrence.

Currently, more than 100,000 troops, police and civilians are deployed with 17 peacekeeping operations around the world, in hotspots such as Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Middle East. The UN is undertaking political missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other global flash points. United Nations civilian and uniformed personnel are working to create stability, prevent sexual violence, rebuild schools and health facilities, and ensure that refugees and internally displaced persons are able to return to their homes.

The World Day of Peace is a more than a time for fun events and celebration, its time of remembrance and a call to action. It’s a time for each of us to make our own commitment of peace building in ourselves, our communities, our nation, and our planet. It has grown into a phenomenon of collaboration, meaningful conversations and an opportunity to reinforce positive change. It’s also a time where each of us has the ability to take into action and to demonstrate what peace means to both individuals and to the world. In what is one of fastest growing social movements on the planet, the global peace movement provides a shift in consciousness that is real and happening now as a signal for humankind to declare for our universal desire for peace.

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Guest contributor Greg Reitman is the founder of Blue Water Entertainment, Inc., an independent production company focusing on environmentally conscience entertainment. Regarded as Hollywood’s “Green Producer," Reitman produced the 2008 Sundance Audience Award-winning feature documentary “Fields of Fuel;” wrote, produced, and directed the feature documentary “Hollywood's Magical Island - Catalina" and is currently in production on a new feature documentary film, “Rooted in Peace.”

To learn more about Greg Reitman:

www.bluewatercompany.com
www.fieldsoffuel.com
www.gregreitman.com
www.myspace.com/gregreitman

Labels: Commentary, Greg Reitman, International Day of Peace, Peace, United Nations, War

John McCain's Big Lies

2008-09-15T03:31:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Published on Reuters, Chicago Sun-Times, The Huffington Post, Palm Beach Post

The disregard for the truth by the McCain campaign has produced lies so big that even those supporting Senator McCain are hard-pressed to deny that they're lies.

So why the recent flood of such big lies?

While they may be meant to reach undecided voters (they'd be happy to pick them up), it seems rather a tactic to engender an angry response from Senator Obama that they can then point to and say -- see, he's angry, ergo, ipso facto, he's dangerous, different, not like you and me.

Senator Obama seems unlikely to fall into that trap. He knows how to be angry and cool at the same time and both are needed now (along with more passion, please). Not that he doesn't have a right to be angry and hot, and not just for himself, but for all of us. Because, make no mistake, it is the American people upon which this tactical fraud is being perpetrated.

And not just tactical fraud. Orwellian fraud. A hallmark of the Bush years (see: Clear Skies Act). Strong is good, weak is bad (four legs bad, two legs good...); pull up your bootstraps (unless, as Senator Obama correctly points out, you don't have boots).

An example of where Obama has condensed his message, those missing boots, because the simple and direct thought is something the American people in this world of television, Internet(s) and immediate gratification seem to require. It is a message he will have to reinforce along with finding a way to relay the passion he feels for our country to those who yearn to support him.

But that's a different and far more honorable path than McCain's choice to plow the lowest road of big lies. Which makes me question what kind of country this would be with John McCain in charge, considering those running his campaign, should he win, would likely be the same people running the government.

And yet, we are told, John McCain is a maverick.

The distortions coming from the campaign make it impossible to determine who John McCain is beyond the noise, the distractions, the decision of his campaign to present him as the alpha male in the hope that fear and uncertainty will lead a majority to identify with the aggressor rather than one they try to make out as a victim or, if he fights back, as the outsider who cannot be trusted.

Psychology. Not truth.

History can be helpful in understanding the dangers of propaganda in a time of uncertainty, war, bank failures, foreclosures, stagflation, propaganda... What would be equally helpful is the moment of reflection that every American should allow themselves, in lieu of propaganda, to ask this question:

What will my life be like four years from now?

Chris Matthews addressed that question in a recent comment:

"Suppose the energy crunch has grown to cripple the economy, we're moving products, twenty years from now, on old railroads and gas guzzling trucks. The air becomes clogged with pollution again from fossil fuels because they're all we have. India, China, Russia and Brazil are, by then, grabbing and outbidding us for resources. Our failed education system has cost us our innovative edge. We can't compete. We might even have fallen back to a second rate power, we Americans. And the young people twenty years from now and the older folks who can remember it, will look back on the fall election of 2008 that set the course for this century and see videotapes of us arguing about lipstick...lipstick.
This game that's being played is not an insult to a candidate, it's an insult to the intelligence of our democracy, which is really all we have, each of us, to decide and build a future. Our only escape from all this is to force ourselves, against all the distractions, to think through the hearts and minds of those young people who will have to live in the world we are now deciding who's to build, who's to lead us to."

"An insult to the intelligence of our democracy, which, as stated above, is really all we have, each of us, to decide and build a future."

On a lighter, no less pertinent note, there is this admonishment from new citizen, Craig Ferguson:

It is time to listen to those who speak the truth about our responsibilities as citizens, our responsibility to our country's future as well as to the past we can never repeat -- not just the distant past -- but the last eight years that have led to financial ruin and never ending war.

Ask yourself what you want for your future because your future rests with your vote.

That's what we all have to remember.

Labels: Barack Obama, Chicago Sun-Times, Commentary, Huffington Post, John McCain, Palm Beach Post, Politics, Reuters

The Debate the American People Deserve

2008-09-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama addressed the controversies generated by the McCain campaign in what he called their "catnip for the media" through the purposeful false Republican outrage and swiftboating, and decried what the campaign has not been about: the debate the American people deserve.

Labels: Barack Obama, John McCain, Media, Politics, Swiftboating

A Filmmaker's 'Fields of Fuel'

2008-08-14T13:49:00.001-07:00

by Greg Reitman

Published on Reuters

Filmmaker Greg Reitman's first-hand account of the journey that led to his Sundance Award winning feature documentary, FIELDS OF FUEL.

Four years ago, I met environmentalist and filmmaker Josh Tickell at the Temecula Valley Film festival where we had both been invited to showcase our films. At the time, I had just finished my first documentary film "Hollywood’s Magical Island-Catalina," which won the Audience Award and was syndicated nationally on PBS. while Josh was finishing the festival tour of his short film, "The Veggie Van Voyage."

At the festival, we showcased and marketed our films together and began our friendship as I became truly amazed at Josh Tickell’s devotion to the environment and his cause towards cleaner energy. After twelve months of discussions about politics, family, religion, and, of course, the environment, Josh finally convinced me to join forces with him in producing the feature documentary film, ‘Fields of Fuel’:

I had no idea what I was getting involved with or the impact that this film would ultimately have worldwide. Over the next three years, we made numerous trips. Our first was to Portugal where we filmed the ‘Peak Oil’ Conference and interviewed experts like Colin Campbell and Mathew Simmons. These experts talked convincingly about Peak Oil and the reluctance of governments to accept this idea. I remember, in particular, Mathew Simmons' comment that, if the world were to understand that there was not enough oil to meet demand (Peak Oil), the resultant impact on the world's markets and the potential for escalating chaos could be exponential.

We flew from Portugal to Germany. The MAN Museum was a top priority, as Josh wanted to document the story of Rudolf Diesel and his diesel engine. Going through the archive and seeing the first diesel engine was electrifying. Even more electrifying was the revelation that the engine was designed to run on vegetable oil – a fact which had been pushed under the rug.

When we returned to America, Josh was ready to take his historical Veggie Van (the subject of his short film) back on the road. We gathered our supplies and coordinated the trip so that each stop would allow for the van to run on biodiesel (i.e. used vegetable oil) and soon, we were on the road with the mission to meet and film the legendary music singer/songwriter Willie Nelson.

As we drove across the country in the historical Veggie Van, we were greeted by hundreds of average Americans who were mesmerized with the flower van powered by biodiesel. We reached Dallas Texas where we interviewed Willie Nelson at the famous Carl’s Corner home of the Bio Willie station and continued on to Josh’s home state of Louisiana where we interviewed a legal expert on petroleum use and environmentalist activists.

While in Louisiana, we experience the threat of a hurricane. Fortunately, it changed direction and we continued our journey across the heartland of America through Colorado to Utah and back home to California, which was then followed by the hardship of Hurricane Katrina.

Until that time, I hadn't realized the global impact of our carbon footprint or the road Josh Tickell was climbing toward energy independence. Josh went back to his home state of Louisiana where he coordinated a relief mission to bring food and water to the survivors of Katrina. I flew onto New York to meet with Bill Clinton and to take part in the inaugural Clinton Global Initiative. I participated in climate program and met with Amory Lovins, a world renowned environmentalist expert. Amory talked about renewable solutions and the role government plays in the energy world. It was at that point I realized the role of government and how the film we were making touched on these crucial issues.

Josh and I regrouped in Los Angeles and flew out the next week to the motor city of Detroit to interview its automakers. At the International Automotive Show, we were greeted by gas guzzling cars and by the absence of the Big Three who were unwilling to participate in our project. I remember Josh filming the Hummers, and the security guards racing after us with questions about our film.

We managed to leave the show with our footage intact. The next day, I received another call from their security to meet with us. We were, however, already on a plane for to Washington, DC, which ended up being our most important shoot.

We had interviews with congressman, senators, the CIA and Department of Defense. No Republican, at that time, was willing to go on camera and talk about energy and the climate problem. That was when we knew we were touching on a nerve that affected every US citizen. I recall, in particular, an interview with former CIA Director Jim Woolsey who shed light on national security, our dependence on foreign oil and how tied the US government was to Middle Eastern oil interests.

On the return trip, I talked with Josh about the role of government and how each citizen played a part in the responsibility of their government. He began researching the globe on these issues and we headed to Sweden, the first country to announce its intention to become energy independent by 2020. We included the Environmental minister of Sweden in our footage as well as at the Swedish Int’l Auto Show. At the show, we saw flex fuels car reaching 60-100 mph per gallon. We also interviewed Stat Oil which talked about how their company worked with automotive companies to certify the fuel standards to make their country energy independent, while our own government was increasingly perplexing us with their resistance to change.

Upon our return, Josh became adamant that we document the green movement in the USA and create a storyline that was shaped with empowerment and hope, rather than doom. We made a point to film the alternative energy movement, where we learned of a company called Solazyme that makes biodiesel from carbon waste water (i.e. algae into fuel).

This was a critical point in the story: the idea of sustainability and finding an alternative energy which would not deplete our natural resources or our food supply.

To that end, I became empowered to help Josh complete his vision of Fields of Fuel as I realized this was an issue that affected everyone. The journey was hard and arduous but was well worth taking. Most rewarding was the 2008 Sundance Audience Award; the idea that people voted for our film and, thereby, had voted for their elected representatives to a stand on the idea of preservation and balance on an issue that affects us all.

Fields of Fuel will be released theatrically in mid-September. To learn more about the film you can go to www.fieldsoffuel.com.

Guest contributor Greg Reitman is the founder of Blue Water Entertainment, Inc., an independent production company focusing on environmentally conscience entertainment. Regarded as Hollywood’s “Green Producer," Reitman produced the 2008 Sundance Audience Award-winning feature documentary “Fields of Fuel;” wrote, produced, and directed the feature documentary “Hollywood's Magical Island - Catalina" and is currently in production on a new feature documentary film, “Rooted in Peace.”

To learn more about Greg Reitman:

www.bluewatercompany.com
www.fieldsoffuel.com
www.gregreitman.com
www.myspace.com/gregreitman

Labels: Biofuel, Commentary, Documentary, Environment, Fields of Fuel, Film, Greg Reitman, Josh Tickell, Oil, Peak Oil, Reuters, Solazyme, Sundance Film Festival

A New Climate Reality

2008-07-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

by The Environmentalist Staff

The world is changing so fast, it's often difficult to see it in context. We watch it from a mathematical point of view, points on a graph, comparative analyses, blips on radar from sensors slapped on the bows of ships, dry bits of brain matter fighting the brain freeze caused by information overload of drought on the Southwest U.S., typhoon caused floods in Bangladesh, tornadoes in the U.S. and where is all that snow coming from?

It begins to look horrifyingly familiar: one person's agony is another's data.

Once in a while, however, we do try to step back and take empathetic stock.

First and foremost with the actual climate events: storm, drought, wind, fire, flood.

There are the forces (forcings) behind those events: The increase in greenhouse gases, the loss of glaciers and sea ice, the inability of the Southern Ocean to function as a carbon sink (in case you were wondering why things seemed to be changing so quickly), the greater wind speeds due to the increased temperature differential between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, pollution, of course; the C02 released into the atmosphere from the recent fires in Southern California and in Greece last summer and don't get me started on whether the Methane once trapped in the tundra, now no more, is over-hype or horror...

Then there is the impact upon so many species, fully one-third of which the new IPCC report warns may be lost due to climate change. Polar bears are the most obvious indicator, but there are also the diminishing pollinators we depend upon, which could be climate change or misuse of colonies, or disease, or all of the above; the coral in the Great Barrier Reef, the wolves that are about to be removed from the endangered list, so hunters can shoot them and put them back on again...

One might begin to understand why we gravitate toward cold data over warming empathy.

Then there was a curious incident in Northern Ireland recently. Don't know if you heard about it, but a ten-mile wide migration of billions of Mauve Stinger Jellyfish swam, as one, all the way to the Northern Irish Sea and killed every Salmon within their reach (est. 100,000).

The fishermen who desperately tried to reach the trapped fish (there were wide nets placed a mile offshore to create a near-wild farm environment) stopped and stared in shock as they faced a solid block of glowing red jellyfish to the horizon, and then in horror when they realised they could not get through to their prized and beloved stock, the salmon that had been so revered, it had been served at the Queen's table for her 80th birthday. The salmon died.

What makes this alarming, aside from the fact that billions of glowing red jellyfish killed 100,000 salmon, was that they traveled from the warm waters of the Mediterranean to (what are supposed to be) the cold waters of the North Irish Sea to do it.

Scientists have attributed it to global warming. We have not seen their data, but we doubt we've seen the last of this type of bizarre event.

Which is our way saying that, no matter what the outcome of the Bali Conference, no matter who signs onto the resultant climate accord or to its predecessor, Kyoto, as they should have done years ago (thank you, Kevin Rudd), no matter how much time Al Gore spends with George W in the Oval Office showing him his Nobel medal, while the Bush administration insists they can make a better climate deal than Kyoto...

Without mentioning the deals behind the scenes being worked out between Bush and Putin and Beijing to emasculate the binding portions of the upcoming Bali Accord...

It is time for everyone to adjust to a new reality.

That reality includes the need for increased humanitarian commitment, as evidenced by the US Naval vassels that recently arrived in Bangladesh to provide aid. It includes following Australia's lead and voting in a greener US leader. That's an interesting feature to the Bali Conference, by the way -- the way everyone's talking about how we just need to wait out George Bush -- while not wanting to hear a tall, skinny ex-patriot Scot who tries to remind his colleagues that there's still Putin and the Chinese and the Sudenese and the Burmese (I will not dignify that regime with the name they chose), and the (fill in blank)...

The time is now, not a bit over a year from now, to change policy.

Which has become a written commitment from diverse and, in some cases, unlikely sources. Are you aware that Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp is among the big business signatories calling for binding carbon targets to come out of Bali? As this post points out, when even Fox News calls for policy change on global warming, it's time to deny the deniers a voice.

And then there was this report from the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College warning that climate change will lead to political instability and, potentially, to global war.

Our empathy meter is now pinned with fear.

In the long run, the solution, of course, includes weaning everyone off oil. It includes everyone reducing their carbon footprint. But those are big ideas and far removed from most peoples' consciousness and everyday life.

But, perhaps, not for long. The question of the new reality is how everyone will learn to live in an increasingly unstable climate, where droughts last months instead of weeks, and then years instead of months. Where storms speed up as they approach land (Cyclone Sidr). Where floods happen so fast they defy forecast. Where food becomes less tasty, less nutritious, less interesting, as we lose more pollinators. Where the loss of species becomes a psychic wound upon the planet's soul because we can feel that loss, even if we can't identify the empty hole in both our planet's and our own souls as they go.

We all must do what we can to reverse climate change. No one should give up because we've let it go too far. But it's a new reality that the loss of the carbon sink in the Southern Ocean has sped up the timetable for change and we now have to adjust to that new reality while we work to reverse that change. That includes facing the pain that empathy brings when we peer out from under our numbers and realize that there are millions who will be leading a very different life. It also means facing the many enemies we'll have created as the deprivation of drought and flood topples unstable governments, providing new footholds for extremism where none existed before.

It's been a hell of a fossil fuel party we've been enjoying for the last century or so. It's time to clean up, do the dishes, recycle the garbage, polish the windows, and walk (don't drive) outside.

Labels: Climate Change, Commentary, Environment, Global Warming, Lifestyle

Obama and My Achy Breaky Heart

2008-07-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen

Last week I was quoting the great poet Emily Dickinson to express my unease about the Obama campaign's swing to the right which is now erroneously called the middle. The radical right has been falsely claiming that ours is a conservative country -- forgetting that we were born in revolution and have thrived on revolutionary invention, innovation, the expansion of human rights and the use of talents that cross racial and class barriers. As a sign of how far the right wing has succeeded in creating a new reality, this past Sunday The New York Times Magazine in its cover story anointed Rush Limbaugh a genial voice of America, a good guy disguised as a snarling bully, just an entertainer at heart, a kind of genius rap artist, a seller of right wing political products with a heart of gold and a toilet seat to match. So much for the judgment of the Times and its editors, and the effectiveness of the past years of conservative propaganda.

I hate to join Limbaugh's knee jerk attacks on Obama but I've had some doubts lately, and though reluctant to express them, I've never had a doubt that I could hold back on. What Limbaugh mocks in Obama is what drew me to him, the idealism, and the possibility of his leading America with fresh insights and courageous decisions. I am one among many who saw in Obama a chance for America's moral and economic restoration, and like most folks who give their heart to someone, I don't take easy to disappointment. So I am abandoning Emily Dickinson and going hard core today, quoting the lyrics of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart," a song that has survived the early nineties better than Bill Clinton's reputation as a great politician. Sorry Emily, I love you dearly, but sometimes there is nothing but country music to tell it like it is. I offer a few of its choice lyrics. It's a plea for Barack not to toy with my affections and to stay the Barack who won my heart.

"Oh, you can tell your friends just what a fool I've been

And laugh and joke about me on the phone...

But don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart

I just don't think it'd understand...

You can tell your Ma I've moved to Arkansas

Or you can tell your dog to bite my leg...

But don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart

I just don't think it'd understand...

Ooo"

Here are a few steps on the road to heartbreak. Obama fudging on FISA, fudging on the Court's gun control strike-down, the faith based charity funding -- no way that it doesn't compromise the separation of church and state. So far Obama seems to be testing the waters, seeing what will work for him in order to gain more independent voters, while still keeping his core beliefs intact. There's some fudging going on here but not yet the world-class flip-flopping such as George W. promising the electorate that he would have nothing to do with nation building.

Flip flopping as we know it today is the exclusive province of John McCain: once anti-torture, now pro torture, once a friend of judicial moderates now the would be appointer of more Roberts/Alito justices, enemy of evangelical bullies, now a man who never met a right wing evangelist he wouldn't hug. He's the undisputed champ of the flip-flop. I am expecting Obama to continue to speak out about the wrongs of torture, the obscenity of the oil profits, and the forlorn and forgotten American worker reeling under NAFTA. I expect him to stand fast on the Bill of Rights and see the Constitution as a living document, not as the Dead Sea Scrolls. I am looking over my left shoulder and I don't like some of what I see calling itself "moderation" because it looks like a losing strategy shaped by experts whose expertise is in knowing how to lose elections.

Of course over my right shoulder is John McCain, a gas bag who in the name of fuel economy has become a wind-bag. Give him presidential power and that arrogant political hack (Keating Five) disguised as a maverick will complete the wreckage of the country that George W. Bush set in motion. Right now the pussycat press seems content to live with its McCain delusions. He is their revered POW and affable guest on Saturday Night Live. So who cares if he has no plans for this economically distraught country? So what if he is clueless? How bad can he be? Plenty! He is more dangerous than Dick Cheney because he wears a smile over his sneer, tells jokes that cover his irrational explosiveness, and carries his ignorance with senatorial pride. He doesn't have a notion as to what he will do to extricate us from the myriad economic and global messes of his predecessors, other than appoint more repressive, right wing judges to the court. What will a McCain Presidency accomplish in its first hundred days? If he sweeps in some additional Republican Congressmen and Senators we will finally have that offshore and Alaskan drilling that will ultimately end up in millions of Chinese and Indian cars that will complete the polluting of a suffocating universe. And of course there will be more tax breaks to stimulate the economy at Cartier and Tiffany? Against such a man there is no choice for me. Obama with all his flaws and his threat to my achy breaky heart keeps my vote. I suppose I'm just a fool for love.

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Contributing writer, Sherman Yellen, screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist, has won two Emmy Awards, first for his drama John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America. His Beauty and the Beast was nominated for an Emmy and won the Christopher Award. Yellen was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the Broadway musical, The Rothschilds. Yellen's other plays include Strangers, December Fools and Josephine Tonight! Sherman Yellen received a lifetime achievement award in Arts and Letters from Bard College.
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Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Commentary, John McCain, politics, Sherman Yellen

My Mother: A Nana for Obama

2008-06-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen

Published on Chicago Sun-Times

I can truly say that I was the youngest person in America to vote for FDR in his first term election. When she pulled the lever for Roosevelt I was in my mother’s womb, so I suppose I could be called an intra-utero Democrat. My mother, Lillian Yellen, is long gone now. Had she lived she would be one hundred and five and voting for Obama. She was run down by a reckless driver in Manhattan twenty five years ago as she was bringing some food to a poor, sick woman who was a member of her Hadassah group. That driver jumped the curb while she was waiting for a light to change and took her life. Mother was eighty at the time. We rented the smallest room in the Riverside Chapel for the funeral service knowing that she had outlived most of her friends and family and believing that few would come to the ceremony of a private woman who was not famous. But to our amazement the room soon overflowed with so many people we had never met, and we were obliged to hold the service in the largest room available for the many whose lives she had touched with her wisdom and quiet generosity, the many who came to pay her tribute.The reason for this crowd was simple. Mother cared about the welfare of others on both a personal and a political level, and she did it naturally, graciously. Generosity was her gift, her talent, her life’s work. She simply helped those in need on a daily basis, and her politics were simple: vote for people and programs that would improve the lives of those in need. And since such progressive programs were “good for the Jews” it was an easy decision for her to make.

As a three year old Jewish child who had escaped the pogroms of Russia, she understood oppression, and as an adult who had seen the consequences of the Holocaust she cared deeply about the fate of Israel as a homeland for the survivors. My mother, Lilly, had grown up in great poverty and knew life shattering tragedy early on. As a nine year old child she experienced within a year the loss of her mother, her older sister and brother to the “white death” of tuberculosis when they lived in squalid conditions on the Lower East Side. Her first school teacher was a Miss Emily Stokes, a young African American woman who favored the beautiful motherless Lilly, helping her with her lessons, teaching her the lovely flowing handwriting she used for a lifetime, and giving her a wonderful rag-doll, the only doll my mother would ever own. That personal experience Lilly had of the daughter of a former slave taught my mother to see beyond skin color to the value of the humanity within. But she was soon obliged to leave school and the comfort of Miss Stokes to help support the younger, surviving children in the family.

Denied a higher education by the poverty which forced her to work from twelve years on, it was my mother’s astonishing beauty that kept her from the sweat-shop factories that swallowed young immigrant girls alive. She found work as a dress model in an elegant showroom/salon, later she managed a dress shop, met and married my father, and began their family, which was made up of my older sister; and later me, Sherman, the pre-natal voter. Mother found what she had always wanted, children to whom she could devote herself, educate, and pass on her values; and ultimately the grandchildren who called her Nana and loved her absolutely. Although she had a cheerful disposition and a brilliant smile, like many Jews of her time the Holocaust was a cause for an unsettling private guilt and grief. There were those troubling unspoken questions: Was there something more that could have been done to save those who were murdered in Europe? Was the revered FDR remiss in keeping the lid on pre-war immigration for the persecuted European Jews and for later failing to bomb the German and Polish railways that carried the Jews to their deaths? These unanswered questions shook the souls of many a Jew and non-Jew. She joined Hadassah to make certain that Israel would be a safe refuge for Jews everywhere.

My family was called “comfortable” in the early years of the Great Depression, a little below rich and a lot above poor. Mother never took her new prosperity for granted. And she never forgot those she left behind as her own life improved. The flaunting of wealth that we see everywhere today would have seemed disgusting to her. Not wanting to show off before her less fortunate neighbors when she went out to the theatre for an evening with my father, my mother would carry her new fur coat in a large paper grocery bag together with her jewelry, only putting it on when she was well out of sight of those who did not share her prosperity. Modesty, an unknown virtue today, was at the core of her nature. She knew that she was one of the lucky ones, and that good fortune was something to be shared, not flaunted.

She might suffer occasional doubts about FDR but my mother always regarded Republicans as the spawn of the devil, suspecting them of a corrupt greed and an endemic anti-Semitism, the kind she saw in Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford. We would never own a Ford car as long as that old bigot lived, so we saw the world in our merry Oldsmobile. Mother had a shorthand way of knowing who to trust and who to avoid. She would have taken one look at John McCain and seen a man driven by ruthless ambition, an ally of all the haves in the world, an unconvincing impersonator of a good guy; the self-proclaimed protector of America, but not a protector of her America which honored the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Mother was less a liberal than an old fashioned moralist, loyalty was all to her, and McCain’s abandonment of his first wife Carol for the newer, richer Cindy, after Carol had waited out the years of his POW imprisonment would have been viewed by her as disloyalty and opportunism, and forever bought her distrust. I doubt if her view of FDR and JFK would have remained the same had she known of their extramarital shenanigans. She was very much a woman of her time who believed in the sacredness of the marital vows. For her it would not be about hanky-panky but a violation of honor.

I was recently advised by my brother-in-law Ed who lives in Florida that many, if not most of my mother’s counterparts - present day Hadassah members - will be voting for McCain. Although Ed is for Obama, he thought it would be a waste of time for the Democratic candidate to campaign in Florida. He warned that Obama has lost the white working class vote as well as the elderly Jewish vote that had once been solidly Democratic. Many older Jewish voters cannot separate Obama from some of his unsavory predecessors, and the rants of Reverend Wright helped evoke that Jessie Jackson “Hymietown” remark, and all the Al Sharpton demagoguery, as well as the rabid anti-Semitism in some of those Farrakhan Muslims who identify with the Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Sadly, these elders fail to hear the bigoted rants of the evangelical supporters of McCain, which can best be described as “not good for the Jews” and they forget their own occasional forays into bigotry. Sadly, they fail to see the Barak Obama who stands high above such racial politics.

That alliance of Jews and African-Americans once so important in changing the culture of segregation in the country has been sundered, particularly in regards to Israel. Quite a few older Jews feel betrayed knowing that so many Jews were active in the Civil Rights movement, and that some young Jews gave their lives for it. Based on a fear of Obama’s race these elderly voters cannot see the good man who stands before them, and they are ready to vote for a mediocre, untrustworthy candidate who will pack the Supreme Court with the kind of radical conservatives who will threaten their grand-children’s freedoms. My mother would tell them that they are turning away from the one candidate who represents the liberal Jewish tradition, who happens to be black, the one man who could offer the most hope for the future of the American family, and for the security of Israel itself, because intelligent plans for the Middle East, not saber rattling, is the only way to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It would be a cruel irony if those people who suffered Hitler’s racial hatred could not see beyond Obama’s race to his decency and intelligence. I grew up in a racist world; my family was an oasis of good sense in a desert of bigotry. I can recall that as a small boy walking with my Dad during a holiday in Florida we passed the Kenilworth Hotel in Miami Beach (the favored vacation spot of Arthur Godfrey) and I saw a sign, “No Jews or Dogs Allowed.” I was just old enough to read and to be confused by it. My Dad said that the sign announced that fools lived there. This was the same city that forbade black hotel workers from staying in the city after nightfall. Times have changed a great deal in seventy years but for those who will not vote for Obama because he is black, my father’s words still hold, “Fools live there.”

Of course some are listening to the anti-Obama drumbeat of former New York Mayor Ed Koch, whose resemblance to the Chief Eunuch of the Last Empress of China is now quite astonishing, (God will play these little jokes) and that smiling old crock Joe Lieberman who hangs on McCain like lichen on a rock. Add “9/11 forever” Rudy Giuliani and you find a group of powerful men awash in personal nastiness and grudges; all eager to exaggerate any small misstep that Obama has made and exploit the fears of the “other” in the older voter. These are the star spangled front men for McCain and his never-ending Iraq war, passengers on the long derailed straight talk express.

Truth is, if my mother was still alive she would have first supported Hillary Clinton. She admired the grit of women who rose in the world from Eleanor Roosevelt to Francis Perkins to Golda Mier. But after Clinton lost the nomination she would be telling her friends that Obama was the best hope we have for our grandchildren, the man who will see that they will not fight in Bush’s misbegotten forever wars, that Obama is the only hope for an America that is not permanently split into two classes, rich and poor.

Mother would recognize that Obama’s wife Michelle was so like her own mother and grandmother, a feisty independent woman who struggled hard for a better life, loves her kids, and speaks her mind– not always tactfully – but honestly. “Remember Eleanor Roosevelt?” she would ask her friends. “This Obama woman is cut to her pattern. And if Israel is your concern, McCain will only continue the Bush policies spurred on by those evangelicals who want to see Israel fulfill some crazy biblical prophecy that will end in its destruction and the elevation of these nuts to a restricted Kenilworth heaven.” I know I am putting a great many words in a deceased woman’s mouth, but I know my mother’s mind, even decades after her death, and she would forgive me for this bit of filial chutzpah if it would help Obama, her candidate for her grandchildren.

Some may not wish to listen to me because I don’t carry strong Jewish credentials. I can’t claim to be more than a cultural Jew, one who enjoys Mel Brooks’ jokes, chopped chicken liver, Woody Allen’s early movies, and Dr. Brown’s cream soda. I don’t go to Temple; I am a non-believer, not proud of that, nor ashamed of it. I enjoy my secular life without guilt. Still, my beliefs shift with each new experience. An afternoon spent playing with my amazing three year old grand-daughter can often convince me of the existence of a benign God in a world of wonders. But time spent among some bigoted adults makes me doubt again. I do know this. It is deep within the Jewish tradition to honor those who came before us; we light memorial candles for our dead. But most Jews know that it is far more important to honor those who are going to live long after we are gone; our children and our grand-children. And to do so we must vote with our minds, our hearts, and not from our fears. Simply said, my mother would have voted for Obama to keep her promise to the future, “for the sake of the kids.” And I hope that many of those in Florida, and elsewhere, who are now planning to vote for McCain, think again, change their minds, and remember to vote not from past grievances and fears, but for a better future for their children and grandchildren. The world is not a gated community. It takes a great leader to break down barriers and create new understanding among people. So Lillian Yellen says hello to you in Florida. She’s over there: the good looking ghost in the Chanel style knitted suit with the Obama button on her lapel, the one carrying that large paper grocery bag with her fur coat hidden inside.

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Contributing writer, Sherman Yellen, screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist, has won two Emmy Awards, first for his drama John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America. His Beauty and the Beast was nominated for an Emmy and won the Christopher Award. Yellen was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the Broadway musical, The Rothschilds. Yellen's other plays include Strangers, December Fools and Josephine Tonight! Sherman Yellen received a lifetime achievement award in Arts and Letters from Bard College.
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Labels: Barack Obama, Commentary, History, John McCain, Chicago Sun-Times, Politics, Sherman Yellen

Thoughts on Eco-Spirituality

2008-06-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post, Earth911

Native Americans have a tradition of dancing to bring forth rain. Whether their ceremony results in their thirst being quenched depends on which anecdotal story one chooses to believe. But the Rain Dance in its various incarnations or rather its more conventional equivalent -- the expression of prayer by the devout for a higher power to intervene and for the faithful to do their part to bring about resolution-- has been making a reappearance around the globe as the visual and visceral evidence of climate change presents itself in stark and unforgiving ways.

Examples include the Pope's speech at an eco-youth rally, where he said: “A decisive ’yes’ is needed in decisions to safeguard creation as well as a strong commitment to reverse tendencies that risk leading to irreversible situations of degradation."

This prayer for desperately needed rain by Imam Fikret Latifoglu at Ankara's Hacibayram Mosque: "We stand before you, we beg you to answer our prayers, don't leave innocent children and the old, animals who cannot speak for themselves, the trees, the ants and the birds without water. We helplessly beg for Your mercy."

The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, which has been working since the mid-1980's to raise awareness that "our home planet Earth is undergoing rapid and sustained destruction of its eco-systems."

Christian evangelist, Rev. Richard Cizik, whose Creation Care movement represents 45,000 churches, stated that "global warming and global hunger are inescapably linked," (which put him at odds with Ted Haggard’s objections to environmentalism. Cizik's work continues. Haggard's, not so much...).

COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, which cites the Midrash as its motivation: "See my works, how fine and excellent they are! All that I created, I created for you. Reflect on this and do not corrupt or desecrate my world; for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you," for its work with the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (the COEJL, the National Council of Churches, the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, and the Evangelical Environmental Network) to advocate on global climate change and energy conservation.

There's Eastern Orthodoxy, whose first day of their ecclesiastical calendar (September 1st) has been a declared annual day of prayer for the protection of the environment for 300 million parishioners worldwide since 1989.

And Zoroastrianism, which has as its precept the obligation “to protect nature in all its glory” and celebrates its new year on the spring equinox (called Newroz, it’s evolved into a legend about the overthrow of an ancient tyrant, but is still observed as a spring festival in Iran, by the Parsee of India and by millions of Kurds worldwide).

None of that has stopped global warming skeptics, minimizers and deniers from insisting that environmentalism itself has become a religion and to cite Hollywood as its central church.

It was 109 F degrees in Los Angeles last weekend.

They should visit.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the one-time leader of the Soviet Union (not a religious position) who is now the leader of Global Green, USA, did visit and is working with Brad Pitt, one of those Hollywood 'environmental evangelists', to help rebuild New Orleans.

And then there's Leonardo DiCaprio, another Hollywood environmentalist, whose new film, The 11th Hour, has been receiving positive reviews across the nation.

Oh, and An Inconvenient Truth, of course.

But environmentalism is not a Hollywood intellectual property. While the environment may have become topic du jour for some and a near religious calling for others, it is a religious issue for this Grist list of 15 "green" religious leaders that includes: the Patriarch of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Dalai Lama, an Episcopal Reverend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Pope, the leader of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology, an Australian theologian, the head of the American Rabbis' Committee on the Environment, a Dominican Nun, a member of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, a Unitarian reverend, a Methodist theologian, and Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest who refers to himself as a 'Geologian.'

The comments on the Grist article are worthy of note, as well. They include suggestions for the list from other countries/world religions that are making a significant contribution.

And there's the robust environmental movement of South Asia (India, Nepal...), Harvard's FORE (Forum on Religion and Ecology) research into the environmental traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Indigenous American Indians, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the eco-spiritualism of so many other indigenous cultures on every continent.

Which doesn’t negate the considerations from the other side of the argument. This includes those who interpret the science differently, who focus on which greenhouse gas is more impactful (I’ll trade you twenty carbon credits for a methane credit on Tuesday if you’ll buy me a methane-emitting hamburger today…), the support services who genuinely worry about the impact of environmental regulation on the third-world and more than a few who seem more worried about their corporate bottom line than their impact on planet earth.

But anyone who labels environmentalism as a religion in the hope that it will invalidate the movement is as out of touch with reality as those who cite religion as an obstacle to environmentalism. While there are religious groups who eschew environmentalism, the overall environmental movement is as diverse as humanity itself. It includes the deeply religious, those for whom the environment has become a religion, professionals who keep their religion to themselves as they seek to validate the science and a growing number of ordinary citizens who are beginning to sense that something has gone terribly wrong.

It is a global epiphany.

History Lessons

2008-06-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

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Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

In her recent speech at the Conference on World Affairs, Rachel Maddow cited James Madison's warning about the unitary executive, the propensity of an unchecked executive branch to lean toward war, whereas the legislature would be more likely to debate the issue before moving toward conflict.

Maddow's supposition, that the Bush administration's seeming incompetence, its torture memos, its rush to war, was by design -- Bush and Cheney's direct effort to shift power to the executive and, thereby, to shift the entire country to a more warlike stance -- does have historical precedence.

I'm not referring to Madison, though he did warn of this, or Jefferson, who raised prescient concern about undue influence, but earlier in history to the systems that Madison and Jefferson used as the inspiration for their grand experiment: The Roman Republic of Caesar's time and the Greek democracy of Solon.

This is not to say that George W. Bush is Julius Caesar or that any of his lawgivers (like the ones who approved that torture memo) are Solon. But there are interesting parallels to the way that Caesar and his contemporaries used war to further their wealth and political ambitions, as well as to the actions that Solon's contemporaries took to undermine codified law.

Need a better seat in the Roman Senate? Get yourself posted to Hispania (Spain). Need funds to run a campaign for consul (president) or junior consol (vice-president)? Go to war with Gaul (France).

Need to prove yourself in an ill-timed, ill-thought out adventure in Parthia (Syria, Iraq, Iran)? Be like Crassus and attack preemptively and get your army decimated in the process.

For Solon, the author of democracy? Have a law that your opponents don't like? Make it good for ten years after you leave office. Solon did that with laws we'd likely support (limiting unfair financial practices toward the poor...). Bush? Tax cuts for the rich. Which would have been fine with the corporate interests in Greece (known as oligarchs - that's where the word comes from), who made sure Solon's attempts at fairness wouldn't last by overthrowing his protégé, Pisistratus, leading to periods of instability broken only by the need for the people came together to fight a common enemy (interchangeable between Persia, the Peloponnesians, Philip of Macedonia...).

Alexander and his successors put a stop to that (for a while), after which, Rome reduced Greece to a province in their march to rule the world. But the struggles between the wide ideals of democracy and the narrow interests of oligarchy have never gone away. Indeed, it should be familiar to those who look askance at the hundreds of millions of dollars required to run a presidential campaign and are now (finally) questioning how the common interests of the people could have any meaning in such an environment.

Maddow reminded us, in her speech, that John McCain's warlike stance, his 'bomb, bomb, bomb Iran' sung to the tune of the Beach Boys' BARBARA ANN, is the logical extension of the Bush administration's signing statements and its lawyers that looked to their own ideology to interpret the law to their liking -- the unitary executive that has been signed and codified in the back rooms of the White House.

Her warning, that the nation itself has become inured to war, bears witness to the fact that we're in two wars simultaneously, and, if [not the maverick he claims to be] McCain has his way, we will enter a third (Iran); no doubt with our already over-stretched military marching to the tune of 'bomb, bomb, bomb Iran' after the bombing itself has served to turn a proud population of ordinary Iranians -- who, for the most part, admire Americans (they just don't like our or their government) -- into fervent nationalists hell-bent on defending their ancient land.

Rome fell under its own weight of over-extension in war and occupation, after their leadership had become increasingly out of touch with their population, had neglected real enemies in favor of chosen ones who's been misperceived as easy conquests, after a widening between upper and lower classes that had stressed their merchant (middle) class to the point where they were relying more upon slaves (I am Spartacus) than their own ingenuity, resulting in a tax base, no longer able to afford a bloated government, that gave over its power to emperors who filled their armies with foreign mercenaries, increased their debt to an impossible level and bled their own provinces dry until there was nothing left but the enemies they'd created all over the world.

The old adage: we can learn from history or we can repeat it. For the last seven years, we've been repeating the worst of history. The upcoming election will be an opportunity to rewrite our own future history in one of two ways -- either as an inspiration for generations to come or a continuation of our own indifference to history that has resulted in the outcome we see today.

LABELS: COMMENTARY, GEORGE W. BUSH, HISTORY, HUFFINGTON POST, JOHN MCCAIN, POLITICS, RACHEL MADDOW, WAR

Russert-Mania

2008-06-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen

You can chalk up the following to jealousy if you wish. When I die I am sure to be mourned by my wife, my sons, and my cat. Maybe. I’m not so sure about the cat. When Tim Russert died last week I watched with amazement the unending flow of homage, the tributes, and the tears, most of it genuine, some of it self-serving, all of it repeated on a twenty four hour cycle. On every channel, every cable news show there were Russert’s best friends – of which there appear to be so many that the poor man must have had a hard time getting any work done. There is soon to be a People Magazine cover of Russert, possibly replacing Tiger Woods or Angelina Jolie. No doubt about it, this was a love fest unseen since Woodstock, only here youthful nudity was replaced by tearful anecdotes as to what a good guy was gone, what a great reporter was now silenced, and what a super husband and father, what a noble son was lost too soon. And too soon it was. No man should die at the height of his powers at 58. Truly a sad event. Russert was at the top of his game when he died. And yet…and yet…something didn’t smell right to me.

I can recall the death of Edward R. Murrow, a journalist who changed the course of history with his war reportage and his probing peace-time questions. First, he brought to us the suffering and the grit of Londoners during the Blitz. And then, he single-handedly started the movement to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was recklessly poisoning the well of this democracy. When Murrow died, many mourned, but it was nothing compared to the grief-o-rama shown by the media for Russert these past days. What I finally concluded was that this mourning for Russert on the part of his fellow journalists was self-serving, it was “Look at us; we’re not such bad guys after all. Jolly Tim was a good guy – and we’re good guys too if you only take the time to look.”

Come on folks; let’s face a few inconvenient facts. For the past eight years we have been lied into a dreadful, failed war, the economy has been mismanaged into a recession, America has lost its reputation as the bastion of good-government (thanks to the tortured bodies and tortured truths of the Bush years); an environment besieged, and soaring gas prices which promise inflationary prices on basics such as food. Thousands of old people will not be able to afford their medications, and thousands of young people will be denied a higher education as the result of these past years. It was a time when the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the middle class got squeezed as never before. And this happened on Mr. Russert’s watch. Russert was in no way responsible for these events; he was after all a journalist not a law maker and a pretty good journalist too. But as a “Meet the Press” news-watcher I marveled at Russert’s alleged fairness which gave the same respect to Dick Cheney’s lies as it did to Al Gore’s truths. Fair is the operative word here. Tim Russert was always fair – and to be always fair to your powerful guests means that you are often if not always unfair to your powerless country. Where were the probing questions on “Meet the Press” in the run up to the war? Here was this devoutly religious journalist who managed to compartmentalize his morality so that it never spoke up on critical issues that affected this country deeply. Sad to say, Mr. Russert was just a more genial version of the mainstream press – another guy who failed to do his job properly, but failed while looking jolly which helped make his failure appear to be a success. He had something close to the bully pulpit in “Meet the Press”, and with his failure to probe deeply for the truth, it cost the lives of so many Americans and Iraqis, and the consequences of his unasked questions will be with us for decades to come. Without taking back a word of the above I wish him to rest in peace, and feel for his family in their loss, for he was clearly a good and loving man. Just not a very good journalist if you believe that a journalist should have but one friend - the truth.
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Contributing writer, Sherman Yellen, screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist, has won two Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, first for his drama John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America. His Beauty and the Beast was nominated for an Emmy and won the Christopher Award. Yellen was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the Broadway musical, The Rothschilds. Yellen's other plays include Strangers, December Fools and Josephine Tonight! Sherman Yellen received a lifetime achievement award in Arts and Letters from Bard College.
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Labels: Commentary, Edward R. Murrow, Media, Sherman Yellen, Tim Russert, War

A Letter to Two Wives

2008-05-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen

Cross-posted on Chicago Sun-Times

In the 1949 film, “A Letter to Three Wives,” three women receive letters from an unseen character telling them that she, their friend, Addie Ross, had run off with one of their husbands. Since the Joseph Mankiewicz film dropped two of the “Five Wives” of the original story on which it was based, I feel free to drop one wife more for the purposes of this post. The letter I write below is to Michelle Obama, and to Cindy Hensley McCain, and I’m not the kind of guy to run off with either of your husbands. No Addie Ross me. But one of you will discover what it is to be deeply disappointed and sadly surprised this year, when your beloved spouse loses the big one and disappoints your hopes for him, and yourself. Both of you are strong defenders of your husbands, while being women of accomplishment. But only one of you has come under attack of the main stream press, and that says something about America today that’s worth exploring.

Dear Cindy and Michelle. If you don’t mind we’ll start with you Cindy, after all, you are accustomed to having pride of place at any gathering. Cindy, it is hard for me to find fault with a woman who devoted her early years to treatment of children with severe disabilities, one who founded the American Voluntary Medical team to provide MASH style care to disaster areas, and personally participated in fifty five of their missions, without a blonde hair, or a remark out of place. You are Mother Theresa in an Armani suit. You are undoubtedly kind and deeply charitable. And real lucky. For eight years you have been the chair of your late father’s beer business Hensley &Co, earning for yourself some four hundred thousand dollars a year. Your good works go on and on from Operation Smile to CARE to an organization that removes land mines in Cambodia. And you have learned to smile your way through some abusive language that your salt of the earth husband has aimed at you – sober. Ah, Cindy, if that was all.

Twenty years ago Cindy, you became addicted to pain killers, a slave to Vicodin and Percocet after spinal surgeries, and some say to ease the emotional pain of being caught up in your husband’s influence peddling corruption during the Keating Loan scandals, where you conveniently lost the records that might have more deeply incriminated your husband, and even yourself. Then you started stealing drugs from your own charitable medical facility. When that was discovered, an intervention took place and you escaped imprisonment when the Drug Enforcement Administration limited your punishment to a fine and forced you to take part in a “program.’ Again, rehab to the rescue of the super-rich. In other words, your punishment was brought down to the level of attending traffic school after running a stop sign, a school run by Mickey the clown. Imagine your fate if you were not a billionairess, if you were instead a poor black woman, an addicted hospital nurse caught stealing drugs. Ten years in the slammer, your kids taken from you and placed in foster care. Some might say it was your second major act of theft, because while your husband was still married you became his girlfriend, leading to his divorce from the woman who had waited out his years of POW incarceration. But nobody batted an eye in your world of Desperate but Affluent Housewives. That’s the way it is there. You were Cindy Hensley McCain, so instead of the big house you may be going to the White House. In recent years this domicile has been the home of others from the Bush crime family, so the way has been prepared for your arrival.

Listen up, Michelle, this is about you too. As the wife of Barack, the Democratic Candidate your were quoted as saying "And let me tell you something: For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country," you, Cindy, piped up with "I am proud of my country. I don’t know about you—if you heard those words earlier – I am very proud of my country." Then you, Cindy, went on to steal some recipes and claim them as your own on the Food Network, a small but significant symbol of recidivism, today it’s pot-roast, tomorrow pot. Putting your life of grand and petty larceny aside – forgetting all recipes and husband jumping – you should be proud of your country. Born into billions, with something that approaches beauty (if beauty be defined as a middle aged Barbie ) you have had the best that this country could offer in opportunities for the Town and Country life. And you were able to cap it off by playing Lady Bountiful to the unwashed, downtrodden millions, and still keep your appointment with your hairdresser. Cindy, you come from the world of charity balls and big check writing - one that gives the giver a sense of moral superiority but frowns on government programs which should rightfully provide dignity, work, educational opportunity, and health care to the many. You are the poster girl for a generosity which masks the essential selfishness of the Republican ethos. No, I don’t disrespect generosity – but I do question its value when it is only palliative, when it fails to address the real problems that the poor face on a daily basis in our country and through the world.

Now to you, Michelle. The fact that you made it to Princeton as an African American, by dint of her hard work and the smarts, and that you are a mouthy lawyer, a shoot from the lip kind of woman, does not endear you to the Cindy McCains of the world, and to a lot of Americans. That “let me tell you something” remark was true in all ways, but truth is often an affront to propriety. Why should any African American – no matter how fortunate in being educated by the best schools, take great pride in the history of a country that suffered slavery and Jim Crow for centuries? Until the rise of your husband no black man has been taken seriously as a leader of this country. And in saying what you did you meant to speak of progress and pride. But it came out all wrong and ready to be pounced upon by the O’Reiley-Limbaugh-Colter cabal, the guys and gals who take a truth and put it up before a carnival distorting mirror to mock it. But you have to be smart enough to know that every thought you have does not need to be expressed and that there are the Cindy McCain’s out there waiting to leap on your remarks as if they were a capsule of Vicodin, and cast doubt upon your love of country. Of course you can love your country and be critical of it. It’s the only way to love a country. We all love our kids and we are critical of them, and they matter most in our lives. But you have to put a zipper on the lip on the way to the White House, or you will find that too many gentlemen prefer blondes.

Now who did Addie Ross run off with? Go see the movie – it’s a fun film by a great filmmaker, a man who knew something about class in America. You see, class doesn’t necessarily come attached to a billion dollars; sometimes it’s linked to a sarcastic black woman who didn’t run off with another woman’s husband, didn’t steal drugs, studied to attain dignified work, and knows what’s real and what’s just the foam from Hensley’s beer.

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Contributing writer, Sherman Yellen, screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist, has won two Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, first for his drama John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America. His Beauty and the Beast was nominated for an Emmy and won the Christopher Award. Yellen was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the Broadway musical, The Rothschilds. Yellen's other plays include Strangers, December Fools and Josephine Tonight! Sherman Yellen received a lifetime achievement award in Arts and Letters from Bard College.
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Labels: Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, Commentary, John McCain, Michelle Obama, Op-Ed, Politics, Chicago Sun-Times, Sherman Yellen

Why Rush Limbaugh thinks this site is 'unfriendly'

2008-05-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted on Reuters

Recently, I posted an article by Huffington Post contributor, Terry Leach, entitled: Hillary Clinton's 'Victory' in Pennsylvania: The Rush Limbaugh Effect.

The article discusses the potential impact on the primary numbers by those influenced to change their registration from Republican to Democrat, in order to vote for Hillary Clinton, as part of Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos."

Today, I was informed that Mr. Limbaugh had mentioned this on his radio show:

Rush Limbaugh: 'I stumbled across something called The Environmentalist.org, but it's a blog on environmentalists. It was posted on Saturday: "Hillary Clinton's 'Victory' in Pennsylvania: The Rush Limbaugh Effect." And he goes on to analyze what all happened there. He said, "Something's not right." He goes on to analyze even more, and then says, "I believe that Rush's Operation Chaos is at play here and authenticity has nothing to do with too may new Democratic registrants in the last contests. This re-registration is, I believe, being undertaken at Rush's suggestion to cynically stretch this contest out -- as long as possible -- so that Hillary's promised kitchen sink theory -- will end up driving both candidates' negatives through the roof so that neither is likely to win against McCain. Voters in upcoming contests will always be swayed by the outcome of preceding contests. It's human nature to be influenced by the wisdom of those who've gone before us. But if I'm right -- and the outcome in Pennsylvania, and perhaps Mississippi, Texas, and Ohio were influenced by Rush's call to Republicans to keep Hillary in the race longer --Democratic voters in Indiana and North Carolina, and the states that follow, deserve to know that we're being manipulated."
This is not a friendly blog.'

I beg to differ.

THE ENVIRONMENTALIST is a very friendly blog (site, actually, we don't take comments), where contributors post about geopolitics, the environment and other subjects of interest -- not as a rule on environmentalists themselves -- and Terry Leach, a respected activist and former Democratic strategist, is a she, not a he.

Ms. Leach's response, upon hearing of Mr. Limbaugh's broadcast: "it is human nature to dismiss those out-of-hand that you either don't respect, those that you don't wish to empower or to acknowledge as to the impact of their actions. However, if there is any truth to the possibility that "Operation Chaos" is having an impact, it should be explored to determine if those changing their registration are doing so out of their own beliefs or because they hope to influence the process."

Mr. Limbaugh closed by saying "everyone is talking about Operation Chaos."

Apparently, thanks to Mr. Limbaugh, they are now talking about THE ENVIRONMENTALIST, as well.

LABELS: BARACK OBAMA, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN MCCAIN, POLITICS, REUTERS, RUSH LIMBAUGH

A Life Well Lived

2008-04-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

My mom passed away last week. I would deal with the difficulty of this loss without writing about it if it weren't for the fact that she was too extraordinary for silence. Not because she was my mother, but in deference to a remarkable person who lived through iconic times and left her mark upon them.

You see, Rosalie Ritz was a reporter and courtroom artist who covered trials for Associated Press and CBS ranging from the McCarthy hearings to Sirhan, from the Pentagon Papers to Patty Hearst to the OJ civil trial. My mother was also a painter and a sculptor who placed in juried shows at the Corcoran, the Smithsonian and Flower Galleries, with many of her courtroom sketches finding a home at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Rosalie Ritz , a premier courtroom artist who for four decades chronicled dozens of high-drama trials, including those of Charles Manson, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson, has died...An accomplished artist while still in her teens, Ritz began sketching live events when she was living in Washington, D.C., and got into a closed session of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. A CBS-TV producer offered to buy her sketches, and they were shown on the Edward R. Murrow news show.

An artist's work lives beyond them. I know this. I also know another side to the terrific woman who was my mother and who was such a large part of our lives. I know this through my experience as the youngest of her four daughters and through her photographs and her memories: The worried child, the seventh of ten children, whose father died when she was nine, leaving her mother to face the Depression with her large brood alone; the fresh-faced seventeen year-old who drew portraits with fellow artists during the Second World War; the brief foray as a sought-after starlet who bore a striking resemblance to a young Ann Bancroft; the queen of the dance who'd charmed the young athlete just home from the war, a handsome hero who courted her by walking on his hands down the steps of a Washington D.C. monument and swam across a lake to prove himself to her.

My father asked two things of my mother when he proposed to her: Learn to play golf, learn to play bridge. She loved him enough to marry him despite the un-artist-like requests. But he must have seen her potential, because she became a scratch golfer, the best any of us have seen, a swing was that pure its accuracy. She also regularly beat my father at bridge, hoist on his own petard, as it were, as she struggled to raise the first two of her four dynamic and rambunctious daughters while her patriotic husband fought the rising paranoia of the McCarthy years.

Her entry to that world came when she brought her sketchpad and drew the scenes as his patriotism was challenged and then emphatically reaffirmed; a series of sketches that went on to become a career.

This came through a promise my father (whose story is just as remarkable) made to himself during the Korean War; a stopover in San Francisco that became a yearning to move there. A wish fulfilled fifteen years later when a career opportunity presented itself; not an easy proposition for his wife, an artist growing in popularity in our nation's capital, to pack up and follow her husband across the country to his new job in public service with her young children in tow.

But she did it.

I can remember, as a little girl, stopping at the door of the plane (no loading bridges then), blinking up at the deep blue of the California sky. Our family getting lost on the drive from the airport to the East Bay, a side trip through Berkeley that was fascinating to me and worrisome to my mother. A new world without friends or family or career.

She found schools for her daughters, fixed up the house that took three months to be ready, introduced us to California artichokes dipped in butter, painted a remarkable golden tree on an interior wall to give the new house character and then found herself as she sat on a bench and sketched the colorful characters that inhabited the Haight-Ashbury district of the late sixties.

The sketches were picked up by a city magazine and then in the city newspaper. Talent that could not be ignored. From there, a local news station contracted her to sketch a trial and then another and another (there were so many big trials in California those days). Then the wire services took notice, a career reborn that included facing some of the best and worst of history, sketching entire scenes in minutes, emotions and action, rushing to the station to turn her work in, then rushing home to feed us.

During which she was presented the AP Award of Excellence.

My job as her youngest was two-fold: one assigned by my mother and another I took upon myself. The former, to sharpen her colored pencils in the morning (manually -- I look upon the automatic sharpener as one of the great inventions in history), the latter to quietly break my mother's cigarettes in two and place them back in each new carton and then to run like the devil that I was to the pasture where I kept the horse she had gotten for me. I would lay upon my equine friend's back while he ate and I read my latest book -- I lived for books then -- and look up to find her leaning on the fence with a look on her face that said: how are we going to work this out?

We fought about it for a while, that period of time every mother and daughter faces when they're trying to figure each other out. Then, finally, we talked about it. She'd been given the cigarettes during the Second World War, like so many of her generation, tricked into an addiction that was not in her personality, a chemical dependency, the anger at which was the nascent beginnings of my environmentalism. Then she did what she always did. Took the trouble to think about my concerns.

And in the middle of her stress and her work and her responsibility to take care of her children, she threw out the cigarettes and never smoked again.

More trials and triumphs followed in my parents' work and in their lives. A famous boxer (before he was famous) that both my parents believed in and supported; my father's decision to begin his own business; the drug addiction recovery foundation they helped to become established; the many friends that covered trials with my mother, reporters and lawyers who would fill our house with literate and erudite conversation. Her fascination with politics, the careful reading of newspapers, the discussions of the latest 60 Minutes episodes, a ritual in our household; the patience my mother showed as I began to show abilities with music and writing, the way she would shush others and listen with an understanding at the deep place I was exploring, a muse with which she was exceedingly familiar.

I can remember, as a three year old, one of my earliest memories (the other was climbing up to my father's chair while he was reading and identifying the word "the" on the page), standing at the door of my mother's studio to let her know I had to go and her expression, torn between helping me and the desire to sculpt my pleading face with the clay in her hands.

She did both.

My mother once gave me a book, Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev, the story of an artist torn between the obligation of his cultural tradition and his talent. I knew, as I read it, this was her story and it would have been mine, had she not warned me to face my art and my life and to realize that I would be required to balance the two.

"My girls can do anything they put their mind to." That's what she would tell us. My sisters, each of them accomplished and amazing women, lived up to that prediction better than I have, but she gave me the courage to believe that I could.

It was the cigarettes that got her in the end, though she'd quit decades earlier, after a life well lived and the loss of the beloved husband she'd shared her life with for sixty-one years of marriage. I told one of my sisters, as we faced the numbing truth that this elegant pillar of strength would no longer be with us, our lives would be boring without her. Her art will live on. Our love of this country, our fascination with its politics, her unique way of looking at the world, all that will live on through her children, her grandchildren and a new great-granddaughter she faced her illness to meet. It was her courage that sustained her in the end and it was impressive. Life will be more boring without her.

Rest in peace, Mom.

LABELS: COMMENTARY, HISTORY, HUFFINGTON POST, MEMORIAL, ROSALIE RITZ

Barack Obama: The Prejudice of Predefinition

2008-03-19T02:42:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

I listened to Barack Obama's historic speech in awe of the raw truth of his words and recognition of the dignity with which he faces the obvious attempts by others to predefine him as something singular -- a black candidate -- rather than as a multi-cultural and gifted American who presents a unique opportunity for both his country and the world.

I understand what his opponents are trying to do. The prejudice of predefinition. If one can be defined, then they are somehow 'less than'. I've seen it before. While researching World War II for a script, I came across a definition of race as classified by looks -- how close were the eyes to the nose to the chin, the color of hair -- that defined opportunity, the prejudice of predefinition that superseded both the potential of the individual and the needs of entire nations.

"The issues that have surfaced over the past few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never worked through. A part of our union that we've not yet made perfect. And if we walk away now. If we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care or education or the need to find good jobs for every American." (Senator Barack Obama).

The effort underway to define Barack Obama as 'the other,' whether it is as (too) black, not black enough, not ready, too eager, too young, too embroiled in his (Christian) church, (the false accusation of his being) a Muslim (a claim now confused by the fact that the pastor who brought him to Christ makes for a better target); all the cynical ways that opportunity has been grabbed by those who will use anything to hold onto power -- regardless of the consequences.

The emails that have been sent proclaiming Senator Obama as Muslim are clear examples of the cynical ploys that seek to divide and conquer and leave all but the few with less and those few with everything else. But that's not the worst crime of those emails. Senator Obama defined it well on CBS's 60 Minutes as an insult to him as a Christian and to all Muslims for the implication that there was something wrong in being Muslim.

There is nothing wrong with faith. It's what one does with that faith that becomes the test of their faith. Reverend Wright's inexcusable comments were an expression of something I cannot, in good faith, call faith. Senator Obama repudiated those remarks but did not disown the man. While I don't pretend to understand the black experience of America and how that has shaped the men of Reverend Wright's generation, I do remember standing in the rental car line once at Atlanta's airport, how the man at the counter ignored the well-dressed black man in front and asked me to come forward. It was a small but profound moment; the look on the bigot's face while exercising his prejudice and the subtle twist of the knife in the eyes of the man at which it had been directed.

I remember sitting with a friend, a great and renowned black jazz musician, you'd know his name, at a restaurant in Florida, waiting to be served -- waiting, waiting, waiting as my friend looked down and could not meet my eyes, because he was familiar with the disrespect and took the blame upon himself for subjecting me to his experience of prejudice, rather than the proper assignment of blame.

I remember traveling with friends in New Orleans years ago; wondering along the the streets in what we thought was the French Quarter, in search of restaurant. Only we weren't in the French Quarter. One car after another drove by, white men who laughed at us and suggested that we were 'not from around there' and drove on without offering directions. It was the black man in his late seventies in an old pickup truck who stopped for the confused young white people lost in one of New Orleans most dangerous neighborhoods and ordered us into the back and drove us to the safety of our hotel.

We are all the product of our character and of each earlier generations' triumphs and failures whether we understand that or not. The pain of the past is the dysfunction of the present and until we collectively heal our multi-generational wounds, we will, like all dysfunctional families, act out without any understanding of our actions until we marginalize ourselves and our great nation at a time when we cannot afford to make any more mistakes.

Not one more.

A better way: we could move past the past and carve a new path for ourselves as a multicultural nation that is an example of cooperation and fairness to the rest of the world. That is what I believe Senator Obama means by a time for change.

A good idea in a world on a hair trigger.

What we do in November will decide the fate of our world. That is the consequence of the wars in which we now find ourselves, as well as the legacy of World War Two. The last superpower standing, we are diminished in the world's eyes through mistakes of a failed administration and a free-falling dollar. If we allow ourselves to fall completely, what takes our place? China, which holds Tibet, Burma, Darfur and our debt in its fist? Russia which depends upon the rising price of oil to sustain its government and its oligarchy? Iran that has been working to change the oil dollar to the oil euro? India, with its polluted rivers and ever graduating classes of new engineers?

There's so much more at stake than just America, but make no mistake, it is America that is at stake in this election. It's 1968 with the promise of Martin Luther King before he was lost; the promise of Robert F. Kennedy before he was lost. What the great Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called (paraphrased) the yearning for what might have been.

Only now, it could be.

There is talk of a green economy and the potential new jobs that could pull the U.S. out of its impending recession. This magazine endorsed Senator Obama because of his policy positions on the environment that could lead to such an outcome. We stand by that endorsement for both the environment and for the spirit in which Senator Obama delivered his remarkable speech.

It's time for us to come together.

LABELS: 2008 ELECTION, BARACK OBAMA, HUFFINGTON POST, COMMENTARY, POLITICS

Campaign (sp)in-fighting

2008-03-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

by Stormchaser John

I woke up this morning with a headache, downed two extra-strength aspirin and was finally able to open my eyes enough to read and write and listen to the telly and hear all about do-overs and Mark Penn and Harold Ickes:

Penn had no real people of his own on the inside and chafed whenever Solis Doyle or Ickes got involved in his sphere. At one point, he and Ickes, who have been battling each other within the Clinton orbit for a dozen years, lost their tempers during a conference call, according to two participants.

"[Expletive] you!" Ickes shouted.

"[Expletive] you!" Penn replied.

"[Expletive] you!" Ickes shouted again.

The full Washington Post article (entitled: "Even in Victory, Clinton Team is Battling").

There's a comment in the article about how the Clintons have encouraged the in-fighting. Whether that's true or not, it does raise the question whether they'd be the ones who could be focused and dispassionate enough to answer that 3AM call correctly.

One of Clinton's favorite books is "Team of Rivals," Doris Kearns Goodwin's account of Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet, and she assembled her own team of advisers knowing their mutual enmity in the belief that good ideas come from vigorous discussion. But while many campaigns are beset by backbiting and power struggles, dozens of interviews indicate that the internal problems endured by the Clinton team have been especially corrosive.

Mark Penn vs. David Axelrod and Joe Trippi (3:40 in):

I look at Senator Obama's campaign staff and see unity, competence and I ask: then why did he lose those three states on Tuesday?

I look at the numbers and find that their claims of math (an 'un-sexy' argument, to be sure, but, hey, I like math) are accurate -- Senator Clinton's net delegate gain was negligible.

Here's a Newsweek article that helps to explain.

I heard from a friend that a memo from the Obama campaign a month ago accurately predicted the March 4th outcomes (nearly to the vote). They were not taken by surprise in the results. What they did not foresee: Saturday Night Live taking sides by displaying a cartoon that ties Senator Obama to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, when neither have endorsed him. Not as obvious as the support for Senator Clinton that forced the media to fall back on their heels and do everything they could to show they were not for Senator Obama the day before a crucial primary.

That's the very same SNL that is now using Senator Clinton's "It is Saturday Night!" clip on their promos for next Saturday's show.

But, then, the numbers came in as Senator Obama's team had predicted. So, how off-guard were they? Here's another question: How bad will things get with McCain vs. Obama? McCain vs. Clinton? It may be a good idea, whichever one becomes the candidate, that they have the opportunity to toughen up before facing the Republicans without Senator Clinton's choice to go 'nuclear' in her negativity, which is alienating Democrate and Senator Obama's campaign, whilst they did see the 'kitchen sink' coming, which did not seem to know how to position their candidate in the midst of it.

Does he rise above? Does he attack? Somewhere between? Let surrogates do the work?

David Axelrod will need to figure that out.

Senator Clinton's road-trip down the low-road was, for me, one of the most disheartening experiences of the campaign thus far. I want to like her, I want to support her if she becomes the candidate. I'm having trouble imagining how enthusiastically I will do that if she continues with more of the same.

And those those emails calling Senator Obama a Muslim... His (correct) response: It was an insult to both his religion and to Muslims by implying there was something wrong in being Muslim. And Senator Clinton's response when she strategically paused when asked if Senator Obama was Muslim ('as far as I know'...).

A president and the accompanying staff should be calm in crisis. A president (and accompany staff) should be able to look down the road and anticipate outcomes. A president and accompanying staff should not make me cringe when I listen to them.

Smoke-filled rooms must not decide the will of the people. Pressure put on the more popular candidate to throw in the towel (or become VP), because the less popular candidate has more power in Washington must not be the order of the day. Racial and religious smears have no place in the founding father's experiment. Nor does opposition research that outweighs the needs of the people, where political cronyism decides who gets access. Where obvious ploys make it seem like Orwell is vying for the West Wing (not just the Justice Department...)

I have a headache.

Do We Need Another Jungle?

2008-03-01T03:46:00.000-08:00

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post

One year after Albert Einstein's publication of E=MC2, an unknown writer named Upton Sinclair published an exposé of the deplorable conditions within the Chicago meat packing industry.

The book, entitled "The Jungle," became a best seller that has stayed in print since its 1906 publication. It is not Sinclair’s impact on literature, however, that has led us to ask the question: Do we need another Jungle? It’s the recent influx of tainted goods from overseas that parallels the public outcry following the publication of "The Jungle," which resulted in the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. It was that legislation which helped to establish the Food and Drug Administration.

The same FDA that now inspects less than one percent of incoming goods ^[1], that gives bonuses budgeted to retain scientists to their administrators ^[2], that is faced with the recall of millions of U.S. toys manufactured in China, a majority of all fish imported from China lacking in inspection, the melamine in gluten that killed so many of our beloved pets that did not get inspected...

And it's not only China ^[³^]. The FDA is faced with growing imports from many countries, far more than they could ever inspect, had they the resources to do so.

The question then becomes: Do we need another exposé that will lead to a radical change in policy, a la Sinclair's "The Jungle?" This is an important consideration since these problems seem to be arising through lack of oversight. With the increasing amount of products manufactured offshore, we're at the mercy of the quality, or lack thereof, adhered to by our trading partners.

Since we do not have the inspection regimen to stop all of the dangerous products at our border, nor do we provide the incentives for our global trading partners to improve the conditions for their own workforce, and/or to regulate their diverse supply chain, we are relying on the "good faith" of foreign nations over which we have no ability to regulate. And, if we did, it might not solve the problem, as they may not be able to inspect their own supply chains of smaller manufacturers, many of which were responsible for the tainted products that then were sent on to increasingly larger companies outside our borders. -- layers within layers of inspection needed in a proactive, rather than a reactive program, as has been the case since the growing scandal of tainted products came to light.

An author, Ted Fishman (China, Inc.) made the point recently that only China can change China. Considering its size and the size of our debt to China, that seems a logical conclusion. But who then is responsible for the protection of our citizens if neither China nor our government can do so? Does it fall on the individual states to enhance their own consumer departments? Is it the impact on the marketplace that will lead corporations to both be more careful and to pressure their foreign suppliers to clean up their own supply chains?

Or is it the consumers who will apply the pressure as more problems come to light?

It was the public outcry after the revelations of the "The Jungle" that led to the change in policy in 1906. But it was a simpler society. Imported goods are now so pervasive, it may be impossible to avoid their use.

Where did the ascorbic acid in your Vitamin C come from?

Strong possibility it was imported from China.

How about that gluten in your bread (and in your pet food)? The shrimp you ate last night at that restaurant? And, here's a surprising fact: Garlic. Doesn't Gilroy, CA, [claim to be the] garlic capital of the world?

Most garlic is imported from China. ^[⁴^]

If someone ever got inside the Chinese factories, a la Sinclair, and through their supply chain, and wrote about what really happens there, it begs the question: would it make for interesting story about a foreign land or will it be seen in the context of our need for cheap goods? On the impact on quality of life for those who make those goods? Of the quality of those goods we are now required to consume?

And, of course, the jobs lost here because manufacture has moved offshore?

Sadly, even with a major overhaul and a significant budget increase, it's unlikely the FDA will be able to monitor everything coming in to the United States. The money. ^[⁵^] The cheap labor, the competition (they're doing it, so we have to...). And that startling amount of our debt the current administration has entrusted to China. It seems that might make our bargaining position a bit weakened when they're holding our notes, especially when it took
the FDA ten years to track down the toxic Chinese compound used recently in toothpaste.

It is our view that this should be a condemnation of the overworked FDA inspectors. In the case of the tainted glycerin it was a European importer that had stored the compound in their supply warehouses without the necessary paperwork from China.

Does the answer then rest with the consumer? If we can't rely on the FDA to inspect more the one percent of our imported goods. If we can't be assured that the corporations importing those goods will uncover their problems in a timely manner (many do, but not all). If we don't even know where the ingredients of a product we are about to consume comes from, how can we be certain what we're consuming is safe?

Carl R. Nielsen, former FDA Director of the Division of Import Operations and Policy: "The reality is, this is not a single-country issue at all, What we are experiencing is massive globalization. ^[6]

This problem is further exacerbated by the financial squeeze on the American consumer, as revealed by Walmart's recently declining quarterly profits. When the middle class can no longer afford cheap Chinese goods that line Walmart's shelves, what incentive will there be for anyone to buy more expensive products?

A solution -- only a partial solution, at best -- is to buy local wherever you can and reduce the amount of your consumption, where possible, to make up for the increase in cost. That means farmer's markets (list below) and goods that are made by local suppliers. This has the added benefit of fresher goods, supporting local business and reducing the carbon footprint required to come to market. For imported goods, we look to Fair Trade (list below), especially when it comes to products that could be used for conflicts, as has been reported recently with chocolate (yes, chocolate).

Beyond that, we're in the same predicament as everyone else: Crossing our fingers when we eat at a restaurant or take a vitamin or buy anything where a major corporate supplier does not reveal a point of origin on their goods. Which is why there should be no wondering as to why we're wondering if there's another Upton Sinclair who will save us from ourselves.

Here are useful links:

CPSC – Consumer Product Safety Commission (for recalled goods).
FDA – Food and Drug Administration (for recalled goods).

Farmer's Markets:

Fair Trade:

Chocolate products that are not produced by child slave labor ^[7]

chocolate, diamonds, coltan...

The website from the Mandela Project about conflict products (highly recommended):

The Inventory of Conflict & Environment (ICE)

Apologies to any links we missed and empathy for the 1,321,851,888 ^[8] Chinese at risk of their own tainted supply chain -- of which we have seen just the terrifying tip of the iceberg.

Fair trade

The Environmentalist Supports Barack Obama

2008-02-04T05:43:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

The contributing writers have just completed a conference call to discuss which 2008 U.S. presidential candidate we felt would be most effective on the environment.

The consensus: Senator Barack Obama.

Our reason for choosing Senator Obama:

The endorsements by Janet Nepolitano (D-Gov - Arizona) and Kathleen Sebilious (D-Gov - Kansas), Paul Volcker (who, like Oprah Winfrey, had previously stayed away from the endorsement arena), Susan Eisenhower, the 'Obamacans' and the Republicans who 'believed in the good cowboy' until he led them into the wrong war and who are now phone banking for Obama in California. There are Democrats, Independents and Republicans who will be needed for a strong Democratic vs. Republican turnout in order to insure Democratic electoral results at the state and national level. Senator Obama's appeal to Independents and disaffected Republicans seems more likely to provide that outcome. This consideration is important to the environment, as a strong state and national legislative majority will be an imperative to undo the damage done.

The potential for international cooperation: The environment is by its nature global. Those most at effect of its lack of stability live in some of the world's most volatile regions. The lack of resources leads to poverty, leads to recruitment for those who would take advantage of the disadvantaged, leads to more foot-soldiers in a growing asynchronous war that could grow to be as much about those diminishing resources as about ideologies. Senator Obama has exhibited the ability to bring partisans together into a process they have otherwise never before participated. This ability to inspire others to work together toward the greater good -- as opposed to working against those they are told to hate -- is also an imperative.

Senator Obama's offer to the auto industry to help, as president, them retool their plants to use less oil, points to a candidate who is not paying lip service to the environment before some audiences while speaking differently to others. Consistency and the willingness to fight the good fight is a moral imperative. It is also, in fairness, something all Democratic candidates would likely provide, so, here, we would be happy with whichever Democratic candidate wins.

In terms of policies, we were encouraged by the growing detail on Senator Obama's website and look forward to more specifics from all the candidates as the campaign progresses.

Here are links to some of Senator Obama's environmental proposals we reviewed:

Reduce Carbon Emissions 80 Percent by 2050
Invest in a Clean Energy Future
Support Next Generation Biofuels
Set America on Path to Oil Independence
Improve Energy Efficiency 50 Percent by 2030
Restore U.S. Leadership on Climate Change

We did discuss national security (the environment is a national security issue) and reviewed what others have written about their difficulty deciding between the two Democratic candidates. In particular, we talked about Sherman Yellen's excellent post addressing his concern about Senator Clinton's initial vote on the Iraq war.

However, for my colleagues at The Environmentalist (writers and scientists), the issue has become more about the future than the past. How to stem the tide of devastation we see coming? How to get the hard message out to the world that the delicate climate is far more out of balance than is being advertised? How to inspire the world to work together to make sure the most disadvantaged by the climate crisis, either through location, demographic, neglect and/or oversight, don't turn to the many enemies the West has accumulated in the past seven years in despair and rage.

I don't envy the next president. As Senator Clinton correctly stated, (paraphrasing here); what will await the next leader of the free world will be a stack of problems unlike the world has yet seen. Therefore, we feel it is imperative the next leader be able to lead through consensus, because, if there was ever a time when we all had to work together to survive, this is it.

The contributors at The Environmentalist support Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. We will also support whichever Democratic candidate becomes the nominee, as the priority is that a Democrat become the next president and that the legislature retain and, hopefully, grow their Democratic majorities at both the state and the national level.

LABELS: 2008 ELECTION, BARACK OBAMA, COMMENTARY, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, POLITICS

Three Years Ago Today

2007-12-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

by Stormchaser John

Three years ago today, in what scientists refer to as the Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, the resultant tsunami caused more than 225,000 deaths in eleven countries along the shores of the Indian Ocean.

The 2004 tsunami has since been estimated as the ninth worst natural disaster in modern history, which deserves (at least) 225,000 moments of silence and reflection.

For the people of Java, Indonesia, however, which has again been hit by rising waters, the monsoon rains that have impacted their region on the tsunami's third anniversary don't leave time for reflection as they run from landslides that are forcing thousands from their homes:

At least 80 people have been killed or are reported missing after floods triggered landslides in the central Java region of Indonesia. Local officials say they fear the death toll could rise. Thousands have been forced to seek shelter after their homes were buried or washed away. Landslides and floods are regular in Indonesia and many blame deforestation.

Also devastating, but receiving less notice was Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh last November. The reason it received less notice? The Bangladeshi Government acted responsibly and evacuated their citizens. But >3000 people still died and a great part of their coastal region was wiped out in a harbinger of damage that rising sea levels may cause in the future...

This was because Cyclone Sidr was supposed to have been just another strong cyclone in cyclone season in a low lying country that had been devastated by cyclones in the past. But it wasn't like those other cyclones. This was a cyclone that sped up as it approached the shore, resulting in a storm surge that emulated a tsunami; which raises the question: What new kind of weather events will climate change bring in the future?

Bangladesh gives us a prescient view:

As I walked into Rajashwer village in southern Bangladesh, the only sign of human habitation was tarpaulins strung up along the river bank. The heart of the village looked as though it had been through a tumble dryer. Possessions were knotted into the branches of fallen trees, corrugated metal roofs and wooden walls were scattered and smashed beyond repair.

The last time I saw such scenes was three years ago, in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami. Accounts of survivors from Cyclone Sidr bear striking similarity to those of the tsunami survivors.

Searching amongst the debris in Rajashwer village was an older man, sifting though a pile of twisted metal roofing. Kanchan Ali Khan, 70, spent the night of November 15, 2007 clinging to a tree, having been swept up by a tidal surge of water that was 15 feet (4.5 meters) high.

A fifteen foot storm surge from a cyclone on a sea level coastal region. It was not caused by an underwater earthquake, but another kind of earthquake. The kind that we have to ask if we'll see more of, especially those who live in coastal areas at or near sea level with unstable storm seasons over warming waters.

Like Bangladesh. It was the Bangladeshi Government's efforts that kept the death tool low. They deserve a great deal of credit for that. The situation for the people since then? Dire, though help has been arriving (the U.S. sent naval vessels with aid and helicopters to deliver to blocked inland regions).

For the '04 tsunami victims, much has been done, more is needed. Three years on, progress has been made in Indonesia, though those who lost loved ones (and there were so many) must still be reeling from the shock of the Boxer Day disaster.

In Sri Lanka, also devastated by the tsunami, the fighting between the rebels and the government has resumed.

And the villagers in Thailand who found that their homes that were washed away by the waves were replaced, in some cases, by new hotels and developments...

Which means the cliché, the more things change the more they stay the same, will not change.

A Wrinkle in Time

2007-09-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Madeleine L'Engle died today. You may not know her name, but to an entire generation, the world she'd created with her Newbery Medal winning "A Wrinkle in Time," was as important to their lives as J.R.R. Tolkien was to those who loved "The Lord of the Rings."

Author Madeleine L'Engle, whose novel "A Wrinkle in Time" has been enjoyed by generations of schoolchildren and adults since the 1960s, has died, her publicist said Friday. She was 88. Link.

For those who are familiar with her work -- the brave, yet alienated adolescent, Meg Murry, her little brother, the odd genius, Charles Wallace, her friend, Calvin, whose popularity did not interfere with his humanity, the missing scientist father they had to travel across the universe to save while in the company of Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which and Mrs. Whatsit, surely the three most unlikely angels in print, only to find that it was Meg who had to go in alone to face the terrifying representation of totalitarianism called, simply, IT, in order to retrieve her brother who had fallen to the dark side in the mistaken belief of his own invulnerability -- "A Wrinkle in Time" defined the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, courage and fear, judgment and fairness, being defined by one's actions and not by societal preconceptions, the power of love.

Madeleine L'Engle wrote more than sixty books, four of which tracked the adventures of Meg and Charles Wallace Murry. They won children's book awards, but to say they were written for children would be incorrect. Not only because Ms. L'Engle never wrote down to children, but because the themes Ms. L'Engle espoused are ageless, universal truths that are needed now more than ever and, although she often wrote with eye toward her deep Christian faith, it was a tolerant influence that allowed all faiths to find common ground in her work.

Good and evil, right and wrong, individualism, not judging by appearance, the impact of totalitarianism on everyday life.

Love.

Madeleine L'Engle will be missed.

[Update] A recommended Madeleine L'Engle Huffington post.

Who are the Yazidi?

2007-08-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

In light of the recent coordinated suicide attacks on the Yazidi people in Iraq, many people are now asking who are the Yazidi?

Yazidi on Mt. Sinjar, Iraqi/Syrian Border - 1920's

Historically, the Yazidis are a religious minority of the Kurds. Purportedly, they have existed since 2000 BCE. Estimates of the number of Yazidis vary between 100,000 and 800,000, the latter being the claim of their website. According to the same site, Yazidi refugees in Germany number 30,000
Researchers believe that the Yazidi creed has elements from Zoroastrianism, Manicheism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The Yazidis call themselves Dasin, while the term 'Yazidism' probably comes from the Persian word 'īzed', 'angel'. The name Yazidism is, moreover, connected to the 6th caliph, Yazid (680-83), from Shi'a point of view one of world history's most hated men, and highly disliked by most Sunnis, as well. There is, however, little evidence to show what role Yazid may have played in the founding or development of Yazidism. Link.

The Yazidis don't call themselves Yazidis and they're not attached to the 6th Caliph. But that doesn't stop the Sunni and Shi'a from hating them for the name they don't call themselves, as well as for the rumors that they worship the devil.

What are their true beliefs?

In the Yazidi world view, God created the world, which is now in the care of a Heptad of seven Holy Beings, often known as Angels or heft sirr (the Seven Mysteries). Preeminent among these is Melek Taus (Tawûsê Melek in Kurdish), the Peacock Angel, who is equated with Satan or Devil by some Muslims and Christians.

"The reason for the Yazidis reputation of being devil worshipers, is connected to the other name of Melek Taus, Shaytan, the same name as the Koran's for Satan." However, according to the Kurdish linguist Jamal Nebez, the word Taus is most probably derived from the Greek and is related to the words Zeus and Theos, alluding to the meaning of God. Link.

In the Yazidi religion, God stands above all, but only as a creator, not as a current force. Divine power is represented by Shaykh Adii, the benevolent deity and Malak Ta'us, the peacock angel who once fell into degrace, but then repented with seven jars of tears collected over 7,000 years that were used to extinguish the fires of hell.

There are six minor deities, but it is the two listed above who are the focus of their theology, which looks to heaven, but no longer believes in hell, as it is seen as a uneventful place since the fires were put out.

So, not only no devil worship, but they don't have a hell.

That's not to say the Yazidi culture lacks problems, especially in their views on the treatment of women, honor killing, and intermarriage with other faiths. This became public after the stoning death of a Yazidi teen when she converted to Sunni Muslim to marry outside her faith.

But it was not the honor killing that led to the violence, nor has it stopped others from using the misunderstanding of their religion to both isolate the Yazidis from the Kurds and for political advantage:

It is alleged by some that during the regime of Saddam Hussein, Yazidis were considered to be Arabs and maneuvered to oppose the Kurds, in order to tilt the ethnic balance in northern Iraq, but this cannot be entirely substantiated. It is known, however, that the Yazidi's unique identity, despite being ethnically Kurdish, was in fact used by the Baathist regime to isolate one from the other. However, both groups fought against Baathist troops, often in joint Peshmerga units. Since the 2003 occupation of Iraq, the Kurds want the Yazidi to be recognized as ethnic Kurds to increase their numbers and influence.

The Kurds want the Yazidi to be recognized as ethnic Kurds.

The Yazidi, as so often in the past, are now caught between competing forces in Iraq:

Vying for a Voice, Tribe in N. Iraq Feels Let Down:

KHARSI, Iraq -- When the 101st Airborne first reached this remote village in Iraq's northwestern Sinjar Mountains in 2003, elderly Yazidi tribesmen were thrilled: Their ancient religious prophesy had come true.

"We believed that Jesus Christ was coming with a force from overseas to save us," said the village leader, Khalil Sadoon Haji Jundu, wrapping his gold-trimmed cloak around him against the morning chill.

[snip]

But more than two years later, as the Yazidis struggle for a political voice and an escape from the poverty they suffered during decades of oppression under President Saddam Hussein, tribesmen such as Jundu say they feel let down. Link.

The Yazidi are concentrated around the town of Bashika, in Northern Iraq, as well as small communities of Yazidi Kurds in Syria, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia. The Yazidi in Iraq claim to be ~800,000 strong in the region with another 30,000 living in Germany. The Iraqi Kurds want those numbers included in their ethnic demography and, given the Kurds' better understanding of the Yazidi faith (they know it is not devil worship) and their propensity for blood feud in protecting other Kurds, the recent attacks on the Yazidi have the potential to exacerbate the conflict between the competing forces in Iraq, which, of course, was their purpose.